.. -*- encoding: utf-8 -*-

.. meta::
   :PG.Id: 49361
   :PG.Title: Mam'selle Jo
   :PG.Released: 2015-07-04
   :PG.Rights: Public Domain
   :PG.Producer: Al Haines
   :DC.Creator: Harriet \T. Comstock
   :MARCREL.ill: \E. \F. Ward
   :DC.Title: Mam'selle Jo
   :DC.Language: en
   :DC.Created: 1918
   :coverpage: images/img-cover.jpg

============
MAM'SELLE JO
============

.. clearpage::

.. pgheader::

.. container:: coverpage

   .. vspace:: 3

   .. figure:: images/img-cover.jpg
      :figclass: white-space-pre-line
      :align: center
      :alt: Cover art

      Cover art

   .. vspace:: 4

.. container:: frontispiece

   .. _`"Jo Morey was forty and as dark as a midwinter day deprived of the sanctifying warmth of the sun.  She was formed for service, not charm"`:

   .. figure:: images/img-front.jpg
      :figclass: white-space-pre-line
      :align: center
      :alt: "Jo Morey was forty and as dark as a midwinter day deprived of the sanctifying warmth of the sun.  She was formed for service, not charm."

      "Jo Morey was forty and as dark as a midwinter day deprived of the sanctifying warmth of the sun.  She was formed for service, not charm."

   .. vspace:: 4

.. container:: titlepage center white-space-pre-line

   .. class:: xx-large bold

      MAM'SELLE JO

   .. vspace:: 2

   .. class:: medium

      BY

   .. class:: large

      HARRIET \T. COMSTOCK

   .. vspace:: 3

   .. class:: medium

      Illustrated
      By
      \E. \F. Ward

   .. vspace:: 3

   .. class:: medium

      TORONTO
      THE MUSSON BOOK CO.
      LIMITED
      1918

   .. vspace:: 4

.. container:: verso center white-space-pre-line

   .. class:: small

      PRINTED IN GARDEN CITY, N. Y., U. S. A.

   .. class:: small

      ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION
      INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN

   .. vspace:: 4

.. container:: dedication white-space-pre-line

   .. class:: center large bold

      DEDICATION

   .. vspace:: 1

   .. class:: center

      Beside each cradle—so an old legend runs—Fate stands
      and with just scale weighs the sunshine and shadow to
      which every life is entitled.  But if Dame Fate is in a
      kindly mood 'tis said she throws in a bit of extra
      brightness for the pure joy of giving.

   .. vspace:: 1

   .. class:: center

      BARBARA WILSON COMSTOCK
      you are
      "THE EXTRA BIT"
      To you I dedicate this book

   .. vspace:: 1

   HARRIET \T. COMSTOCK.

   .. vspace:: 1

   *Flatbush—Brooklyn, N. Y.*

   .. vspace:: 4

.. class:: center large bold

   CONTENTS

.. class:: noindent small

   CHAPTER

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

I.  `Mam'selle Jo Is Set Free`_
II.  `Mam'selle Must Buy a Husband`_
III.  `Mam'selle Does Not Buy a Husband`_
IV.  `But Mam'selle Makes a Vow`_
V.  `Enter Donelle`_
VI.  `Mam'selle Hears Part of the Truth`_
VII.  `Marcel Takes Her Stand by Jo`_
VIII.  `The Priest and the Road Mender`_
IX.  `Woman and Woman`_
X.  `Pierre Gets His Revenge`_
XI.  `The Great Decision`_
XII.  `The Hidden Current Turns`_
XIII.  `The Inevitable`_
XIV.  `A Choice of Roads`_
XV.  `The Look`_
XVI.  `The Story`_
XVII.  `The Blighting Truth`_
XVIII.  `Tom Gavot Settles the Matter`_
XIX.  `The Confession`_
XX.  `Gavot Gets His Call`_
XXI.  `Donelle at Last Sees Tom`_
XXII.  `Norval Comes Back`_
XXIII.  `Both Norval and Donelle—See`_
XXIV.  `The Glory Breaks Through`_

.. vspace:: 4

.. class:: center large bold

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

.. vspace:: 1

`"Jo Morey was forty and as dark as a midwinter
day deprived of the sanctifying warmth of the
sun.  She was formed for service, not charm"`_ . . . *Frontispiece*

.. vspace:: 1

`"At the foot of the cross, her head bowed and her
tears falling, Donelle shivered and prayed"`_

.. vspace:: 1

`"Tom looked at her.  He saw the thrill of life,
adventure, and youth shake her.  He saw with an
old, old understanding that because he was going
away, alone, upon the road, he meant to her
what he never could have meant had he remained"`_

.. vspace:: 1

`"'Indeed, Mr. Norval, it is your sacred duty to
tell it to—to that girl in Canada.  You promised
and she ought to know'"`_

.. vspace:: 4

.. class:: center large bold

   LIST OF CHARACTERS

.. vspace:: 2

This is a story of a woman who having no beauty
of face or form was deprived for a time of the
beautiful things of life.

Then she prayed to the God of men and He gave
her material success.  Having this she raised her
eyes from the earth which had been her battlefield
and made a vow that she would take what was possible
from the odds and ends of happiness and weave
what she could into love and service.

Through this she won a reward far beyond her
wildest dreams and found peace and joy.

"You are a strange man"—she said to him who
discovered her.

"You are a very strange woman, Mam'selle"—he returned.

Besides these two there are:

Captain Longville—and his wife Marcel.

Pierre Gavot—and his wife Margot who found
life paid because of her boy Tom.

Old Father Mantelle—more friend than priest who
helped them all.

But Dan Kelly—of Dan's Place—better known
as The Atmosphere—made life difficult for them all.

Then after a time the Lindsays of the Walled
House drew things together and opened a new vista.
Here we find:

Man-Andy; called by some, The Final Test, or
Old Testy.

James Norval—who had some talent and an
occasional flash of genius.

Katherine Norval, his wife, who from the highest
motives nearly drove him to hell.

There are Sister Angela with the convenient
memory and Little Sister Mary with the Lost Look.

Mary Maiden who happened into the story for a
second only.

And lastly: Tom Gavot who dreamed of roads,
played with roads, made roads, and at last found
The Right Road which led him to the top, from that
high point he saw—who can tell what?

And—Donelle who early prayed that she might be
part of life and vowed that she was willing to suffer
and pay.  Life took her at her word, and used her.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`MAM'SELLE JO IS SET FREE`:

.. class:: center x-large bold

   MAM'SELLE JO

.. vspace:: 3

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER I

.. class:: center medium bold

   MAM'SELLE JO IS SET FREE

.. vspace:: 2

One late afternoon in September Jo Morey—she
was better known in the village of
Point of Pines as Mam'selle Jo—stood on
the tiny lawn lying between her trim white house
and the broad highway, lifted her eyes from the
earth, that had long been her battlefield, and
murmured aloud as lonely people often do,

"Mine!  Mine!  Mine!"

She did not say this arrogantly, but, rather,
reverently.  It was like a prayer of appreciation to the
only God she recognized; a just God who had crowned
her efforts with success.  Not to a loving God could
Mam'selle pray, for love had been denied her; not
to a beautiful God, for Jo had yet to find beauty in
her hard and narrow life; but to the Power that had
vindicated Itself she was ready to do homage.

"Mine!  Mine!  Mine!"

Jo was forty and as dark as a midwinter day
deprived of the sanctifying warmth of the sun.  She
was short and muscular, formed for service, not
charm.  Her mouth was the mouth of a woman who
had never known rightful self-expression; her nose
showed character, but was too strong for beauty;
heavy brows shaded her eyes, shielding them from
the idly-curious, but when those eyes were lifted one
saw that they had been in God's keeping and
preserved for happier outlooks.  They were wonderful
eyes.  Soft brown with the sheen of horsechestnut.

Mam'selle's attire was as unique as she was herself.
It consisted, for the most part, of garments
which had once belonged to her father who had
departed this life fifteen years before, rich in debts
and a bad reputation; bequeathing to his older
daughter his cast-off wardrobe and the care of an
imbecile sister.

Jo now plunged her hands in the pockets of the
rough coat; she planted her feet more firmly in the
heavy boots much too large for her and, in tossing
her head backward, displaced the old, battered felt
hat that covered the lustrous braids of her thick,
shining hair.

Standing so, bare headed, wide eyed, and shabby,
Jo was a dramatic figure of victory.  She looked at
the neatly painted house, the hill rising behind it
crowned with a splendid forest rich in autumn tints.
Then her gaze drifted across the road to the fine
pastures which had yielded a rare harvest; to the
outhouses and barns that sheltered the wealth chat
had been lately garnered.  The neighing of Molly,
the strong little horse; the rustling of cows, chickens,
and the grunting of pigs were like sounds of music
to her attentive ears.  Then back to the house roved
the keen but tender eyes, and rested upon the
massive wood pile that flanked the north side of the
house beginning at the kitchen door and ending, only,
within a few feet of the highway.

This trusty guardian standing between Jo and the
long, cold winter that lurked not far off, filled her
with supreme content.  Full well she knew that
starting with the first log, lying close to her door,
she might safely count upon comfort and warmth
until late spring without demolishing the fine
outline of the sturdy wall at the road-end!

That day Jo had paid the last dollar she owed to
any man.  She had two thousand dollars still to her
credit; she was a free woman at last!  Free after
fifteen years of such toil and privation as few women
had ever known.

She was free—and——

Just then Mam'selle knew the twinge of sadness
that is the penalty of achievement.  Heretofore
there had been purpose, necessity, and obligation but
now?  Why, there was nothing; really nothing.  She
need not labour early and late; there was no demand
upon her.  For a moment her breath came quick
and hard; her eyes dimmed and vaguely she realized
that the struggle had held a glory that victory lacked.

Fifteen years ago she had stood as she was
standing now, but had looked upon a far different scene.
Then the house was falling to decay, and was but a
sad shelter for the poor sister who lay muttering
unintelligible words all day long while she played
with bits of bright coloured rags.  The barns and
outhouses were empty and forlorn, the harvest a
failure; the wood pile dangerously small.

Jo had but just returned from her father's funeral
and she was wondering, helplessly, what she could
do next in order to keep the wretched home, and
procure food and clothing for Cecile and herself.
She was thankful, even then, that her father was
dead; glad that her poor mother, who had given up
the struggle years before, did not complicate the
barren present—it would be easier to attack the
problem single handed.

And as she stood bewildered, but undaunted,
Captain Longville came up the highway and paused
near the ramshackle gate.  Longville was the
power in Point of Pines with whom all reckoned,
first or last.  He was of French descent, clever, lazy,
and cruel but with an outward courtesy that defied
the usual methods of retaliation.  He had money
and capacity for gaining more and more.  He
managed to obtain information and secrets that
added to his control of people.  He was a silent,
forceful creature who never expended more than was
necessary in money, time, or words to reach his
goal—but he always had a definite goal in view.

"Good day, Mam'selle," he called to Jo in his
perfect English which had merely a trace of accent,
"it was a fine funeral and I never saw the father look
better nor more as he should.  He and you did
yourselves proud."  Longville's manner and choice of
words were as composite as were his neighbours;
Point of Pines was conglomerate, the homing place
of many from many lands for generations past.

"I did my best for him," Jo responded, "and it's
all paid for, Captain."

The dark eyes were turned upon the visitor proudly
but helplessly.

"Paid, eh?" questioned Longville.  This aspect
of affairs surprised and disturbed him.  "Paid, eh?"

"Yes, I saved.  I knew what was coming."

"Well, now, Mam'selle, I have an offer to make.
While your father lived I lent, and lent often, laying
a debt on my own land in order to save his, but pay
day has come.  This is all—mine!  But I'm no
hard and fast master, specially to women, and in
turning things about in my mind I have come to this
conclusion.  Back of my house is a small cabin, I
offer it to you and Cecile.  Bring what you choose
from here and make the place homelike and, for the
help you give Madame when the States' folks summer
with us, we'll give you your clothing and keep.
What do you say, eh?"

For full a minute Jo said nothing.  She was a
woman whose roots struck deep in every direction,
and she recoiled at the idea of change.  Then
something happened to her.  Without thought or
conscious volition she began to speak.

"I—I want the chance, Captain Longville, only
the chance."

"The chance, eh?  What chance, Mam'selle?"

"The chance to—to get it back!"  The screened
eyes seemed to gather all the old, familiar wretchedness
into their own misery.

Longville laughed, not brutally, but this was too
much, coming as it did from Morey's daughter.

"Why, Mam'selle," he said, "the interest hasn't
been paid in years."

"The interest—and how much is that?" murmured Jo.

"Oh, a matter of a couple of hundreds."  This
was flung out off-handedly.

"But if—if I could pay that and promise to keep
it up, would you give me the chance?  My money
is as good as another's and the first time I fail,
Captain, I'll fetch Cecile over to the cabin and sell
myself to you."

This was not a gracious way to put it and it
made Longville scowl, still it amused him mightily.
There was a bit of the sport in him, too, and the
words, wild and improbable as they were, set in
motion various ideas.

If Jo could save from the wreck of things in the
past enough money to pay for the funeral might she
not, the sly minx, have saved more?  Stolen was
what Longville really thought.  Ready money, as
much as he could lay hands on, was the dearest thing
in life to him and the fun of having any one scrimping
and delving to procure it for him was a joy not
to be lightly thrown away.  And might he not
accomplish all he had in mind by giving Jo her
chance?  He did not want the land and the
ramshackle house, except for what they would bring in
cash; and if Mam'selle must slave to earn, might
she not be willing to slave in his kitchen as well as
in another's?  To be sure he would have, under this
new dispensation, to pay her, or credit her, with a
certain amount—but he could make it desirably
small and should she rebel he would threaten her,
in a kindly way, with disinclination to carry on
further business relations with her.

So Longville pursed up his thin lips and considered.

"But the money, the interest money, Mam'selle,
the chance depends upon that."

Jo turned and walked to the house.  Presently
she came back with a cracked teapot in her hands.

"In this," she said slowly as if repeating words
suggested to her, "there are two hundred and
forty-two dollars and seventy-nine cents, Captain.  All
through the years I have saved and saved.  I've
sold my linens and woollens to the city folks—I've
lied—but now it will buy the chance."

A slow anger grew in Longville's eyes.

"And you did this, while owing everything to me?"
he asked.

"It was father who owed you; your money went for
drink, for anything and everything but safety for
Cecile and me.  The work of my own hands—is mine!"

"Not so say our good laws!" sneered Longville,
"and now I could take it all from you and turn you
out on the world."

"And will—you?" Jo asked.

She was a miserable figure standing there with
her outstretched hands holding the cracked teapot.

Longville considered further.  He longed to stand
well in the community when it did not cost him too
much.  Without going into details he could so
arrange this business with Jo Morey that he might
shine forth radiantly—and he did not always radiate
by any means.

"No!" he said presently; "I'm going to give you
your chance, Mam'selle, that is, if you give me all
your money."

"You said—two hundred!"

"*About*, Mam'selle, *about*.  That was my word."

"But winter is near and there is Cecile.  Captain,
will you leave me a bit to begin on?"

"Well, now, let us see.  How about our building
up your wood pile; starting you in with potatoes,
pork, and the like and leaving say twenty-five dollars
in the teapot?  How about that, eh?"

"Will you write it down and sign?"  Jo was quivering.

"You're sharp, devilishly sharp, Mam'selle.  How
about being good friends instead of hard drivers of
bargains?"

"You must write it out and sign, Captain.  We'll
be better friends for that."

Again Longville considered.

The arrangement would be brief at best, he concluded.

"I'll sign!" he finally agreed, "but, Mam'selle, it's
like a play between you and me."

"It's no play, Captain, as you will see."

And so it had begun, that grim struggle which
lasted fifteen long years with never a failure to meet
the interest; and, in due time, the payments on the
original loan were undertaken.  Early and late Jo
slaved, denying herself all but the barest necessities,
but she managed to give poor Cecile better fare.

During the second year of Jo's struggle, two
staggering things had occurred that threatened, for
a time, to defeat her.  She had known but little
brightness in her dun-coloured girlhood, but that
little had been connected with Henry Langley the
best, by far, of the young men of the place.  He was
an American who had come from the States to Canada,
as many others had, believing his chance on the
land to be better than at home.  He was an educated
man with ambitions for a future of independence and
a free life.  He bought a small farm for himself and
built a rude but comfortable cabin upon it.  When
he was not working out of doors he was studying
within and his only extravagances were books and
a violin.

Jo Morey had always attracted him; her mind,
her courage, her defiance of conditions, called forth
all that was fine in him.  Without fully understanding
he recognized in her the qualities that, added to
his own, would secure the success he craved.  So he
taught her, read with her, and made her think.  He
was not calculating and selfish, the crude foundation
was but the safety upon which he built a romance
that was as simple and pure as any he had ever
known.  The plain, brave girl with her quiet humour
and delicate ideals appealed mightily to him.  His
emotions were in abeyance to his good common
sense, so he and Jo had planned for a future—never
very definite, but always sincere.

After the death of Morey, Jo, according to her
bargain with Longville, went to help in the care of
the summer boarders who, that year, filled Madame
Longville's house to overflowing and brought in a
harvest that the Captain, not his womankind, gathered.
That was the summer when poor Jo, over-worked,
worried at leaving Cecile alone for so many weary
hours, grew grim and unlovely and found little time
or inclination to play the happy part with Langley
that had been the joy and salvation of their lives.
And just then a girl from the States appeared—a
delicate, pretty thing ordered to the river-pines to
regain her health.  She belonged to the class of women
who know no terminals in their lives, but accept
everything as an open passage to the broad sea of
their desires.  She was obliged to work for her
existence and the effort had all but cost her her life;
she must get someone, therefore, to undertake the
business for the future.  Her resources were
apparently limited, while the immediate necessity was
pressing.  Since nothing was to her finite and binding,
she looked upon Henry Langley and beheld in him
a possibility; a stepping stone.  She promptly began
her attack, by way of poor Jo, who, she keenly
realized, was her safest and surest course to Langley's
citadel.  She made almost frantic efforts to include
the tired drudge in the summer frivolities; her sweet
compassion and delicate prettiness were in terrific
contrast to Jo's shabbiness and lack of charm.
While Langley tried to be just and loyal he could but
acknowledge that Jo's blunt refusals to accept, what
of course she could not accept, were often brutal
and coarse.  Then, as his senses began to blind him,
he became stupidly critical, groping and bungling.
He could not see, beneath Jo's fierce retorts to his
very reasonable demands, the scorching hurt and
ever-growing recognition of defeat.

It was the old game played between a professional
and an amateur—and the professional won!

Quite unbeknown to poor Jo, toiling in Madame
Longville's kitchen, Langley quietly sold his belongings
to the Captain and, taking his prize off secretly,
left explanations to others.

Longville made them.

"Mam'selle," he said, standing before Jo as she
bent over a steaming pan of dishes in the stifling
kitchen, "we've been cheated out of a merry
wedding."

"A wedding?" asked Jo listlessly, "has any one
time to marry now?"

"They made time and made off with themselves
as well.  Langley was married last night and is on
his way, heaven knows where!"

Jo raised herself and faced Longville.  Her hair
was hanging limply, her eyes were terror-filled.

"Langley married and gone?" she gasped.  Then:
"My God!"

That was all, but Longville watching her drew his
own evil conclusions and laughed good-naturedly.

"It's all in the day's work, Mam'selle," he said,
and wondered silently if the slave before him would
be able to finish out the summer.

Jo finished out the summer efficiently and silently.
In September Cecile simply stopped babbling and
playing with rags and became wholly dead.  After
the burial Jo, with her dog at her heels, went away.
No one but Longville noticed.  Her work at his
house was over; the last boarder had departed.

Often Jo's home was unvisited for weeks at a time,
so her absence, now, caused no surprise.  Two
weeks elapsed, then she reappeared, draggled and
worn, the dog closely following.

That was all, and the endless work of weaving
and spinning was resumed.  Jo invented three
marvellously beautiful designs that winter.

But now, this glorious autumn day, she stood
victoriously reviewing the past.  Suddenly she turned.
As if playing an appointed part in the grim drama,
Longville again stood by the gate looking a bit keener
and grayer, but little older.  In his hands, signed and
properly executed, were all the papers that set Jo
free from him forever unless he could, by some other
method, draw her within his power.  That money
of hers in the bank lay heavy on his sense of propriety.

"Unless she's paying and paying me," he
pondered, "what need has she of money?  Too much
money is bad for a woman—I'll give her interest."

And just then Jo hailed him in the tone and
manner of a free creature.

"Ah, Captain, it's a good day, to be sure.  A good day!"

"Here are the papers!"  Longville came near and
held them toward her.

"Thanks, there was no hurry."

"And now," Longville leered broadly.  "'Tis I
as comes a-begging.  How about those hundreds in
the bank, Mam'selle?  I will pay the same interest
as others and one good turn deserves another."

But Jo shook her head.

"No.  I'm done with borrowing and lending,
Captain.  In the future, when I part with my money,
I will give it.  I've never had that pleasure in my
life before."

"That's a course that will end in your begging
again at my door."  Longville's smile had vanished.

"If so be," and Jo tossed her head, "I'll come
humbly, having learned my lesson from the best of
teachers."

Jo plunged her hands deeper in the pockets of her
father's old coat.

"A woman and her money are soon parted,"
growled Longville.

"You quote wrong, Captain.  It is a fool and
money; a woman is not always a fool."

Longville reserved his opinion as to this but
assumed his grinning, playful manner which reminded
one of the antics of a wild cat.

"Ah, Mam'selle, you must buy a husband.  He
will manage you and your good money."

A deep flush rose to Jo's dark face; her scowling
brows hid her suffering eyes.

"You think I must buy what I could not win,
Captain?" she asked quietly.  "God help me from
falling to such folly."

The two talked a little longer, but the real
meaning and purpose that had held them together during
the past years was gone.  They both realized this
fully, for the first time, as they tried now to make
talk.

They spoke of the future only to find that they
had no common future.  Jo retreated as Longville
advanced.

They clutched at the fast receding past with the
realization that it was a dead thing and eluded them
already.

The present was all that was left and that was
heavy with new emotions.  Longville presently
became aware of a desire to hurt Jo Morey, since he
could no longer control her; and Jo eyed the Captain
as a suddenly released animal eyes its late torturer:
free, but haunted by memories that still fetter its
movements.  She wanted to get rid of the disturbing
presence.

"Yes, Mam'selle, since you put it that way,"
Longville shifted from one foot to the other as he
harked back to the words that he saw hurt, "you
must buy a husband."

"I must go inside," Jo returned bluntly, "good
afternoon, Captain."  And she abruptly left him.

It was rather awkward to be left standing alone
on Jo Morey's trim lawn, so Longville muttered an
uncomplimentary opinion of his late victim and
strode toward home.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`MAM'SELLE MUST BUY A HUSBAND`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER II


.. class:: center medium bold

   MAM'SELLE MUST BUY A HUSBAND

.. vspace:: 2

Longville turned the affairs of Jo Morey
over and over in his scheming mind as he
walked home.  He had made the suggestion
as to buying a husband from a mistaken idea of
pleasantry, but its effect upon Jo had caused him to
take the idea seriously, first as a lash, then as
purpose.  By the time he reached home he had
arrived at a definite conclusion, had selected Jo's
future mate, and had all but settled the details.

He ate his evening meal silently, sullenly, and
watched his wife contemplatively.

There were times when Longville had an uncomfortable
sensation when looking at Marcel.  It was
similar to the sensation one has when he discovers
that he has been addressing a stranger instead of the
intimate he had supposed.

He was the type of man who among his own sex
sneers at women because of attributes with which
he endows them, but who, when alone with women,
has a creeping doubt as to his boasted conclusions
and seeks to right matters by bullying methods.

Marcel had been bought and absorbed by Longville
when she was too young and ignorant to resist
openly.  What life had taught her she held in
reserve.  There had never been what seemed an
imperative need for rebellion so Marcel had been
outwardly complacent.  She had fulfilled the duties,
that others had declared hers, because she was not
clear in her own mind as to any other course, but
under her slow outward manner there were currents
running from heart to brain that Longville had
never discovered, though there were times, like the
present, when he stepped cautiously as he advanced
toward his wife with a desire for coöperation.

"Marcel," he said presently with his awkward,
playful manner, "I have an idea!"

He stretched his long legs toward the stove.  He
had eaten to his fill and now lighted his pipe,
watching his wife as she bent over the steaming pan of
dishes in the sink.

Marcel did not turn; ideas were uninteresting,
and Longville's generally involved her in more
work and no profit.

"'Tis about Pierre, your good-for-nothing brother."

"What about him?" asked Marcel.  Blood was
blood after all and she resented Longville's superior
tone.

"Since Margot died he has had a rough time of
it," mused the Captain, "caring for the boy and
shifting for himself.  It has been hard for Pierre."

"You want him and Tom—here?"  Marcel turned
now, the greasy water dripping from her red hands.
She had small use for her brother, but her heart
yearned over the motherless Tom.

"God forbid," ejaculated Longville, "but a man
must pity such a life as Pierre's."

"Pierre takes his pleasures," sighed Marcel, "as
all can testify."

"You mean that a man should have no pleasure?"
snapped the Captain.  "You women are devilish hard."

"I meant no wrong.  'Tis no business of mine."

"'Tis the business of all women to marry off the
odds and ends"; and now Longville was ready.  He
launched out with a clear statement of Jo Morey's
finances and the absolute necessity of male control of
the same.  Marcel listened and waited.

"Mam'selle Jo Morey must marry," Longville
continued.  He had his pipe lighted and between
long puffs blinked luxuriously as he outlined the
future.  "She has too much money for a woman
and—there is Pierre!"

"Mam'selle Jo and Pierre!"  Almost Marcel
laughed.  "But Mam'selle is so homely and Pierre,
being the handsome man he is, detests an ugly
woman."

"What matters?  Once married, the good law
of the land gives the wife's money to her master.
'Tis a righteous law.  And Pierre has a way with
women that breaks them or kills them—generally
both!"

This was meant jocosely, but Marcel gave a
shudder as she bent again over the steaming suds.

"But Mam'selle with money," she murmured more
to herself than to Longville.  "Will Mam'selle sell
herself?"

This almost staggered Longville.  He took his
pipe from his lips and stared at the back of the
drudge near him.  Then he spoke slowly, wonderingly:

"Will a woman marry?  What mean you?  All
women will sell their souls for a man.  Mam'selle,
being ugly, must buy one.  Besides——"  And here
Longville paused to impress his next words.

"Besides, you remember Langley?"

For a moment Marcel did not; so much had come
and gone since Langley's time.  Then she recalled
the flurry his going with one of the summer people
had caused, and she nodded.

"You know Langley walked and talked with
Mam'selle before that red and white woman from
the States caught him up in her petticoat and carried
him off?"

It began to come back to Marcel now.  Again
she nodded indifferently.

"And some months after," Longville was whispering
as if he feared the cat purring under the stove
would hear, "some months later, what happened
then."  Marcel rummaged in her litter of bleak
memories.

"Oh!  Cecile died!"  She brought forth triumphantly.

"Cecile died, yes!  And Mam'selle went away.
And what for?"  The whispered words struck
Marcel's dull brain like sharp strokes.

"I do not know," she faltered.

"You cannot guess—and you a woman?"

"I cannot."

"Then patch this and this together.  Why does
a woman go away and hide when a man has deserted
her?  Why?"

Marcel wiped the suds from her red, wrinkled
hands.  She stared at her husband like an idiot,
then she sat down heavily in a chair.

"And that's why Mam'selle will buy Pierre."

For a full moment Marcel looked at her husband
as if she had never seen him before, then her dreary
eyes wandered to the window.

Across the road, in the growing darkness, lay
three small graves in a row.  Marcel was seeking
them, now, seeking them with all the fierce
love and loyalty that lay deep in her heart.  And
out of those pitiful mounds little forms, oh! such
tiny forms, seemed to rise and plead for Jo Morey.

Who was it that had shared the black hours when
Marcel's babies came—and went?  Whose
understanding and sympathy had made life possible
when all else failed?

"I'll do no harm to Mam'selle Jo Morey!"  The
tone and words electrified Longville.

"What?" he asked roughly.

"If what you hint is true," Marcel spoke as from
a great distance, her voice trailing pitifully; "I'll
never use it to hurt Mam'selle, or I could not meet
my God."

"You'll do what I say!"

But as he spoke Longville had a sense of doubt.
For the second time that day he was conscious of
being baffled by a woman; his purposes being threatened.

"You may regret," he growled, "if you do not
help along with this—this matter of Pierre.  There
will come a time when Pierre will lie at your door.
What then, eh?"

"Is that any reason why I should throw him at the
door of another woman?"  Marcel's pale face
twitched.  "Why should a man expect any woman's
door to open to him," she went on, "when he has
disgraced himself all his life?"

Longville stirred restlessly.  Actually he dared
not strike his wife, but he had all the impulse
to do so.  He resorted to hoary argument.

"'Tis the unselfish, the noble woman who saves—man!"
he muttered, half ashamed of his own words.

At this Marcel laughed openly.  Something was
rising to the surface, something that life had taught
her.

"It's a poor argument to use when the unworthy
one is the gainer by a woman's unselfishness,"
retorted Marcel.  "Unless she, too, gets something
out of her—her nobleness, I should think a man
would hate to fling it always in her teeth."

Longville half rose; his jaw looked ugly.

"'Tis my purpose," he said slowly, harshly, "to
marry Mam'selle and Pierre.  I have my reasons,
and if you cannot help you can keep out of the way!"

"Yes, I can do that," murmured Marcel.  She
had taken up her knitting and she rarely spoke while
she knitted.  She thought!

But if Longville's suggestion seemed to die in the
mind of his own woman, it had no such fate in that of
Jo Morey.  When she went into her orderly house,
after leaving the Captain, she put her papers on the
table and stood staring ahead into space.  She
seemed waiting for the ugly thought he had left to
follow its creator, but instead it clung to her like a
stinging nettle.

"Buy a husband!" she repeated; "buy a husband."

Into poor Jo's dry and empty heart the words ate
their way like a spark in the autumn's brush.  The
flame left a blackened trail over which she toiled
drearily back, back to that one blessed taste
she had had of love and happiness.  Memories,
long considered dead, rose from their shallow graves
like spectres, claiming Mam'selle for their own at
last.

She had believed herself beyond suffering.  She
had thought that loneliness and hard labour had
secured her at least from the agony she was now
enduring, but with the consciousness that she could
feel as she was feeling, a sort of terror overcame her.

Her past days of toil had been blessed with nights
of exhausted slumber.  But with the newly-won
freedom there would be hours when she must
succumb to the tortures of memory.  She could not go
on slaving with no actual need to spur her, she must
have a reason, a motive for existence.  Like many
another, poor Jo realized that while she had plenty
to retire on, she had nothing to retire to, for in her
single purpose of freeing herself from Longville, she
had freed herself from all other ties.

But Jo Morey would not have been the woman
she was if obstacles could down her.  She turned
abruptly and strode toward the barn across the road.
Nick, her dog, materialized at this point.  Nick
had no faith in men and discreetly kept out of sight
when one appeared.  He was no coward, but
caution was a marked characteristic in him and unless
necessity called he did not care, nor deem it
advisable, to display his feelings to strangers.

Jo felt for Nick an affection based upon tradition
and fact.  His mother had been her sole companion
during the darkest period of her life and Nick was a
worthy son of a faithful mother.  Jo talked to the
dog constantly when she was most troubled and
confused.  She devoutly believed she often received
inspiration and solution from his strange, earnest
eyes.

"Well, old chap," she said now as she felt his
sturdy body press against her knee.  "What do you
think of that?"

Nick gave a sharp, resentful yelp.

"We want no man planting his tobacco in our
front yard; do we, sir?  He might even expect us to
plant it!"

Jo always spoke editorially when conversing with
Nick.  "And fancy a man sitting by the new stove,
Nick, spitting and snoring and kicking no doubt
*you*, my good friend, if not me!"

Nick refused to contemplate such a monstrous
absurdity.  He showed his teeth in a sardonic grin
and, to ease his feelings, made a dash after a giddy
hen who had forgotten the way to the coop and was
frantically proclaiming the fact in the gathering
darkness.

"If that hussy," muttered Jo, "don't stick closer
to the roost, I'll have her for dinner!"  Then a light
broke upon Jo's face.  From trifles, often, our lives
are turned into new channels.  "I declare, I'll have
her anyway!  I'll live from now on like folks."

States' folks, Jo had in mind, the easy-going summer
type.  "Chicken twice a week, hereafter, and no
getting up before daybreak."

Nick had chased the doomed hen to the coop and
was virtuously returning when his mistress again
addressed him.

"Nick, the little red cow is about to calve.  What
do you think of that?"

Nick thought very little of it.  The red cow was
a nuisance.  She calved at off times of the year and
had an abnormal affection for her offspring.  She
would not be comforted when it was torn from her
for financial reasons.  She made known her objections
by kicking over milk pails and making nights
hideous by her wailing; then, too, she had a way of
looking at one that weakened the moral fibre.
Nick followed his mistress to the cow shed and
stood contemplatively by while Jo smoothed the
glossy head of the offending cow and murmured:

"Poor little lass, you cannot understand, but
you do not want to be alone, do you?" The animal
pressed close and gave a low, sweet sound of
appreciation.

"All right, girl.  I'll fill Nick up and take a bite,
then I'll be back and bide with you."

The mild maternal eyes now rested upon Nick
and his grew forgiving!

"Come, Nick!" called Jo.  "We'll have to hurry.
The little red cow, once she decides, does not waste
time.  It's a snack and dash for us, old man, until
after the trouble is over.  But there's no need of
early bed-going to-night, Nick, and before we
sleep we'll have the fire in the stove!"

So Nick followed obediently, ate voraciously but
rapidly, and Jo took her snack while moving about
the kitchen and planning for the celebration that
was to follow the little red cow's accouchement.

It must be a desolate life indeed, a life barren of
imagination, that has not had some sort of star to
which the chariot of desire has been hitched.  Jo
Morey had a vast imagination and it had kept her
safe through all the years of grind and weariness.
Her star was a stove!

Back in the time when her relations with Longville
were growing less strained and she could look beyond
her obligations and still see—money, she had closed
the fireplace in the living room and bought, on the
instalment plan, a most marvellous invention of iron,
nickle, and glass, with broad ovens and cavernous
belly, and set it up in state.

Jo's conception of honesty would not permit her
to build a fire in the monster until every cent was
paid, but she had polished it, almost worshipped
before it, and had silently vowed that upon the day
when she was free from all debt to man she would
revel in such warmth and glory as she had never
known before.

"No more roasted fronts and frozen backs,"

Mam'selle had secretly sworn.  "No more huddling
in the kitchen and scrimping of fires.  From the first
frost to the first thaw I'll have two fires going.
The new stove will heat the north chamber and
perhaps the upper room as well.  'Tis a wondrous
heater, I'm told."

But the red cow's affairs had postponed the
thrilling event.  Still neither Jo nor Nick ever
expected perfection in fulfillment and they took the
delay with patient dignity.

Later they again started for the cow shed, this
time guided by a lantern, for night had fallen upon
Point of Pines.

Jo took a seat upon an upturned potato basket
with Nick close beside her, and so they waited.
Waited until all need and danger were past; then,
tenderly stroking the head of the newly-made mother,
Jo spoke in the tone that few ever heard.  Margot
Gavot had heard it as she drifted out of life, her
hungry eyes fastened on Jo and the sobbing boy—Tom.
Marcel Longville had heard it as she clung to
the hard, rough hand that seemed to be her only
anchor when life and death battled for her and
ended in taking her babies.  The little red cow had
heard it once before and now turned her grateful
eyes to Mam'selle.

"So!  So, lass," murmured Jo; "we don't understand,
but we had to see it through.  Brave lass,
cuddle the wee thing and take your rest.  So, so!"

Then back to the house went Jo and Nick, the
lantern swinging between them like a captured star.

A wonderful, uplifted feeling rose in Jo Morey's
heart.  She was unlike her old, unheeding self, she
heeded everything; she started at the slightest sound
and drew her breath in sharply.  She was almost
afraid of the sensation that overcame her.  Depression
had fled; exhilaration had taken its place.
A sense of freedom, of adventure, possessed her.
She was ready at last to fling aside the bonds and go
forth!  Then Nick stopped short and strained
forward as if sensing something in the dark that not
even the lantern could disclose.

"So, Nick!" laughed Jo, "you feel it, too?  It's
all right, old man.  The mystery of the shed has
upset us both.  It's always the same, whether it comes
to woman or creature.  Something hidden makes
us see it, but our eyes are blind, blind to the
meaning."

Then Jo resorted to action.  She carried a load of
wood from the pile to the living room; with bated
breath she placed it in the stove.

"Suppose it shouldn't draw?" she whispered to
Nick, and struck a match.  The first test proved
this fear ungrounded.  The draw was so terrific
that it threatened to suck everything up.

In a panic Jo experimented with the dampers and
soon had the matter in control.  She was perspiring,
and Nick was yelping and dashing about in
circles, when the fire was brought to a sense of its
responsibility, ceased roaring like a wild bull, and
settled down into a steady, reliable body of glowing
heat.

Then Jo drew a chair close, pulled up her absurd
skirts, put her man-shod feet into the oven, and gave
a sigh of supreme content.

Nick took the hint.  Since this was not an
accident but, apparently, a permanent innovation, it
behooved him to adapt himself as his mistress had
done.  Behind the fiery monster there was a space,
hot as Tophet, but commanding a good view.  It
might be utilized, so Nick appropriated it.

"There seems no end to what this stove can do,"
muttered Jo, twisting about and disdaining the
smell of overheated leather and wool.  "No more
undressing in the kitchen and freezing in bed in the
north chamber.  I've never been warm in winter
since I was born, but that's done with now!  I
shouldn't wonder if I might open the room upstairs
after a bit—I shouldn't wonder!"

Then Jo caught a glimpse of her reflection in the
mirror over the stove!  As she looked, her
excitement lessened, the depression of the afternoon
overcame her.  She acknowledged that she looked
old and ugly.  A woman first to be despised, then
ridiculed, by men.  "Buy a husband!"  She, Jo
Morey, who had once had her vision and the dreams
of a woman.  She, who had had so much to offer
in her shabby youth, so much that was fine and
noble.  Intelligence that had striven with, and
overcome, obstacles; a passion for service, passion and
love.  All, all she had had except the one, poor,
pitiful thing called beauty.  That might have
interpreted all else to man for her and won her the
sacred desires of her soul.

She had had faith until Langley betrayed it.
She had scorned the doubt that, what she lacked,
could deprive her of her rights.

Through a never-to-be-forgotten spring and early
summer she had been as other girls.  Love had
stirred her senses and set its seal upon the man who
shared her few free hours.  He had felt the screened
loveliness of the spirit and character of Jo Morey;
had revelled in her appreciation and understanding.
He had loved her; told her so, and planned, with her,
for a future rich in all that made life worth while.
That was the spring when Jo had first noticed how
the sand pipers, circling against the blue sky, made
a brown blur that changed its form as the birds rose
higher or when they dipped again, disappearing
behind the tamarack pines on the hilltop.

That was the spring when the swift, incoming tide
of the St. Lawrence made music in the fragrant
stillness and she and Langley had sung together in their
queer halting French "A la Claire Fontaine" and
had laughed their honest English laughs at their
clumsy tongues struggling with the rippling words.

And then; the girl had come, and—the end!

Jo believed that something had died in her at
that time, but it had only been stunned.  It arose
now, and in the still, hot room demanded its own!

"Fifteen years ago!" murmured Jo and looked
about at the evidences of her toiling years: the
quaint room and the furnishings.  The floor was
painted yellow and on it were islands of gay, tinted
rugs all woven by her tireless hands.  There were
round rugs and square rugs, long ones and short
ones.  In the middle of the room was a large table
covered by a cloth designed and wrought by the
same restless hands.  Neatly painted chairs were
ranged around the walls, and beneath the low broad
window stood a hard, unyielding couch upon which
lay a thick blanket and several bright pillows
stuffed with sweet-grass.

At the casement were spotless curtains, standing
out stiffly like starched skirts on prim little girls,
and behind them rows of tin cans in which were
growing gorgeous begonias and geraniums pressed
against the glistening glass, like curious children
peering into the black outer world.  So had Jo's
inarticulate life developed and expressed itself in this
home-like room, while her mind had matured and
her thoughts deepened.  Then her eyes travelled to
the winding stairway in the farthest corner.  Her
gaze kept to the strip of yellow paint in the middle
of the white steps.  It mounted higher and higher.
Above was the upper chamber, the Waiting Room!

Long years ago, while serving in Madame Longville's
home, Jo had conceived an ambition that
had never really left her through all the time that
had intervened.  Some day she would have a
boarder!  Not upon such terms as the Longvilles
accepted, however.

Her boarder was not merely to pay and pay in
money, but he would be to her an education, a
widening experience.  She, alone, would reap the reward
of the toil she expended upon him.  And so with
this in mind she had furnished the upper chamber,
bit by bit, and had calculated over and again the
proper sum to charge for the benefits to be derived
and given.

"And now," said Jo, panting a little as if her eyes
mounting the stairs had tired her.  "Come summer
I will get my boarder, but love of heaven!  What
price shall I set?"

The wind was rising and the pine trees were
making that sound that always reminded Jo of poor
Cecile's wordless moan.

Something seemed to press against the door.  Nick
started and bristled.

"Who's there?" demanded Mam'selle.  There
was no reply—only that tense pressure that made
the panels creak.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`MAM'SELLE DOES NOT BUY A HUSBAND`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER III


.. class:: center medium bold

   MAM'SELLE DOES NOT BUY A HUSBAND

.. vspace:: 2

The tall clock in the kitchen struck eight in a
sharp, affrighted way much as a chaperone
might have done who wished to call her
heedless charge to the demands of propriety.

Eight o'clock in Point of Pines meant, under
ordinary conditions, just two things: house and bed
for the respectable, Dan's Place—a reeking, dirty
tavern—for the others.

And while Jo Morey's door creaked under the
unseen pressure from without, Pierre Gavot and
Captain Longville smoked and snoozed by the red-hot
stove at Dan's, occasionally speaking on indifferent
subjects.

These two men disliked and distrusted each other,
but they hung together, drank together; for what
reason who could tell?  Gavot had eaten earlier in
the day at the Longville house and during the meal
the name of Jo Morey had figured rather prominently.
However, Gavot had paid little heed, he
had little use for women and no interest, whatever,
in an ugly one.  A long past French ancestry had
given Gavot as it had Longville a subtle suavity of
manner that somewhat cloaked his brutality, and
he was an extremely handsome man of the big,
dark type.

Suddenly now, in the smoky drowsiness of the
tavern, Mam'selle Morey's name again was introduced.

"Mam'selle!  Mam'selle!" muttered Pierre
impatiently; "I tire of the mention of the black
Mam'selle.  Such a woman has but two uses: to serve
while she can, to die when she cannot serve."

"But her service while she can serve, that has its
value," Longville retorted, puffing lustily and blowing
the smoke upward until it quite hid his eyes, no
longer sleepy, but decidedly keen.

"The Mam'selle has money, much money," he
went on, "that and her service might come in
handy for you and Tom."

And now Pierre sat a little straighter in his
chair.

"Me and Tom?" he repeated dazedly.  "You
mean that I get the Mam'selle to come to my—my
cabin and work?"

Somehow this idea made Longville laugh, and the
laugh brought a scowl to Pierre's face.

"Tom will be going off some day," the Captain said
irrelevantly, "then what?"

"Tom will stick," Gavot broke in, "I'll see to that.
Break the spirit of a woman or child and they stick."

But as he spoke Gavot's tone was not one of
assurance.  His boy Tom was not yet broken, even
after the years of deprivation and cruelty, and lately
he had shown a disposition for work, work that
brought little or no return.  This worried Gavot, who
would not work upon any terms so long as he could
survive without it.

"You can't depend upon children," Longville
flung back, "a woman's safer and handier, and
while the Mam'selle, having money, might not care
to serve you for nothing, she might——" here the
Captain left an eloquent pause while he leered at his
brother-in-law seductively.  Gradually the meaning
of the words and the leer got into Gavot's
consciousness.

"Good God!" he cried in an undertone, "you
mean I should—marry the ugly Mam'selle Morey?"  But
even as he spoke the man gripped the idea
savagely and, with a quickness that always marked
the end of his muddled conclusions, he began to fix
it among the possibilities of his wretched life.

"She needs a man to handle her money," Longville
was running on.  He saw the spark had ignited
the rubbish in Gavot's mind.  "And she's a powerful
worker and saver.  She cooks like an angel; she
studies that art as another might study her Bible.
She has a mind above most women, but properly
handled and with reason——"

"What mean you, Longville, properly handled and
with reason?  Would any man marry Mam'selle?"

"A wise man might—yes," Longville was leading
his brother-in-law by the most direct route, but he
smiled under cover of the smoke.  The Morey
money in Gavot's hands meant Longville control
in the near future.  So the Captain smiled.

"She'd marry quick enough," he rambled on, refilling
his pipe.  "A man of her own is a big asset for
such a woman as the Mam'selle.  And then the law
stands by the husband; woman's wit does not
count."

Gavot was not heeding.  His inflamed imagination
had outstripped Longville's words.  Once he
had mastered the physical aspect of the matter,
the rest became a dazzling lure.  Never for an
instant did he doubt that Jo Morey would accept
him.  The whole thing lay in his power if——

"She's old and ugly," he grunted half aloud.

"What care you?" reassured Longville, "ugliness
does not hamper work, and her age is an advantage."

"But, what was that Langley story——?"  Pierre
was groping back helplessly.

Point of Pines had its moral standards for women,
but it rarely gossiped; it stood by its own, on general
principles, so long as its own demanded little and was
content to take what was offered.

"That?  Why, who cares for that after all this
time?"  Longville spoke benignly.  "If Langley
left the Mam'selle with that which no woman, without
a ring, has a right to, she was keen enough to rid
herself of the burden and cut her own way back to
decent living.  She has asked no favours, but she'd
give much for a man to place her among her kind
once more."

A deep silence followed, broken only by the guzzling
and snoring of the other occupants of Dan's Place.

Suddenly Gavot got to his feet and reached for his
hat.  His inflamed face gave evidence of his true
state.

"Back to Mastin's Point?" Longville asked,
stretching himself and yawning.

"No, by heaven! but to Mam'selle Jo Morey's."

This almost staggered Longville.  He was slower,
surer than his wife's brother.

"But your togs," he gasped, "you're not a figure
for courting."

"Courting?"  Gavot laughed aloud.  His drinking
added impetus to every impulse and desire.
"Does Mam'selle have to have her pill coated?
Will she not swallow it without a question?"

"But 'tis late, Gavot——"

"And does the chaste Mam'selle keep to the
early hours of better women?"

"But to-morrow—the next day," pleaded Longville,
seeking to control the situation he had evolved.
He feared he might be defeated by the force he had
set in motion.

"No, by heaven, to-night!" fiercely and hoarsely
muttered Gavot, "to-night or never for the brown
and ugly Mam'selle Jo.  To-night will make the
morrows safe for me.  If I stopped to consider, I
could not put it through."

With that Gavot, big, handsome, and breathing
hard, strode from the tavern and took to the King's
Highway.

The wind rushed past him; pushed ahead; pressed
at Jo's door with its warning.  But she did not
speak, and only when Gavot himself thumped on the
panel was Jo roused from her revery and Nick from
his puppy dreams.

"Who's there?" shouted Mam'selle, and clumped
across the floor in her father's old boots.  She slipped
on one of the rugs and slid to the entrance before
regaining her balance.

"It is I, Mam'selle, I, Pierre Gavot."

Jo opened the door at once.

"Well," she said with a calmness and serenity
that chilled the excited man, "it's a long way from
here to Mastin's and the hour's late, tell your
business and get on your way, Pierre Gavot.  Come in,
sit by the fire.  My, what a wind is stirring.  Now,
then—out with it!"

This crude opening to what Pierre hoped would be
a dramatic scene, sweeping Jo Morey off her feet,
nonplussed the would-be gallant not a little.  He
sat heavily down and eyed Nick uneasily.  The dog
was sniffing at his heels in a most suspicious fashion.
Every hair of his body was on guard and his eyes
were alert and forbidding.

"Well, Pierre Gavot, what is your errand?"

This did not improve matters and a shuffling
motion toward Nick with a heavy boot concluded
the investigation on the dog's part.  Nick was convinced
of the caller's disposition; he showed his teeth
and growled.

"Come, come, now," laughed Mam'selle, whistling
Nick to her, "you see, Pierre Gavot, I have a good
care-taker.  That being settled, let us proceed."  Then,
as Gavot still shuffled uneasily, she went on:

"Maybe it is Tom.  I heard the other day that
'twas whispered among your good friends that
unless you did your duty by Tom, there would be a
sum raised to give the poor lad a chance—away from
his loving father."  Jo laughed a hard laugh.  She
pitied Tom Gavot with her woman-heart while
she hated the man who deprived the boy of his
rights.

Gavot shut his cruel lips close, but he controlled
the desire to voice his real sentiments concerning the
bit of gossip.

"Indeed there is no need for my neighbours showing
their hate, Mam'selle.  Tom's best good is what
I'm seeking.  He's young, young enough to be
cared for and watched.  I'm thinking more of Tom
than of myself, and yet I ask nothing for him from
you, Mam'selle Jo."

"So, Gavot!  Well, then, I am in the dark.  Surely
you could ask nothing of me for yourself!"

Again Pierre was chilled and inclined to anger.
All his fire and fury were deserting him; his
intention of taking Jo by storm was disappearing; almost
he suspected that she was getting control of the
situation.  He slyly looked at her dark, forbidding
face and weighed the possibilities of the future.
Jo, he realized, was secure now in her unusual
independent position.  Once let him, backed by the
good law, which covers the just and the unjust
husband with its mantle of authority, get possession of
her future and her body, he'd manage—ah! would he
not—to utilize the one and degrade the other!

"Mam'selle, I come to you as a lone and helpless
man.  Mam'selle, I must—Mam'selle, I want that
you should live the rest of the time of our
lives—with me!"

Jo was aroused, frightened.  She turned her
luminous eyes upon the man.

"You—you are asking me to marry you, Pierre
Gavot?"

Gavot, believing that the meaning of his visit had
at last brought her to his feet at the first direct
shot, replied with a leer:

"Well, something like that, Mam'selle."

And now Jo's brows drew close; the eyes were
darkened, the lips twitched ominously.  As if to
emphasize the moment, Nick, abristle and teeth
showing, snarled gloomily as he eyed Gavot's feet.

"Something like that?" repeated Jo with a thrill
in her tones.  "You insult me, Gavot!  Something
like that.  What do you mean?"

"God of mercy, Mam'selle," Gavot was genuinely
alarmed, "I ask you to—be—my wife."

Jo leaned back in her chair.  "I wish you'd talk
less of the Almighty, Gavot.  I reckon the Lord can
speak for himself, if men, specially such men as you,
get out of his way.  It sickens me to have to find
the meaning of God through—men.  And you ask
me to be your wife?  You.  And I was with Margot
when she died!"

Gavot's eyes, for an instant, fell.

"Margot was out of her head," he muttered.
"She talked madness."

"It was more truth than fever, Gavot.  Her
tongue ran loose—with truth.  I know, I know."

"Well, then, Mam'selle, 'tis said a second wife
reaps the harvest the first wife sowed.  I have
learned, Mam'selle Jo."

"Almost it is a greater insult than what I first
thought!"  Jo sighed sadly.  "But 'tis the best you
have to offer—I should not forget that—and some
women would lay much stress on the chance you are
offering me.  One thing Margot said, Gavot, has
never passed my lips until now—though often I've
thought of it.  When she'd emptied her poor soul
of all that you had poured into it, when she had
shriven herself, and was ready to meet her God, the
God you had never let her find before because you got
in between, she looked at Tom.  The poor lad sat
huddled up on the foot of the bed watching his
mother going forth.  'Jo,' she whispered, 'when all's
said and done, it paid because of Tom!  When I tell
God about Tom and what Tom meant, He'll forgive
a lot else.  He does with women.'"

Gavot dared not look up, and for a moment a
death-like silence fell in the hot, tidy room.  Jo
looked about at her place of safety and freedom and
wondered how she could hurry the disturbing element out.

Just then Gavot spoke.  He had grasped the only
straw in sight on the turgid stream.

"Mam'selle, you're not too old yet to bear a child,
but you'll best waste no time."  And then he smiled
a loathsome smile that had its roots in all that had
soiled and killed poor Margot Gavot's life.  Jo
recoiled as if something unclean were, indeed, near her.

"Don't," she shuddered warningly, "don't!"  Then
quite suddenly she turned upon the man,
her eyes blazing, her mouth twisted with revolt and
disdain.

"I wonder—if you could understand, if I showed
you a woman's heart?" she asked with a curious
break in her voice.  "Long, long years I've ached
to show the poor, dead thing lying here," she put
her work-hardened hands across her breast, "to
someone.  There have been times when I have wondered
if the telling might not help other women in Point of
Pines; might not make men see plainer the wrong
they do women; but until now there has never been
any one to tell."

Expression was crying aloud, and the incongruity of
the situation did not strike Jo Morey in her excitement.

"You've got to hear me out, Pierre Gavot," she
went on.  "You've come, God knows why, to offer
me all that you have to give in exchange for—well!
I'm going to give you all that I have to give
you—all, all!

"There was a time, Gavot, when I longed for the
thing that most women long for, the thing that
made Margot take you—you!  She knew her
chances, poor soul, but you seemed the only way to
her desires, so she took you!

"'Tis no shame to a woman to want what her
nature cries out for, and the call comes when she's
least able to understand and choose.  Here in Point
of Pines a girl has small choice.  It is all well enough
for them who do not know to talk of love and the
rest.  The burning desire in man and woman is
there with or without love; it's the mercy of God
when love is added.  I knew what I wanted, all
that counted to me must come through man, and
love—my own love—sanctified everything for me.
I did not understand, I did not try to, I was lifted
up——"

Jo choked and Gavot twisted uneasily in his
chair.  This was all very boring, but he must endure
it for the time being.

"I—I was willing to play the game and take my
chances," Jo had got control of herself, "and I never
feared, until it was forced upon me, that my ugliness
stood in the way.  All that I had to offer, and I had
much, Gavot, much, counted as nothing with
men because their eyes were held by this face of
mine and could not see what lay behind.

"Perhaps that was God's way of saving me.  I
thought that for the first when I saw Margot dying.

"I had my love killed in me, but the desire was
there for years and years; the longing for a home
of my own and—children, children!  After love
was gone, after I staggered back to feeling, there
were times when I would have bartered myself, as
many another woman has, for the rights that *are*
rights.  But, since they must come by man's favour,
I was denied and starved.  Then the soul died
within me, first with longing, then with contempt
and hatred.  By and by I took to praying, if one
could call my state prayer.  I prayed to the God
of man.  I demanded something—something from
life, and this man's God was just.  He let me
succeed as men do, and this, this is the result!"

Jo flung her arms wide as if disclosing to Gavot's
stupid eyes all that his greed ached to possess: her
fields and barns; her house and her fat bank account.
But the man dared not speak.  He seemed to be
confronting an awful Presence.  He looked weakly
at Jo Morey, estimating his chances after she had
had her foolish way with him.  Vaguely he knew
that in the future this outburst of hers would be an
added weapon in his hand; not even yet did he doubt
but what he would gain his object.

"It's all wrong," Jo rushed on, seemingly
forgetting her companion, "that women should have to
wait for what their souls crave and die for until some
man, looking at their faces, makes it possible.  A
pretty face is not all and everything: it should not
be the only thing that counts against the rest.  Why,
the time came, Gavot, when a man meant nothing
to me compared with—with other things."

The fire and purpose died away.  The outbreak,
caused by the day's experience, left Jo weak and
trembling.  She turned shamed and hating eyes
upon Gavot.  She had let loose the thought of her
lonely years.

"And now you come, you!" she said, "and offer
me, what?"

Pierre breathed hard, his time had come at last.

"Marriage, Mam'selle.  I'm willing to risk it."

"Marriage!  My God!  Marriage, what does that
mean to such as you, Pierre Gavot?  And you think
I would give up my clean, safe life for anything you
have to offer?  Do men think so low of women?"

Gavot snarled at this, his lips drew back in an
ugly smile.

"God made the law for man and woman,
Mam'selle——"

"Stop!"  Jo stood up and flung her head back.
"Stop!  What do such as you know of God and his
law?  It's your own law you've made to cover all your
wickedness and selfishness and then you—you label it
with God's mark.  But it's not God's fault.  We
women must show up the fraud and learn the true from
the false.  Oh!  I've worked it out in my mind all these
years while I've toiled and thought.  But, Gavot, while
we've been talking something has come to me quite
clear.  Not meaning to, you've done me a good turn.

"There's one way I can get something of what I
want, and it's taken this scene to show me the path.
Come to-morrow.  You shall see, all of you, that
I'm not the helpless thing you think me.  Thinking
isn't all.  When we've thought our way out, we
must act.  And now get along, Gavot, the Lord
takes queer ways and folks to work out his plans.
Good-night to you and thank you!"

Pierre found himself on his feet and headed toward
the door which Jo was holding open.

Outraged and flouted, knowing no mercy or justice,
he had only one thing to say:

"Curse you!" he muttered; "curse and blast you."

Then he slunk out into the wild, black night.

A woman scorned and a man rejected have much
in common, and there was the explanation to the
Longvilles to be faced!





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`BUT MAM'SELLE MAKES A VOW`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER IV


.. class:: center medium bold

   BUT MAM'SELLE MAKES A VOW

.. vspace:: 2

After Mam'selle was certain that Gavot
was beyond seeing her next move, she flung
the door wide open, letting the fresh, pure
night air sweep through the hot room.

Nick sprang to his feet but, deciding that the
change in temperature had nothing to do with the
late guest, he sidled over to Jo who stood on the
threshold and pushed his questioning nose into her
hand.

"Come, old fellow," she said gently, "we do not
want sleep; let us go out and have a look at the sky.
It will do us both good."

Quietly they went forth into the night and stood
under a clump of pine trees back of the house and
near the foot of the hill.

The clouds were splendid and the wind, like a
mighty sculptor, changed their form and design
moment by moment.  They were silver-edged clouds,
for a moon was hidden somewhere among them;
here and there in the rifts stars shone and the
murmuring of the pines, so like Cecile's cry, touched
Mam'selle strangely.  It seemed to her, standing
there with Nick beside her, that something of the
old, happy past was being given back to her.  She
smiled, wanly, to be sure, and tears, softer than had
blurred her eyes for many a year, wet her lashes.
In a numb sort of way she tried to understand the
language of the night and the hour; it was bringing
her peace—after all her storms.  It was like having
passed from a foul spot in a dark valley, to find oneself
in a clear open space with a safe path leading——?
With this thought Jo drew in her breath sharply.  As
surely as she had ever felt it in her life, she now felt
that something new and compelling was about to
occur.  The meaning and purpose of her life seemed
about to be revealed.  Jo was a mystic; a fatalist,
though she was never to realize this.  Standing under
the wind-swept sky she opened her arms wide, ready
to accept!  And then it came to her in definite form,
the thought that had arisen during her talk with
Gavot.  She had said that she could have done
without man if only the rest had been vouchsafed.

Well, then, what remained?  She had house and
lands and money.  She might be denied the travail and
mystery of having a child, but there were children;
forgotten, disinherited children.  They were possible,
and if she accepted what was hers to take, her life
need not be aimless and cheerless.  She might yet
know, vicariously, what her poor soul had craved.

A wave of religious exaltation swept over Jo
Morey.  Such moments have been epoch-making
since the world began.  The shepherds on Judea's
plains, caught in the power of this emotion, lifted
their eyes and saw the guiding star that led them to
the Manger and the world's salvation!  Down
the ages it has turned the eyes of lesser men and
women to their rightful course, and it now pointed
Jo Morey to her new hope!

"I will adopt a child!" she said aloud and reverently
as if dedicating herself.  "A man child."

And then, in imagination, she followed the star.

Over at St. Michael's-on-the-Rocks there was a
Catholic institution where baby driftwood was
taken in without question.  St. Michael's was a
harbour town boasting a summer colony.  Women
there, as elsewhere, paid for too much faith or
unsanctified greed, and the institution was often the
solution of the pitiful outcome.

Jo had repeatedly contributed to the Home.  She
had no affiliation with the church that supported it,
but the priest of Point of Pines had gained her respect
and liking, and for his sake she had secretly aided
causes that he approved.  Tom Gavot, for instance,
and the St. Michael's institution.

"Come, Nick," she said presently, "we'll sleep on it."

All night Mam'selle tossed about on her bed trying
to argue herself into common sense.  When she
came down from the heights her decision appeared
wild and unreasonable.

What would people say?

Rarely did Jo consider this, but it caught and held
her now.  Her hard, detached life had set her apart
from the common conditions of the women near her.
She was in many ways as innocent and guileless as a
child although the deepest meanings of suffering and
sorrow had not been hidden from her.  That any
one suspected her of being what she was not, had
never occurred to her.  She had shrunk from
everyone at the time of Langley's desertion, because she
neither wanted, nor looked for, sympathy and
understanding.  She was grateful for the
indifference that followed that period of her life, but
never for a moment had she known of that which lay
hidden in the silence of her people.

Poor Jo!  What Point of Pines was destined to
think was impossible for her to conceive, because
her planning was so wide of the reality that was to
ensue.  Tossing and restless, Jo tried to laugh her
sudden resolve to scorn, but it would not be scorned
either by reason or mirth.

"Very well!" she concluded for the second time,
"I'll adopt a child, a man child!  No girl things for
me.  I could not watch them straining out for their
lives with the chance of losing them.  A man can
get what he wants and I'll do my best, under God, to
make him merciful."

Toward morning Jo slept.

The next day she cooked and planned as calmly
as if she were arranging for an invited guest.  All
her excitement and fire were smothered, but she did
not falter in her determination.  She explained to
Nick as she tossed scraps to him.  Nick was
obligingly broad in his appetite and tastes, bones and
bits of dough were equally acceptable, and he patted
the floor thankfully with his sturdy little tail
whenever Jo remembered him.

"We'll take it as a sign, Nick," she said, "that
what I'm trying to do is right if there is at
St. Michael's a man-thing, handsome and under a year
old.  We must have him handsome, that's half of
the battle, and he must be so young that he can't
remember.  I want to begin on him.

"Now I'll bet you, Nick, that the Home is bristling
with girl children and we'll have none of them."

Nick thumpingly agreed to all this but kept his
eye on a plate of cookies that Mam'selle was
lavishly sugaring.  Nick did not spurn scraps but,
like others, he yearned for tidbits.

All day Jo worked, cooking and setting her house
in order.

Late in the afternoon she contemplated cutting a
door between the two north chambers, her own and
the one her father had used, which had never been
occupied since.

"The child will soon need a place of his own,"
mused Jo, already looking ahead as a real mother
might have done.  Suddenly she started, recalling
for the first time since before Pierre Gavot's
diverting call her ambition concerning a boarder.

"Well, the boarder will have to wait," she thought,
"they hate babies, and boys are terribly noisy and
messy.  I'll take a boarder when the lad goes away
to school.  I'll need company then."

By nightfall the little white house was spotless and
in order.  The fragrance of cooking mingled with
the odour of wood fire was soothing to Jo's tired
nerves; it meant home and achievement.

"I'll not let on about the child," she concluded
just before she went to sleep.  "When the doors of
St. Michael's close on a child going in or out, they
close, and that is the end of it.  If folks care to pry
it will give them something to do and keep them
alive, but it's little they'll get from the Sisters or me.

"I'm a fool, a big fool, but I can pay for my folly
and that's more than many women can do."

Early on the following morning Jo set forth in her
broad-bellied little cart in which were a hamper of
goodies for the waifs of St. Michael's, and a smaller
basket containing Jo's own midday meal.  Jo, herself,
sat on the shaft beside the fat Molly and
bobbed along in the best of spirits.

"You're to watch the place, Nick," she commanded,
"and if he returns, you know who, just
save a nip of him for me, that's a good beastie."

With this possibility of adventure, Nick had to
be content.

Madame Longville saw Jo pass and remarked to
the Captain who was eating the pancakes his wife
was making:

"There goes Mam'selle, and so early, too;
somehow she doesn't look as if she had taken up with
Pierre."

"How does she look?" asked the Captain with
his mouth full.

"Sort of easy and cheerful."

"Fool," muttered Longville and reached for more
cakes.  "Is she afoot?"

"No.  She's in the little cart and it's empty."

"She's going to fetch Gavot, bag and
baggage."  Longville felt that he had solved the problem.
"It takes a woman like Mam'selle to clinch a good
bargain."

Then Longville laughed and sputtered.

"It was a good turn I did for your rascal brother
when I turned him on to Mam'selle," he continued.
"I took the matter in my own hands."

"I'm glad you did," Marcel returned, "but all
the same Jo Morey doesn't look as if she had taken
up with Pierre."

The repetition irritated Longville and again he
muttered "fool!" then added "damn fool" and let
the matter rest.

But Jo was out of sight by that time and seemed
to have the empty world to herself.  And what a
world it was.  The wind of the past few hours had
swept the sky clear of clouds and for that time of
year the day was warm.

Presently Jo found herself singing: "A la Claire
Fontaine" and was surprised that it caused her no
heartache.  So grateful was she for this, that she
dismounted and stood under one of the tall crosses
by the wayside and prayed in her silent, wordless
fashion, recalling the years that were gone as another
might count the beads of a rosary.  Her state of
mind was most perplexing and surprising, but it
was wonderful.  What did it matter, the cause that
resulted in this sense of freedom, and, at the same
time, of being used and controlled?  Jo felt herself a
part of a great and powerful plan.  Surely there is no
truer freedom than that.  At noon the roofs of
St. Michael's were in plain sight over the pastures; by
the road was a delectable pine grove with an opening
broad enough to drive in, so in Jo drove.  She
unhitched Molly and fed her, then taking her own
food to a log lying in the warm sunlight, she laid out
her feast and seated herself upon the fragrant pine
needles.  She was healthfully hungry and thirsty and,
for a few minutes, ate and drank without heeding
anything but her needs.  Then a stirring in the bushes
attracted her attention.  She raised her eyes and
noted that the branches of a crimson sumach near
the road were moving restlessly.  Thinking some
hungry but shy creature of the woods was hiding, Jo kept
perfectly still, holding a morsel of food out enticingly.

The branches ceased trembling, there was no
sound, but suddenly Jo realized that she was looking
straight into eyes that were holding hers by a strange
magnetism.

"What do you want?" she asked.  "Who are you?"

There was no reply from the flaming bush, only
that stare of fright and alertness.

"Come here.  I will not hurt you.  No one shall
hurt you."

Either the words, or actual necessity, compelled
obedience: the branches parted and out crawled a
human figure covered by a coarse horse blanket over
the dingy uniform of St. Michael's.

For a moment Jo was not sure whether the
stranger were a boy or girl, for a rough boyish cap
rested on the head, but when the form rose stiffly,
tremblingly she saw it was that of a girl.  She
was pale and thin, with long braids of hair known
as tow-colour, a faintly freckled face, and
marvellous eyes.  'Twas the eyes that had caught and
held Jo from the start, yellow eyes they were
and black fringed.  They were like pools in a
wintry landscape; pools in which the sunlight was
reflected.

"I—I am starving to death," said the girl
advancing cautiously, slowly.

"Sit down and eat, then," commanded Jo, and her
throat contracted as it always did when she witnessed
suffering.  "After you've had enough, tell me about
yourself."

For a few minutes it seemed as if there were not
enough food to satisfy the hungry child.  She ate,
not greedily or disgustingly, but tragically.  At
last, after a gulp of milk, she leaned back against a
tree and gave Jo a grateful, pitiful smile.

"And now," said Jo, "where did you come from?"

"Over there," a denuded chicken bone pointed
toward the Home.

"You live there?"

"I used to.  I ran away last night.  I've run
away many times.  They always caught me before."

The words were spoken in good, plain English.
For this Jo was thankful.  French, or the composite,
always hampered her.

"Where were you last night?" she asked.

"Here in the woods."

Remembering the manner of night it was, Jo
shivered and her face hardened.

"Were they cruel to you over there?" she said
gruffly.

"Do you mean, did they beat me?  No, they
didn't beat my body, but they beat something else,
something inside of me, all out of shape.  They
tried to make me into something I am not, something
I do not want to be.  They, they flattened me out.
They were always teaching me, teaching me."

There was a comical fierceness in the words.  Jo
Morey recognized the spirit back of it and set her jaw.

"I never saw you at the Home," she said; "I've
often been there."

"They only show the good ones—the ones they
can be sure of.  I took care of the babies when I
wasn't being punished, locked up, you know.  You
see, I learned and could teach."

"They locked you up?"  Mam'selle and the child
were being drawn close by ties that neither understood.

"Yes, to keep me from running away.  You're not
going to tell them about me, are you?"

The wonderful eyes seemed searching Jo's very soul.

"No.  But where are you going?"

"I'm, I'm looking for someone."  As she spoke
the light vanished from the yellow eyes, a blankness
spread over the pale, thin face.

"Looking for whom?"

"I do not know."

"What is your name?"  Jo was struck by the
change in the girl, she had become listless, dull.

"I do not know.  Over there they call me Marie,
but that isn't my name."

"I can't let you go off alone by yourself," Jo
was talking more to herself than to the girl.

"Then, what are you going to do with me?  Please
try to help me.  You see I was very sick once and
I—I cannot remember what happened before that,
but it keeps coming closer and closer and pressing
harder and harder—here."  The girl put her hand
to her head.  "Once in awhile I catch little bits and
then I hold them close and keep them.  If I could
be let alone I think soon I would remember."

The pleading eyes filled with tears, the lips trembled.

Now the obvious thing to do, Jo knew very well:
she ought to bundle the girl into the cart and drive
as fast as possible to the Home.  But Mam'selle Jo
knew that she was not going to do the obvious thing,
and before she had time to plan another course she
saw two black-robed figures coming across the
pasture opposite.  The girl saw them, too, and rushed
to Jo.  She clung to her fiercely and implored:

"God in heaven, save me!  If they get me, I will
kill myself."

The appeal turned Jo to stone.

"Get in the cart," she commanded, "and cover up
in the straw."

The two Sisters from the Home were in the road
as Jo bent to gather up the debris of the meal.

"Ah, 'tis the Mam'selle Morey," said the older
Sister.  "You were coming to St. Michael's perhaps,
with your goodly gifts?"  The words were spoken
in pure French.

"I was coming, Sister—to—to adopt a child!"

The blunt statement, in bungling words, made
both Sisters stare.

"'Tis like your good heart to think of this thing,
Mam'selle Morey.  Another day we will consider it."

"Why not to-day, Sister?  My time is never
empty.  I want a boy, very young and—and good
to look at."

"Oh, but Mam'selle Morey, one does not adopt a
child as one does a stray cat.  Another day, Mam'selle,
and we will consider gladly, but to-day——"

"What of to-day, Sister?"

"Well, one of our little flock has strayed, a child
sadly lacking but dearly loved; we must find her."

"She has been gone long?"  Jo was moving to the
cart with her basket and bottles.

"She has just been missed.  We will soon find her."

Jo's hand, searching the straw, was patting the
cold one that trembled beneath her touch.  "May I
give you a lift along the road?" she asked grimly,
the humour of the thing striking her while she
reassured the hidden girl by a whispered word.

"Thanks, no, Mam'selle.  We will not keep to
the roads.  The lost one loved the woods.  She'd
seek them."

Jo waited until the Sisters had departed, her hand
never having left the trembling one beneath hers.

"You are going to—to take me with you?"  The
words came muffled, from the straw.

"Yes."

"And where?"

"To Point of Pines."

"What a lovely name.  And you, what may I
call you?"

"Jo, Mam'selle Jo."

"Mam'selle Jo.  That is pretty, too, like Point
of Pines.  How kind you are and good.  I did not
know any one could be so good."

"Lie down now, child, and sleep."

Jo was hitching Molly to the cart; her hands
fumbled and there was a deep fire in her dark eyes.

"We're going home," she said presently, but the
girl was already asleep.

Through the autumn sunset and under the clear
stars the little cart bobbed along to Point of Pines.
The stirring in the straw, the touch, now and then,
of a small, groping hand were all that disturbed Jo's
troubled thoughts.  When she reached her
darkened house, Nick met her at the gate.  Very
solemnly Jo dismounted and took the dog's head in her
hands.

"Nick," she explained, "Nick, it's a girl, and an
ugly one at that.  She's old enough to remember,
too, but she don't—she don't, Nick.  God help me!
I'm a fool, but I could do nothing else."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`ENTER DONELLE`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER V


.. class:: center medium bold

   ENTER DONELLE

.. vspace:: 2

Many times during the next few weeks Jo
Morey repeated that "I could do nothing
else."  It was like a defense of her action
to all the opposing forces.

Poor Jo!  She, who had stood before Longville a
free woman but a short time ago; she who had flouted
Gavot and sworn to have something of her own out of
life in spite of man, was now held in the clutch of
Fate.

The girl she had brought into her home was raving
with fever and tossing restlessly on Jo's own bed in
the little north chamber.  No one ever sent for a
doctor in Point of Pines until the need of one was
practically past.  Every woman was trained to care
for the sick, and Mam'selle Jo was a master of the art,
so she watched and cared for the sufferer, mechanically
dazed by conditions and reiterating that she could
have done nothing else.

The sweet autumn weather had changed suddenly,
and winter came howling over the hills sheathed in
icy rain that lashed the trees and houses and flooded
the roads.  No one came to disturb Jo Morey, and
her secret was safe for the time being.  But the
long, dark, storm-racked nights; the dull days filled
with anxiety and hard work, wore upon Jo.  Constant
journeys to the wood pile were necessary in
order to keep the fires to their full duty; food had to
be provided and the animals cared for.

Nick grew sedate and nervous; he followed his
mistress closely and often sat by the bed upon which
lay the stranger who had caused all the disturbance.

And so the storm raged, and in the loneliness poor
Jo, like Nick, developed nerves.

She moved about, looking over her shoulder
affrightedly if she heard an unusual sound.  She
forced herself to eat and when she could, she slept,
lying beside the sick girl, her hand upon the hot
body.  At such times the flesh looses its hold upon
the spirit and strange things happen.  At such times,
since the world began, miracles have occurred, and
Jo became convinced, presently, that she had been
led to do what she had done, by a Power over which
she had no control and which she had no longer any
desire to defy.  She submitted; ceased to rebel; did
not even reiterate that she could have done nothing
else.

At first she listened to the sick girl's ravings, hoping
she might learn something of the past, but as no
names or places entered into the confused words she
lost interest.  Nevertheless, the words sank into her
subconsciousness and made an impression.  The
fevered brain was groping back past the St. Michael
days, groping in strange, distant places, but never
finding anything definite.  There seemed to be long,
tiresome journeys, there were pathetic appeals to
stop and rest.  More than once the hoarse, weak
voice cried: "They'll believe me if I tell.  I saw how
it was.  Let me tell, they'll believe me."

But when Jo questioned as to this the burning eyes
only stared and the lips closed.  At other times the
girl grew strangely still and her face softened.

"The white high-top is all pink," she once
whispered looking toward the north window against which
the sheet of icy rain was dashing; "it is morning!"

Jo grew superstitious; she felt haunted and afraid
for the first time in her life and finally she decided
to call in Marcel Longville and let her share the secret
vigil.

The night of the day she decided upon this,
something remarkable happened.  Toward evening the
rain ceased and the wind took to sobbing remorsefully
in long, wearied gasps.  The girl in the north
chamber lay resting with lowered temperature and
steadier pulse.  "The crisis is past," murmured Jo,
and when all was made comfortable, she went to the
living room, put her feet in the oven, and looked at her
weary, haggard face in the glass.  The reflection did
not move her, she was too utterly worn out, but she
did think of the morrow and the coming of Marcel.

"Now that there is no need," she muttered, "I
must have someone.  I'm all but done for.  I
cannot think straight, and there has got to be some
straight thinking from now on."

She was still looking at her plain face in the glass
when she heard the clock in the kitchen strike ten
and heard the even breathing of the girl in her north
chamber.  She was still looking in the glass, still
hearing—what?  Why, footsteps coming up the
little white-shell path!  Familiar steps they were,
but coming from, oh! such a distance, and out of
the many years!  They caused no surprise nor alarm,
however, and Jo smiled.  She saw, quite distinctly,
the face in the glass smiling, and now it was no
longer old and haggard, and it seemed right that
those steps should be near.  Jo's smile broadened.

The steps came close; they were at the door.
There was a quick, sharp knock as if the comer were
hurrying gladly.  Mam'selle sprang up and—found
herself standing in the middle of the room, the fire
all but burned out, the lamp sputtering!

"I've been dreaming!" murmured Jo, pushing her
hair back from her face.

"Nick!"

Mam'selle was fully roused by now and her eyes
were riveted upon her dog.  He stood near the door
all a-bristle, as if awaiting the entrance of one he
knew and loved.  Then he whined and capered
about for all the world as if he were fawning at the
feet of someone.

"Nick, come here!"

But Nick paid no heed.

"None of that, sir!"

The cold sweat stood on Jo Morey's face.  "None
of that!"  Then, with a gasp, "You, too, heard the
steps, the steps that have no right here.  Nick!"

And now the dog turned and came abjectly
toward his mistress.  He looked foolish and apologetic.

"We're both going mad!" muttered Jo, but bent
to soothe poor Nick before she turned to the north
chamber.

Under the spell of her dream she trembled, and
was filled with apprehension.  How quiet the sick
room was!  The candle sputtering in its holder
made flashes of light and cast queer shadows.  The
girl was not sleeping, her eyes were wide open, her
hands groping feebly.

"Father," she moaned as Jo bent over her, "father,
where are you?  I'll remember, father.  The
name—Mam'selle Jo Morey, and she will understand!"

Then—all was still, deadly, terribly still.  During
the past weeks of strain and watching a door had been
gradually opening into a darkened room, but now a
sudden light was flashed and Jo saw and understood!

Undoubting, stunned, but keenly alive, she
believed she was looking upon Henry Langley's child
and felt that she had always known!  It was most
natural, Langley had been coming home to her:
because he could trust her; knew that she would
understand.  Understand—what?  But did that matter?
Something had happened, Jo meant to find all that
out later.  Now she must act, and act quickly.  The
crisis had not passed; it was here.  Jo set to work and
for hours she fought death off by primitive but
effective means.  She knew the danger; counted the
chances and strained every nerve to her task.  When
morning came she saw she had saved the girl and
she dropped by the bedside, faint and listless, but
lifting up her soul, where another woman would have
prayed, to the Power that she acknowledged and
trusted.

Mam'selle did not send for Marcel Longville, she
was given strength to go on alone for a little longer.
The sick girl rallied with wonderful response to Jo's
care which now had a new meaning.  She was docile,
sweet, and pathetically grateful, but she did not want
Jo long out of her sight.

"It is queer, Mam'selle," she sometimes said,
"but when you go out of the door it seems as if
something, a feeling, got me.  And when you come
in again, it goes."

"What kind of a feeling, child?"

"I do not know, but I am afraid of it and *It* is
afraid of you.  You're like a light, making the
darkness go.  When I was sickest, sometimes I felt I was
lost in the blackness.  Then I touched your hand,
and I found my way back."

After awhile the "Mam'selle" was shortened to
"Mam'sle," then, and quite unconsciously, to
Mamsey.  To that the girl clung always.  And Jo,
for no reason but a quaint whim, disdained the
Marie by which the girl had been known and called
her Donelle after poor Mrs. Morey who had died at
Cecile's birth.

The winter after the ice storm settled down
seriously.  It had no more tantrums, but grew still and
white and lonely.  The snow was deep and glistening,
the sky blue and cloudless and the pines cracked
in the cold like the rifles of hunters in the woods.
Donelle crept, a little, pale ghost, from the north
chamber to the sunny living room.  By putting her
hand on Nick's head she walked more steadily and
laughed at the progress she made.  Jo tucked her up
on the hard couch under the glowing begonias and
geraniums.

"Good Mamsey!  It's like coming back from a far,
far place," whispered the girl.  As strength returned
Donelle grew often strangely thoughtful.

"I thought," she confided one night to Jo, "that
when I was left alone I could remember, but I cannot."

Then Jo took things in her own hands.  She was
always one to muster all the help in sight, and not
be too particular.  She was developing a deep
passion for the girl she had rescued; she meant to
see the thing through and *well* through.  As soon as
she could she meant to go to St. Michael's and learn
all that the Sisters knew of the girl's past.  She felt
she had a power over them that might wring the
truth from their frozen silence.  Then she meant to
use her last dollar in procuring the proper medical
skill for the girl.  There was a big doctor every
summer at St. Michael's Hotel; until summer Jo
must do her best.

As her nerves grew calm and steady the experiences
of the night of Donelle's crisis lost their hold.

"She heard my name at the Home," Jo argued,
"and I myself spoke it when she was the most
frightened and on the verge of fever.  In the
muddle and confusion of delirium it came to the surface
with the rest of the floating bits.  That's all."

Still there was a lurking familiarity about the girl
that haunted Jo's most prosaic hours.  It lay about
the girl's mouth, the way she had of looking at Jo
as if puzzled, and then a slow smile breaking.
Langley had that same trick, back in the spring and
summer of the past.  He would take a long look, then
smile contentedly as if an answer to a longing had
come.  But something else caught and held Jo
Morey's attention as she watched the girl.  That
charm of manner, that poise and ease; how like they
were to—but Jo dared not mention the name, for
the hurt had broken out afresh after all the years!

"But such things do not happen in real life," she
argued in her sane, honest mind.  "She wouldn't
have been hiding in those bushes just when I stopped
to eat!  I'm getting wild to fancy such things, wild!"

So Jo turned from the impossible and attacked the
possible, but as often happens in life, she confused
the two.

"See here, child," she said one day when Donelle
was brooding and sad, "You've been very sick and
you're weak yet, but while you were at the worst
you remembered, and it will all come back again soon."

The girl brightened at once.

"What did I remember, Mamsey?" she asked.

Jo, weaving a new design, puckered her brow.
"Oh, you told of travels with your father," then
with inspiration, "they must have been in far-off
places, for you spoke about high-tops white with
snow and the sun making them pink.  They must
have been handsome."

Donelle's eyes widened and grew strained.

"Yes," she said dreamily; "they must have been
handsome.  But my father, Mamsey, what about
my father?"

"Well, child, he died."  Jo made the plunge and
looked for the results.

"Yes, I think I knew he was dead.  Did you know
my father, Mamsey?"

Again Jo plunged.

"Yes, child, long ago.  He must have been
bringing you to me when something happened.  Then
you were ill and the Sisters took you——"

"But why did they not bring me to you?"  Donelle
was clinging to every word.

"I think they did not know.  You forgot what had
happened.  Your father was dead——"

"Yes, I see.  But always I was trying to get away.
Many times I did get out of the gates, but always
they found me until the time when I found you.
Things happen very queer sometimes."

Then, quickly changing the subject;

"Mamsey, did you know my mother, too?"

"Yes, child."  And now poor, honest, simple Jo
Morey bent her head over the loom.

"Was she a good—mother?"

For the life of her Jo could not answer.  The wide
sunny eyes of the girl were upon her, the awful
keenness of an awakening mind was searching her
face and what lay behind her troubled eyes.

The moment of silence made the next harder;
conclusions had been reached by the girl.  She came
toward Jo, stood before her, and laid her hands
upon her shoulders,

"Mamsey," she faltered; "we will not talk about
my mother if it hurts you."  The quick gratitude
and sympathy almost frightened Jo.

And they did not for many a year after that speak
of Donelle's mother.

"But, child," Jo pleaded, "just do not push
yourself, it will all come back to you some day.  You
must trust me as your father did.  And another
thing, Donelle, you are to live with me now, and—and
it was your father's wish, it is best that you take
my name.  And you must not let on about—about—the
Home at St. Michael's."

Donelle shivered.

"I will not!" she said.  "Do they know where I am?"

"No.  But when you are able to be left, I am going
to tell them!"  This came firmly.  "They will be
glad enough to forget you and leave the rest to me.
They have great powers of forgetting and remembering,
when it pays.  But they are through with you,
child, forever."

"Oh!  Mamsey, thank God!"

Donelle folded her thin arms across her breast
and swayed to and fro.  This gesture of hers was
characteristic.  When she was glad she moved back
and forth; when she was troubled she moved from
side to side, holding her slim body close.

"I will mind nothing Mamsey, now.  I will begin
with you!"

"And I," murmured Jo gruffly, "I will begin with
you, Donelle.  You and I, you and I."

But of course the outside world soon had to be
considered.  People came to Jo Morey's door on one
errand or another, but they got no further.

"I cannot make Mam'selle out," Marcel Longville
confided to the Captain, "she has always been
quick to answer a call when sickness was the
reason.  Now here is poor Tom laid up with a
throat so bad that I know not what to do and
when I went she opened her door but halfway
and said, 'send for a doctor!'"  Longville grunted.
He had his suspicions about Mam'selle and Gavot,
but he could get nothing definite from Pierre and
surely there was nothing hopeful about Jo Morey's
attitude.

"I'll call myself," he decided.  But to his
twice-repeated knocks he got no response; then he kicked
on the door.  At this Jo opened a window, risking
the life and health of her begonias and geraniums
by so doing.

"Well?" was all she said, but her plain, haggard
face startled the Captain.  He had formulated no
special errand; he had trusted to developments, and
this unlooked-for welcome to his advances threw him
back upon a flimsy report of Tom Gavot's sore
throat.

"I'm sorry, Captain," Jo said, "but I'm not able
to do anything to help.  There's no reason why you
shouldn't get a doctor.  If it's a case of money, I'll
pay the bill for the sake of the poor boy and his dead
mother."

"Mam'selle, you're not yourself," Longville retorted.

"I'm just myself," Jo flung back.  "I've just found
myself.  But I'm going off for a few days, Captain,
so good-bye."

Longville retreated from the house in a sadly
befuddled state.  Surely something serious was the
matter with Jo Morey.  She looked ill and acted
queer, almost suspiciously queer.  And she was
going away!  No one went away from Point of
Pines unless dire necessity drove them.  Why should
people ever go away from anywhere unless forced?

Then Longville's thoughts drifted back to the
time when Mam'selle had gone away before and came
back so bedraggled and spent.

It was all very odd and unsettling.

"Surely Mam'selle needs watching," mumbled
Longville and he decided to watch.

Night favoured his schemes.  He forsook the tavern
and made stealthy trips to the little white house,
only to be greeted by blank darkness, except for a
dim gleam at the edges of the curtain at the window
of the small north chamber.

"Mam'selle has not yet gone," concluded Longville,
but that was little comfort.  Then one night
he got bolder and crept close to the rear and listened
under the chamber window.

Jo was talking to——  At that instant the kitchen
door was flung open and out dashed Nick.

"At him!" commanded Mam'selle, standing in the
panel of light, laughing diabolically, "It's a skunk, no
doubt; drive him off, Nick; don't touch him!"

Longville escaped, how, he could not tell, for
Nick sniffed at his retreating heels well down the
highway.

Three or four nights after, Longville, discreetly
keeping to the road, where he had a perfect right
to be, paused before the white house again.  It was
a dark night, with occasional flashes of moonlight
as the wind scattered the clouds.

Presently the house door opened and Mam'selle
came out with Nick close beside her.  They stood
quite still on the little lawn, their faces turned
upward.  And just then Longville could have sworn
he heard a sob, a deep, smothered sob, and Nick
certainly whined piteously.  Then the two went
back into the house and Longville, with a nervous
start, turned and faced—Gavot!

"What do you make of it?" whispered Pierre.

"Make of what?" demanded Longville.

"Oh, I've done some watching myself," Gavot
replied, "I've watched you *and* her!  A man doesn't
keep to the night when the tavern has a warm place
for him.  I've kept you company, Longville, when
you didn't know it."

"Well, then, what's the meaning that you make
out, Pierre?"

"The Mam'selle Morey is up to—to tricks,"
Gavot nodded knowingly, "and she's not going to
escape me."

"'Tis not the first caper she has cut," Longville
snorted, "and she will well need an eye kept on her."

Then the two went amicably arm in arm to Dan's
Place.

"Four eyes, brother Longville," said Gavot who
always grew nauseously familiar when he dared.
"Four eyes on Mam'selle and four *such* eyes!"





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`MAM'SELLE HEARS PART OF THE TRUTH`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER VI


.. class:: center medium bold

   MAM'SELLE HEARS PART OF THE TRUTH

.. vspace:: 2

Jo Morey came out of her house quite boldly
and locked the door!

She had left Nick inside, a most unusual
proceeding.  Then she harnessed Molly to the caliche,
also an unusual proceeding, for the picturesque
carriage was reserved for the use of summer visitors and
brought a good price when driven by one of the
young French-Canadians from the settlement a
few miles away.  Openly, indeed encouraging nods
and conversation, Jo started toward St. Michael's
in her Sunday best and nicely poised on the high seat.

"Good morning, Captain," she greeted as she
passed Longville on the road; "I'm off at last, you
see!  So you can take a rest from watching."

"When do you return, Mam'selle?" asked the
Captain, quite taken aback by the sight.

"That depends," and Jo smiled, another rare
proceeding, surely; "the roads are none too good and
time is my own these days."

Then she bobbed along, the high feather on her
absurd hat waving defiance.

But Jo was quite another person to young Tom
Gavot whom she met a mile farther on.  The boy
was a handsome, shabby fellow and at present his
throat was bound close in a band of red flannel.  His
clothing was thin and ragged and his bare hands
rested upon the handle of a shovel which he held.
He leaned slightly on it, as he paused to greet
Mam'selle Morey.

"Tom, you've been sick," said Jo, stopping short
and leaning toward him.  "I hated not to come to
you—but I couldn't."

"'Tis all right, now, Mam'selle.  I went to the
curé when my throat was the worst and the good
Father took me in and sent for the doctor."

"I'll remember that, Tom, when the curé asks for
help this winter.  And, Tom, how goes life?"

The boy's clear, dark eyes looked troubled.  "I
want to get away, Mam'selle Jo.  I can never make
anything of myself here.  Sometimes," the boy
smiled grimly, "sometimes I find myself—longing to
forget everything in——"

"No, Tom, not the tavern!  Remember what I've
always told you, boy, of the night your mother
went.  She said you paid for all she had suffered!
Tom, when you get down and things look black, just
remember and keep on being worth what she went
through.  It was worse than anything you'll ever be
called upon to bear."

The boy's eyes dimmed.

"I'm holding close," he said grimly.  "Holding
close to—I don't know what."

"That's it, Tom, we don't know what; but it's
something, isn't it?"

"Yes, Mam'selle."

"Now listen, Tom.  How old are you?  Let me
see——"

"Sixteen, Mam'selle."

"To be sure.  And you study hard at the school,
the curé has told me.  And you mend the roads in
the summer with the men?"

"Yes, Mam'selle," Tom grinned, "and get a bit
of money and hide it well.  There's nearly twenty
dollars now."

"Good!  Well, Tom, this winter, study as you
never have before and next summer, if the men come,
work and save.  You shall go away some day, that I
swear.  I'll promise that, but it must be a secret.
You shall have your chance."

"Mam'selle!"  Tom instinctively took off his
hat and stood beside Jo like a ragged and forlorn
knight.

"You've got to pay for all your mother suffered!"  Jo's
lips quivered.  "It's the least you can do."

Then with a nod and a cheery farewell, Jo bobbed
along while Tom Gavot returned to his self-imposed
task of filling in the ruts on the road.  Occasionally
a traveller tossed him a coin, and the work kept him
occupied, but best of all it assumed the dignity of a
job and made him capable of helping intelligently
when the real workers came in the late spring.

Just after midday Jo Morey drew up before the
Home of St. Michael's-on-the-Rocks.  She was very
quiet, very dignified and firm, but her heart was
pounding distractedly against her stiffly boned
waist.  She was to learn, at last, all there was to
learn about the girl who, at that moment, was
locked in the white house behind drawn shades, with
instructions to remain hidden until Jo's return.

There was little doubt now in Mam'selle's mind
but that the fantastic conclusions she had drawn
during the strenuous hours of illness were mere
figments and not to be relied upon.  They could all be
easily explained, no doubt.

Poor Jo!

But, no matter what she was to hear, and
undoubtedly it would be most prosaic, she meant to
keep the girl even if she had to threaten in order to
do so!  She, plain, unlovable Jo Morey, had developed
a sudden and violent fancy for the girl she had
rescued.  Jo was almost ashamed of her emotions,
but she could not, inwardly, control them.
Outwardly, she might scowl and glower, but her heart
beat quick at the touch of the girl's hands, her colour
rose at the tones of the low voice; some women are
thus moved by little children.  Jo, repressed and
suppressed, was like a delicate instrument upon
which her own starved maternal instinct now played
riotously.

She was led to the bare little reception room of
the Home and left to her own devices while a
small maid scurried away to summon the Sister in
charge.

Alone, Jo sat on the edge of a hard chair and tried
to believe that she was prepared for anything—or
nothing, but all the time she was getting more and
more agitated.  When things were at the tensest
she always looked the sternest, so when Sister
Angela entered the room, she was rather taken aback
by the face Mam'selle turned toward her soft greeting.
Sister Angela was the older of the two nuns who
had questioned Jo while the lost girl lay hidden under
the straw in the cart that first day.

"Ah, it's Mam'selle Morey!  A good day to you,
Mam'selle."

"Have you found that girl yet?" bluntly spoke Jo.

The manner and question took the Sister off her
guard.

"Oh! the girl!  I remember, Mam'selle.  We
met you while we were looking for her.  The child
is quite safe, thank you.  We have long wanted to
find a good home for her."

"So you found her?"

Mam'selle was struggling with the fragments of
French at her command and making poor work with
them.  The Sister pretended not to understand.

"The girl," Jo was losing what little control she
had, "is over at my house; she's been terribly ill."

Sister Angela's face grew ashy and she drew her
chair close.  "And now?" she whispered.

"She's going to get well."  Jo settled back.

"And—and she has talked?  She had an illness
here once, the physician told us another shock
might restore her memory.  That sometimes does
happen.  Mam'selle, the girl has remembered
and—talked?"

"She's talked, yes!"  Jo was groping along.  "I
want her story, Sister."

"What is there to tell, Mam'selle?"  Sister Angela
took a chance.  "We always give the sinning mothers
an hour in which to consider whether they will keep
their children or not.  We try to make them see their
duty, if they will not, we assume it.  And the past is
dead.  You know our way here, we do the best we
can for the children.  'Tis wiser to forget—much."

"Sister Angela, I said the girl talked and she
remembered!"

Under Jo's lowering brows the dark eyes gleamed.

"Then, Mam'selle, if the girl remembered and
talked surely you can see why it was best to hush her
story?"

The colour again receded from Sister Angela's
face.  She did not look guilty, but she looked anxious.

She had circulated a report that the missing
girl was on probation in a good home; she had
carried on a still hunt untiringly; and now if Mam'selle
Jo Morey could be prevailed upon to adopt the girl,
how perfectly everything would work out.  And
there was to be a meeting of the managers in a
week!

"Sister, I mean to take this girl if it can be done
legally and quietly, but I will not unless I hear all
I can from you, all there is to know."

"Very well, Mam'selle, we only have the girl's
good at heart, I assure you.  Our Sister Mary was
the one who brought the girl to us four years ago.  I
will send her to you.  As to the legal steps, they are
practical and easy, and when one of our fold goes to
another, that is the end!  We have educated this
girl carefully; she is well trained.  We had always
her interest at heart.  And now I will send Sister
Mary."

Left alone again, Jo clasped her hands close and
stiffened as for an ordeal.

The door opened and closed.  A very pale little
Sister took a chair near Mam'selle and, holding to
her crucifix as to an anchor, she said gently:

"I am to tell you of the little girl, Marie.  'Tis
not much of a story.  We know very little, but the
little were best forgot; it is not a pretty story.

"Four years ago word came from a tavern back
in the hills that a man and child were very ill there
and I went over to nurse them.  The girl had fallen
and hurt her head.  She was quite out of her mind
and I decided to bring her here; the doctor said she
could be moved.  The man, he was the father of the
child, was dying.  I sent for a priest and waited
until the priest came.

"The man was a bit delirious and talked wildly,
but at every question he hushed suddenly as if he
were mortally afraid of something.

"He said he wanted no priest, insisted that he was
able to start on.  He was taking the child to
someone who, he kept repeating, would believe him and
understand.

"When I asked him what there was to believe and
to whom he was taking the child, he looked at me
strangely and laughed!  He died before the priest
came.  I brought the girl away and somehow the
report got around that she, too, had died, and we
thought it best to let the matter rest there.

"A year later two men came to hear what we had
to tell about the man who had died; he was wanted
for—murder!"

To Morey sprang to her feet.

"Not—that!" she panted.  Then quickly
regaining her self-control, "I see now why you felt
you must keep the story secret," she continued, and
sank back limply in her chair.

"Exactly," nodded Sister Mary, then glanced
about the room and lowered her voice.

"I told the men about the father's death—and—I
said the girl had died later.  Mam'selle, I took that
course because one of the men, he said he had known
the dead man, wanted the girl, and I could not trust
the man; his eyes were bad.  I feared for the child.
'Twas better that she stayed where she was, shielded,
cared for.  I had grown to be fond of her.  I taught
her carefully, she was a great help with the younger
children.  I hoped she would come into the Sisterhood,
but perhaps it is best she should have a safe home."

"Is that all?  Did those men tell you nothing
of the past?"  Jo's words came like hard, quick
strokes.

The waxen face of Sister Mary did not change
expression.  She had left life's sordid problems so
far behind that they were mere words to her.

"Oh! they had their story," she said.  "The dead
man had shot his wife because he discovered that
she had a lover.  He shot her in the presence of the
little girl and the lover.  Mam'selle, I believe the
man with the officer was the lover.  He wanted
the child for reasons of his own; that was why I
said—she was dead.

"That's all, Mam'selle."

Jo Morey felt a strange sympathy with the pale
little Sister and a deep gratitude.

"You're a good woman!" she said to Sister Mary.

"I did my best for the girl," the Sister went on,
still holding to her crucifix, "she never recovered
her memory for that, God be praised!  But she had
a bright mind and I trained that carefully.  She
knows much from books; all that I could get for her.
She never took kindly to—religion, and that is why
Sister Angela was thinking of finding a home for her;
the girl was not happy here, but we did our best."

"I am sure you did, Sister!" Jo looked grateful.
"I understand.  But those men, did they not
mention the name of the man they sought?"

Sister Mary drew her brows together.  "The
name?  Yes, but it has escaped me.  It was an
English name if I recall rightly, something
like—Long—no—yes—it was Longley or Longdon,
something sounding like that."

Never in her life had Jo fainted, but she feared she
was going to do so now.  The bare little room was
effaced as though a huge, icy blackness engulfed it.
In the darkness a clock on a shelf ticked madly,
dashingly, like blow upon blow on iron.

"Here is a glass of water, Mam'selle, you are ill."

Sister Mary pressed the glass to Jo's lips and she
drank it to the last drop.

"I have nursed this girl through a long sickness,"
she explained.  "I am tired.  But I will keep her.
Tell Sister Angela to make arrangements and let me
know."

"Very well, Mam'selle.  And the girl, Marie;
she remembers, Sister Angela says.  'Tis a miracle.
I shall miss her, but God has been kind to her."

"She will remember only what I tell her, from now
on!"  Jo set her teeth over her tingling tongue.
"And now, I must go."

Mam'selle almost expected to find it dark when she
went out from the dim room, but it was broad daylight,
and when she looked at the clock in the church
tower she saw that she had been but an hour inside.

In all the years of her life she had never
experienced half so much as she had during the space of
time with the two Sisters.  She was conscious of
trying to keep what she had heard in the Home, out
of her mind; she was afraid to face it in the open.
There were children playing about; a Sister or two
looked at her curiously; she must be alone before
she dared take her terrible knowledge into consideration.
Gravely she went to the caleche, stiffly she
took the reins and clicked to Molly.  A mile from
St. Michael's, much to Molly's disgust, they turned
from the main road and struck into a wood trail
where the snowy slush made travel difficult.  Jo did
not go far, she merely wanted to hide from any
chance passerby.  Then she let the reins drop in her
lap and staring straight ahead—thought!

It was growing cold, that dead cold that comes
when the mercury is dropping.  But Jo was back in
the summer time of her life, she was studying
Langley, and the woman who had lured him, with the
mature power that suffering years had later evolved
in Jo herself.  By some psychic force she seemed
able to follow them far, far.  So far she went in
imagination that she saw the "white high-tops" changing
from shade to shade.  Jo, who had never been fifty
miles from her birthplace, went far in that hour!

She understood Langley as she never had before.
She suffered with him, no longer because of him.
The dreadful scene in the lonely wood-cabin; the
stranger man who had told his story!  And against
that story who could prevail?  But would Langley
have been coming to her with his child had he been
guilty of the crime with which he was charged?  And
Donelle's words: "They will believe me.  Let me
tell, I saw how it was."

Mam'selle, stiff with cold, smiled with rare
radiance as one might who, considering her dishonoured
dead, knows in her heart that he is innocent.

"If the child ever remembers, then I can speak,"
thought poor Jo.  "I believe the man who came to
the Home is the guilty one.  He wanted the girl,
wanted to hush her story.  He must think her dead,
dead, unless she can prove—the truth."

The black tragedy into which poor Mam'selle
had been plunged quickened every sense.  Her one
determination was to hide Langley's child, not only
for her own safety, but in order that the horrible
story of the crime might be stilled.  Langley was
dead, he must rest in peace.  But that man might
be alive; the merest suspicion of Donelle's existence
would bring about the greatest disaster.  He might
claim the girl, by pretending relationship, and then
go to any lengths to insure her silence.  No; come
what might, all must be hidden.

It was dark when Mam'selle Jo reached Point of
Pines.  She took Molly to the stable and fed her,
then silently made her way to the little house.  Not
a gleam of light shone from the windows; all was
quiet and safe.

But was it?  As Jo reached the lowest step of the
porch she saw a black figure crouching under the
living-room window.  So absorbed was the watcher
that he had not heard Jo's approach; neither did he
notice when, on tiptoes, she mounted and stood
behind him, the better to see what might be the
object of his spying.

The shade of the broad window was lowered, but
the bottom rested on the pots of flowers, and there
was a space through which one might look into the
room.  The fire was burning brightly and its
radiance clearly showed Donelle on the couch by the
window, fast asleep, Nick crouching beside her, his
eyes glaring at the intruder outside and his teeth
showing!

"Well, Captain!"

Longville jumped up as if he had been shot.  For
an instant Jo had the master position, but only for
an instant; then Longville spoke.

"So that's what you have been hiding!" he said.

"And this is the way you take to find out?"  Jo
looked dangerous.  She was thinking quickly.  She
had meant to guard the future by safe courses, but
she had little choice now.  Only one thing was clear,
she must save the secret she had just learned.  In
reaching this conclusion Jo did not consider how
badly she was plunging into dangerous depths.
For herself she gave no thought, her innocence and
ignorance made her blind; she stood before her
persecutor and answered blankly like one who must
reply, and does not count the cost.

"Whose girl is that?"

"Mine."

"Yours and Langley's, by God!  And you have the
shamelessness to stand there and tell me so to my
face.  So that's what you went away for, the
summer Langley turned you adrift.  All these years
you've kept your disgrace hidden—where?"

Horrified, Jo staggered back and confronted
Longville with desperate eyes.  She had meant to tell
him that she had adopted the girl; had even felt she
might go so far as to mention the Home, but now!
What was she to do?  This mean and suspicious
mind had fastened on an explanation of the child's
presence in her house that had not even occurred
to her.  No matter what she said she doubted if
Longville would believe her.  She stood in the dark,
face to face with the Captain, while her mind battled
with the question.  "Shall I say the child is my own?"
thought Jo.  "That will stop all further questions,
no one need ever know about the murder, and Donelle
can be kept safe from the hateful suspicion that
I——" she could not even say the horrible thing to
herself.

"Answer me!"  Longville, feeling that his victim
feared, flung all disguise aside.

Still she stared and debated with herself.  She
knew that if she said that she had adopted Donelle,
Longville would not believe her mere statement;
she would have to bare this whole awful story to
this scandal-monger; the man would expect proofs,
he would ferret out the last detail.  Everyone in
the village would know it next day, the child would
be questioned, her house would be the centre of the
curious.

The other horn of the dilemma would be safer
for the child; they would be let alone, she could live
the evil name down.  Sometime the truth would
come out.

Jo had decided.  She faced Longville, her head up,
her jaws clamped, silent.

"Answer me—you—harlot!"

The word stung Jo Morey and she sprang forward.
Longville thought she was going to strike him and
like the coward he was, he dodged.

"You dare not speak for yourself," he snarled.

Then Jo laughed.  The sound frightened her.
She did not feel like laughing, heaven knew; but the
relief of it steadied her.  Then, as one does who sees a
struggle is useless, she let herself go.

"Oh! yes; I can speak for myself, Captain.  The
girl is mine.  Where I've kept her is my business,
and you and I have finished business together.
That—that brother-in-law of yours came after my
money; was willing to marry me for it, and flung
some hateful words in my face.  But he set me
thinking.  Why should a woman do without a child
because a man will have none of her, or only that
which he wants?  If I could not have my own in
man's way, I take it in my own.  I have my child,
and now—what will you do?  If you make my life
and hers a hell here I have money and can go
elsewhere.  Go so far that your black words will not be
heard.  On the other hand, if you mind your business
and leave me and mine alone, we'll stay.  And now
get off my property."

Longville was so utterly dumbfounded that he
slunk from the porch and was in the road before he
regained his self-control.  Then he started back, but
Jo had gone inside, locked the door noisily, and was
pulling the shade down to its extreme limit!





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`MARCEL TAKES HER STAND BY JO`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER VII


.. class:: center medium bold

   MARCEL TAKES HER STAND BY JO

.. vspace:: 2

Apparently Longville decided to mind his
business, but that, he declared did not
exclude Mam'selle's.  Greed, curiosity, and
indecision caused him to refrain from persecution.
Indeed the psychology of the situation was peculiar.
For the first time in her life Jo Morey became
interesting.  A woman with a past may, or may not be happy,
but she certainly affords speculation and conjecture.
Point of Pines, when it had considered Jo before,
felt an amused sort of pity for her and, since she
asked nothing of it, left her completely alone.  But
now, at this late day, she sailed into the open in such
an unlooked-for manner that she inspired awe
rather than the contempt or outraged scorn of Point
of Pines.  Without stir or fuss she simply annexed
the child, and went the even gait that she had
heretofore gone alone.

She was a mystery, and the men, generally in the
fragrant atmosphere of Dan's Place, discussed her
smartness and independence with resentment, and
a—smothered—admiration!  The women, especially
those with whom Jo had shared hours of pain and
sorrow, wondered where she had been when her own
hour overtook her; whose hands had helped her who
never refused help to others.  And who had kept
Jo's child?  That question stirred in Dan's Place
and in the houses roundabout.

"Perhaps some hill woman has kept the child,"
whispered the women over their work; but to hunt
among the hills would be futile.  Besides, Mam'selle's
money had undoubtedly closed any lips which
might be able to furnish facts.

It was a thrilling situation.  One not to be despised
by the lonely hamlet.  Some were for, some against,
Mam'selle Morey; but no one wanted, or dared, to
ignore her utterly.  Marcel Longville issued forth
from the cloud of indecision, girded on her armour,
and struck a blow for Jo Morey.

In order to make known her position, she wrapped
herself in a shawl one day, and boldly walked to
Jo's house in the middle of the afternoon, when
several men, her husband among them, were sitting
about the stove in the tavern, their faces turned to
the highway.

"A woman like Mam'selle Morey can corrupt a
town unless—"  It was Gavot who spoke, and he
sniffed disagreeably, looking down the road.
Longville was watching his wife pass; he grew hot with
anger, but made no reply.

"Marcel can cut her up with her tongue.  It
takes a woman to slash a woman," Pierre continued.

The proprietor, Dan Kelly, came to the fore.  He
rarely took part in conversation.  He was like a big,
silent, congenial Atmosphere.  He pervaded his
Place, but did not often materialize in conversation.
Now he spoke.

"Queer, ain't it," he drawled, "how we just
naturally hate to get our women mixed up?  Lord knows
we must have both kinds—we've fixed things that
way—but when they edge toward each other we
get damned religious and moral, don't we?  Why?"

The words rolled around the stifling room like a
bomb.  Every man dodged, not knowing whether
the thing was aimed at him or not, and everyone
was afraid it might explode.

"Why?" continued Dan.

Then, getting no verbal answer, he went to the
chair behind the bar, his throne, and became once
more an Atmosphere.

But by that time Marcel was sitting in a rocker in
the middle of Jo Morey's cheerful living room,
watching Donelle asleep upon the couch.  Jo was at her
loom and both women whispered as they talked.

"I had to come, Mam'selle," said Marcel, "not
because you need me or because I want to act a part,
making myself better or different; it isn't that.  I
just want to stand a bit closer because I feel you are
a good woman.  I've always felt that, and my
opinion hasn't changed, only I want you to know."

Jo tried not to smile; she felt she was taking of
Marcel's best under false pretences.  Had she been
what they all thought, this neighbourly act would
have bowed her with gratitude.  As it was she felt a
deeper sympathy for Marcel than she had ever felt,
and she yearned to confide in her—but she dared not.

"Nights I get to thinking," Marcel droned on
while Jo's busy fingers flew at her task, "how it was
with you when she came," Marcel nodded toward the
couch.

And now Jo's face twitched.  How little any one
guessed, or could guess, how it had been with her at
the time when another woman gave birth to the girl.

"I got through somehow," she replied vaguely.

"We never get to a wall without finding an opening
to crawl through, Marcel.  It may be a pretty tight
squeeze, but we get through."

"God knows those times are hard for a woman,
Mam'selle."

"They are, bitter hard."

"And men folks don't take them into account."

"How can they, Marcel?  It wouldn't be reasonable
to expect it."

"It's queer, Mam'selle, how this—this thing that
makes women willing to go through it, goes on and
on.  It means one thing to a woman; another to a
man, but it seems to pay, though the Lord knows
why, or how."

Jo was thinking of the subtle something that she,
poor Tom Gavot, Marcel, and all the rest clung to.
The thing that none of them understood.

"I'm glad you've got her!" Marcel suddenly broke
in fiercely, again nodding toward the sleeping girl.
"It just proves that you, Mam'selle, had the
woman's reason, not the man's.  That makes the
difference.  A woman cannot, a decent woman I mean,
forgive a woman for acting like a man; casting off
her young and all that, but she can understand—this!
And isn't she fine and rare, Mam'selle.  It's
another queer thing, how many a child that comes in
the straight and narrow way isn't half what it should
be.  Sometimes they just haven't spirit enough to
stay, mine didn't, and then such children as—as
yours, Mam'selle, seem to have God's blessing
shining all over them."

So firmly and simply had Marcel accepted what, in
reality, did not exist that poor Jo felt the uselessness
of confession drawing closer and closer about her.
For some days past she had been considering Marcel
as a recipient for the truth, for Jo hated to accept,
without some protest, the belief that she felt was
spreading among her silent people.  It might ease
her own conscience to confide in Marcel; it might be
a bit of proof in the future, but unless she told all the
truth she could hardly hope to impress even the
kindly Marcel, for she saw that the shabby,
down-trodden woman was accepting her as the most vital
and absorbing thing that had ever happened in her
life.  Jo, in her real self, had never inspired Marcel.
Jo, in her present guise, not only claimed interest,
but aroused purpose.  She brought to life the struggling
nobility that was inherent in Marcel but which
life had never before utilized.

"I'm going to stand by her," Marcel nodded
toward the couch, "by her and you—so help me God!"

Jo went to the quivering woman and laid her hand
on the thin, drooping shoulder.  She was mutely
thanking Marcel in the name of all women who sadly
needed such support.

"I'd rather have been a—a bad woman," Marcel
quivered, using the term almost reverently, "and
have had such as this to comfort me, than be the
thing men think I ought to be, and have——"  She
did not finish, but Jo knew she meant those piteous
little graves on the hillside.

"It don't pay to be good, Mam'selle!"

"Yes; it does, Marcel, it does."  Jo's voice
shook.  "It pays to do your best with the things
that *are*, as you see them.  It's when we try to do
what others think is good, others who haven't our
problems, that we get lost.  We women folks have
got to blaze our own way and stick to it.  No man,
or man's God, is ever going to side-track me.  And,
Marcel, I thank you for what you came to do for
me.  There may be a time coming when you can
serve me, and I'm sure you will.  But if ever I did
you a good turn, you've more than paid me back
to-day."

Long after Marcel had gone to her cheerless home
Jo Morey thought and thought, and as her heart grew
soft her head grew hard.  While her lips trembled
her eyes glowed with fire, and from that moment
she was able, in a strange, perplexed way, to project
herself into the position that was falsely forced
upon her.  As she accepted it, Langley's wife was
largely eliminated.  It was Jo, herself, who had
followed Langley to the far places; it was she who had
borne and reared his child out of her great love.
It was she, Jo Morey, who had stood by him, shielded
him to the end, and was now determined to fill his
place and her own toward the girl!—and to keep the
secret!  Langley had loved fine things, books, music.
Jo recalled how he could fiddle and whistle, why,
he could imitate any bird that sang in the summer
woods.  Well, somehow Donelle should have those
things!  Jo went later to the attic, and brought down
books, long-hidden books, among them one Langley
had given her because he loved some verses in it.
Donelle should have learning, too.  Jo meant to
consult the priest about that.  In short, the girl should
have her chance.  Poor Jo; even then she did not
take into consideration the harm she was unconsciously
doing the girl.  She felt all-powerful.  Her
starved and yearning affection went out to Donelle
and met no obstacle, for the girl, her health regained,
was the sunniest, most grateful creature that one
could imagine.  No need to warn her to silence
concerning St. Michael's, that experience was apparently
as if it never had been.

The legal steps had been taken, and Jo was in
complete control.  The gates of St. Michael's were
closed forever upon the girl known as Marie.  She
now faced the world, though she did not know it, as
Mam'selle's illegitimate child.

Sometimes this fact frightened Jo, but she knew
her people fairly well.  The ugly belief about herself
had been so silently borne that she trusted that when
Donelle went among them her advent would not loose
tongues.  For the rest; she meant constantly to
guard the girl, meant, in time, to send her away to
school.  Jo dreamed long dreams and, mentally keen
and wise, was stupid in her ignorance of the more
sordid aspects of life.

"If they'll only keep still!" she fervently hoped.
And she based her present life on that.

In the meantime Donelle, in a marvellous fashion,
had appropriated everything about her, Jo included.
Nick was the girl's abject slave.  Sometimes he'd
turn his eyes on his mistress remorsefully, as he
edged toward Donelle; his affections were sorely
torn.  The animals all learned to watch for Donelle,
Molly, the horse, was foolishly sentimental.  The
house rang with girlish laughter and song.  In the
once-still rooms a constant chatter went on whenever
Jo and the girl were together.  Donelle, especially,
had much to say and she said it in a strange, original
way that set Jo thinking on many new lines.

How was she to keep this girl from knowing the
truth, once she mingled with others?  And how was
she to keep her apart?  Donelle had a passion for
friendliness.  To Jo, who had lived her life alone,
the girl's constant desire for conversation and
companionship was little less than appalling.  Then,
too, Donelle was a startling combination of
precociousness and childishness.  Her mind had been
well-trained; early she had been utilized in teaching the
younger children of the Home.  She had absorbed
all the books at her command; her imagination was
ungoverned, and some of the Sisters had shared
confidences with her that had added fuel to the
inquisitive, bright mind.

There were times when Jo Morey felt absurdly
young compared with Donelle, young and crude.
Then suddenly the light would fade from the girl's
face, something, probably her incapacity to go back
of her life in the Home, would make her helpless,
weak, and appealing.

So far, the little white house, Jo, and the animals,
supplied Donelle's every need, but Mam'selle sensed
complications for the future.  She watched and
listened while Donelle read and then enlarged
romantically upon what she read; she felt lost already
in the face of the problem.

"Mamsey," Donelle suddenly exclaimed one night,
"I want you to take off those horrid old man-things.
Let us burn them."

Jo was rigged out in her father's ancient garments;
she had been to the outhouses working long and
hard.

"What's the matter with them?" she asked half-guiltily.

"They're ugly and they're smelly."  This was
true.  "Besides, they hide you and most folks
wouldn't find you.  They go with your scrouchy
frown," here Donelle mimicked Jo's most forbidding
manner, "and your tight mouth.  Why, Mamsey,
it took, even me, a long while to find you behind
these things.  I had to keep remembering how you
looked while I was so sick in the long, dark nights;
how you looked when you kept—It—away."

The vague look crept to Donelle's eyes, she rarely
beat against the wall that hid her past.  For that, Jo
was hourly thankful.

"But of course now I can always find you, Mamsey.
I just say to the thing you put up in front of
you, 'Get out of the way' and then I see you, my
kind, my dear, faithful, blessed Mamsey, shining!"

Poor Jo as a shining object was rather absurd; but
the colour rose to her dark face, as it might have at
the tones of a lover.

"You're a beautiful Mamsey when you don't
hide.  I suppose my father could find you, and
that's why he wanted to bring me to you.  Mamsey,
did you love my father?"

Poor Jo, standing by the stove, her ugly garments
steaming and hot, looked at the girl as a frightened
culprit might; then she saw that the question was
put from the most primitive viewpoint and so she said:

"Yes, I loved him."

"Of course.  Well, now, Mamsey, will you let me
burn those ugly old, smelly clothes?"

"No; but I'll put them in the attic, child."

"That's a good Mamsey.  And the scowl and
the tight mouth, will you put them in the attic, too?"

Jo grinned.  The relaxation was something more
complete than a smile.

"You're daft," was all she said, but her deep,
splendid eyes met the clear, golden ones with pathetic
surrender.

And then, later on toward spring, when Jo was
revelling in the richness of her life and putting away
the thoughts that disturbed her concerning Donelle's
future, several things occurred that focussed her upon
definite action.

She and the girl were sitting in the living room one
evening while a soft, penetrating rain pattered against
the windows.

"That rain," Jo remarked, her knitting needles
clicking, "will get to the heart of things, and make
them think of growing."  Donelle looked up from
her book.  Her eyes were full of warmth and sunlight.

"You say beautiful things sometimes, Mamsey."  Then
quite irrelevantly, "Why doesn't any
one ever come here?  I should think everyone would
be here all the time, other places are so ugly and
other people so—so—well, so snoozy."

What Jo had feared rose to the surface.  She
stopped knitting and gazed helplessly at Donelle.

"At first," the girl went on musingly, "I thought
there were no folks; it was so empty outdoors.  Then
I saw people once in a while crawling along.  Why
do they crawl, Mamsey?  You and I don't.  And
then I ran around a bit, when no one was looking,
and there are some horrid places, one place where
only men go.  It is nasty, dirty, and bad.  It sort of
makes all the houses seem smudgy.  There was a
big man at the door, and he saw me and he said,
'So you're Mam'selle Jo Morey's girl!'" just like
that.  And with this Donelle impersonated Dan
Kelly so that his merest acquaintance would have
recognized him.  "And I made a very nice bow,"
to Jo's blank horror, Donelle showed how she had
done it, "and I said 'I am, sir; and who are you?'
And he put his hand in his pockets, so!  and he said,
'I'm Dan, Dan Kelly, and any time you want a
little chat, come to the side door.  Mrs. Kelly and
I will make you welcome.'  And—what is the
matter, Mamsey?"

For Jo's knitting had fallen to the floor, and her
face was haggard.

"You—you must never go near that place again,"
she gasped.

"I never will, Mamsey, for the smell kept coming
back to me for days and days.  And the man's
eyes—I saw them in my sleep, they were dirty eyes!"

"My God!" moaned Jo, but Donelle was off on
another trail.

"But Mamsey, why don't we have folks in our
lives.  Is it because it is winter, and the roads bad?"

"Yes——" this was said doubtfully; but
something had to be said.

"Well, I'm glad of that, for I love people.  I even
liked some of the Sisters.  There was one who made
me guess whenever I saw her, it was Sister Mary,
she was little and pretty and had a sorry face as if
she was lost and couldn't find the way out.  Almost
I wanted to ask her to run away with me every time
I tried to do it myself.  And the babies were so
jolly, Mamsey.  I used to play that I could make
nice, happy little lives for them.  There was one,"
Donelle's eyes dimmed, "Patsy I called her, her
name was Patricia—such a big, hard name for such
a cunning little tot.  I fixed up a perfectly dear life
for Patsy, but poor Patsy didn't seem to want any
kind of a life.  She'd rather lie in my arms and rock.
I used to sing to her.  Then she died!"

The tragedy touched Jo strangely.  She had heard
little of the details of Donelle's institution life; but
those details, few as they were, had been vital and
impressive.

"Yes, Patsy died.  I missed her terribly.  Oh!
Mamsey, I couldn't do without folks.  Why, I want
to tell you something; you like to have me tell you
everything, don't you, Mamsey?"

"Yes; yes."  Jo took up her knitting, dropped
two stitches, made an impatient remark under her
breath, and caught them up.  "If you didn't tell me
everything I'd feel pretty bad," she went on lamely.

"Well, it's this way, Mamsey.  I don't cry any
more because I can't remember.  I begin with you
and me.  You see what I don't remember is like the
preface in a book; I never read it and it doesn't
matter, anyway.  So we begin—you and I, and
everyone is supposed to know about us without telling;
and the things that happened before are just helps
to get us into the first chapter.  Then, after that,
folks come along and we don't ask them any questions,
they just get mixed up with our story and on we
all go until that stupid old word End, brings us up
with a jolt.  Mamsey, dear, I want to get all tangled
with stories and stories and people and people; I
want to be part of it.  I'm willing to pay, you have
to, all the books show that.  I'll suffer and struggle
along, and fall and get up again, but I must be part
of it all."

Jo had drawn a full needle out, leaving all the
helpless stitches gaping.  "Lord!" she murmured under
her breath, and at the moment decided to go to
Father Mantelle on the morrow and get what help
she could.

Aloud she said, quite calmly, very tenderly for
her, poor soul:

"I wish you'd take that old book," it was the one
Langley had given her; there was no name or date
in it, "and read me some of those verses that sort of
make you feel good, good and—sleepy."

"I just love this," Donelle said, quick to fall into
Jo's mood:

   |  The scarlet of the maples can shake me like a cry
   |    Of bugles going by.
   |  And my lonely spirit thrills
   |    To the frosty asters like smoke upon the hills.
   |

"Why, you don't like the words?  Your eyes are
wet, Mamsey!"

"I'm tired, my eyes ache with the knitting and
weaving.  The winter always gets me."  Jo was
gathering up her work.  "We must go to bed, child.
I'm glad spring is coming and we can work in the
open."

But Donelle was singing, to a tune of her own,
other lines of the interrupted poem:

   |  And my heart is like a rhyme
   |    With the yellow and the purple keeping time.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE PRIEST AND THE ROAD MENDER`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER VIII


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE PRIEST AND THE ROAD MENDER

.. vspace:: 2

The following day was warm.  Jo went to the
upper pasture early in the day to make plans
for the spring sowing.  It was a day full of
promise; winter seemed almost a memory.

Donelle had been left to finish the work about the
house.  It should have taken her until Jo returned,
but things flew through the girl's hands, she was so
eager to get out of doors.  She sang and gavotted
with Nick who, by the way, had sneaked into hiding
rather than make a choice as to whether he should
follow Jo or remain with Donelle.  When he came
forth all responsibility was ended.  He remained
with Donelle!

"Nick," she said presently, "how would you like
to take a walk?"

A frantic thump gave proof of Nick's feelings.

"All right, come on!  We've got to find folks if
folks won't find us, Nick.  I'm pretty nearly starved
to death for folks!"

Donelle made a wide sweep back of Dan's Place.
Jo's words were in her mind, but more, the memory
of Dan's "dirty eyes" warned her.  She took to the
woods on the river side, and was soon fascinated
by the necessity of jumping from rock to rock in
order to escape the mushy, mossy earth.  Nick was
frantic with delight.  Jo never would jump or nose
around among the trees where such delectable scents
lurked.

Finally the two emerged on the highway a mile
beyond the little cluster of houses which was Point
of Pines, and nothing was in sight but a lonely,
boyish figure apparently carrying mud from one place on
the road and depositing it in another.

"That's an awfully funny thing to do," Donelle
mused.  "Maybe he's a moon calf."

Donelle had seen Marcel and Longville, had even
talked with Marcel and liked her.  She had heard Jo
speak of others, the Gavots among them, but they
were mere names to which, occasionally, Jo had added
an illuminating description.

"That low-down beast, Gavot," Mam'selle had
picturesquely said to Marcel once when not noticing
Donelle's presence, "ought to have Tom taken from
him.  That boy will be driven to Dan's, if we don't
look out.  We ought to raise money and give the
boy a start."

"I shouldn't wonder," mused Donelle, now, standing
in the road and eyeing the only other figure on
the landscape, "I shouldn't wonder if that was
Gavot's Tom.  I'll just see!"  So she walked on
sedately and came upon her quarry unexpectedly.

"I believe," she said, showing her teeth in a
friendly smile, "I believe you must be Tom Gavot."

The boy turned abruptly, spilling as he did so the
shovelful of soft earth he was carrying.

"And—you—are Mam'selle's girl!"

Tom was very handsome with a frank, appealing
look that seemed to deprecate the rags and
sordidness that hampered his appearance.

"Yes.  What are you doing?"

"Mending the roads.  And you?"

"Taking a walk on the road you mend."

They both laughed at this, Tom flinging his head
back, Donelle folding her arms over her slim body.

"How did you know me?" asked Tom.

"Why—why, I heard Mamsey talk about your father."

Tom's face clouded.  His father, like his rags,
hampered his very thoughts.

"How did you know me?"  Donelle was growing shy.

"I think maybe you won't like it if I tell you."

Tom felt very old compared to this girl in her short
skirts and long, light braids.  He had never felt
young in his life, but he had inherited that ease and
grace of manner which his father abused so.

"I should just love to hear," Donelle was fingering
Nick's ears nervously.

"Well, then, I spied on you.  All winter, I spied.
I heard them talking about you, and I had to see for
myself.  I always have to know things for myself."

"So do I.  But after you spied," Donelle laughed,
her yellow eyes shining, "what did you think?"

"Oh!  I don't know."  Tom shifted his position.
"I thought you were all right."

They both laughed again at that.

"Are you mostly on the roads?" Donelle asked
presently.  Nick was growing restless under her
hands.

"Yes, when I'm not somewhere else.  I fish some,
and Father Mantelle teaches me and I read a lot,
but I'm on the road a good deal."

"I think," Donelle beamed, "I think your Father
Mantelle is going to teach me.  I heard Mamsey
talking about it.  Does he keep school?"

"No.  He's the curé.  He teaches only a few.  He
knows everything in the world.  He once lived in
Quebec.  He's old so they sent him here."

"Well!"  Donelle suddenly turned.  "I'm going
now, but I shall often walk on the road."  She flung
this back mischievously.  At a distance her shyness
disappeared.

A few days later she met Tom again, this time she
was more at her ease.  They were young, lonely, and
the spring helped thaw the superficial crust of
convention.

It was after they had seen each other several times
that Tom confided to Donelle his feeling about roads.

"They're like friends," he said, blushing and
laughing.

"A road doesn't mean anything to me," Donelle
replied, "but something to walk or ride on,
something that gets you somewhere."

"Yes, it does get you somewhere, but you don't
always have to ride or walk on it.  If you think
about it, it gets you somewhere," said Tom.

Donelle paused to whistle Nick back, the dog was
after something in the bushes.

"You're very queer," she said at last eyeing Tom
furtively.  "Now I think about dogs and cats and
birds as real, but I never thought about a road being
real."

Donelle was looking at the ground as if it were
something alive upon which she had stepped
inadvertently.

"Tell me more about roads," she said.

"There isn't much, I've never told any one
before—they would laugh."

"I will not laugh."  And indeed Donelle was very
serious.

"It began when I was a little chap.  I didn't have
much to play with and a boy has to have something.
I used to wonder where the road went and when I
was only five I got to the top of the hill and looked
beyond.  My father walloped me for running away.
I wasn't really running away, but of course he
wouldn't have understood, and my mother was
frightened.  I didn't go again for a long time.  I
was always a bit of a coward and I remembered the
whipping."

"I don't believe you are a coward, Tom Gavot."

"I am, a little.  You see, I hate to be hurt, I sort
of—dread it, but once I make the start, I forget and
go on like everyone else."

"I think that's being braver than most people.
If you are afraid and still do things, that's not
cowardly."  Donelle spoke loyally and Tom gave her a
long side glance of gratitude.

The spring was in Tom's blood, this lately-come
friend was developing him rapidly.

"Well, anyway, by the time I was seven I managed
the hill again.  From that time on I went every day.
I think there must be a dent in a rock where I used
to sit, playing with the road."

"Playing with the road!  Playing with the road!"
Donelle repeated.  "Oh! but you are queer.  What
did you play, Tom Gavot?"

"Oh!  I sent people up and down it.  The people
I did not like I sent down and never let them come
back."

"That is perfectly lovely.  Go on, Tom."

"And then I made up my mind that when I was
big enough I'd run away with my mother.  I always
meant to explain to her about the road, but I didn't.
Sometimes I fancied that people would come over
the road bringing to me the things I wanted."

"What things, Tom?"

"Oh! all sorts of things that boys want and don't
get.  After I grew older and Father Mantelle began
to teach me, I still felt as if the road was a friend, but
I did not play with it any more.  Then one summer
some surveyors and engineers came and one man,
he was a great sort, let me talk to him and he made
me think about roads in quite another way.  I tell
you, my road had got pretty rutty, so I began filling
in the holes.  It was the only decent thing I could do
when I'd used it so; and besides it kept me near the
men and they helped me to know things that I
really wanted."

"What, Tom Gavot?"

"Why, I want to learn how to make roads.  When
I can, I am going away and I'm not coming back
until I can do more than fill in holes."

"I shall miss you dreadfully when you go!" said
Donelle.  It all seemed imminent and real to her now.
"Of course you must go, but—well, the road will be
pretty lonely until you come back."  Then the girl
looked up.

"I sort of feel," she said whimsically, "that I
ought to be the right kind—of a girl to walk on your
road, Tom Gavot."

"Well, you are."

"No, I haven't told Mamsey that I know you.
I've come with Nick when Mamsey was off on the
farm.  She thinks I'm spinning or weaving, but
I hurry through and get out.  I've hoped that
someone would tell her, but they haven't."

"Would she mind if she knew?" asked Tom, and
his dark face reddened.

"I don't know, but I think I must *think* she would
or I would have told.  She and I talk of everything
right out; everything but you."

For a moment the two walked on in silence.
Then Tom spoke.

"You'd better tell her," he said.  Then with a
brave attempt at cheerfulness: "When I come
back, Donelle, all the world can see us walking on
the road and it won't matter."

"I'm going to tell Mamsey to-day," murmured
Donelle.  Somehow she felt as if she had wronged
Tom.  "This very day."

Gavot looked into her face.  He suddenly felt
old and detached as if he had got a long way ahead
of her on the road.

"Your eyes are a strange colour," he said, "they
look as if there was a light behind them shining
through."

They both laughed at that, and then Donelle
whistled Nick to her and turned.

"I'm going to tell Mamsey," she said, "good bye."

Tom looked after her and his eyes grew hard and
lonely.

"Good-bye," he repeated.  "Good-bye," but the
girl was out of sight.

That afternoon she told Jo, but she advanced
toward her confession by so indirect a route that she
mislead Mam'selle.

"I wish you'd tell me about Tom Gavot," she said.

"Why?  What does Tom matter?  Poor lad, he's
got a beast of a father."

"Was his mother a beast?"

"No.  She was a sad, hunted soul."

"It is too bad she died, if she had waited Tom
would have taken her on his road."

Jo looked up from her sewing.

"What are you talking about?" she asked.

"Tom Gavot.  He used to play with the road
and now he mends it.  Some day he's going to
make roads.  They'll be splendid roads, I'm sure,
and——"

"What do you know of Tom Gavot, Donelle?"

Jo started as she had when Donelle had told her of
Dan Kelly.

"Mamsey, don't be angry, I know I should have
told you.  I don't know why I didn't, but while you
were away I hurried and got through my work and
then I was so lonely.  I went out on the road—Nick
and I, and I found Tom Gavot."

"You've seen him—often?"

And now Jo's eyes were stern and frightened.

"Why, yes, I suppose so.  I didn't count.  It
seems as if I had always known him.  He's wonderful.
Besides knowing about roads, he knows books,
all kinds.  Father Mantelle teaches him.  I'd like
to go, too, and learn from Father Mantelle."

"Well, you'll not study with Tom Gavot!"  Jo
was perplexed.  She decided to go the very next day
to the priest.

"Why not, Mamsey?"

"One sort of learning for girls; another for boys."  Jo
snapped her thread.

"I wonder why, Mamsey!  They both travel the
same road."

The word made Jo nervous.

"No, they do not!" she said sharply.

"Well, I shall.  You can choose your road, can't
you, Mamsey?  I mean the sort of things you learn?"

"No."

"It's all wrong then."

"Stop asking stupid questions, child, about things
you do not know," Jo broke in.

"But that's why I ask questions, because I don't
know.  Are they stupid?"

"Yes, very.  Now come, Donelle, and help me
get supper."

It was mid-afternoon of the next day when Jo
started for Father Mantelle's.  Her errand was a
very simple one: she wanted the old man to teach
Donelle.  Not while he was instructing Tom Gavot,
however!

As she walked along the muddy road, picking her
way as she could, Jo was thinking of how much or
how little she should tell of her relations with
Donelle.  She had grown to accept what she felt people
believed and it no longer caused her indignation;
there were graver problems.  But the incident that
Donelle had related of her conversation with Dan
Kelly had thoroughly aroused her.  Her consciousness
of injustice could not save her from the shock of
the brutal meaning of Dan's attitude.

"They'll get to think the girl's common property
if I don't set her above their reach," muttered Jo, and
then wondered whether it would be safer to lay the
truth bare to Father Mantelle.  Would it be safer
for Donelle to come forth in her true character, as
the daughter of a supposed murderer, or to remain as
she was, the supposed love-child of a deserted woman?
For herself Jo Morey took little heed; the self-respect
that had always upheld her came to her support
now.  Had Donelle been hers, she believed her
inheritance would have been better than that which
was rightfully hers from her real mother.

"A minister's words can't make or mar these
things," she muttered, "and since my blood doesn't
flow in the girl's veins, my common sense can save
her, God helping me!"

As she plodded on poor Jo thought of Langley
himself.  She had never believed the accusation brought
against him.  She could not, but what proof had she
to support her belief?  And somewhere, in the world,
possibly, that man was still alive who had brought
forth the charge.  Might he not at this late day
materialize and menace Donelle were she, Jo, to
let the full light of truth on her?

What reason was there for that strange man to
want to get possession of Langley's child?  Was he
afraid of her?  Did he want to silence her, or—and
here poor Jo stopped in the road and breathed
hard—had he believed that Donelle was his?

For a moment Jo grew dizzy.  Suppose he did
think so.  How could she prove the contrary?
Would her insistence as to resemblance or her innate
belief in her love going true, weigh against any proof
which that unknown man might have?

Less and less did Jo believe that Donelle would
ever recall the past.  And if she did, what would it
avail?

"I think I will have to let the poor child stagger
along with me tacked to her past," she concluded,
"her chances for safety are better, though she may
never know it.  I may be able to keep her from
hearing, people do forget, and my money and her
learning may help."  Jo sighed and trudged on.

The relations between Father Mantelle and Mam'selle
were very peculiar.  The old priest admired
her intelligence and was amused by her keen wit
and independence.  He simply could not account
for her and that added to his interest.  He had not
been in Point of Pines long, he rarely left it, and never
had company unless a passing father stopped for
refreshment or a report.  In short, Mantelle was as
much a mystery as Mam'selle, and for that very
reason they unconsciously respected each other.

They never discussed religion, but Mantelle's
attitude toward Jo had been always one of esteem
and neighbourliness.

"In loneliness the poor soul has worked out her
own redemption," Mantelle had decided.  At first
he had pondered upon Mam'selle's loneliness, but
had never questioned it, having much sympathy for
any one who, for any reason, could not mingle freely
with his fellows.

When Jo entered the priest's house his servant,
an old Indian woman, showed her to a rear room in
which she had never been before.

It surprised Jo by its comfort and even luxury.
Books lined the walls, rugs covered the rude board
flooring; there were comfortable chairs, broad tables,
and a clear fire burning on the spotless hearth.

The old man sat before the fire, and as he looked up
and saw Jo his delicate face flushed.  Something
in his manner caught her attention at once.  Subtle
as it was, she was keenly sensitive of it.

"He's heard!" thought Jo, and stiffened.

Father Mantelle had heard and he thought, he
certainly hoped, that the erring daughter had come
to confess.  It was not in the church, but that did
not matter; more was dragged out of
heavily-burdened souls in that comfortable room than was
ever got in the small church on the hill.

The priest meant to be very kind, very tolerant;
he knew the world outside Point of Pines and was
extremely human when men and women deserved
his kindness.  But until they were brought to the
proper state of mind, mercy must be withheld, and
this disclosure of Jo's past had shaken him
tremendously.  Certainly whatever he had thought
about her, he had not thought this!  He felt
that he, in his office and character, had been grossly
deceived.  He had been permitted to associate on
equal terms with a woman outside the pale.  It was
outrageous.

Something intangible, but strangely like Dan
Kelly's manner toward Donelle, marked Mantelle's
attitude at the present moment.  A half-concealed
familiarity, an assumption of authority.

"Well, well, you have come, daughter," he said,
and pointed Jo to the chair across the hearth.  He
thought Jo had been driven to him in her extremity,
he had never addressed her as "daughter" before.

"Father," Jo began bluntly, "I've come to ask
your help with this young girl I've adopted."

The priest thought Mam'selle hard.  Indeed
Longville had told him, in strict privacy, that she
was hard and defiant.  For the good of her own soul
and the soul of other women likely to defy the laws
of God and man, she must be brought to a repentant
state.  Now that he understood conditions, Mantelle
was prepared to reduce Jo to that desirable state.
He smiled kindly, blandly; he was a bit daunted but
he realized that, erring as Mam'selle was, she was no
ordinary woman.

He kindly led her on.

"Though you have seen your duty late, daughter,"
he said gently, "there is still time to strive for the
child's best good."

Then Jo told him quite concisely of her desires for
Donelle.

"I want to have her learn all that you can teach
her, Father," she said, "and after that—well, I
have no plans, but my money and life will be devoted
to the girl."

There was a suspicion of defiance and bitterness
in Mam'selle's tone.

Now Mantelle had only seen Jo's adopted daughter
at a distance.  Having no authority over the parish
of St. Michael's he had not connected the girl's past
with the institution there.  He had asked Longville
whence Mam'selle Morey had brought the girl, but
as Longville did not know, he had let the matter drop
as non-essential, but it puzzled him.

"You think it wise to keep the child in Point of
Pines?" he asked.  "You think it for her good,
after all these years, to—to bring the unfortunate
past to the—the surface?"

"Yes," Jo answered and her lips drew close.
She was thinking of Dan Kelly, but she believed
Father Mantelle and she could outwit him.

"My daughter, do you think this would be fair to
the girl?"

"Why not?"

"Is it right, or just, that she should suffer for the
wrong of a—another?"

"No, it is not right."  Jo said this as a general
truth.

"But you think your money can buy favour?
Mam'selle, you are wrong.  There are some things
money, not even years of blameless life, can buy.

"Your people, I am sure, have treated you kindly,
compassionately, and they will continue to do so,
if you show the proper spirit.  But you must not,
daughter, think that gold can wipe away the result
of defiance to the laws of God and man.  You must
be repentant, prove that you have the best interests
of this girl at heart, and then, then only can the
future be secure."

The thin, delicate face was pale and stern, the deep
eyes burned.  Not only the sanctity of Mantelle's
authority, but his position among men was being
questioned by the woman before him.  And Jo was
defiant, there was no doubt about that.

"Your kind heart, daughter, has betrayed you into
error.  Before bringing this child here you should
have consulted me.  Much might have been saved
for us all."

"What would you have advised?"  Mam'selle
dropped her eyes and the forbidding brows seemed
to hide every kindly expression of her face.

"I should have strongly advised against letting
the innocent suffer for the guilty!"  Mantelle's voice
was stern.

"Yes, but she had to have a home; care, the best
possible."

"To give that, daughter, is not in your power.
In violating the most sacred emotions of life, in
spurning the very safeguards of society, you put yourself
outside the pale, as far as the child's best good is
concerned.  Women should fully understand this
before they take the fatal step.  The price must be
paid!  If, by assuming your duty at this late day
you could condone the past, I would help you, but
I cannot advise keeping this girl here.  For her
truest good, she should be saved, where only such
unfortunates can be saved."

"And that is?"  Mam'selle's voice was slow and even.

"In the bosom of the church, daughter.  Send the
child to St. Michael's; let them train her there for a
life of devotion and service in a field where
temptation, inherited weakness——"

Mantelle got no further for Jo—laughed!

The priest rose in his chair, white with anger.

"You laugh?" he said as if his hearing had
betrayed him.

"Forgive me, Father, but it struck me as being
rather hard on the girl that, for a wrong she never
committed, she should be condemned to—to exile;
not even given a chance of her own."

"You stole that from her, daughter!"

"I?  Why, how could I?  And is the Church
able to accept whatever service, my—this young
girl might give, while the world is unable to do so?"

"It can."

Then Mam'selle stood up.  Her patient, work-worn
hands were folded before her, she raised her
deep, sad eyes.

"Father," she said calmly, "you feel that you
have a right to assume this attitude toward me,
without even hearing my side?  My life, as you
know it, has done nothing to save me from
this—this mistake of yours.  You have taken my money,
what help I could give, and I believed that you
were my friend."

"I am; your real and only friend."  Mantelle was
deceived by the tone and words.

"You have shown me that a man cannot be a
friend to a woman!  He cannot give her justice."

"You are not speaking to a man, daughter!"

The desire to laugh again consumed Jo, but she
mastered it.

"In that capacity alone did I regard you, Father
Mantelle, and you have failed me.  For the rest, I
let no one stand between my conscience and my God!
No.  If I ask help again it will be from a woman; she
at least can understand."

"A woman is hardest upon women in such cases
as yours, Mam'selle!"

Jo was thankful that at last the priest had dropped
the objectionable "daughter."

"She will be the first who will turn against you."

"And was it a woman who came to you, Father,
with my—my trouble?"

Mantelle's face flushed and Jo shook her head sadly.

"I see it was not.  So the first and second who
have turned against me have been men.  Good day,
Father, and"—Mam'selle stopped at the door—"if
you ever need help in giving that poor Tom Gavot
his chance, I stand ready to do what I have always
promised to do, and I do it for the sake of his
mother."

Condemnation and contempt rang in Jo's voice.
It was her last arrow and it sank home.

The priest was practical and having done his
Christian duty he could afford to be human.

"It speaks well for your good sense, Mam'selle,"
he said; "that you do not utterly shut yourself away
from your people."  Then Mantelle paused,
"Mam'selle!" he said.

"Yes, Father."  Jo turned and lifted her deep eyes
to his face.

"I wonder if you *have* something to tell me that I
should know in justice to you?"

"You should have thought of that first, Father.
It is too late now."

"We may"—the man's recent manner fell from
him like an unnecessary garment—"be friends, still?"

Again Jo laughed.  She felt that she had by some
kindly power regained something of her lost position
with this lonely old man.  Since he could not
understand her, save her, he was willing to accept her.

"Father, I have too few friends to cast them off
heedlessly."

And then she went out, more of a mystery than
ever to Mantelle.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`WOMAN AND WOMAN`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER IX


.. class:: center medium bold

   WOMAN AND WOMAN

.. vspace:: 2

It was early June when Mam'selle heard that
the Walled House, the country place of some
rich people from the States, was to be opened.

It had been closed for many years, but recently
the master had died and his wife, with a staff of
servants and an old, blind, white-haired man, had
returned.

The moment Jo heard that, her spirits rose.  Here
was a most unlooked-for opportunity for advice and,
perhaps, assistance.

The Lindsays of the Walled House had always
mingled freely with their neighbours; Mr. Lindsay
was a Canadian.  Jo, in her earlier days, had often
served them; had sold her linens and wools to them
at, what seemed to her, fabulous prices.  Mrs. Lindsay,
having taken a fancy to Mam'selle, often tried
to annex her to her establishment, but to that the
independent Jo would not consent.

"Well, Mam'selle," Alice Lindsay had said during
the last interview they had had, "if I ever can help
you, please let me."

"I'll go to her now!" decided Mam'selle.

A week later, dressed in her absurd best, she made
the journey in her caliche.  Her days of sitting on
the shaft by Molly, her economies in clothes, were
over, she was living up to her ambitions for Donelle
and her defiance of Point of Pines' morality.
Outwardly, Jo was fairly awe-inspiring and even Dan
Kelly was impressed; inwardly, Jo was a good deal
chastened by her visit to Father Mantelle.

There were doubts now in her heart as to the role
she had assumed for Donelle's sake.  Perhaps it
would be better to let the girl shoulder her father's
possible crime and her foolish mother's wrongdoing,
rather than the disguise which Jo had self-sacrificingly
wrought for her.

And yet, even now she could not bring herself to
lay the dead Langley open to a charge she did not
believe, but could not disprove, and the girl, herself,
to danger.  And so as she drove to the Walled House
she was very quiet, very subdued, but her faith was
strong.  She meant to give as much as she dared of
the past to the woman whose sympathies and
assistance she was about to interest.  She was ready
to put all her future wools and linens at Mrs. Lindsay's
disposal in return for any help she could obtain
for the betterment of Donelle.  Poor Jo was ready
to abdicate, if that were best.  After her months of
happiness with the girl, after living in the dear
companionship and love of the sunny young nature, she
was willing to stand aside for the girl's future good.

"She shall not be condemned to death!" Jo
snorted, and Molly reared.  "St. Michael's shall not
get her.  But there must be a place for her, and I
love her well enough to get out of her way.  I only
took her for the best, her best, and if I cannot keep
her, I can let her go!"

Jo found Mrs. Lindsay on the beautiful shaded
porch, found her changed, but none the less lovely
and kindly.

"Why, it is the dear Mam'selle of the wonderful
linens!" Alice Lindsay cried, stretching out her slim
hands in welcome.  "I have been thinking of you.
How glad I am to see you.  You have heard?"  Mrs. Lindsay
looked down at the thin black gown she wore.

"I have heard," Jo said and her throat grew dry.

"I—I have come back because my husband seems
more here than anywhere, now.  He loved the
Walled House so much; he loved his Canada, Mam'selle."

Jo was thinking of two bleak, lonely weeks in her
own past when she had stolen away and gone to
Langley's deserted cabin because he, *the he* that she
had known and loved—seemed more there than
anywhere else.  She had buried her hatred and
bitterness toward him there.  She knew it, now, as she
had never known it before.  The two women were
drawing close by currents of sympathy.

They had tea together, they talked of future linens
and wools, and then Jo told her story, taking small
heed of the impression she was giving.  She was
blindly thinking only of Donelle, and Mrs. Lindsay
did not hurt her by question or voiced doubt.

That night, when a great silence reigned over the
Walled House, broken only by the soft, tender tones
of a violin played at a distance in the moonlit garden,
Alice Lindsay wrote a long letter to Anderson Law,
her father's oldest friend, her own faithful advisor
and closest confidant.

Law was an artist and critic.  Old Testy he was
called by those whom he often saved from the folly
of their false ambitions; The Final Test, by those who
came humbly, tremblingly, faithfully to him with
their great hopes.  To a few he was Man-Andy, the
name that Alice Lindsay had given to him when she
was a little child.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: small

MAN-ANDY: I have had a wonderful day.  I have waited to
tell you that your advice as to my coming here was good.  I know
it is cowardly to run away from one's troubles, dear.  Troubles,
as you say, have their divine lessons, but I could not believe, at
first, that I would find Jack here.  I dreaded the emptiness and
loneliness, but you were right, right!  I am not desolate here and
I have the blessed feeling of peace that can only come when one
has chosen the right course.

.. class:: small

I felt that everything worth while had been taken: Jack, my
babies.  Only the money remained, and that I hated, because it
could not keep what I wanted.  But you were splendid when
you said, "make the thing you despise a blessing!"  I've tried,
Man-Andy, to make it a blessing to others, and it is becoming a
blessing to me.  I feel I am using it for Jack and for the babies
and that they are making it sacred.  I feared that in this big,
empty house the ghosts would haunt me; not the strange old
history ghosts of great ladies and dashing men who used to forget
their homesickness for their mother-countries by revelling in
this shelter in the New World.  I did not think of them, for do
you not remember Jack's comical ghost hunts?  How he joked
about it, saying that he'd yet lure some old English or French
aristocrat to stay and sanctify our presence by his sponsorship?
But oh!  I did fear the memories of my man's dear, jovial ways,
the pretty babble of my little babies.

.. class:: small

And then—I know I am rambling shamefully, but I cannot
sleep, the moonlight is flooding the garden—I hear Professor
Revelle's violin.  Andy, he has actually recovered to the extent
of music when he thinks I do not know.  As I look at the dear
old soul, so like a gentle wraith, I remember how you and father
and Jack adored his music and how Jack grieved when illness and
poverty stilled it.  But you found him, Man-Andy, and you lent
him to me to save, and his music at least has been given back to
him.  Not with its old fire and passion—I think if any demand
were made upon him he might be aroused.  I may take lessons
myself some day.  But he plays dreamily, softly when he is alone,
generally in the garden and at night.  He forgets his blindness
then.

.. class:: small

But to-day I had a caller.  I wonder if you remember the nice
Mam'selle Jo Morey that Jack and I used to talk about?  You
have some of her linens in your studio.  You may recall the
incident of the summer when we told you of her troubles; her
desertion by a man of the place and the death of her imbecile sister?
I had almost forgotten it myself, so much has happened since
then, but it all came back to me to-day when she came with her
story.

.. class:: small

Andy, her story is quite the most tragic a woman can have;
such things happen even here.  She did not cringe or whine, I
would have hated her if she had; you know how I feel about such
things.  My Mam'selle Jo does not whine!

.. class:: small

There was a child, and now that Mam'selle can afford to do
well by it, she has taken it.  She has done this so quietly and
simply that it has shocked the breath out of the very moral Point
of Pines.  Still, before the breath left the body of the hamlet, it
hissed!  And when it recovers its breath it is going to hound this
poor Mam'selle, whose shoes it is not worthy to touch.  It's
going to hound and snarl and snap, two of its inhabitants have
done it already, and the Mam'selle Morey is not going to have
her child harried for what she is innocent of!

.. class:: small

Isn't this a situation?

.. class:: small

The Mam'selle knows her world, however, and all worlds are
pretty much alike, Andy, and she is prepared, in exchange for
her child's happiness, to renounce her!  It almost broke my heart
as she told me; she saw no other way and she fiercely demands
that justice be shown the girl.  I tell you it takes the fine, large
courage to renounce, when love tempts.  Mam'selle loves this
child as such children often are loved, passionately because they
cost so much.

.. class:: small

And this Mam'selle Morey came to me.  She felt I could
understand, advise.  Well, I do understand because of Jack's
attitude toward such things, and yours and father's.  Thank
God, the men I have known have helped me uphold my
standard, and I understand because of my dear, dear babies,
who left so much of themselves with me when they had to go
away.

.. class:: small

I grew hot and cold as I listened, Man-Andy, and I grew puffed
up and chesty, too.  How I gloried, for the moment, in my power.
It's all right to have power if you keep it in its proper place.

.. class:: small

I kept saying to myself, "Mam'selle, you and I will win out!
And you shall not be the sacrifice, either!  Together we can
play the game; two women ought to be able to see that one
innocent child has its rights!"

.. class:: small

Man-Andy, I rolled up my sleeves, then and there, and that
dear old poem you love came to my mind, it often does; that one
about tears:

.. class:: small

..

   |  By every cup of sorrow that ye had
   |    Loose us from tears and make us see aright
   |  How each hath back what once he stayed to weep
   |    Homer, his sight; David, his little lad?
   |

.. class:: small

I thought of dear old blind Revelle; he has something back,
even though much is withheld.  He has safety, and his fiddle.
And then I vowed that this brave, strong Mam'selle Morey
should have her little lass.  She shall not be taken from her; I
will help, and give the girl her chance, I am quite fierce about it.
And my Mam'selle shall keep her in the end, somehow I'll manage
that.  With other things, this girl shall get a comprehension
of—her mother!

.. class:: small

Man-Andy, tell me what you think of all this and tell me of
yourself; of the Norvals, and the rest of the folks I love but do
not need just now.  And tell me of your sad duty, dear man.
Do you go every week to the Lonely Place?  Some day, when it
is all past, you will come here to this Walled House.  You and
I will go out on the highway and kneel under one of the tall black
and white-tipped crosses and give thanks!  Man-Andy, to-night
I can give thanks that I am being used, that the power my money
can give is being used, and that I am not left to my tears.

.. vspace:: 2

To this long outpouring of the heart Anderson
Law replied within the month.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: small

MY GIRL: you have only proved yourself.  It took a little
time, but I knew you were not the sort to hide your face and run.
Revelle and his fiddle are about the best combination I know, I
certainly hadn't counted on the fiddle.  I thought with care and
safety he'd find peace and I knew he would be good for you; but
I feared his blindness would kill his music.

.. class:: small

It's a great thing, too, girl, that your children did not shut the
door of your motherhood when they went out.  You'd hardly
have been worthy of them if you had not learned the lesson they
taught.

.. class:: small

As for us here: Jim Norval is doing some good things in his
moments of genius.  When plain talent grips him, he's not so
good.  Katherine, from perfectly exalted motives, is driving him
to hell.  It's the most puzzling situation I ever saw.  You
cannot advise a man to leave a high-natured, moral, devoted wife
just because she's pushing him to perdition and depriving him of
his birthright, but that's the situation in the Norval family.
Their child somehow did not get its lesson over!

.. class:: small

The Lonely House still holds my duty, but if the time ever
comes when I can stand beside you under the cross, there will be
many things, hard to bear now, that will then make thanks
possible.  ANDY.

.. vspace:: 2

Law's letter came after Donelle had entered the
Walled House where she was to stay from Monday
till Friday of each week.  The week-ends belonged
to Mam'selle Jo!

"For awhile, Mam'selle," Alice Lindsay had said,
holding Jo's hands as she had made plain her
understanding, "I will teach the child myself and learn to
know her.  We need not plan far ahead.  There is
a dear, old, blind musician living with me; if the
girl has any inclination for music, she will be a
god-send to him."

"I am sure she will have, Mrs. Lindsay," Jo's
plain face was radiant, "her father had, and she sings
the day through."

"You must bring her at once, Mam'selle, and
believe me, whatever comes or does not come, she will
always be yours.  She is your recompense."

And within the week Donelle Morey came to the
Walled House.

Her entrance was dramatic and made a deep
impression upon Mrs. Lindsay.

There had been a struggle between Jo and Donelle
before the matter had been arranged, so, while not
sullen, the girl was decidedly on guard.

Propelled by Jo she came into the great, sunny
hall.  She was very pale and her yellow eyes were
wide and alert.

"My dear," Alice Lindsay had said, "I hope you
are going to be very happy here."

"I did not come to be happy, I came to learn,"
Donelle returned, and her voice saved the words
from rudeness.

"Perhaps you can be both, dear," but Donelle
looked her doubts.

Still from the first she played her part courageously.
She studied diligently and, when she was given the
freedom of the library, she showed a keen and vital
interest.

She was not indifferent, either, to the kindness
and consideration shown her, but the wildness in
her blood reasserted itself and she often felt, as she
had felt at St. Michael's, a desire to fly from restraint;
even this kindly restraint.  Point of Pines had given
her a sense of liberty that was now lacking.  The
refinements and richness of the Walled House oppressed
her, she yearned for Jo, for the hard, unlovely tasks,
for the chance talks with Tom Gavot.  But, oddly
enough, it was the thought of Tom that kept her to
her duty.  Somehow she dared not run away and
hope to keep his approval.  Something of her
struggle Alice Lindsay saw, and she considered it
seriously.  To win the girl wholly from her
yearnings just then might mean winning her from
Mam'selle.  While not a child, Donelle was very unformed
and might easily, if she were conquered, be lost to
Jo whom she regarded simply in the light of an
adopted guardian.  She was grateful, she loved Jo,
but the secret tie that Alice Lindsay believed existed
held no part in her thoughts.

"But she shall be saved for Mam'selle," Alice
Lindsay vowed.  "I will not permit any other
solution.  If the time ever comes when she understands
she shall know the splendour of this dear soul."

So Alice Lindsay took Jo into her confidence.

"You must not, Mam'selle," she said, "even
think yourself renouncing her.  She is yours and you
ought not to forget that, nor deprive her of yourself.
Take things for granted; let her see you as I see you!"

Jo's face twitched.

"There's no earthly reason," Alice Lindsay went
on, "for blotting you out.  Why, the girl will never
know another woman as fine as you, Mam'selle.
Think of how you have studied and thought yourself
into a place that many a woman with untold
advantages has not attained!"

"Donelle's father was a scholar," Jo faltered, not
knowing how to act in the strained moment.  "He
taught me, not only books, but how to think."

"Yes, and to suffer, Mam'selle," Alice Lindsay
controlled her true emotions.  Then:

"Mam'selle, Donelle must learn to appreciate her
inheritance from you.  She shall, she shall!  Now
throw off your usual manner with her; let her see
you!"

"She always has, Mrs. Lindsay."

"Very well, don't let go of her now!"

And so Jo permitted herself the luxury of doing
what her heart longed to do, she put off her guarded
manner and played for the first time in her life.

It was during Donelle's week-end visits home that
she first came forth in her new character of comrade.
In an especially fine spell of weather she suggested
camping out in the woods.  Donelle and Nick were
beside themselves with delight, for Mam'selle was a
genius at camping.  Never had she so truly revealed
herself as she did then, and Donelle looked at her in
amazement.

"Mamsey," she said, "is it because I'm away from
you so much that you seem different?  You are
wonderful and you know about the loveliest wood
things and stars.  It's like magic."

It was like magic, and Jo rightly concluded that
something in Donelle's early life responded to these
nights in the woods.  She recalled the girl's delirium,
her references to weary wanderings.

"It seems," Donelle once said, hugging her knees
beside the glowing fire, "it seems as if I'd been here
before."

"One often feels that way," Jo replied as she
prepared a fragrant meal, "and I'm not saying but what
we do pass along the same way more than once.  It
may take more than one little life to learn all there is
to know."

And then Donelle talked of a book she had been
reading and they grew very chummy.  Once Jo
suggested—it was when Donelle told her how she
lived through the weeks, only because the week-ends
were in view—that Nick should stay at the Walled
House.

"Nick, would you leave Mamsey?"  Donelle held
the dog's face in her hands.  It was an awful moment
for Nick.  He actually slunk.

"I'd hate you if you would!" Donelle continued.
"Now, sir, who is your choice?"

Nick saved the day, he ambled over to Jo and
licked her hand.

"There!" exultingly cried Donelle; "that shows his
blood."

"It shows his common sense," laughed Jo.

Once Tom Gavot shared their campfire for a night.
He was waiting for them when they dismounted, his
eyes shining.  He wore a new, and whole, suit.

"I am going away," he explained.  This was no
news to Jo, but it took Donelle by surprise.

"I am going to Quebec," he went on.  "Father
Mantelle has a friend there who is to take me into
his office.  I'm going to learn about roads.  You see,
I always knew I'd get a chance!"

He was very gay and full of hope.

"And how does your father take it?" asked Jo,
bending over the flames.

The boy's face darkened.

"Father Mantelle talked to him," was all he said.

But that evening Jo was wondrously kind.  She
gave permission to Tom to make his own pine-bough
bed in the woods; she even seemed to be asleep when,
by the fire, Donelle, holding her body close, her pale
face shining in the glow, said to Tom:

"I am never going to forget about roads, Tom
Gavot.  I always think of them as real things, I
always have ever since you told me how to see
them.  I'm sure your roads are going to be very
splendid ones."

"They'll be mighty lonely, just at first," Tom,
stretched by the fire, smiled grimly.

"Yes," Donelle nodded, "yes; they will.  Why,
Tom, I stand by the gates of the Walled House and
look at the road and it is the loneliest feeling.  I
think of Mamsey at one end and something in me goes
stretching out until it hurts.  It goes stretching and
pulling along the road until I can scarcely bear it."

"That's the way it will be with me, Donelle," then
poor Tom's face flushed a deep red.  "You won't
mind, will you, if I tell you something?"

"I'd love it."  Donelle smiled happily.

"You see, I haven't ever had any one who cared
since my mother died.  I never dared tell any one
but you about the roads.  You seemed to understand;
you didn't laugh.  And when I'm off in Quebec
and something in me goes stretching over the
road until it hurts, it's going to be you at the other
end!  You're not laughing?"

"No, Tom Gavot, I'm—I'm crying a little."

"I think it's your eyes, they're like lights.  And
then you are kind, kind."

Just then Jo shook herself and awoke.

A few days later Tom was off for Quebec and
Donelle's homesickness and longing for Mam'selle
were to be lessened by an unlooked-for occurrence.

Mrs. Lindsay had not thought of Donelle being in
the slightest musical, though Jo had suggested it,
for she never sang in the Walled House as she did
at Point of Pines.  There were lessons and walks
and drives; Mrs. Lindsay was growing genuinely
attached to the girl, and more and more determined
to see that life should play fair with her, but the idea
of interesting old Professor Revelle did not occur to
her.  The shy, delicate old man shrank from strangers
with positive aversion.  He was not unfriendly, but
his loss of eyesight was recent.  His late poverty
and illness, from which Anderson Law had rescued
him, had left their scar, and he kept to the rooms
Mrs. Lindsay set aside for him with gentle gratitude.
Sometimes she dined with him there; often sat
evenings with him; but for the most the old man was
happiest alone.

Then came the day when the silent garden tempted
him.  He had heard the carriage depart earlier and
thought that Mrs. Lindsay and the stranger girl
had both gone driving.

With his violin under his arm Revelle groped his
way from the house; he was learning, slowly, as the
lately-blinded do, to walk alone.  At the far end of
the garden there was an arbour, Revelle knew it was
rose-covered by the fragrance, and he loved to play
there, for no one ever disturbed him.  To-day he
found the place and sat down.  His old face was
growing peaceful, full of renunciation; the fear and
bitterness were gone.

The roses thrilled him, he could touch them by
reaching out his hand; they were soft and velvety,
and he hoped they were pink.  He had always loved
pink roses.  And then he played as he had not
played for years.

Close to him sat Donelle.  She had been reading
when he entered.  She did not move or speak though
she longed to help and guide him.  She knew all
about him, pitied and respected his desire to be alone
in a very lonely and dark world, but she had never
heard him play before.  As she listened the yellow
eyes darkened.  Never had Donelle heard such
music; never had she been so gloriously happy.
Something in her felt free, free!  Then something,
quite beyond her control, floated after the notes; it
rested and throbbed, it ... but just then
Revelle, with a wide sweep of the bow, stopped!

Donelle crept to his side, his quick ear caught the
sound.

"Who is it?" he asked sharply.

"It's—it's Donelle, Donelle Morey.  I—couldn't
go away; please do not mind—if you only knew!"

"Knew what?"

"Why, it's what I've wanted all my life.  I did
not know; how could I?  But now I know, the music
has told me."

The voice, the intensity and passion stirred the old
man.

"Come here!" he said, reaching out his hand.
"The love you have, does it mean that you sing?
Your voice is—is rather fine.  Let me have the
fingers."

Half afraid, Donelle placed her hand in his.

"Oh!"  Revelle was feeling every inch of the slim
hand and fingers.  "The long hand and wide
between the fingers!  And the finger tips; it is the
musician's hand unless nature has played a trick.
Will you let me find out if nature has spoken true?"

"I—I do not know what you mean."

"Are you a young child?"

"No, I am old, quite old."

"Stand up, let me feel how tall you are.  Ah! you
are of the right age!  Young enough to obey;
old enough to hunger.  Are you beautiful?"

"Oh!  No.  I'm sure I'm ugly."

"Of the light or the dark?"

"I'm white, I—I am thin, too."

"May I touch your face?"

Quite simply Donelle knelt again and quivered
as the delicate fingers passed over her brow, eyes, and
mouth.

"You have a soul!" murmured Revelle.

"A soul?" murmured Donelle.

"Ah! yes.  You do not know.  One never finds
his soul until he suffers.  You are young, but you
have a soul.  Keep it safe, safe; and while you
wait, let me see if nature has made you for use.  If
you can learn, I shall find joy.  I had thought my
life was over."

And so Donelle began to find her way out upon her
road.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`PIERRE GETS HIS REVENGE`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER X


.. class:: center medium bold

   PIERRE GETS HIS REVENGE

.. vspace:: 2

The first year passed, with those blessed weekends
coming now, not as the only bright spots,
but always loved.

"The girl may not have the great genius," Revelle
told Mrs. Lindsay, "she may not go much further,
but as she goes, she goes radiantly.  Her tone it is
pure, her ear it is true, and her soul, it is a hungry
soul, a waiting soul.  She will suffer, but she will be
the better for that.  If she is ever to be great it
will be when she has learned to know suffering."

Donelle had a strange habit that amused them all;
she played best when she could move about.
Gropingly, painstakingly, she practised with the old,
blind man beside her.  At times she would wander
under the trees on the lawn, her violin tucked
lovingly under her chin.

"Pretty, little pale thing," Alice Lindsay often
said.  "What is life going to do with her?"

When three years had passed, Donelle was no longer
a simple girl.  Point of Pines was as detached from
her real interests as St. Michael's was.  She loved
to be with Jo and Nick, but the luxury and comfort
of the Walled House had become part of her life.
She wished it might be that Jo and Nick could
come to her; not make it necessary for her to go to
them.  She was not more selfish or ungrateful than
the young usually are, but she was artistic and
temperamental and her mind and soul were full of
music and beauty.  Unconsciously, she was pressing
on into life by the easiest way.  Life, she must have;
life to the full, that had always been her ambition,
but she had yet to learn, poor child, that the short,
direct path that stretched so alluringly from the
Walled House was not the best one for her own good.

For Mrs. Lindsay she had a deep affection; for
Revelle a passion of gratitude and yearning.  He
it was who had opened her heaven for her; he it
was who subtly developed her.  With no set purpose,
but with the insistence that Art always demands, he
brought to bear upon Donelle the arguments of
devotion to her gift, her God-given gift, he reiterated.
She must not let anything, any one stand in its
path.  She was not worthy of it unless she forsook
all else for it.

Donelle had accepted what was offered to her.
She believed Jo Morey had the best of reasons for
burying the past.  As she grew older, she saw the
wisdom of forgetting much and in proving herself
worthy of becoming what Jo, what Mrs. Lindsay,
and most of all Revelle, hoped for her.

The St. Michael days were blotted out, they were
but an incident at best.  Jo was giving her every
advantage, she must do her part.  She saw the Point
of Pines people on the road as she drove with
Mrs. Lindsay or Jo and they were like shadows to her,
they had no place in her sheltered, beautiful life.
She heard indirectly from Tom Gavot, he was
bravely hewing and hacking his road, poor chap.
He was helping to support his unworthy father; he
was coming home some day to show himself, but
the time went by and he did not come!

And then, quite suddenly, Mrs. Lindsay decided
to close the Walled House and go abroad.  Professor
Revelle's health was restored and Anderson
Law had obtained employment for him.

"I want to take Donelle with me," Alice Lindsay
said.  "She's quite your own, Mam'selle; you stand
first with her, so I can take her with a clear conscience
and give her all the advantages she should have.
She will come back to you in the end, or you will come
to her."

Jo's lips drew close.

"Will my linens pay for this?" she asked.

"They will help, Mam'selle, and you have no right
to stand in Donelle's way now that we have gone so
far.  Some day Donelle can repay me herself, she
has great gifts."

Jo thought hard and quickly.  In her heart she
had always felt this day would come, lately she had
been haunted by it.  It was inevitable.  Only God
knew how she dreaded the separation, but she would
not withhold her hand.

"I suppose, Mam'selle, this is what Motherhood
means?"  Alice Lindsay spoke the fact boldly,
splendidly.

"It's all right," said Jo, "it's all it should mean.
I'm glad I do feel as I do about her."

"And, Mam'selle, this girl loves you very tenderly.
Sometimes I think we ought to tell her——'

"No, no, Mrs. Lindsay."  Jo started and flushed.

"When she's found her place and made it sure:
when she has so much that this won't matter, then
she shall know everything.  I haven't overlooked
this, but I couldn't stand it now.  I want her to be
able to understand."

"All right, Mam'selle.  And now it is your part
to make her feel that it is your desire that she should
make the most of her gifts.  Send her forth happy,
Mam'selle, that will mean much to her."

So Jo began the new role and actually made
Donelle unhappy in the effort to achieve the reverse.
Alone, in the white house at Point of Pines, Jo found
her father's old clothes and contemplated them
gravely.  She was slipping back, poor soul, to her
empty life.

Donelle had not accepted the proposed plans without
a struggle.  She was wonderfully sensitive and
compassionate and her quick imagination made it
possible for her to understand what the future would
mean to poor Jo.  Then, too, she shrank from the
uprooting.  Her dreams of what lay before were
exciting and thrilling, but with sincere kinship she
loved the quiet hills, the marvellous river, and the
peace, freedom, and simplicity which were her
birthright.

"Sometimes I fear," she said to Mrs. Lindsay,
"that it will deafen me, hush me, kill me!"

"It will not, dear; and I will always be near."

"Unless you were, I would not dare.  You are the
only hope, Mrs. Lindsay."

"That's not so, Donelle.  The real hope is your
gift.  You are taking it there to make it perfect."

"I hope so.  And when I have learned, I must get
Mamsey into my new life, quick."

"Indeed, yes!"  Mrs. Lindsay nodded cheerfully.

"Isn't it queer how some people are part of you?
Mamsey is part of me, Mrs. Lindsay."  Then softly,
"I suppose you know how Mamsey got me and
from where?"

Alice Lindsay started.

"Yes, Mam'selle told me," she said.

"I never speak of it.  Mamsey thought best that
I should not; but I do not forget!  Often, when we
are driving past St. Michael's—I remember."

"Donelle, why do you tell me this now?"

"Just because I want you to understand how I feel
about Mamsey.  She didn't have to do things for
me, she chose to, and I know all about her spinning
and weaving and—the rest.  I have cost her a good
deal, and I mean to make it all up."

Proudly, happily Donelle stood.  And looking at
her, Mrs. Lindsay fervently wished the real truth
might be kept away from the girl.  Better the
uncertainty of birth to such a spirit than the ugly fact.
Safer would her relations with Mam'selle be if she
could keep her present belief.

"Come," she said suddenly, "take your violin and
stand—so!  This is the way my good friend Anderson
Law is to paint you."

Donelle took the violin; she tucked it under her
chin and drew her bow lovingly across it.  The
uplifted face smiled serenely.  Donelle was no longer
afraid; something bigger than herself caught her and
carried her to safety.

Alice Lindsay's eyes grew dim.

"Life is not all that is lying in wait for the child,"
she thought.  "What is love going to do with her?"

And then, it was two days before they were to
start for the States, Donelle went for a walk along
the quiet highway!  She had bidden Jo good-bye!
Her heart ached with the haunting fear that she
had not been quite sure about Mamsey.  Was it
enough that she was going to prepare for life?  Were
her purpose and joy quite unselfish?  How about
those long empty days, when the Walled House would
be but a memory?

And Nick!  The dog had acted so strangely.  His
awful eyes, yes, they were quite awful, had been fixed
upon her a long, long time, then he had gone—to
Jo!  After that he could not be lured from her.  It
was as if he said:

"Very well, think what you choose, *I* will never
desert Mamsey!"

Jo had tried to force the dog from her; had scolded
him sharply, but he would not stir.

His silent protest had angered Donelle, and she
remembered it now, walking on the road.  She felt
her tears rising.

It was a day of calm and witchery.  Never had the
trees been more splendid, never the river more
changing and beautiful.  And the quiet, was there
in all the world so sacred and safe a place as
this?

And just then, toward Donelle, came a staggering,
wretched figure.  The girl stopped short and the man,
seeing her, stopped also, not twenty feet away.

"It's Tom Gavot's terrible father," thought
Donelle.  She had never been so close to anything so
loathesome before.  She was not really frightened,
the day made things safe enough, but she estimated
the best chances of getting by the ugly thing and
escaping from it.

Gavot knew her.  All Point of Pines knew her
and snapped their hateful remarks about her at
Dan's Place.  They were like a pack that had been
defeated.  Even Father Mantelle had the feeling
that he had been incapable of coping with a situation
that should not exist.  It was putting a premium on
immorality.

"Ha!"  Pierre Gavot reeled and laughed aloud.
When he was in the first stages of drunkenness he
was diabolically keen.  His senses always put up a
revolt before they surrendered.

"So!" he called in his thick voice and with that
debauched gallantry that marked him, "So! it is
Mam'selle's bastard dressed and ready to skip out
as her damned father did before her, leaving the
Mam'selle to make the most of the broken bits.
Curse ye, for what ye are!"

The veins swelled in Gavot's face, a confused,
bestial desire for revenge on somebody, somehow,
possessed him.

"Ye've taken all she had to give, as your father
did before ye, blast him!  And now, like him, ye
kick her out of your way.  Her, who spent herself."

The words were scorching into Donelle's soul, but
they numbed sensation as they went.  It was later
the hurt would come!  Now, there was but one thing
to do, pass the beast in the road and get behind
the walls of safety.

And so Donelle darted forward so suddenly that
Gavot staggered aside in surprise.  She gave him one
horrified look and was gone!

No one saw her enter the house.  She was
breathing hard, her face was like a dead face, set and
waxen.  In the great hall was a book stand.  On it
was a dictionary.

Donelle was repeating over and again in her
mind a word.  A strange, fearful word, she must
know about that—word.  It would explain
something, perhaps.

The trembling hands found it, the wide eyes read
it once—twice—three times.

Slowly, then, the heavy feet mounted the shallow
stairs.  As old, blind Revelle used to grope in the
upper hall, so Donelle groped now.  She reached her
room, closed the door and locked it.  Then she sat
down by the window and began to—suffer.  The
safe ground upon which she had trodden for the last
few years crumbled.  At last she managed to reach
St. Michael's.  Yes, she remembered St. Michael's,
but how long she had been there before Jo found her
she could not remember!

But it was clear: Jo, not her father, had put her
there.  Jo had made up the sad story to save her,
Donelle!  She bore Jo's name, and that was to save
her, too.  And her father had deserted poor Mamsey
long ago and she had made the most of the bits that
were left!

That is what the horrible man had said.  And
they had all known, always.  That was why people
never came to the little white house; that was why
Jo had put her in the Walled House, to save her.
And Jo had stayed outside as she always had done,
outside, making the most of the bits!

At last, a wild, hot fury smote the girl, a kind of
fury that resented the love that placed her in a
position which unfitted her for the only part she could
decently play.  Of course they must have realized
that she would know some day, and have to give up!
She could not go on with the sham and be happy.
They had defrauded her of life while thinking they
had saved her for life.  It was cruel, wicked!  The
yellow eyes blazed and the slender hands clenched.

"What have they done to me?" she moaned.

And so through the afternoon, alone and driven
to bay, Donelle suffered.  The sun went down,
leaving its benediction on the wonderful river which
glistened and throbbed as it swelled with the high,
full tide, but there was no peace for Donelle.  A
shame she could not understand overcame her.  Her
unawakened sex battled with the grim spectre.

Then memory helped the girl and she became a
woman as she sat alone in the still room; a woman so
pure and simple that Jo was saved.

How great poor Jo's love must have been, always!
How little she had asked, how bravely she had borne
her punishment!

The care and devotion of the long nights, when
Donelle was so ill, returned like dreams and haunted
the girl.  That was the beginning of Jo, and this
was the end?  But was it?

It was all in her, Donelle's, hands, to decide.  She
could keep still!  She could take her life, make it
beautiful, and by and by she could come back to
Mamsey.  Then she would say, "This I have done
for you!  But I could not do it then!  I could not
give up then," Donelle murmured.

Then the present held the girl, drove away the
temptation.  There was the little, lonely white house
under the hill at Point of Pines and Mamsey who that
morning had said:

"Child, I'm gladder than you know to be able to
give you your chance."

Her chance!

Just then a maid tapped at the door and gave her a
message.

Mrs. Lindsay would be detained for dinner and
would not be home until late.

"We are to start to-morrow," the girl said, "very
early."

And again Donelle was alone with her chance!

Later she ate her dinner quietly in the dim oak
dining room.  Candles burned; there was an open
fire on the hearth and pale yellow hothouse roses on
the table.  Never was the girl to forget that last
meal in the Walled House.  And then, she was once
more alone upstairs with—her chance!

She went to the window and looked out.  A rising
moon was lighting the road, The Road!

Suddenly Tom Gavot seemed to stand in the
emptiness and beckon her from that road with which
he had played when he was a sad and neglected child.
How clean and fine he had made it seem; he who had
come from such a father!  In that moment Pierre
Gavot shrank from sight, he had polluted the road,
but Tom had sanctified it.

The road was open now for Donelle to choose.
Should she go over the hill to life or——  And so she
struggled.  She heard Mrs. Lindsay return, but it did
not occur to her to confide in any one.  The shame
was only bearable if she bore it in secret, but
where should she bear it?  Out, over the hill, where
no one knew; where Mrs. Lindsay and Jo would
keep people from knowing?  Could she be happy
and forget?

Donelle took up her violin.  She clutched it to
her.  It could make her forget, it *must*!  Even if
she wakened the household she felt she must play.

But she could not play!  Her hand was heavy,
her brain dull.

Then something Revelle had once said to her
flashed into her mind.

"Always live right, child.  You can never have your
gift at its best unless you keep its place holy.  No
matter what any one may tell you, keep the place
clean and right in which your gift lives!"

Then it was that Donelle dressed herself in a
plain, warm suit, packed a little bag, took her
violin, left a note on her dressing table, and went
on—Tom Gavot's Road!  Just for a moment she
stood outside the tall gates and looked wistfully up
the hill, then she turned as if relinquishing all the
joy and promise of life, and set her face toward Point
of Pines.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE GREAT DECISION`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XI


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE GREAT DECISION

.. vspace:: 2

Donelle made herself a little fire that night
in the shelter of a pine grove.  She slept,
too, with her back against a sturdy tree and
the sound of the river in her ears.

She had walked fast for many miles.  She was tired,
but she meant to go on and reach Point of Pines
before any one saw her; before Mrs. Lindsay could get
there and talk to Jo.

At three o'clock she roused herself and went on.
There was no one else, in all the world, it seemed, she
was alone, alone.  But something was strengthening
her, she no longer grieved or felt remorse.  She was,
poor child, learning a tremendous lesson, she had an
ideal for which she was ready to suffer and die.  She
had found her soul and a peace had come to her; a
peace that the world can neither give nor take away.

"I'm glad!" murmured Donelle; "I'm not a bit
sorry.  I'd have hated myself if I had gone away,
after I knew."

The gray dawn was creeping with chilly touch over
the empty road when Donelle, footsore and aching
in every muscle, came in sight of the little house.

"Why, there's a light burning!" she said, "a light
in the living room.  Maybe Mamsey is ill, ill and all
alone."

The fear drove her on more quickly.

Up the steps she went softly and peered into the
room.  Nothing mattered now to Jo, she had
nothing to hide, so she had not even lowered the
shade.

And there she sat, nodding before the stove in
which the fire had long since died.  She wore her
father's old discarded clothes—she had resurrected
them after returning from bidding Donelle good-bye—she
had worked hard until late, had fallen asleep
exhausted by the fire, and forgotten to go to bed.

Close to Jo, so close that his faithful head rested
against her arm, was Nick!

He was not asleep, he was on guard.  He had
heard those steps outside; he knew them and his ears
were tilted and alert.  Still, he would not leave Jo!
The time for choice had come and passed with Nick.
His heart might break but he had decided.

The door opened softly, Jo never locked it, and
Donelle came tiptoeing across the room.  Nick
tapped the floor, but otherwise did not move.

Beside the sleeping Jo the girl crouched down
and waited.  She was crying, blessed, happy tears,
and one tired hand lay upon Nick's head.

The clock in the kitchen struck in its surprised,
alarmed way.  How well Donelle remembered!  The
sun edged in through the east window, and found the
little group by the cold stove.

Then Jo awoke.  She did not move, she only
looked!  She could not make it out, and gave an
impatient exclamation.  She felt that her mind was
betraying her.

"Donelle!" she said presently, "what does this mean?"

"Only that I—I have come, Mamsey."

"Tell me everything."  The words were stern.

"Why, Mamsey, there isn't much to tell—except—that
I'm here."

"How did you get here?"

"I—I walked.  I walked all night."

"And Mrs. Lindsay, she knows?"

"Oh! no, Mamsey, she was away, but I left a note.
I had to come Mamsey, I had to.  You see," brightly,
piteously, "I—I couldn't play my fiddle.  It would
not be played.  When I got to thinking of how it
would be out where I was going, I just couldn't!
The pretty dresses and the—the excitement made
me forget for a little time, but all of a sudden I saw
how it was going to be.  Then I tried to play,
and I couldn't!  Then I knew that I must stay,
because more than anything, Mamsey, I wanted—you!"

"This is sheer nonsense!" said Jo, but her voice
shook, and the hand lying against Donelle's cheek
trembled.

"You mad child!  Why, Donelle, don't you see you
are running away from your life?"

"It will have to find me here, then, Mamsey.
Don't send me away.  I would hate it as I would
have hated St. Michael's if you had sent me back
there.  You see, Mamsey, when I run away I always
run to what is really mine.  Don't you see?"

"Are you sick, child?"

Jo felt, now, the uplifted face.

"No, but I would have been, off there!  And I
couldn't play.  What good would anything have
been, if I couldn't play?"

Jo was thoroughly alarmed.

"Can you play here?" she asked, bewildered,
not knowing what to think, but seeking to calm the
girl on the floor.

"Why, Mamsey, let me try!"

And Donelle tried, rising stiffly, fixing the violin
and raising the bow.

A moment of indecision, of fear; then the radiance
drove the haggard lines from the tired, white face.

She could play!  She walked about the plain home-room.
She forgot Jo, forgot her troubles, she knew
everything was all right now!  The final answer had
been given her!  When she finished she stood before
Jo, and Nick crept toward her.  He, too, felt that
something, which had been very wrong, was righted.

Mrs. Lindsay came later.  She was alarmed and
angry.  She and Jo attacked poor Donelle's position
and were indignant that they were obliged to do so;
they, women and wise; she, a stubborn and helpless
girl!

"I couldn't leave Mamsey," was her only reply,
and she looked faint from struggle.

"But Mam'selle does not want you!" Mrs. Lindsay
said almost brutally, seeing that she had succeeded
only too well in preserving this girl for Jo.
"You have no right to become a burden, Donelle,
when you have the opportunity of independence."

"Am I a burden?"  Donelle turned weary, patient
eyes on Jo.  And Jo could not lie.  That white,
girlish face wrung her heart.

"This is temperament run mad!" exclaimed Alice
Lindsay.  "I have a great mind to take you by force,
Donelle.  I will if Mam'selle gives the word."

"You won't though, will you, Mamsey?"

Jo could not speak.  Then Donelle turned kind,
pleading eyes to Mrs. Lindsay.

"You see, I couldn't play if I were dragged.
When I'm dragged I can never do anything.  I wish
I could tell you how sorry I am and how much I love
you; but I am so tired.  When I got to thinking of
Mamsey here alone, and the Walled House closed,
why——"

Alice Lindsay turned from the sad eyes, the
quivering mouth.

"Listen, dear!" she said in her old, gentle tones;
"I've lived enough with natures like yours to
understand them.  Stay with Mam'selle this winter,
Donelle, and think your way out.  You have a
clear mind, you will see that what we all want to do
for you is right.  In the spring I will return, we'll
have another summer in the Walled House.  A year
from now all will be safe and right.  The trip abroad
can wait, everything shall wait, for you.  Now will
you be good, Donelle?"

She turned smilingly to the girl, and Donelle
gratefully stretched out her hands.

"Oh! how I thank you," she said, "and I do love
and trust you.  I will try to be good.  Oh! if you
only really knew!"

"Knew what, Donelle?"

"Why, how I could not live away off there, even
with you, if I remembered Mamsey sitting here
making the best of the bits that are left."  Then
Donelle broke down and wept violently.

Still she was not ill.  She was worn to the edge of
endurance, but after a day and night of rest in the
room beside Jo she got up, quite herself again.

"And we'll say no more about it until spring,"
vowed Jo, but a wonderful light had crept into her
eyes.

"I'm a selfish, unworthy lot——"  But the light
stayed in her eyes.

Then one day Donelle took her fiddle and strolled
out alone to test the virtue of her safe, happy feeling.
She went down to the river and sat upon the bare,
black rocks.  The tide was low and the day was more
like spring than early autumn.

"And now," whispered Donelle, "I'll play and
think.  I have to act too much when Mamsey is
watching."

Donelle knew she had to untangle many loose
ends, now that she had snapped her thread.  She
did not want, above anything on earth, that Jo should
know her deep, real reason for returning.  But how
could she make sure with that horrible man, Pierre,
loose in Point of Pines?  It did not matter how
lonely she and Jo might be, if only they could have
each other without their common secret rising
between them.

Donelle had stayed close to Jo since she had
come back, she shrank from everyone.  She meant,
some day, to go to Marcel Longville—when the
Captain was at a safe distance.  She meant to have
Marcel tell her many things, but not now!  She
was going to face the future quite bravely, without
shame or cringing.  Jo should have that reward at
least.

In the meantime, Donelle wished fervently, and
with primitive directness, that Pierre Gavot would
die a quick and satisfactory death and be well out
of the way before he again got drunk enough to open
his vile lips.

"If he were here now," mused Donelle, the while
playing a charming sonata, "I'd push him off the
rocks and have done with it!  What good is he?
All his life he's been messing things, and I'm horribly
afraid of him.  I wish he was dead."

A crackling of the dry bushes startled her and she
turned to see, coming down the Right of Way leading
from the road to the river, Tom Gavot!

Donelle knew him at once though his good clothes,
his happy, handsome face did their best to disguise
him.

"Why!" she cried, getting up with a smile, "when
did you get back?"

"A week ago," said Tom, "and it's about time.  It
has been three years since I went away."  He
beamed upon the girl.  "I've learned how to see a
road where there isn't even a trail," he went on.  "I'm
a surveyor.  And you?"  He glanced at her violin.

"I've learned to fiddle."  Donelle's eyes could not
leave the dark, handsome face.  It was such a good,
brave face, and the mere fact of Tom Gavot having
returned seemed to make things safer.  Tom was
like that, quiet, strong, and safe!  In a flash Donelle
realized that the sense of shame and degradation
which had driven her from the Walled House was
driving her now to Tom Gavot.  She felt sure that
he, that all the others, had known what she herself
knew now, and yet it had not made Tom despise her.

Her lips quivered and her eyes filled.

"It is so good to see you!" she said softly.

Tom's face was suddenly very serious.

"I came back to see how things were going," he
said quietly, "and now that I am here, I'm going to
stay."

"How long?" the question was weighted with longing.

"Until there is no more need," said Tom.  Then
he threw caution to the winds.  "My father has
told me!" he breathed hard, "he told me!  Are you,
a girl like—like you, going to let the mad words of
a drunken man turn you back?"

For an instant Donelle faltered.  Could there be a
mistake?  She had not thought of that.

"If what he said, Tom Gavot, was true, I had
to turn back.  The words *were* true, were they not?"

Tom longed to lie, longed to set her free from the
horror that he saw filled her, but he was too wise and
just.

"Suppose they were, suppose they were!  Suppose
Mam'selle did have the blackest wrong done
her that a man can do a woman; hasn't she paid for
it by her life and goodness?"

"Yes, Tom, she has!"

Hope had gone from the girlish face, but purpose
and strength were there.

"And that is why I came back to her.  For a
moment, Tom Gavot, I stood on your road, the road you
played with and mended.  I wanted to run up and
over the hill.  I wanted to turn my back on the awful
thing I had heard, but I couldn't, Tom, I couldn't.
I would have seemed too mean to be on your road.
I believe something died in me as I stood, but when
I could think once more, I didn't suffer except for
Mamsey.  I'm so thankful I feel this way.  I want
to make up to her—for—for my father.  He left her,
but I never will.  Why once, Tom, I asked her about
my father, it was long ago, and she said he was a
*good father*.  And then I asked her about—about my
mother, and she kept still.  She let me think my
mother was—not good; she would not hurt my
father!  But oh! if I can only keep her from knowing
that I know.  If I could only make her think I came
back to her simply because I wanted her!  I do not
want her to think the truth!  That would kill her, I
know.  She is so proud.  So fine.  I want to make
her happy in my own way."

"She shall think that, if I can help!" said Tom.

"But you mustn't stay here for me, Tom.  I
couldn't bear that."

"See here, Donelle.  If you have turned back, so
will I.  I had my choice of going to the States or
overseeing some work back in the hills here.  I have
chosen."

"But, Tom, you mustn't turn back."

"Perhaps neither of us has turned back," Tom's
dark face relaxed.  "When things make you dizzy
you cannot always tell which is back or forward.  I
wish you would play your fiddle."

Donelle looked up at him with a kind of glory in
her eyes.

"I will," she said; "and after, you must tell me
about your roads, the roads that you can see when
there are no roads!"

"It's a bargain."

So Tom sat down upon a rock and Donelle paced
to and fro on the leafy path and, as she played and
played, she smiled contentedly at Tom over her bow.
When she was tired she dropped beside him and
leaned against a tree.

"Now," she whispered; "I want to hear about
your roads."

"It's splendid work," said Tom.  "You can
imagine such a lot.  Someone wants a road built; you
go and see only woods or rocks or plains, then
suddenly, you see the road—finished!  You set to work
overcoming the obstacles, getting results with as
little fuss as possible, always seeing that finished road!
It's great!"

"Yes, it must be.  I think, Tom, the work we love
is like that.  When I am practising and making
mistakes, the perfect music is singing in my ears and
I keep listening and trying to follow.  Yes, it is
great!"

They were both looking off toward the river.

"It's the sort of work for me," Tom murmured,
thinking of his roads.  "You know I like to lie out
of doors nights.  I like the sky over me and a fire at
my feet.  Do you remember," he laughed shyly,
"the night before I went away; how Mam'selle made
believe to be asleep while we talked?"

"Yes," Donelle's eyes were dreamy; "dear
Mamsey, how she has made believe all her life."

"Donelle, I only learned a little while ago that it
was Mam'selle's money that sent me off, gave me
my chance."

"Tom!"  And now Donelle's eyes were no longer
dreamy.

"Yes.  She worked and saved and never told."  Tom's
voice was vibrant with emotion.

"And she worked and saved that I might have
my chance," murmured Donelle.

"I'm going to pay her back double," Tom said.

"Now, Tom Gavot," Donelle rose as she spoke,
"you can see why I came back.  I am going to pay
her back—double.  Some day I may go away and
learn how to make money, much money, but first
I have to show Mamsey that I love her best in all
the world."

"I guess you know your way," Tom replied.
"And, Donelle, I want to tell you, I'm not going to
live with my father.  I couldn't.  Here, can you see
that little hut down there?"

Donelle bent and peered through the trees.

"Yes," she said.

"Well, I'm going to clean that up and live there.
It has a chimney, and the windows look right on the
river.  When you open the wide door it's almost as
good as being out under the sky.  That's where I'm
going to set up housekeeping."

"How wonderful, Tom!  And Mamsey and I will
help you.  We'll make rugs and curtains.  We'll
make it like a home."

"It will be the first, then, that I've ever had."  Tom
did not say this bitterly, but with a gentle
longing that touched Donelle.

"I'll come and see you, sometimes, Tom.  Mamsey
and I.  It will be great fun to sit by your fire and
hear about your roads."

"And you'll fiddle, Donelle?"

"Oh!  yes, I'll fiddle until you tell me to stop."  Then
suddenly Donelle grew grave.  "Tom, do you
think you can keep your father straight if you are so
far away?"

"I'll keep him *quiet*!" Tom answered.  "I'll see
to that."

"After a little while, no one will remember,"
Donelle went on slowly.  "Point of Pines is like that.
Mamsey knew, they all knew.  But if I can keep
them from thinking that I know, I do not mind."

"They shall!" Tom promised.

What Tom Gavot did not tell Donelle, but what
burned and blistered his soul, was this: Pierre, sober
and keenly vicious, had welcomed Tom with
eagerness and cunning.  Tom meant money and perhaps
care.  Tom was redeemed and successful, he would
have to look after his poor father in order to keep the
respect he had wrung from better folk.

After a maudlin display of sentiment and devotion
Pierre had said:

"That girl of Mam'selle Morey's, Tom, she's
yours for the getting!"

"What do you mean?" Tom had asked, turning
his young and awful eyes upon his father, "I thought
Mam'selle—I thought Donelle was with the Lindsays
and going to the States.  Father Mantelle
wrote——"

"Ah! but that was before I played my game, Tom."  And
Pierre had given an ugly laugh.  "They took the
girl and put her out of our reach, they thought; even
the good Father frowned at that.  He tried to speak
the truth up at the Walled House, but they would not
hear.  The girl was kept from knowing, and the pride
of her was enough to make an honest soul sick.
She looked down on us—us!  But I waited my
chance and when I got it, I flung the truth in her
white face, and it sort of did for her!  I saw that the
pride they had put in her couldn't stand mud!

"And so she's here, Mam'selle's girl, and when one
is not over particular and knows the worst, he can
take and make——  What's the matter?  Leave
off shaking me, Tom.  I'm your old father!  Mother
of Heaven, let me go!"

But Tom, holding the brute by the shoulders, was
shaking him like a bag of rags.  The flaming young
eyes were looking into the bleary, old ones, looking
with hate and loathing.  The tie that held the two
together added horror to the situation.

"You—did this thing, you!  You killed my
mother; you have tried to damn everything you ever
touched; you pushed this young girl into hell—you!
And you tell me I can pull her out, in order to shove
her back?  You!

"Well, then, hear me!  I'll try, God helping me, to
get her out, but nothing that belongs to you shall
harm her.  And if your black tongue ever touches
her or hers, I'll kill you, so help me God!"

Then Pierre found himself panting and blubbering
on the floor with Tom rising above him.

"Father Mantelle shall know of this," groaned
Gavot.  "He'll put the curse of the Church on you."

"I'll fling him beside you, if he dares speak of this
thing."

Actual horror now spread over Pierre's face.  If
natural ties and the fear of the Church were defied,
where did authority rest?

"See here," poor Tom, having conquered his
father, was now conquering himself, "see here.  So
long as you keep your tongue where it belongs, I will
see that you do not want, but I'm going to be near
enough to *know* and keep you to the line.  I couldn't
breathe in this hole, it's too full of—of dead things,
but I'll be near, remember that."

And Pierre accepted the terms.  He grovelled in
spirit before this son of his, and his lips were free of
guile while he ate and drank and slept and hated.
And the others, too, left Jo and Donelle alone.
There seemed nothing else to do, so the little flurry
fell into calm as the winter settled.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE HIDDEN CURRENT TURNS`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XII


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE HIDDEN CURRENT TURNS

.. vspace:: 2

The winter passed and spring came.  Point
of Pines awoke late but very lovely.  Mam'selle
and Donelle had at last burned the old
clothes of the long-dead Morey.  That phase, at
least, was done with and much else had been laid on
the pyre with them.

"And you came just because you wanted to,
child?" Jo often asked when she even yet doubted
her right to happiness.

"Yes, Mamsey, just for that.  Wasn't I a silly?"  And
then Donelle would look into Jo's deep, strange
eyes and say:

"You never run and hide any more, Mamsey.
I see how glad you are; how you love me!  Kiss me,
Mamsey.  Isn't it strange that I had to teach you
to kiss me?  Now don't keep thinking you mustn't
be happy, it's our duty to be happy."  Donelle
gloried in her triumph.

Jo dropped a good many years in that winter and
Nick inherited his second puppyhood.  He no
longer doubted, he no longer had a struggle of choice,
for Mam'selle and Donelle kept close.

They read and worked together, and sometimes
while Jo worked Donelle played those tunes that
made Nick yearn to howl.  But he saw they did not
understand his feelings so he controlled himself.

"And when spring comes, child, you will go to
Mrs. Lindsay, won't you?"

Jo played her last card.

"You see, it has all been going out and nothing
coming in for years.  You cost a pretty figure,
Donelle, though I never grudged a cent, God knows!
But you must help now, I'm seeing old age in the
distance."

"Come spring," whispered Donelle, and she
struck into the Spring Song, "we'll see, we'll see!
But, Mamsey, we can always keep boarders.  I
should love that and you have always dreamed
of it.  That room upstairs," the lovely tones rose
and fell, "I can just see how some tired soul would
look into that room and find peace.  We'd make
good things for him to eat, we'd play the fiddle for
him, and——"

"A man's so messy," Jo put in, "I'd hate to have
the room messed after all these years."

"Well, there are women boarders," Donelle was
adaptable to possibilities.  "We'd be firm about
messiness; man or woman.  How much are you
going to charge, Mamsey?"

This was a joke between them.

Longville's rapacity disgusted Jo.  On the other
hand, she felt that what one got for nothing he never
valued.  It was a nice question.

"I'm figuring about the price, child.  The Longvilles
never count what the boarders give them besides money."

"What do they give, Mamsey?"

"Rightly handled, they give much.  Think, Donelle,"
Jo's eyes lighted, "they come from here, there,
and everywhere!  If they are treated right, they can
let you share what they know.  Why once, when I
was waiting on table at the Longvilles', there was a
man who had been around the world!  Around the
world, child, all around it.  One day he got talking,
real quiet, to the man next to him and I'll never
forget some things he said.  I got so interested I stood
stock still with a dish in my hands.  I stood
until——"

"Until what, Mamsey?"

"Until the Captain called from the kitchen."

"Oh! my poor, Mamsey.  Well, dear, our boarder
shall talk and we'll not stop him and you shall not
be called from the kitchen."

"You are laughing, Donelle."

"No, Mamsey, just planning."

"But you must go away, child.  You must learn,
and then perhaps they'll take you at the St. Michael's
Hotel.  Someone always plays there summers, you
know.  Could folks dance to your tunes, Donelle?"

The girl stared.

"Anyway you could learn," Jo sought to comfort.

"Perhaps I could, Mamsey, but I'd rather take
boarders."

"We could do both, Donelle," Jo was all energy.
"Old age is within eye shot, but I'm long sighted.
There's a good bit of power in me yet, child, and
I'm eager for you to go with Mrs. Lindsay when she
comes."

Poor Jo, having had the glory of Donelle's choice,
was almost desperate now in her desire to send the
girl forth.  She had not been blind; she was wise,
too, and she realized that if the future were to be
secure and her own place in it worthy of love and
respect, she must refuse further sacrifice.  And sacrifice
it would be, a dull, detached life in Point of Pines.

It was May when a letter came to Jo from Anderson
Law.  It was a brief letter, one written when
the man's heart was torn with grief and shock.  It
told of Mrs. Lindsay's sudden death just when she
was preparing for her return to the Walled House.

It dwelt upon Law's knowledge of the affection
and ambition of Mrs. Lindsay for her protégée, and
while her will did not provide for the carrying out of
her wishes, Law, himself, would see to it that
everything should be done that was possible.

He would come to Canada later and consult with
"Mam'selle Morey."

Jo looked at Donelle blankly.

What the two had thought, dreamed, and hoped
they, themselves, had not fully realized until now.
In the passing of Alice Lindsay they felt a door closing
upon them.

Donelle was crying bitterly.  At the moment she
felt only the personal loss, the sense of hurt; later
the conviction grew upon her that what had
unconsciously been upholding her was taken away.  She
had been hoping, hoping.  The blow given her by
Pierre Gavot, the paralyzing effect of it, had worn
away during the secluded winter months; she was
young, the world was hers, nothing could really
take it away.  Nothing had really happened in
Point of Pines and they all knew!  The larger
world would not care, either.  She had adjusted
herself and in silence the fear and shame had departed,
she had even grown to look at Jo as if—it were not
true!  But now, all was different.

"This man, this Mr. Law," Jo comforted, "will
have some plan.  And there are always my linens,
Donelle, and if there is a boarder——"

But Donelle shook her head; a little tightening of
her lips made them almost hard.

"This Mr. Law does not come, Mamsey," she
said, "and besides, what could I do in that big,
dreadful city with just him?"

"There would be that Professor Revelle," Jo's
words were mere words, and she, herself, knew it.
Donelle again shook her head.

But what humiliated her most of all was that she
had let Jo see the truth!  All the fine courage that
had borne her from the Walled House to Point of
Pines; where was it?  She had meant to make up to
poor Jo for the bitter wrong that was a hideous secret
between them, and all the time there had been the
longing for release; the expectation of it.

"I am like my father," shuddered the girl, "just
as that awful Pierre said—only I did not run
away."

With this slight comfort she began her readjustment,
but her hope was dead.  She struggled to forget
that it had ever existed, and she put her violin
away.

This hurt Jo cruelly, but she did not speak.  Instead
she wrote, in her queer, cramped handwriting,
to Anderson Law.

It was a stilted, independent letter, for poor Jo
was struggling between the dread of losing her
self-respect and her fear that Donelle should lose her
opportunity.

Law received the letter and read it while young
James Norval was in his studio.

"Jim, do you remember that girl that Alice
Lindsay discovered up in Canada?" he said; he was
strangely moved and amused by Jo's words.

"The little Moses?"  Norval was standing in front
of an easel upon which rested one of his own pictures,
one he had brought for Law's verdict.

"What?"  Law stared at Norval.

"Oh! wasn't that the girl that some woman said
she had adopted out of a Home?"

"Yes.  What of it?"

"Only a joke, Andy.  You remember Pharaoh's
daughter *said* she took Moses out of the bulrushes.
Don't scowl, Andy; you don't look pretty."

"Listen to this letter, Jim, and don't be
ribald."  Law read the letter.

"What are you going to do, Andy?"  Norval was
quite serious now.

"As soon as I can I'm going up there, and take a
look at things."

"You are going to help the girl?"

"Yes, if I can."

"After all, Andy, can you?  Could Alice?  The
girl would have to be rather large-sized to overcome
her handicaps, wouldn't she?"

"Alice had faith."

"I know, but a man might muddle things."

"I shall run up, however."  Law was still scowling.

Then Norval changed the subject.

"How's Helen?" he asked, deep sympathy in his
eyes.  The insane wife of Anderson Law was rarely
mentioned, but her recent illness made the question
necessary.

"Her body grows stronger, her mind——"  Law's
face was grim and hard.

"Andy, can't you be just to yourself?  Have the
years taught you nothing?  There can be but one
end for Helen and if you see to her comfort, you have
every right to your freedom."

"Jim, I cannot do it!  God, Man!  I've had my
temptations.  When I saw her so ill, I saw—Jim,
I saw hope; but while she lives I cannot cast her off.
It would be like stealing something when she wasn't
looking."

"But Lord, Andy!  Helen can never come back.
They all tell you that."

"It seems so, but while life remains she might.
She loved me, Jim.  The woman I loved in her died
when our child came but I cannot forget.  I'm a fool,
but when I've been most tempted the thought has
always come: how could I go on living if she *did*
recover and found that I had deserted her?"

"You're worn to the edge, Andy, better chuck the
whole thing and come off for a vacation with me.
But first look at this, tell me what you think."

Law's face relaxed.  He shifted his burden to
where it belonged, and walked over to the easel.

"Umph!" he said, and stepped to the right and to
the left, his head tilted, his eyes screwed up.

"Another, eh?"

"Yes."

"Jim, what in thunder ails you to let a woman
play the devil with you?"

"You ask that, Andy?"

"Yes.  Our cases are quite different, Helen's
dead, but Katherine knows damned well what she is
doing."

"She doesn't, Andy.  In one way she's as dead as
Helen, she hasn't waked up."

"And you think she will?  You think the time will
come when she can see your genius and get her little
carcass out of the way?"

"Hold up, Andy!  I came to have you criticise my
picture, not my wife."

But Law did not pay any attention.

"She ought to leave you alone, if she cannot
understand.  No human being has a right to twist another
one out of shape."

Norval retreated; but he was too distraught to
refuse any haven for his perplexity.

"After all," he said, "there's no more reason for
my having my life than for Katherine having hers.
She wanted a husband and we were married.  If
I had known that I couldn't be—a husband, I might
have saved the day, but I didn't, Law, I didn't.
Getting married seemed part of the game, nearly
everyone does get married.  And then, well, the
trouble began.  There are certain obligations that
go with being a husband.  Katherine has never
exacted more than her due only——"

"Only, her husband happened to be a genius and
Katherine doesn't know a genius when she sees one.
From the best intentions she's driving you to hell, Jim."

"Oh! well, I may be able to get the best of it, Andy,
and paint even if I do keep to the well-trodden paths
of husbands.  A fellow can't call himself a genius to
his own wife, you know, especially when he hasn't
proved it.  One hates to be an ass.  You see, Andy,
when all's said and done, I can wring a thing or two
out.  This is good, isn't it?"

The two men looked at the picture.

"It's devilish good, but it has been wrung out!
Jim, it's no use.  The home-loving, society-trotting,
movie-show husband role will be the end of you."

"Well, if I slam my studio door in Katherine's
face and leave her to go about alone, or sit by
herself, that would be the end of her.  Andy, the worst
of it is that when she puts it up to me, I see she's
right.  We're married and she only wants her share."

"I suppose this meant," Law was gravely contemplating
the picture, "nights of prowling and days
when you felt as if you'd kill any one who spoke to
you?"

"Something like that, and all the while Katherine
was entertaining and I'd promised to help.  I didn't
go near them once."

"Umph!"

"So you see, Testy, it isn't Katherine's fault.  The
two roles don't jibe, that's the long and short of it."

"And your love," Law was thinking aloud.  "Your
love and sense of right——"

"I'm not a cad, Andy."

"Leave this thing here for a day or two, Jim,"
Law raised the picture and carried it to the window.
"I never saw such live light," he said.  "Where did
you get it."

"I—I was lying under the Palisades one night
and just at daybreak I saw it.  It's a home product,
though it looks Oriental, doesn't it?"

"Yes, it does."

There was silence for a few moments, then Norval
asked in quite his natural manner, "And you won't
come away for a clip, Andy?"

"Not until autumn, Jim, then I'm going to run up
into Canada."

"All right.  Having got the—the live light out
of my system, and if you won't play with me, I'm
going to coax Katherine to take me to any summer
orgy she wants to.  I owe it to her, she hasn't had
a good dance for ages."

"Jim, you're a fool or——"

"A modest reflection of yourself, Testy."

But something snapped that summer which sent
the Norvals and Anderson Law whirling in widely
different directions.  In the upheaval Donelle and
her small affairs were forgotten.

Mrs. Law died suddenly.

The doctors sent for Law and he got there in time.

"She may, toward the end," they told him, "have
a gleam of consciousness.  Such things do happen.
You would want to be with her."

"Yes, in any case," Law replied and he took his
place by the bed.  In his heart was that cold fear
which many know in the presence of death.

The long afternoon hours drifted by.  The face on
the pillow, so tragically young because it did not
show the tracings of experience, scarcely moved.
Toward evening Law went to the west window to
raise the shade, there was a particularly splendid sky.
When he came back he saw that a change had come;
the change, but instead of blotting out expression
in his wife's eyes, it was giving expression, meaning,
to what had been, for so long, vacuous.  Law
wanted to call for help, but instead he sank limply
into the chair and took the hand that was groping
toward his.

"I'm glad you're here——" said the strained,
hoarse voice.

"I am glad, too, Helen."

For years Law had not addressed his wife by name.
That would have seemed sacrilege.

"Have you been here all the time?"

"Yes, dear."

"That was like you!  And the baby; it is all right?"

"Yes, quite all right."

"It is a boy?"

Law struggled, then said:

"Yes, Helen, a boy."

"I'm glad.  I want him to be like his father."

She smiled vaguely; the light went out of her eyes,
she drifted back.

There were a few hours more of blank waiting,
then it was over.

A week later Law left a note for Norval.

"I'm sorry, old chap, that I could not see you.
Pass my regrets along.  I'm off for the ends of
the earth, and I've neglected buying a return
ticket."

And just when Norval was most sensitive to shock;
just when Law's trouble and desertion left him in
the deepest gloom, Katherine devastated the one
area, which he believed to be sane and impregnable,
by a most unlooked-for assault.

She was the sort of woman who comes slowly and
secretively to conclusions.  She was as unconscious
of this herself as others were.  Apparently she was
a most conservative, obvious person, a person with
an overwhelming sense of duty and obligation and
untiring in her efforts to prove this.

Since Helen Law's death, Norval had gone as little
to his studio as possible; had devoted himself to
Katherine; had condoned her coldness and indifference.

"I deserve all she gives," he thought and rose to
greater effort.  He even got to the point of noticing
her beauty, her grace, and concluded that they, and
what they represented, meant more than paint pots
and canvases.

"A man cannot have everything," he confessed,
"he must make a choice."

Virtually Norval had made his choice, when Katherine
blotted out, for the time being, all his power to
think straight.

He was trying to plan for the summer, he was patiently
setting forth the charms of the watering places
he loathed but which promised the most dissipation.

"I am not going away with you, Jim."  Katharine's
soft face grew hard.  "I have a duty to myself,
I see it at last.  All my life I have sacrificed
everything for you, Jim."

This was humiliating, but Norval assented.

"Even my talent!"  Katherine flung this out
defiantly.

They were in their home, having one of their
endless get-no-where talks.

Norval meant to do his full part, but the trouble
was that he had no part in the actual life of his
pretty, commonplace wife.

"Your talent, Katherine, your talent?"

Norval did not question this derisively, but as if
she had told him of having an eye in the middle of
her forehead.

"You have not even been interested enough to
notice."  This with bitterness.

Norval, for some idiotic reason, or lack of it, stared
at the middle of her smooth, white brow.

"I've written this; I did not tell you until it was
between covers."

Norval took a book she offered as he might have
taken a young and very doubtful baby.

"It looks ripping!" he said.

"It—it is well spoken of," Katherine's eyes were
tear-dimmed.

Norval gingerly handed the book back.

"You—you don't even care, now!  You won't
open it.  I have dedicated it to you.  The first copy
is yours.  I don't believe you'll even read it."

"I will, Kit," Norval grabbed the book back
fiercely.  He was so stunned that he could not think
at all.

Katherine writing a book!  It would be as easy to
think of her riding the circus ring.

"I'll sit up nights reading it, Kit.  That's what
folks always do, they don't lay it down until the last
word, even if it takes all night!  What is it about?"

"It is called 'The Awakened Soul.'"  Katherine
tried to repress a sob.  Her anger, too, was rising.

"Good God!" gasped Norval, forgetting his wife's
hatred of profanity.

Katherine reached for the book and held it to her
hurt heart.

"You are selfish, you are an egotist, Jim.  Your
talent, your freedom to develop it have made you
callous, brutal.  There are more ways of killing a
woman than to—beat her.  Now that I am sure I
have a sacred spark that must be kept alive, I shall
demand my rights; freedom equal to your own!"

"Of course, Kit, if you've gone in for this sort of
thing, we'll have to shift our bases a little.  I know
that."

"Jim, we're not fitted for each other!"  The sob
rose triumphant and because in his soul Norval knew
that she spoke the truth, he was furious and ready
to fight.

"Rot!" he cried.  "Now see here, Kit, don't get
the temperament bug; there's nothing in it!  You
can do your job and yet keep clean and safe; do
it best by playing the game honest.  Good God!
I haven't smutted up my life along with my canvas,
you don't have to.  It's the fashion, thank the Lord,
to be decent, although gifted.  Your book has run
you down, old girl.  Let's cut and forget it!"

The indignation of the narrow, weak, and stubborn
swayed Katherine Norval.

"Jim," she said, gulping and holding desperately
to "The Awakened Soul," "I think we should
be—be—divorced."

"Punk!"  Norval snapped his fingers.  "Unless
you've given cause, there isn't any."

"I—I cannot live under present conditions, Jim."

"All right, we'll get a new set."

"You are making fun and I am deadly in earnest."

"You mean you want to chuck me?"  Norval
frowned, but something was steadying him.

"I mean that I must live my life."

"Of course, Katherine, this all sounds as mad
as a March hare, and it's August, you know.
Why, we couldn't get free if we wanted to, we're
too decent."

"But you're not happy, Jim."

"Well, who is, all the time?"

"And, Jim, you do your best work when you are
leaving me horribly alone.  I've noticed."  This was
another hideous truth and it stung.

"I've done my best, Kit," he said lamely.

"And it hasn't worked, Jim.  I will not stand in
your way.  Though I die, I will do my duty, now I
seek!"

"Don't, Kit, for heaven's sake, don't."

"I mean every word that I say.  I will not submit
longer to being—being eliminated.  I must have
reality of some kind.  Jim, you don't fit into home
life.  Our baby died.  You can forget me, and I
have had to forget you.  I want my freedom."

For a full moment they stared helplessly over the
chasm that for years had been widening without
their knowing it.  They could not touch each other
now, reach as they might.

"I—why—I'm stunned," said Norval.

"I alone have seen it coming," Katherine went on.
"If my staying made you happier, better, I would
stay even now; but it does not, Jim."

And Norval continued to stare.

"I feel I am doing you and—and your Art a great
service by letting you go."  Katherine looked the
supreme martyr.

"On what grounds?" mumbled Jim, "'An Awakened Soul'?"

This was most unfortunate.

"I'm leaving for California to-morrow!"  Katherine
spoke huskily, she no longer cried.

"Everything ready, only good-bye, eh?  Well,
Kit, you've worked efficiently once you began."

They looked at each other like strangers.

"I shall not follow you.  When you want me,
come to me.  My soul has not been awakened as
yours has, I'll keep on right here and fly the flag
over the ruins.  My God!  This *is* a shot out of a
clear sky."

"Jim, I've seen the clouds gathering ever since——"

"When, Kit?"

"That first picture that Andy said meant genius,
not plain talent, and since the baby went."

"Poor girl."

"But not so poor as I might have been," Katherine
again clutched her book proudly.

"It's the heat, Kit.  By autumn we'll be rational.
A vacation apart will fill up the cracks."

"Until then, Jim, we'll be friends?"

"Friends, Kit, friends!"  Norval clutched the
straw.  On this basis a sense of relief came.

And so Katherine went to California—and Jim
Norval?





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE INEVITABLE`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XIII


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE INEVITABLE

.. vspace:: 2

Jim Norval took to the Canadian north-west.

He had meant to be quite tragic and virtuous.
He had meant to stay in the studio and fight
out the biggest problem of his life, but he did not.
Undoubtedly the shock Katherine had given him
stunned him at first.  But, as he revived, he was the
victim of all sorts of devils which, during his life, had
been suppressed by what he believed was character.

Perhaps if the season had been less humid and
Anderson Law had been near with his plain ideals and
picturesque language, things might have been
different.  But the humidity was infernal and Law
obliterated.

The man is the true conservative.  Realizing
how cramping this is, he has verbally relegated the
emotion to woman; but he has not escaped actuality.
No matter how widely a man's fancy may wander,
his convictions must be planted on something.
Norval, having married, believing himself in love, took
root.  Now that he was confronted by the possibility
of either shrivelling or clutching to something
else, he found he could make no decision in the old
environment.  For a week he contemplated following
Katherine, it would be easier than floundering
around without her.  The next week he decided to
telegraph.  He grew calm as he wondered whether it
would be wiser to capitulate; take the position of an
outraged but masterful husband, or to say he was on
the verge of death?

Then something over which Norval had no control
calmed and held him.

"A summer apart will hurt neither of us," he
concluded, and took the train for Banff.  Mentally and
physically, he let go.  He kept to the silent places, the
deep woods and big rivers.  He took no note of time.

Once a letter was forwarded from Anderson Law.
Law wrote:

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: small

When I came to, I found myself on the way to Egypt.  It was
too late to turn back, Jim, or I would have done so and got you
to come with me, I can bear folks now.  If you think well of it,
come along anyway.  And, by the way, in the general jamboree
do you know I completely forgot the little girl of Alice Lindsay's,
fiddling away up in Canada.  I do not usually forget such things,
and I'm deeply ashamed.  If you don't come to Egypt, perhaps
you would not mind looking her up and explaining.  I'll be back
in a year or so.

.. vspace:: 2

Norval smiled.  It was his first smile in many a
day.  It was mid September then and, though he
did not realize it, he was edging toward home.
Home!  After all, it was good for a man and woman to
know the meaning of home.  Of course you had to
pay for it, and he was ready to pay.  It's rather
shocking to drift about and have no place to anchor
in.  That side of the matter had been uppermost in
Norval's mind for weeks.  He meant to make all
this very clear to Katherine; he wondered if she, too,
were edging across the continent.  There must be
hours in the studio, of course.  He and Katherine
had enough to live on, but a man ought to have
something definite in the way of work.  Painting
was more than play to Norval, it was a profession, a
job!  If he made Katherine look at it as a job,
everything would smooth out.  Then, too, he meant
to focus on her newly discovered talent.  Perhaps
she was gifted and he had been brutally blind.  No
wonder she had resented it.  And, thank God, he
was not one of the men who wanted the world for
themselves.  It would really be quite jolly to have
Katherine write about Awakened Souls and things of
that sort while he painted.  Then, after business
hours, they would have a common life interest,
maybe they could adopt children.  Norval adored
children.  Yes, it was as he had hoped; a summer
apart had brought them together!

And just then Katherine's letter came.

It ran:

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: small

JIM, I am not coming back.  Here in my little bungalow I
have found myself and I mean to keep myself!

.. class:: small

I feel very kindly.  All the hurt is gone now or I would not
write.  I see your genius, I really do, and I also see that it would
be impossible for me to help you.  I tried and failed horribly.
Had you married a woman, the waiting, thankful sort, the kind
of woman who would always be there when you came back,
always glad to have you making your brilliant way and basking
in your light, all would have been well.  But, Jim, I want
something of my own out of life, and I wasn't getting it.  I was
starving.  I feared I would starve here, but I haven't and——  Well,
Jim, I don't know how divorces are managed when people are
as respectable as we, but unless you want to leave things as they
are, do try to help me out.  After all, you must be just enough
to admit that there is something to be said for me?

.. vspace:: 2

The last feeling of security died in Norval's heart
as he read.  He had been flung into space when his
wife had first spoken.  He was not angry now.  He
was not really grieving, but he felt as a man might
who, in falling, had been clutching to what he thought
was a sturdy sapling only to find it a reed.

He had been falling ever since Katherine had shown
him the "Awakened Soul," but he had reached out on
the descent for anything that might stop him, even
the partial relinquishing of his ambition.  And here
he was with nothing!  Falling, falling.

Then, as one notices some trivial thing when
one is most tense and shocked, Norval thought of
that little girl of Alice Lindsay's fiddling away in
Canada!

"I'll get down to Chicoutimi and take to the river;
Point of Pines is on the way and I can do this for old
Andy.  It's about the only thing for me to do
anyway, just now."

There were forest fires all along the route and travel
was retarded.  When Point of Pines was seen in the
distance, its location marked by a twinkling lantern
swung from a pole on the dock, the captain of the
*River Queen* was surly because one lone traveller was
determined to be put ashore.

"Why not go on to Lentwell?" he argued; "we're
late anyway.  You could get a rig to bring you back
to this God-forsaken hole to-morrow.  It's only six
miles from Lentwell."

But Norval insisted upon his rights.

"What in thunder do you want to go for?" the
captain grew humorously fierce.  "No one ever
goes to Point of Pines."

"I'm going to surprise them," Norval rejoined.
"Give them a shock, make history for them."

"Your luggage is at the bottom of the pile," this
seemed a final argument, "you didn't say you were
going to get off."

"I didn't know just where the place was; but chuck
the trunks at Lentwell, I'll send for them."

So the *River Queen* chugged disgustedly up to the
wharf and in the gloom of the early evening Norval,
with a couple of bags, was deposited on it.

A man took in the lantern that had made known to
the captain of the departing boat that Point of
Pines was doing its duty.  Then a voice, not
belonging to the hand, called from a short distance back of
the wharf:

"Jean Duval, did a box come for us?"

"No, Mam'selle."

"Didn't anything come?"

"Nothing, Mam'selle."

"Why, then, did the boat stop?"

"To make trouble, Mam'selle, for honest people."

With this the unseen man departed, grumbling.
He had either not seen Norval or had decided not to
court further trouble.

Norval laughed.  The sound brought a young girl
into evidence.  She was a tall, slight thing, so fair
that she seemed luminous in the dim shadow caused
by the hill which rose sharply behind her.

"Well!" she said, coming close to Norval.  "Well!
How did you get here?"

"The *River Queen* left me," Norval explained,
"probably instead of the box you expected."

"Why?" asked the girl.

"Heaven knows!  I rather insisted, to be sure,
but I don't know why.  I wonder if any one could
give me a bed for the night?  Do you know?"

"Perhaps Mam'selle Morey could.  All her life
she's been getting ready for a boarder."

Norval started.

"Mam'selle Morey?" he said slowly; "and you——?"

"I'm Donelle Morey.  I have Molly and the cart
here.  We can try, if you care to."

So Norval put his bags in the cart and stretched
out his hand to help the girl.

"Thanks," she said; "I will ride beside Molly on
the shaft."

"But—why, that's absurd, you know.  The seat
is wide enough for us both."

"I prefer the shaft."

The air, manner, and voice of the girl were proofs
enough of Alice Lindsay's work, but Norval was
determined to keep his own identity, for the time being,
secret.

"I'm Richard Alton," he said, as the little creaking
cart mounted the Right of Way.

"Good evening, Mr. Richard Alton," came the
reply from the shaft.  It was improbable that the
slip of a girl sitting there was laughing at him, but
the man on the seat had his doubts.

"I'm a painter," he added.

"A painter?  Do you paint houses?"

"Oh! yes, and barns and even people and trees."

This seemed to interest the voice in the gloom, for
they had entered the woods and it was quite dark.

"You are making fun?"

"Far from it, Mam'selle."

"I am not Mam'selle.  I'm Donelle."

How childish the words and tones were!

"Excuse me, Donelle."

"And here's home!"  Suddenly Molly had
emerged from the trees and stood stock still in the
highway in front of the little white house.

"Would you rather wait until I let Molly into the
stable, or will you go in?"  Standing in the road,
with the moonlight touching her, Donelle looked like
nothing so much as a silver birch in the shadowy
woods.

"I'd much rather wait.  I'm horribly afraid."

"Afraid of what?"

"That Mam'selle Morey may not approve of me
as a boarder."

"Then she will say so," comforted the girl,
turning to open the gate across the road for the horse.
"Molly," she said, "you trot along and make yourself
easy, I'll be back in a few minutes."  Then she
turned to Norval.  "We'd better go right in.  If
you are not to stay here you'll have to try Captain
Longville's and that is a good three miles."

"Good Lord!" muttered Norval, and began to
straighten his tie and hat in a desperate attempt at
respectability.

As long as he lived Norval was to remember his
first glimpse of Jo Morey and the strangely
home-like room that greeted him.  Perhaps because his
need was great the scene touched his heart.

The brilliant stove was doing its best.  The
hanging lamp was like electricity for clearness.  The
brightness, comfort, and Jo at her loom made a
picture upon which the tired, heartsore man looked
reverently.

Jo lifted her glad face to welcome Donelle and saw
the stranger!

Instantly the protecting brows fell, but not until
Norval had seen the worship that filled the eyes.

"Mamsey!"  Donelle went quickly forward and
half whispered.

"This—this is a boarder!  Now, don't——"  Norval
could not catch the rest, but it was a warning to
Jo not to put her price too high.

"A boarder?"  Jo got upon her feet, plainly affected.
She took life pretty much as it came, but
this unexpected appearance of her secret desire
almost stunned her.

"Where did you get him, Donelle?"

Then the girl told her story while her yellow eyes
danced with childish amusement.

"He's just like an answer to prayer, isn't he,
Mamsey?"

"And I'm quite prayerful in my attitude," Norval
put in.  "Anything in the way of a bite and a bed will
be gratefully received.  Name your price, Mam'selle."

Now that the hour had come Jo's conscience
and her sense of justice rose in arms against each
other.

"He looks as if he could pay," she mused.

"But see how tired he looks—and interesting!"  Conscience
and inclination pushed Jo to the wall.
However, she was hard-headed.

"How about five dollars a week?" she ejaculated.

"Oh!" gasped Donelle to whom money was a
dead language; "Mamsey, that is awful."

Norval was afraid he was going to spoil everything
by roaring aloud.  Instead he said:

"I can stand that, Mam'selle.  I suppose you'll
call it a dollar if I'm put out to-morrow?"

"Surely."

Then Jo bustled about preparing food while
Donelle went back to Molly, with Nick hurtling
along in the dark beside her.

And so Norval, known as Alton, occupied the upper
chamber of Jo Morey's house.  His artist's eye
gloated over the rare old furniture; he touched
reverently the linen and the woollen spreads; he laid
hands as gentle as a woman's on the dainty curtains;
and he gave thanks, as only a weary-souled man can,
for the haven into which he had drifted.  He was as
nervous as a girl for fear he might be weighed and
found wanting by Mam'selle Morey.  He contemplated,
should she give him notice, buying her.
Then he laughed.  He had not been in the little
white house twenty-four hours before he realized
that his landlady was no ordinary sort and to view
her in the light of a mercenary was impossible.

But Jo did not dismiss her boarder.  His adaptability
won her from the start and, although she
frowned upon him, she cooked for him like an inspired
creature and hoped, in her heart, that she might
prove worthy of the fulfilment of her dreams.  To
Donelle's part in the arrangement she gave, strangely
enough, little thought except that the money would
ease the future for the girl.  Perhaps poor Jo, simple as
a child in many ways, believed that it was inherent
in a boarder to be exempt from the frailties of other
and lesser men.  She never thought of him in terms
of sex, and Donelle was still to her young, very young.

Alton had been with her a week when Marcel
Longville, embodying the sentiments of the village,
came deprecatingly into Jo's kitchen and sat
dolefully down on a hard yellow chair.  She sniffed
critically.  Marcel was a judge of cooking, but no
artist.  She cooked of necessity, not for pleasure.  Jo
revelled in ingredients and had visions of results.

"Crullers and chicken!" said Marcel.  "You
certainly do tickle the stomach, Mam'selle."

"He pays well and steady," Jo answered, attending
strictly to business.  "And such a relisher
I've never seen.  Not even among your best payers,
Marcel.  They always ate and thought afterward if
they wanted to, or had to; mine thinks while he
eats.  I've watched him pause a full minute over a
mouthful, getting the flavour."

"That's flattering to a woman, certainly," Marcel
sighed.  Then: "Father Mantelle says your boarder
is handsome, Mam'selle, and young."

"Tastes differ," Jo basted her chicken with steady
hand; "he's terrible brown and lean.  As to age, he
wasn't born yesterday."

"What's he doing here, Jo?"

"Eating and sleeping, mostly eating.  He wanders
some, too.  He's partial to woods."

"Hasn't he any excuse for being here?"

"Marcel, does any one have to have an excuse for
being in Point of Pines?  What's the matter with the
place?"

"The Captain argues that he is a prospector."  Marcel
brought the word out carefully.

"What's that?"  Mam'selle dipped out her crullers
from the deep fat.

"Sensing about timber or land, or something that
someone secret wants to buy, and has sent him to
spy on."

"Well, I don't believe the Captain has shot the
right bird," Jo laughed significantly, "the Captain
isn't always a good shot.  My boarder is a painter."

"A painter?  What does he think he can get to do
here?  We leave our houses to nature."

"He's going to fix up the wood-cabin."  Jo spoke
indifferently, but her colour rose.  The wood-cabin
was Langley's deserted house.  Years ago she had
bought it, for a song, and then left it alone.

"He goes there every day.  I shouldn't wonder
if he was going to paint that.  It will take gallons,
for the knotholes will just drink paint."

"Mam'selle," here Marcel panted a bit, "you
don't fear for Donelle?"

Jo stood still, wiped her hands on her checked apron,
and stared at Marcel.

"Why should I?" she asked.

"Jo, a strange man and Donelle growing wonderful
pretty, and——"

Still Jo stared.

"Mam'selle, the men have fixed the world for
themselves; you know that.  They have even fixed
the women.  Some are to labour and bend under their
loads until they break, then the scrap heap!  Others,
the pretty ones, are to be taken or bought as the case
may be.  And young girls innocent and longing do
not count the cost.  Oh!  Mam'selle, have you
thought of Donelle?"

Poor Marcel's eyes were tear-filled.

Jo looked dazed and helpless.  Presently she said,
with that slow fierceness people dreaded:

"Marcel, I haven't lived my life for nothing.
No man fixes my life for me nor labels me or
mine.  Donelle is nothing but a child.  Why, look
at her!  When she's a woman, if a man wants her,
he's going to hear something that I'm keeping just
for him, and unless he believes it, he's not fit for
the girl.  In the meantime, my boarder is my
boarder."

With this Marcel had to be content, and the others
also.  For they were waiting for the result of the
interview like hungry animals afraid to go too near
the food supply, but full of curiosity.

Yet for all her scornful words, Jo watched the man
within her house.  She realized that he was still
young and for all his leanness and brownness,
handsome, in a way.  He had a habit, after the evening
meal was done, of sitting astride a chair, and, while
smoking, laughing at Donelle.

"He'd never do that if he saw in her a woman,"
thought Jo with relief.  "She amuses him."

And that surely Donelle did.  Her mimicry was
delicious, her abandon before Alton most diverting.
She knew no shyness, she even returned his teasing
with a quick pertness that disarmed Jo completely.

"Well, Mr. Richard Alton," Donelle said one
night as she watched him puff his pipe, "I went up
to the wood-cabin to-day to see how much painting
you'd done and I found it locked.  I looked into the
window and there was something hung inside."

"Little girls mustn't snoop," said Alton.

Donelle twisted her mouth and cocked her head.

"Very well," she said, "keep your old cabin.  I
know another that is never locked against me."

"Meaning whose?"

"You'll have to hunt and find, Mr. Richard Alton."

Norval laughed and turned to Jo.

"Why don't you spank her, Mam'selle?" he
asked.  "She's a little rascal."  Then: "Whose
fiddle is that?" for Donelle never played.

Donelle's eyes followed his and rested upon the
case standing against the wall.

"How did you know it was a fiddle?" she asked.

"Well, it's a fiddle case.  Of course, Mam'selle
may keep cheese in it!"

"It's—it's my fiddle," Donelle's gaiety fled,
"but I don't play it any more."

"Why?"

"Well, everything that went with the fiddle has
gone!  I'm trying to forget it."

"Mam'selle," Norval frowned his darkest, "have
you ever heard of a bird who could sing and
wouldn't?"

"No, Mr. Alton, never!"  Jo was quite sincere.
Her boarder was always giving her interesting
information.

"It can be made to, Mam'selle.  Again, I advise
spanking."

Surely there was no fear that her boarder and
Donelle might come to grief!  Jo laughed light
heartedly.  Her own bleak experience in the realm of love
and danger was so far removed that it gave her no
guidance.  She might have felt differently had she
seen what happened the following day.  But at that
time she was diligently building her wood pile while
Donelle, among the trees on the hilltop, was supposed
to be instructing a couple of boys in sawing wood.

But Donelle had finished her instructions, the
boys were working intelligently, and she had
wandered away with her heart singing within her, she knew
not why.  Then she threw back her head and laughed.
She knew the reason at last, Tom Gavot was coming
back!  Tom had been seeing roads in the deeper
woods for nearly three weeks, but he was coming
back.  Marcel had said so.  Of course that was why
Donelle was happy.

   |  And my heart is like a rhyme,
   |    With the yellow and the purple keeping time;
   |  The scarlet of the maples can shake me like a cry
   |    Of bugles going by.
   |

Over and over Donelle said the words in a kind
of chant which presently degenerated into words
merely strung together.

"Like a rhyme—keeping time—like a cry—going
by——" and then suddenly she heard her name.

"Donelle!"  Standing under a flaming maple was Norval.

"I have been following you," he said, and his eyes,
dark, compelling, were holding hers.

"Why, Mr. Richard Alton?"

"Because I am going to make you promise to
play your fiddle again."

"No, I am happier when I forget my fiddle."

"Why, Donelle Morey, are you happier?"

"You would not understand."

"I'd try.  Come, sit here on this log.  The sun
strikes it and we will be warm."

Donelle stepped off the narrow path and reached
the log, while Norval sat down beside her.

"Now tell me about that fiddle."

"Once," Donelle raised her eyes to his, "once, for a
long time I stayed, you would not know if I told you
where, but it was near here and yet so far away.
Everything was different—I thought I belonged
there and I was the happiest girl, and had such big
dreams.  They taught me to play; a wonderful old
man said I could play and I did.  A dear lady
opened the way for me to go on!  Then something
happened.  It was just a word, but it told me that
I did not belong in that lovely place, and if I went
on I would be—cheating somebody; somebody who
had let me have my life and never asked anything,
who never would, but who would go on, making the
best of——"  Donelle's eyes were full of tears, her
throat ached.

"Of what, little girl?"

"The—the bits that were left."

"Perhaps," Norval, quite unconsciously laid his
hand over Donelle's which were clasped on her knees,
"perhaps that somebody could have made quite a
splendid showing of the bits, dear girl.  And you
might have made the place yours, the one that did
not seem quite your own.  Places are not always
inherited, you know.  Often they are—conquered."

"You make me afraid," said Donelle as she looked
down at the hand covering hers.  "You see, I want
to do the thing you say.  I almost did it, but the
dear lady died.  I'm not very brave; I think I would
gave gone."

"She may not be the only one, child."

"But I couldn't take anything unless I had it,
clean and safe.  I wouldn't want it, unless I,
myself, made it sure first.  I'm like that.  Don't you
think something you are afraid of being sometimes
keeps you from being what you want to be?"

"Yes.  But, little girl, come, some time, to the
cabin in the woods and play for me; will you?  I
might help you.  And you could help me, I am
trying to find my place, too."

"You?"

"Yes, Donelle."  Then, quite irrelevantly, as once
Tom Gavot had done, he said: "Your eyes are
glorious, child, do you know that?  The soul of you
shines through.  Donelle, it is almost as bad to starve
a soul as to kill it.  Will you bring the fiddle some
day?"

"Yes, some day."

She was very sweet and pretty sitting there with
the autumn light on her face.

"Donelle!"

"Yes."

"Just Donelle.  The name is like you.  You will
keep your promise?"

"Some day, yes."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`A CHOICE OF ROADS`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XIV


.. class:: center medium bold

   A CHOICE OF ROADS

.. vspace:: 2

Day after day Donelle looked at her fiddle,
but turned away.  Day after day she sang
the hours through, working beside Jo, or
playing with Nick.  Something was happening to
her; something that frightened her, but thrilled her.
She kept remembering the touch of Norval's hand
upon hers!  In the night, when she thought of it,
she trembled.  When she saw him she was shy.

"I wish Tom Gavot would come back," she said
to herself, for Tom had been detained.  Then, at
last, one day she heard that he was on his way.
He would leave the little train, five miles below
Point of Pines, and would walk the rest of the way.
She knew the path so she went to meet him.

It was mid afternoon when she saw him coming,
swinging along in his rough corduroys and high boots,
his cap on the back of his handsome head, his bag
slung over his shoulder.

She stepped behind a tree, laughing, and when he
was close she suddenly appeared and grasped his
arm.

"Donelle, I thought——"

"Did I frighten you, Tom?"

"Well, you know there is always the bit of a coward
in me.  Why are you here?"

"I came to meet you, Tom."

"Has anything gone wrong?"  His face darkened;
poor Tom never expected things had gone right.  His
life had not been formed on those lines.

"No, but I wanted you, Tom.  There are so many
things to talk about, wonderful things.  I've gone
to your cabin, Tom, and made it ready for you.
Every day I've lighted a fire the nights are cold.  I
thought you might come at night."

Donelle had lighted a fire of which she knew
nothing, and Tom could not tell her!

"You're kind," was all he said as he looked at her.
Then: "I never had a home until I got that cabin,
Donelle.  While I am away, I see the curtains you
and Mam'selle made and the bedspread and all the
rest.  When I've been shivering in camp, I saw the
fire on my own little hearth, and I was warm!"

Donelle smiled up to him.

"Tell me about your road," she said.

"Well, there's going to be one!  I meant to come
back ten days ago, but something happened and I
decided to start work this fall, not wait for spring,
so I stayed on.  There was sickness at a settlement
back in the woods.  Many people almost died, some
of them did, because they couldn't get a doctor and
proper care.  It's criminal to put women and
children in such a hole; there's got to be a road
connecting those places with—help!  A man is a brute to
take a woman with him under such conditions.
What *he* wants goes!  He never thinks of *her* part."

"But, Tom, maybe she, the woman, wants to go."

"He ought not to let her, he knows."

"But if she just will go, what then, Tom?"

"It doesn't make it right for him, he knows."

"But it might be worse to stay back, Tom.  A
woman might choose to go."

"But *she* doesn't know; *he* does."

"But she may want to know, and be willing to pay."

"Donelle, you're a crazy little know-nothing."

Tom looked down and laughed.  He was wondrously
happy.  "Always wanting to pay for what
isn't worth it."

"You're wrong, Tom.  It is worth it."

"What?"

"Why, the thing that makes a woman want to go
into the woods with a man, even when there are no
roads; the thing that makes her willing to pay before
she knows."

Tom breathed hard.

"I suppose it is—love, Tom."

"It's something worse, often!"  Gavot turned his
eyes away from the upturned face.

"Lately, Tom," Donelle came close to him and
touched his arm as she walked beside him, "I've
been thinking about such a lot of new things and
love among them."

"Love!"  And now Tom stood still, as if an
unseen blow had stunned him.

"Yes, and I had no one to talk to.  I couldn't
speak to Mamsey.  Always I think of you, Tom,
whenever thoughts come.  You see everything, just
as you see your roads in the deep woods.  Are you
tired, Tom?"

"No," Gavot got control of himself, "no, not tired."

"You see," and now they were going on again,
"the big feelings of life just come to everyone.
They don't pick, and when you are young, you have
young thoughts.  That is the way it seems to me,
and often, Tom Gavot, the very things that you
ought to have an old head to think about come when
you haven't any sense at all."  This tremendous
truth fell from the girlish lips quite irrelevantly.
"And then you just take and pay what you must,
but often you have to pay more than you ought,
because—well, because you are young when you
bought——"

Donelle sobbed.  "I've been thinking of Mamsey,"
she ended pitifully.  Tom stopped short.  He
flung his pack on the ground and laid his strong,
work-hardened hands on Donelle's shoulders.

"You don't have to pay for Mam'selle," he said
in a whisper; "she's paid, God knows."

"But I've got to pay for my father, Tom."

"What do you mean?"

"Why, you see, lately I've known that I must be
like my father more than like, like Mamsey.  She
learned and stayed and paid, he ran away.  Oh,
Tom, it's good to be able to say this to you, out here
under the trees, alone.  It has been choking me for
days and days.  You see, Tom, a big feeling comes
up in me that wants and wants.  And, always, too,
there is another feeling.  I do not want to pay, as
Mamsey did.  It would be easier to run and hide!
But, Tom, I'm not going to, I'm not!  I'm going
to pay for my father!"

"What ails you, Donelle?  Has any one been
talking?"  Tom still held her, his hungry heart yearned
to draw her close, but he held her at arm's length.

"No, it is only—thoughts that have been talking.
I just cannot settle down by Mamsey, and know I'm
to stay here without that running away feeling.
Then I say: 'I don't care, I want to go and I'll go,'
and then—why, I cannot, Tom, for I know I must
pay for my father."

"Go where?"

"Go, Tom, where my fiddle would take me.  Go
where people do not know; go and learn things, and
then if any one did find out—pay!"

Poor Tom was weary almost to the breaking point.
Nights in rough camps, days of wood tramping had
worn upon him, the fire of which Donelle knew
nothing sent the blood racing through his veins.  Her
touch on his arm made him tremble.

"See here, Donelle," he said; "would you come
along my road with me?  Would you, could you,
learn enough—that way?"

But Donelle smiled her vague smile, "I think I
must have my own road, Tom.  The trouble is I
cannot see my road as you see roads.  I only feel
my feet aching.  But, Tom, surely you must have
seen life a little in Quebec, tell me: could a great big
strong love keep on loving even if it knew about me
and Mamsey?"

"Yes."  The word was more like a groan.

"Even if it had to keep Mamsey from knowing
that we know?"

"Yes."

"Why, Tom, dear Tom, you make me feel wonderful.
You always do, you big, safe Tom.  I just
knew how it would be; that is why I had to come
and meet you."

She rubbed her cheek against the rough sleeve of
his jacket.  "I think your mother would just worship
you, Tom."

Then Gavot laughed, laughed his honest laugh, and
picked up his pack.

"Donelle," he said presently, "you ought to make
your music again.  You have no right not to."

"You, you really mean that, Tom?"

"Yes, I do."

"Well, I think I'll get the fiddle out some day, soon,
and come to your cabin.  While you draw your roads
on your paper, I'll see if the tunes will come back."

But Donelle did not speak of Richard Alton.

The autumn lingered in Point of Pines; even the
gold and red clung to the trees to add to the delusion
that winter was far off.  The mid-days were warm,
and only now and then did the frost nip.

Norval kept saying to himself, as he lay on that
wonderful bed in Jo Morey's upper chamber, "I
must go back!"  But he made no move southward.
The quiet of the woods, the lure of the river held
him, and then he began to ask why he *should* go back?

Law was still in Egypt, Katherine was undoubtedly
in her bungalow; why not have what he always had
wanted, a winter away from things?

Then a letter forwarded by his lawyer clarified his
thoughts.  It was from Katherine, who had
discovered a new set of duties and was hot-footed to
perform them.

She wrote:

.. vspace:: 2

.. class: small

JIM, until you are willing to die for something, you have never
lived.  In letting loose what really was never mine, my own came
to me.  I have a new book out.  Shall I send you a copy?  I've
called it "The Soul Set Free."  I do not want to be too personal,
but I find the world loves the close touch.

.. class:: small

You have not said one word, Jim, about a divorce and I have
waited.  I think you owe me assistance along this line, and now I
must insist.  For, Jim, with the rest of what is my own has come
a startling realization, that love, understanding love, is to be
mine, too.  Until I hear from you I will not name the man who
discovered my talent before he saw me.  He read the manuscript
of my first book, he had never heard of me then.  Only
recently has he come to California.  He is my mate, Jim, I know
that, and I owe him a great duty.  I must go as I see duty, but I
must go with a clear conscience.  I owe him that, also.

.. vspace:: 2

Norval read this amazing letter lying on a couch
before a blazing fire in his wood-cabin.  He read
and reread it.  He felt as he might have felt had a
toy dog—or a fluffy kitten, risen up and smitten him.
Katherine had been giving him a series of tremendous
thumps ever since she had shown him her awakened
soul.  Little by little she had receded from his
understanding of her; but to come forth now in this
stupefying characterization of the untrammeled
woman, was——  Norval laughed, a hard, bitter laugh.

Then he went to his improvised desk, the cabin
was filled with his attempts at furniture making;
it was a remarkable place.

He wrote rather unsteadily:

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: small

KIT, do you remember the story of the mouse that ran in the
whiskey drippings, licked his legs, got drunk, and then took his
stand, crying, "Where's that damned cat I was so afraid of
yesterday?"  Well, you make me think of that.  You were once,
unless I was mistaken, a nice little mouse of a thing, pretty well
scared of the conventional cat—the world, you know.  Then
came the whiskey lickings, your talent.  I'm afraid you're drunk,
child, drunk as a lord.  But there you are, all the same, with your
back up against the wall, defying the cat.  Well, you're thirty-two,
and although you were afraid of the cat, you certainly know
something about the animal.  I agree with you that we were
not suited to one another, and I'm ready to let your soulmate
have a show.  I do not quite know how to do it, but if you think
you will not be defrauding him too much—and if your sense of
duty will permit, give me time to get my breath and I swear I'll
think up some sort of "cause" that will set you free.  Just now
I am hidden away in the woods, painting as I used to paint when
Andy stared and stared.  I can tell quality now.  I'm on the
right road and do not want to be jerked back until I've made
sure.  Perhaps the law in California would make it easy for you.
Anything short of making a villain of me, I'm willing to consider.

.. vspace:: 2

Then Norval, having written, stalked down to the
Post Office, sent his ultimatum off with the Point
of Pines official stamp on it, and went to Dan's Place
for no earthly reason but to forget.  He drank a
little, scorned himself for taking that road out of his
perplexity, drank a little more with old, grimy Pierre
Gavot, and then started back to the wood-cabin.
He did not want to face Jo Morey—or Donelle.
He felt unclean; he was, in a befuddled way, paying
for Katherine.

The sun was setting in a magnificent glory of
colour and cloud banks.  There was a flurry of snow in
the clouds, and until it fell there would be that chill
in the air that was vicariously cooling Norval's hot
brain.

He wanted the seclusion of the cabin more than
he wanted anything else just then.  He had left a
fire on the hearth, he could stretch himself on the
couch for the night.  He did not want food, but he
was frantic to get to his canvas; he had begun a few
days ago a fantastic thing, quite out of his ordinary
style.  While there was light enough he could work.
So he pressed on.

The clouds quite unexpectedly gave up their
burden, and Norval was soon covered with snow as he
flew along, taking a short cut to the cabin.  But
having given up the snow, the clouds disappeared and
the daylight was lengthened.  Pounding the snow
from his feet, shaking himself like a bear, Norval
entered the cabin and saw—Donelle standing
transfixed before the easel!

She did not turn as he came in; she was rigid, her
hands holding her violin case.

"You—you said you were a painter!" she gasped
when she felt Norval was near her.

"And you think I'm not?"  Something in the
voice startled her, she looked at him.

"You said you painted houses and barns and——"

"People sometimes and trees.  I spoke the truth,
but you think I'm no painter?"

"Why, I've been—I've been thinking I was dreaming
until just now.  See these woods," she was gazing
at the unfinished thing on the easel, "They are
my woods.  I know the very paths, they are back of
the lumber cutting.  See! is there a face, somewhere
in the dark, a face back of those silver birches, is
there?"

Norval, with the Joan of Arc conception in mind,
had painted those woods while Donelle's face had
haunted him.

"Can you see a face?" he asked.  He was close
to the girl now, so close that her young body touched
him.

"Is it only a fancy?"

"Look again, Donelle.  Whose face?"

"I—I do not know!"

But she did know, and she looked mutely at him.

"Donelle, why did you come here?"

"I promised I was going to—to play for you."

"Then, in God's name, do it!  See, go over there
by the window."  Norval had folded his arms over
his breast.  He was afraid of himself, of the madness
that Katherine and Dan's Place had evolved.  "Play,
and I'll finish this thing."

"I can play best if I move about."

"Move, then, but fiddle!"

"You are sure you want me?  I can come again.
You are strange, I should not have stolen in, but
once I had seen—I couldn't get away."

"Donelle, you are to stay.  Do you hear?  For
your sake and mine you are to stay.  Now, then."

He turned his back on her, flung off his coat, and
fell to work.

Donelle tuned her violin, tucked it under her chin,
and slowly walking to and fro, she played and played
until the hunger in her heart grew satisfied.  Like a
little pale ghost she passed up and down the rude
room, smiling and happy.

After half an hour Norval looked at her; he was
haggard, but quite himself.

Then Donelle turned and, nodding over her bow, said:

"It's all right, the joy of it has come back
and——  Oh!  I see the face among the trees.  What a beautiful
picture!  It's like a wood with a heart and soul;
it's alive like Tom Gavot's road.  Now we must go
home, Mr. Richard Alton.  We're tired, you and I.

"Home?" Norval laughed.  "Home?"

"Yes, to Mamsey.  I always am so glad of
Mamsey when I'm tired."

"Donelle, I meant to stay here to-night."

"But instead, you are coming with me!"  Donelle
put out her hand, "Come!"

Norval raised the hand to his lips.

"You little, white wood-spirit," he said, "they
did not teach you to play, they only let you free.
Donelle, are you a spirit?"

"No," and now the yellow eyes sought and held
his, "I'm a—woman, Mr. Richard Alton."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE LOOK`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XV


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE LOOK

.. vspace:: 2

And Donelle began to know what love was.
Know it as passionate, daring natures know
it.  She thought of her father, of Mamsey,
in a new light.  She grew to understand her
supposed mother with a tragic realization and she
shuddered when she reflected upon her father.

"To go and leave love!" she thought.  "Oh! how
could he?"

Then Donelle took to gazing upon Jo with the
critical eyes of youth, and yet with pity.

What manner of girl had Jo been?  Had she
always been plain?

The word caused Donelle pain.  It sounded disloyal
to Jo; but it sent her to her mirror in the little
north chamber beside Mam'selle's.

The face that looked back at Donelle puzzled her.
Was it pretty?  What was the matter with it?

The eyes were too large, they looked hungry.
The mouth, too, was queer; it did things too easily.
It smiled and quivered; it turned up at the corners,
it drooped down, all too easily.  The nose was rather
nice as noses go, but it had tiny freckles on it that
you could see if you looked close.  Those freckles
were, in colour, something like the eyes.

"I like my hair!" confessed Donelle, and she
smoothed the soft, pale braids wound about her
delicately poised head.  "My throat is too long, but
it's white!"

Then she tried on her few dresses, one after the
other, and chose a heavy dark blue one.  Jo had
woven the material, it was very fine and warm.

"I think I will take my fiddle and go up to the
wood-cabin," thought Donelle, and then her face
grew bright and rose-touched.

But instead, Donelle went to Tom Gavot's hut.

Once outside the house, she simply could not go to
the wood-cabin.  She knew Alton was there, he
painted constantly when he was not tramping the
sunny forests or sitting with Jo and Donelle, reading
in the smothering heat of the overworked stove.

"Some time when he is away, then I'll go."

But oh! how she wanted to go.  The very thought
of Alton made her thrill.  Sometimes she saw him
looking at her, when Jo was bent over her loom or
needles, and the look always called something out of
Donelle; something that went straight to Alton and
never returned!

On that winter day, a still white day, Donelle
carried her violin under her long fur coat; she must
play to somebody, and Jo had gone to the distant
town for the day.

The door of Tom's hut was closed, but a curl of
smoke rose from the chimney so Donelle knocked
rather formally.

Tom's step sounded inside, he took down the bar
which secured the door and flung it open.  His eyes
were dark and his brow scowling.

"Why, Tom," laughed Donelle, "who are you
locking and barring out?  Maybe you do not want
company?"

"I don't, but I want you."

"Tom, who do you call company?"

"Mam'selle's boarder, that Mr. Alton."  Tom had
run across Norval once or twice since his return.

"Don't you like him, Tom?"

Donelle had come inside and taken a chair by
the hearth, now she flung her coat aside and laid the
violin on her knee.

"Yes, I like him well enough, and that's the
trouble.  I don't want to like people unless there is a
reason.  I can't find a reason for this man."

Donelle laughed.

"What is he here for anyway, Donelle?"

"Why don't you go up to his wood-cabin and see,
Tom?  He's asked you."  She had heard Norval
do so rather insistently.

"Yes.  But I'm not going."

"Why, Tom?"

"I'm too busy."

"I wish you would go, Tom.  I wish you could
see his pictures.  Why, Tom, you'd feel like taking
the shoes off your feet."

Tom laughed grimly.

"Not while the weather's so cold," he said.

"But, Tom, that's the reason for Mr. Alton.  He
is getting our woods and skies and river safe on his
canvases.  He's going to take them back to people
who have never seen such things."

"Why don't they come and board here, then, and
see them for themselves?"  Tom threw a log
viciously on the fire.  "You don't mean he's doing
this to give a lot of people pleasure?"

"Tom, he sells his pictures; he gets a great deal of
money for them."

"Umph!"  Then, "Has he ever put you in the
pictures, Donelle?"

There was a slight pause.  Remembering the faint
suggestion in the first picture she had ever seen in the
cabin, Donelle said softly:

"No, Tom."

"I'm glad.  I'd hate to have a lot of strangers
staring at you."

"Tom, you're scrouchy.  Let me play for you."

And, while she played, growing more rapt and
absorbed as she did so, Tom took his drawing board to
the window and bent over his blueprints.  Gradually
the look of doubt and irritation left his face, a
flood of happiness swept over him.  He began to see
roads.  Always roads.  He wanted to go to Quebec
in the spring and tell his firm about something he
had discovered lately; and it was on Mam'selle
Morey's land, too.  If there were a road back among
the hills over which to haul that which he had found,
haul it by a short cut to the railroad, by and by
Mam'selle and Donelle would not have to take
objectionable strangers into their home and——

Donelle played on unheedingly, but Tom started
as a knock fell on the door!

"I will not open it!" he thought savagely.  "Let
him think what he damn pleases."

The tune ran glidingly on.

"You like this tune, Tom?"  Donelle was far away
from the still cabin.

"Yes, I like it, Donelle, but play something
louder, faster."

"Well, then, how about this?" and with a laugh
Donelle swung into a new theme.

Again the knock!  This time softer but more
insinuating.

Then all was quiet, but the mad music was filling
the warm room.

Just then the visitor at the door stepped around the
house and came in full view of the window before
which Tom sat, rigid and defiant.  It was Norval,
and he paused, came nearer and stood still.  Tom
got up, and the movement attracted Donelle's
attention.  She turned and saw the two men glaring
at each other, the glass between.

"Curse him!" muttered Tom, "curse him!"

Norval vanished instantly, but not before Donelle
had caught the expression in his eyes.

"Tom," she said affrightedly, "what did he think?"

"What does it matter what he thought?"

"But, Tom, tell me, what did he think to make
him look like that?  Perhaps, perhaps he thinks I
should not be here, alone with you."

"Damn him.  What right has he to stare into my
place?"

"But, Tom, his eyes, I cannot bear to think of
the look in his eyes.  It—it was laughing, but it
hurt."

"Who cares about what he thought?"  Tom was savage.

"I do," Donelle whispered.  She was putting
her violin away.  "I do.  I couldn't stand having a
man look at me like that.  Why, Tom, it made me
feel ashamed."

Again Gavot cursed, but under his breath.

"You going?" he asked.  "Wait, I'll come with you.
Wait, Donelle."

But the girl did not pause.

"I'd rather go alone," she called back.

But she did not go directly home, she took a round-about
way and reached the hill back of the little white
house.  The tall pines rose black from the untrodden
snow, the winter sky was as blue as steel, and as
cold.  In among the trees, where it was sheltered,
Donelle sat down.  There she could think!

The power of a look is mighty.  The mere instant
that Norval had gazed upon Donelle through the
window was sufficient to carry the meaning in the
man's mind to the sensitive girl.

It took her some time to translate the truth as she
sat under the trees on the hilltop, but slowly it all
became clear.

"He does not know, but he thinks wrong of me."  Donelle
spoke aloud as if repeating a lesson.

"Why should he think wrong?" questioned the
hard teacher.

Then Donelle remembered her father and Jo, and
the word with which Pierre Gavot had polluted her
life.

"That's why he laughed," shuddered the girl.
Her own secret interpreting the hurting look though
knowing him only as Richard Alton, she had no reason
to believe he knew her story.

Then the relentless teacher pointed her back to
the look in Dan Kelly's eyes, the look that had
frightened her and had made Jo send her away to
the Walled House.

"Unless I save myself," moaned Donelle, "no
one can keep people from looking—those looks!"

Quietly she got up and walked down the hill, a tall,
slim, ghostly form, with eyes haunted by knowledge.

That night after the evening meal Norval stayed
in the bright living room and tortured Donelle.  He
knew he was brutal, but something drove him on.
He was suffering dumbly, suffering without cause,
he believed.  Why should he care that a girl about
whom he knew too much should hide herself away
with a rough young giant behind a locked door in a
lonely hut?

Then he concluded it was because he knew how
Alice Lindsay and Law might feel, that he suffered.
They would be so shocked.

"After all," Norval tried to reason himself into
indifference, "blood will cry out.  The world may
be damned unjust to women, but there is something
lacking when a girl like this makes herself—cheap."

Then it was that Norval began his torture.  Jo
was in the kitchen at the moment, Donelle was
clearing the table.

"Where were you this afternoon?"  Norval was
carefully filling his pipe, sitting astride his chair.

"Part of the time I was in the woods on the hill,"
Donelle glanced at Jo through the open door.

"That's odd!"  Norval puffed slowly and Donelle's
eyes pleaded unconsciously.  For no real reason
she did not want Jo to know she had been with Tom.
She was haunted by the look!

"Why don't you come up to my cabin and play
to me?"  This in a tone so low that Mam'selle could
not hear.

"I—I don't know.  I might be in the way while
you work."

"On the contrary.  Come up to-morrow, Donelle,
I'll paint you with your fiddle.  You'll make the
town stare, the town back home."

The colour rose to Donelle's face.  She remembered
Tom's words.

"I do not want strangers staring at my face," she
said with some spirit.

"Why not?  It's a pretty face, Donelle."

Then the girl crossed the room and stood before him.

"If you talk and look like that," she warned in an
undertone, "I'll make Mamsey send you away."

Norval laughed.

"I don't believe you will," he said, and reached
out toward her.

And, for hours that night, after everything was still,
Donelle lay in her dark room and cried while she
struggled with her confused emotions.

"He shall go away!  He shall *not* dare to look at
me so, and whisper!"

Then she tossed about.

"But he must not go until I make him ashamed to
look at me—so.  But how can I?  How can I?"

Toward morning sleep came and when Donelle
awoke, Norval had had his breakfast and gone.

After the morning's work was finished Jo asked
Donelle to go on an errand.  A poor woman back
among the hills was ill and needed food of the right
sort.

"I have a crick in my back, Donelle," Jo explained,
"I don't believe I could walk there, and the road is
unbroken.  Molly is too old to force her way through.
If you take the wood path, it won't be too far."

"I'd love to go, Mamsey.  It's such a still day,
and did you ever see such sunlight?"

The release was welcome, poor Donelle still was
thrashing about in her confused emotions.  She was
grateful that Alton was gone; she yearned to see him,
and so it went.

"I'll be back as soon as I can, Mamsey.  Is the
basket packed?"

It was only eight o'clock when Donelle set forth.
She wore her long, dark fur coat, a cowl-like hood of
fur covered her pale hair, her delicate, white face
shone sweetly in the soft, dusky setting.  The eyes
were full of sunlight but her mouth drooped
pathetically.

Jo remembered the look long after the girl had
departed.

"I mustn't keep her here," she reasoned; "I'm
going to write again to that Mr. Law.  I will wait
until spring; he couldn't come now.  I'm going to
ask him to come up here and talk things over."

Then Mam'selle went to her loom and worked like
a Fate; there were piles of wonderful things to sell.
Surely they would help Donelle to her own!
And so Jo worked and dreamed and feared, while
Donelle made her way over the crusty snow, through
the silent, holy woods, over the shining hill to the
sick woman in her distant cabin.

For an hour the girl worked in the lonely house.
She built a roaring fire, carried in a store of wood,
fed and cheered the poor soul on her hard bed, and
then turned her face toward Point of Pines.

Almost childishly she dallied by the way, trying
to set her feet in the marks she had made on the way
up.  So interested did she become in this that it
made her *almost* forget that queer, sad feeling in her
heart.

"I'll make a new path," she decided, and that
caused her to think of Tom Gavot and Alton and—the Look!

Then she forgot all else and drifted far away.  She
was unhappy as the young know unhappiness; no
perspective, no comparison.  Never had there been
such a case as hers!  Never had any one suffered
as she was suffering because no one had ever had
the same reason!

When Donelle recalled herself, she found that she
was on the highway several miles beyond Point of
Fines.  The sun was sloping down, the west was
golden, and a solemn stillness, almost deathly,
pervaded space.

There was a tall cross close beside Donelle.  Black
it rose from the unsullied snow, white tipped it was
and shining against the glowing sky.  Beneath it
someone had evidently knelt, for the crust of the
snow was broken.  What meaning all this had for
Donelle, who could tell?  But the confusion and
hurt of the last few hours clutched at her heart, and
she who had never been urged by Jo Morey to consider
religion in any form went slowly to the cross
and sank down!

The teachings of St. Michael's claimed her, the
memory of little Sister Mary with the lost look clung
to her; then a peace entered into her soul.

"No one could hurt me there," she sobbed.  "No
one could look at me—with that look."  Then, at
the foot of the cross, her head bowed and her tears
falling, Donelle shivered and prayed.

.. _`"At the foot of the cross, her head bowed and her tears falling, Donelle shivered and prayed"`:

.. figure:: images/img-236.jpg
   :figclass: white-space-pre-line
   :align: center
   :alt: "At the foot of the cross, her head bowed and her tears falling, Donelle shivered and prayed."

   "At the foot of the cross, her head bowed and her tears falling, Donelle shivered and prayed."

Presently she raised her face; it was calm and pale.
There was a round teardrop on her cheek that had
not fallen with the others.  She turned and there by
the roadside stood Norval.  How long he had been
there he could hardly have told himself.

When he had gone to the white house for his noon-day
meal, Jo had told him, quite inconsequently, of
Donelle's errand and he had followed her, for what
reason God only knew.

"Donelle!" he said, "Donelle!"

The terrible look in his eyes was gone, gone was
the mocking smile of the night before.  Pity, divine
pity, moved him.

"Donelle!"

"Yes, Mr. Richard Alton."  The poor girl strove
to be her teasing self, but her lips trembled and
suddenly a strange, almost an awful, dignity and
detachment overcame her.  Standing with clasped hands,
in her nun-like garb, she seemed to have taken
farewell of the world that women crave.

"What are you doing, Donelle, by that cross?"  Norval
did not draw near, and a distance of several
feet separated them.

"Thinking and praying."

"Thinking what?  And praying for what?"

The trouble in his eyes met the trouble in hers and
called for simple truth.

"I was thinking of how you looked at me yesterday
when I was in Tom Gavot's hut and of how you
made me suffer last night.  And I was praying to God
to help me, help me to stop loving you."

So naïve and direct were the words that they made
Norval breathe hard.  In a flash he saw the true
nature of the girl before him.  She was old, gravely,
inheritedly old; and she was, too, a young and pitiful
child.

People had only touched the outer surface of her
character and personality.  Alone she had learned
the primitive and desperate lessons of womanhood.

"Stop loving me?"  Norval repeated the words
slowly.

"Yes, I was beginning to love you very much,
more than everything else.  Then, when you looked
as you did yesterday, I remembered and all night
I was afraid.  Oh!  I am glad you did not get to
loving me.  It hurts so!"

"How do you know that I have not got to loving
you?  How do you know but that it was because I
love you that I looked as I did yesterday?"

"Ah, no, Mr. Richard Alton, you couldn't have
looked so had you loved me."  Donelle tried to
smile and made a pitiful showing.

"You don't know men, Donelle."

"But I know love."

Now that she had taken her last leave of it, Donelle
could talk of it as little Sister Mary might have
done, for she had vowed beside the cross to go back
to St. Michael's.  Long ago Sister Angela had said
that she would find peace there.  Then she spoke
suddenly to Norval.

"You see, maybe you have heard something about
Mamsey and me, but you did not quite understand
and you felt you had a right to look as you did.  I
wonder why men want to make it harder for—for
women, when women try to forget?"

Norval winced; the shaft had sunk into its rightful
place.

And still the white-faced girl stood her distance,
and tried to smile.

"I am going to tell you all about Mamsey and
me," she said.  "I will tell you as we walk along."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE STORY`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XVI


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE STORY

.. vspace:: 2

How little she really knew of life!  But how
the last year of suffering and renunciation
had filled the void with a young but
terrible philosophy.  Norval did not speak.  With
bowed head, hands clasped behind him, he walked
beside Donelle as she went along, bearing her cross
and poor Jo's.

"You see I could not let Mamsey know that I
knew.  I could not hurt her so.  She would have
made me go away, and always I would have
remembered her here alone where my father left her.  And
Tom Gavot has helped me keep the people still.
He stays here, and he wanted to go way, way off, and
be something so different.  That is why I can play
for Tom in his cabin.  He knows and understands;
he couldn't hurt Mamsey and me, he couldn't!
Women like Mamsey and me feel a hurt terribly, that's
why I am telling you this, I want you to be kind.
Don't make things harder, they are bad enough!"

"Donelle, for God's sake, spare me!"

The words were wrung from Norval, but he did
not look up.

"I'm sure now that you know, you never will hurt
us again," Donelle's voice soothed and caressed
unconsciously.  "I!—I wanted to be happy just as if
nothing had happened, before I was born, to keep me
from being happy.  I thought about love, just as
girls will.  They cannot help it.  Then you came and
I wanted you!"

A quivering fierceness shot through the words.
Norval gave a quick glance at the face near him and
saw that the purest, most primitive statement of a
mighty truth held the girl's thought.  If she had
said, she, the first woman, to him, the first man:

"You are mine, I want you," she could not have
said it more divinely.

"I wanted to make you happy; to play for you
while you painted your beautiful pictures, and then
when you were tired and I was tired, why, our big
love would bring us more and more happiness.
Then, well, then you looked at me through Tom
Gavot's window and somehow I understood!"

Donelle and Norval were nearing the little white
house, they could see the smoke rising from the
chimney.  Norval's thoughts were racing madly ahead,
crowding upon him, choking him.  He meant to
make the future safe for this young girl, safe from
himself and the sacredest passion of his life which,
he now acknowledged, had mastered him.  Reason,
world-understanding, had no part in it, he wanted her.
He must have her, and was prepared to clear the path
leading to an honest love.  But he could not tell her
of Katherine, of himself, there was no time; no time
and her experience could not possibly have prepared
her for bearing it.

"I am going to tell you a great secret," Donelle
half whispered, "back there by the cross I
remembered what the Sisters at the Home used to tell me.
They knew, but I did not—then.  For girls like
me—well, I am going back to St. Michael's-on-the-Rocks
and teach the babies.  That's why I could tell you
what I have just told you."

Then Norval turned and took her in his arms.  So
swiftly, so overpoweringly did he do this, that
Donelle lay quiet and frightened, her white face pressed
against his breast, her wonderful eyes searching his
stern, strange face.

"No, by God!  You are not going back to
St. Michael's!" he whispered.  "You little white soul,
can't you see I love and adore you?  Can't you see
it was because I couldn't bear another man to—to
have you, that I was a brute to you?  Do you think
that any wrong others have done can keep you from
me, from letting me take you where you belong?
Donelle!  Donelle, kiss me, child."

Only the deep eyes moved; they widened and grew dark.

"May I—kiss you?"

"No."  And Norval did not kiss her!

"But you are mine, Donelle, and all the powers
in the world cannot alter that.  I am going to make
you believe me.  What do I care for anything but
this?  You have driven everything but yourself
from sight.  When you play, great heavens, Donelle,
when you play to me, moving about as you did that
first and only time in my cabin, you took me into a
Great Place.  Don't tremble, little girl, don't.  Every
quiver hurts me.  I am going to make you forget
the brute in me; I'm going to meet your love, dear
heart, with one as fine, so help me God!  Trust me,
Donelle, trust me and when you can tell me that you
do trust me, we will go to Mam'selle.  She will
understand, she has the mighty soul.  Oh, Donelle!"

Norval leaned over the tender face, almost touched
it with his lips, but did not.

"My little white love!" he whispered.  "But you
will come and play for me?" he pleaded.

"Yes."

"And you will, you will give me a fair show?"  She
smiled wanly.

"If I ever give you cause again to fear me, I
hope——"

Then Donelle raised her hand and laid it across his
lips.

"I am so afraid of this wonderful thing that is
happening to me," she said, "and you mustn't
say—well! what you were going to say just then."

"Don't fear the love, my darling.  It's the sacredest
thing in the world."  Norval had taken the hand
from his lips and now held it in his own.  "And we'll
keep it holy, Donelle.  That is our part."

"Yes, yes; but to think, to think!"

"Don't think, sweet, here.  Come close and try
to—to—love for a moment without remembering."

"Why, how can I?"

"Try."

And so they stood with the golden light of the
west on their faces.  Norval did the thinking.  He
thought of the quickest possible method of setting
Katherine free and making it right for him to kiss
Donelle.  He thought of the wild realization of his
true nature—a nature that had been distorted and
contracted by inheritance and training.  He did
not want the beaten tracks, that had always been the
trouble.  He wanted the unbroken trails, God! how he
had thirsted and hungered for just what this little,
wild, sweet thing in his arms represented.  Love,
simple, primitive love, music, understanding!  And
then Norval thought of Anderson Law!  Thought
of him, longed for him at that moment as a blind
man might long for guiding, not to the right path,
but on it.

"You may kiss me now!"  This in a whisper.

The quick surrender startled Norval.  He bent
his head, still thinking of Law.

"My woman," he said to that uplifted face,
"when I have the right, that somehow I forfeited, I
will kiss you."

"But you said we were not to think; when you
think, you remember."

"Yes, Donelle, we remember and we look ahead
with faith."

Gently Norval let her free.  He smiled at her,
and the look in his eyes made her stand very straight,
but she smiled back.

"I am so happy," she said simply.  "And I thought
I was never to be happy again."

"And I—why, Donelle, you've taught me what
happiness means.  And you will keep your promise
about coming to the wood-cabin?"

"Yes, Mr. Richard Alton."  Donelle made a
courtesy.

"And you'll bring the fiddle?"

"Of course."

"And Donelle, before you, dear child, I beg the
pardon and forgiveness of Tom Gavot."

"I wish he could know that you are what you
are," Donelle's eyes saddened.

"He shall, child.  That, I swear.  Next to
Mam'selle," here, almost unconsciously Norval raised
his cap, "next to Mam'selle, Tom Gavot shall know.
Come, little girl, here's home!"

And together they went up to Jo's house.  It was
marvellous how they managed the great thing that
had happened.  Never outwardly did it overcome
them.

The winter grew still and hard, the people shrank
into their houses.  There were trodden paths, like
spokes of a wheel, leading from most of the houses
to the hub, which was Dan's Place; there were more
or less broken paths reaching to the river, where,
under the ice, fish were obtainable.

Tom Gavot just at that time was called to duty
and left his father with money enough to keep him
silent; and food and fuel enough to keep him safe.

Jo, with a growing content and happiness, cooked
for her boarder, revelled in his society during the long
evenings, and was perfectly oblivious of the stupendous
thing that was going on under her very eyes.

Norval sent for books, many of them.  Books of
travel; Jo grew breathless over them.

"I can sit in this rocker," she often said to Marcel
Longville, "shut my eyes, and there I am in those far
places.  I see palm groves and I hear the swishing
of the sea.  Mercy!  Marcel, just fancy a body of
water as long as the St. Lawrence and as wide as it is
long!"

"I can't," said Marcel.  "And I wouldn't want to.
Water isn't what I take to most.  But I do like the
palm countries, Mam'selle.  They are, generally
speaking, warm.  Sometimes I feel as if I never would
be warm again as long as I live."

While Norval read aloud to Jo and Donelle, he
would often lift his eyes to find Donelle looking at
him.  Over the gulf of silence that separated them
they smiled and trusted.

Norval wrote to his lawyer, instructed him to
take legal steps at once, upon whatever ground he
could, legitimately, select.  "Leave my wife and me
free," he said; "with as decent characters as our
stupid laws permit.  I don't see why society should feel
more moral if we are sullied."

But Norval did not write to Katherine.  He left
that for his lawyers to do.  He did, however, send a
pretty fair statement of the case of himself and his
wife to Anderson Law who, at that time, was basking
under Egypt's calm skies, wandering in deserts,
forgetting, and pulling himself together.

And according to her promise Donelle went often
to the cabin in the woods.  Because it was winter
and Point of Pines in a subnormal state, no one knew
of the secret visits.  Not even the joyous notes of the
violin attracted attention.  Norval painted as he
never had in his life before.  His genius burned bright.
He knew the difference now; it made him humble and
grateful.  He painted the winter woods with an
inspired brush.  They were asleep, but not dead.  His
sunlight was alive; his moonlight, pure magic.  He
caught the frozen river with its strange, shifting
colours; he dealt appealingly with the lonely,
scattered houses; they seemed, under his hand, to ask for
sympathy in their isolation.

Guided by Donelle's interpretation, he painted a
road full of mystery and delight.  A long road leading
to a hilltop.

"Oh!" Donelle cried when she stood close and
beheld the picture.  "Now I see what Tom saw long
ago, but you had to teach me.  The road is alive, it
is a—a friend!  You just would not want to hurt it
or make it ashamed.  Oh! how the sunlight lies on it.
I believe it moves!"

Norval lifted his face, his yearning eyes claimed
the love he saw in Donelle's.

"Sweetheart, trot around and play for me," he
would suddenly say, his lips closing firm, "play and
play while I make Tom Gavot's road ready for him.
Child, when I give Tom Gavot this picture, I'll
make him understand many things."

"And you will give him the Road?  He'll be so
happy."  Donelle was moving about, her eyes dreamy.

"I wonder!" breathed Norval.

"Wonder what?" Donelle paused.

"About a thousand things, my sweet."

By and by Norval painted his love; painted it in
the splendid picture that afterward hung in a distant
gallery and was known as "Fairer than morning,
lovelier than the daylight."

In it sat Donelle where the western glow fell upon
her.  With a rapt expression in her yellow eyes,
her violin poised, the bow ready, she was looking
and smiling at the vision that had caught and held
her.

"I seem to be looking at you," Donelle whispered
as, standing beside him, she gazed at the canvas.
"Waiting for you to tell me what to play.  I believe,
I believe you are saying to me, 'play our pretty little
French song.'  Shall I play it now?"

"Yes, my beloved, and then," Norval was sternly
intent upon his brushes, "then we'll go for a tramp
with Nick.  That infernal little scamp is like an
alarm clock.  Look, Donelle, he's coming up the
path, coming to tell us the evening meal is ready.
Sometimes I wonder if Mam'selle guesses?"

After some delay a letter came from Norval's
lawyer.

It said:

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: small

I think by summer we can bring everything to a satisfactory
conclusion.  I can take no definite steps at present because
Mrs. Norval's lawyer writes that she has been quite ill and has
gone to the mountains to recuperate.

.. vspace:: 2

Norval frowned, he was getting impatient of delay,
he wanted to take Donelle to Egypt in the early
summer.  He wanted Law to set his seal of
approbation upon her.

But Donelle saw no reason for perplexity; she
existed in so glorious a state that no disturbing thing
ever entered.  It was enough for her to waken in the
morning and to know that her love was in Jo's upper
chamber, safe and near.  It was joy for her to look
at Jo herself and think that the world could no
longer hurt her.  How could it, with the big love
holding them all?

When Norval touched her, Donelle felt the thrill
of trust and understanding.  She never doubted now
and often she would laugh as she remembered her
vow by the cross and thought of
St. Michael's-on-the-Rocks.

"Oh! but it is the magic that has caught me!" she
whispered to herself, hugging her slim body and
wishing, with happy tears, that all the world, her little
world, could know.

She wanted Jo to know, and Tom Gavot!  She
couldn't bear to have Tom nursing a hate while he
was away making his roads.  She wanted everyone
in Point of Pines to know, even old Pierre.

She wished, almost pathetically, that Mrs. Lindsay
and Professor Revelle could know.

"For they made me just a little more like my dear
love," She said to herself.  "They brightened me
and gave me the music.  My dear loves me to be
pretty and he loves my music."

But it was not all so easy for Norval.  There were
times when, alone with Donelle in the wood-cabin, the
crude side of love made its tremendous claim.

How desirable Donelle was when, casting her violin
aside, she flung herself in a chair by the hearth and
said:

"Come, put the paints away and wipe the brushes
carefully.  Come tell me a story and then, dear man,
I'll stir you some maple and put in a lot of nuts.
Oh! but I will make it good."

Norval, at such commands, felt his strength departing.

"There's one story I'd like to tell you, little
woman," he once flung back to her desperately.

"And that is what?"

"A story of a man and woman."

"Go on, go on," Donelle urged.  "That will be the
best of all."

"You bet it will!"  Then Norval tossed his brushes
aside.

"I'm coming over to take you in my arms and
kiss you, sweet!" he warned, but did not move.

"Well, why don't you?  And then we can tell
Mamsey."

Norval frowned.

"Shall I come to you, dear man?"

Oh! how she lured and tempted from her safe,
innocent love.  "I trust you now.  I beg your
pardon because I once did not.  I will come half the
way."

"My sweet, when I take you in my arms to tell
you the story I mean to tell you, I will come all the
way!  Now stir the syrup, you hard little bargainer.
Throw in an extra handful of nuts for the
crimes you commit but know not of."

"And now you are laughing!" cried Donelle.

"Far from it, I'm thinking of swearing."

"At what?"  Donelle was cracking the nuts.

"At the absolute stupidity of——Good Lord,
child"—Norval sprang toward her—"your skirt was
on fire!  He crushed the sparks and held her for a
moment.

"If anything happened to you," he muttered.

"What would you do?"  Donelle trembled a little
in his arms.

"I'd go—don't look at me that way, Donelle—I'd
go to St. Michael's-on-the-Rocks."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE BLIGHTING TRUTH`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XVII


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE BLIGHTING TRUTH

.. vspace:: 2

Then spring came softly, fragrantly up the
hill from the river.  Almost every day a new
little flower showed its head.  Tom Gavot
came back grim, tired, and eager.  He found his
cabin swept and shining, a fire upon the hearth, and
a bunch of timid snow blossoms in a cracked mug on
the table—that made him laugh.  But at the sight
of them Tom's weariness vanished and he sat down
by his own fireside with a sigh of complete content.

Jo sang at her work that spring, actually sang
"A la Claire Fontaine."  She sang it boldly,
without reservations, and Nick forgot his years and a
growing dimness of the eyes.  He smelled around
among the delectable new things in the woods, found
the scent for which he was searching, and trotted off
gaily, feeling young and dapper once again.  Molly,
the sturdy horse, felt her oats; she almost ran
away once, tossing Jo from the shaft into the muddy
road.

But Jo only laughed aloud.  It was all so absurd
and natural.

"The little red cow," Jo said to Donelle that
spring, "is old, old.  I really do not know that it's
wise to keep her longer.  She eats her head off."

"But you are going to keep her, Mamsey, aren't
you?  You just couldn't send her away?  Think
of all her pretty calves, and she has been so
faithful."

Suddenly Mam'selle recalled the night before
Donelle came: when she and Nick had bided with the
little red cow.

"Of course," she blurted out, "I am going to keep
her.  I was only supposing."

"Oh!  Mamsey, you are such fun, and you never
hide any more.  You're really getting to be
handsome.  Do you know Mr. Alton, Mr. Richard Alton,
says he'd like to paint you as 'The Woman With
the Hoe.'  He says you'd show the man—I don't
know who he means—what a hoe can do for the right
sort."

"Well, Mr. Richard Alton isn't going to mess me
up in his paints.  It's an awful waste of time for a
full-grown man to make pictures all day.  I wonder
when he's going home?"

"I wonder?" whispered Donelle.

"We'll never have another boarder like him,
child."

"Oh! never, Mamsey."

"I wish he'd stay through the summer.  I'd like
to fling him in the teeth of Marcel's boarders."

"Oh!  Mamsey."

"The Captain says he's all ready for folks now; he's
opened sooner because Father Mantelle prophesies
an early summer."

Then one night, after everyone was in bed, the
*River Queen* sneaked up to the wharf—there is no
other word for her action—and a lone figure, with
several bags and a trunk, was deposited.

Jean Duval, who had swung out the lantern
from the pole, took charge.

"I'll just take you up to Captain Longville's,"
he said.  "The Captain can manage."

The following morning Donelle found, upon
going to the living room, that Alton had departed
at daybreak.

"He wanted to see the sunrise on the river," Jo
explained; "he took lunch enough to feed a dozen;
fried chicken and doughnuts and pickles.  He's
the biggest pickle eater I ever saw," Jo laughed.
Then added: "Donelle, I'm going to the village
to-day with my linens.  The man in the shop over
there has offered a tidy sum for them.  I don't think
I can get back to-night.  Molly acts like a colt, but
her staying powers are nothing to boast of.  You
better go to Marcel——"

"But I hate to, Mamsey."

"Child, I'd rest easier——"

"Then I'll go, Mamsey.  I'd even go to that dirty
old Pierre's or to the Kelly's if you would rest easier,
Mamsey.  Isn't life just like a book?"

"It is!" murmured Jo with conviction.  "It
certainly is wonderfully like a book."

After Jo had gone and Donelle had put the little
house in order she closed the door and windows
and whistled to Nick.

"Come on, you old dear," she said, "and how
thankful I am you can't talk, Nick.  You can look
and thump your tail all you want to; no one understands
that.  Nick, when *he* gets back, he'll be tired.
We'll be there to meet him.  Come on, Nick!"

The sun was warm and bright, it filtered through
the trees and reached the brave spring flowers
showing in the moss and the rich, black earth.

"Don't step on the flowers, Nick.  Where are
your manners?"  Donelle gave a laugh and Nick
made wide circles.  And so they came to the
wood-cabin and went inside.  Donelle left the door open
for she meant to make a rousing fire, and the day was
too fine to be shut out.  Nick pattered around the
room for a few moments and then curled up in the
window seat.

"There, now," said Donelle at last, "I think
everything is right and cosey, I can finish that book."

So she took the story she and Norval had been
reading and, buried in the deep chair, with her back
to the door, she was soon absorbed.

She heard a step outside, smiled, and made believe
she was asleep.

Someone entered, saw her, and quickly drew
conclusions; bitter, cruel conclusions, but conclusions
that drove an almost defeated sense of duty to the
fore.

"Good morning.  Is this Mr. Norval's—" there
was a pause—"studio?"

Donelle sprang up as if she had been shot.  A thin,
desperately sick-looking woman in rich velvet and
furs confronted her.  The incongruous garments, the
strangely haunting name, made Donelle stare.

"Is this Mr. Norval's—studio?  I asked."  The
thin, sharp voice seemed to awaken Donelle at last.

"No," she replied, "this cabin is where Mr. Richard
Alton paints his pictures."

"Indeed!  He's changed his name, I see.  I—"
and now the stranger came in and closed the door
after her, closed it with an air of proprietorship—"I
am Mrs. James Norval," she said, sitting down.
"And you, I suppose, are—let me see if I can recall
your name, it is rather an odd one.  Now I have it,
Donelle Morey.  That's right, isn't it?"

"Yes."  Donelle stood staring.  She was not
quite sure that she was awake, but—yes, there was
Nick snoring on the window seat and the lovely
river picture was on the easel.  Besides, like a stab,
the name she had just heard became vividly familiar,
it belonged to the Walled House.

"Yes, I'm Donelle Morey," she managed to say faintly.

"I know all about you.  Mrs. Lindsay was my
friend.  I thought Mr. Law was going to look after
you.  Has he been up here, Mr. Anderson Law?"

Katherine Norval was glancing about the room, her
keen eyes taking in the pictures.  How splendid they
were!

"No, Mr. Law has never been here."

Donelle was groping, groping among other familiar
names in this suddenly quickened moment.

"I suppose he sent Mr. Norval?"

A righteous anger seized upon Katherine Norval;
she felt she understood.  Anderson Law had urged her
husband to act for him.  Norval had come, disguised,
and had taken his own method of solving matters.
He was making "cause" for his divorce undoubtedly,
while at the same time he was deluding an innocent
and trusting girl.

A stern sense of duty arose in her.  "I will save
the girl as far as I can," she thought, "but what a
dastardly thing!"

"My dear," she said, "I do wish you would sit
down.  You make me feel quite uncomfortable."  Katherine
meant to disregard, before Norval's victim,
what she really believed.

Donelle groped toward a chair and sat down.

"I quite understand your surprise," said Katherine.
"You have known my husband as—as Richard
Alton.  You see, Mr. Law was going abroad; he
was to have carried out Mrs. Lindsay's wishes for
you, but he sent my husband instead.  I suppose
Mr. Norval wanted to know you well before he
disclosed his errand."

Donelle was experiencing the same sensation she
had felt when Pierre Gavot, upon the lonely road, had
spoken the terrible word years and years before!

"I see I have surprised you, child?"

Katherine Norval was growing restive under the look
in the wide, glowing eyes fixed upon her.  "It is always
a bit of a shock to find that someone has—played
with you.  But I'm sure my husband meant no harm,
at first; and then he would not know how to get out
of his scrape.  That would be like him, too."  A laugh
followed the words, a hard, thin, but sweet laugh.

Still Donelle sat looking straight before her and
keeping that awful silence which was becoming irritating.

"Perhaps you do not believe me," Katherine said
rather desperately and with a distinct sense of the
absurdity of her position.  "See here!"

Taking a locket from her bosom she opened it and
held it before Donelle's staring eyes.

"These are my husband and baby!"

The picture of Norval was perfect; the child, young
and lovely, seemed to be smiling trustfully at him.

"It's a pretty baby," Donelle said, and her voice
seemed to come from a long distance.  Then she
got up quickly.

"Where are you going?" asked Katherine Norval.

"I—I don't——  Oh! yes, I'm going to Tom Gavot's."

"Don't you think you better wait here with me
until—until Mr. Norval returns?  He will speak
openly to you then and explain everything."

"No, oh, no, I couldn't!"

A great fear rose in Donelle's eyes.

"My dear, I am very sorry for you!"  And Katherine
spoke the truth.  She was sorry, deeply so, but
she was more shocked and indignant than she had
ever been in her life before.  It was to Norval's
credit that she did not believe the worst of him.  She
concluded that stupidity, rather than viciousness,
had led him on to deceive this simple girl without
realizing what the actual result would be.

"And so you will not wait with me?"  She watched
Donelle cross the room.  "I am so sorry, child.  I
wish now that I had come before."

"Good-bye!"  Donelle gave her a long, sad look.
Then she whistled to Nick and went out, closing the
cabin door behind her as one does who leaves a
chamber of death.

She walked along slowly, feeling nothing keenly,
but noticing with a queer sort of concentration
the flickering shadows; there were clouds coming up,
it was growing darker.  She was glad that she had
closed the little house before leaving.  If there were
a storm all would be safe.  Presently she came to
Tom Gavot's hut and went in, thankful that it was
empty, though she knew Tom would soon be
coming.

She made a fire, brushed the hearth, and sat down
upon the floor, trying hard to think—think!  But
she could not get very far.  Round and round the
one fact her thoughts whirled.  The man she loved,
the man she had trusted, had wronged her in the
deadliest way.  He had killed something in her,
something that had made her happy and good.  She
did not want to remember anything now; she wanted
to put herself beyond the reach of the look Norval
had once given her, and of his later words—words
which had made her trust him.  Donelle grasped
at the thought of St. Michael's with a yearning that
hurt her.  If little Sister Mary were there, she
would understand.  Donelle was sure the lost look
in Sister Mary's eyes would make her understand.
But St. Michael's was a long way off, and Donelle
meant to place herself out of reach of more hurt
before Norval could see her.  Pride, love, shame, and
then—desperation swept over the girl.  Everything
had failed her, everything, and all because her father
had left her mother!  That was why people dared
to—to play with her.

And just then Tom Gavot came in, shaking the
wet of a sudden shower from his fuzzy coat.

"Well!" he cried, looking at Donelle with startled
eyes; "what's the matter?"

"Tom, I wonder if you would do—something
for me?  It's a big thing, and you'd just have
to trust me more than any man ever trusted a
girl before."  A feverish colour flamed in Donelle's
cheeks.

The light flickered in Gavot's eyes, his lips twitched
as he looked at her.

"I guess you know there isn't anything I wouldn't
do for you, Donelle," he said, coming close and
standing over her protectingly.

"It—it isn't fair to you, Tom, but I'll live my
whole life making it up to you.  And you know I
can keep my word."

"What is it, Donelle?"

"Tom, I want you to—to marry me.  Marry me,
now, this very afternoon!"

"My God!" murmured Tom and sat down, leaning
forward over his clasped hands.

"It's this way," Donelle went on slowly, as if
afraid she might not make herself clear and yet
fearing more that she might wrong another in her
determination to reach safety.  "It is Mr. Richard Alton.
He—he isn't Mr. Alton at all, he's Mr. Norval.
Mrs. Lindsay used to talk about him, and he came
here to—to get to know me without my knowing
him.  And then—something happened!"

"What?"  The word issued from Tom's lips like
a snarl.

"We loved each other very much, Tom.  We
couldn't help it, but you see I am the kind of girl
that makes it seem as if it did not matter very
much, I guess.  I am sure he didn't mean to hurt
me; it just happened, and neither of us could help
it, Tom."

"God!  I'll kill him."

"Oh! no, Tom, you will not, you shall not hurt
him.  You will just help me, and then he'll think,
I—I—did not care very much, that I was playing,
just as he was.  I want him to think that, more
than anything else, for then everything will be easy.
He must not think I care!"

"Did he tell you that he would marry you?" asked
Tom with a terrible understanding in his eyes.

"Well, not exactly," Donelle tried to be very
just, very true, "it was the big love, you know, and
I just thought of being always with him."

"Why have you stopped thinking so?"

"Well, Tom, I will tell you.  I was up in his cabin,
waiting for him this morning, and his wife came.  I
know about her, too.  When I heard her name I
knew everything.  And she told me many things
and she showed me their baby's picture.  It is such
a pretty baby—oh!  Tom."

The misery on Donelle's face roused in Gavot a
cruel hate.

"Blast his soul!" he cried, then took Donelle's
face in his cold hands and looked deep into her eyes.
His soul revolted at the question he was about to
put, it was like giving poison to a child: "Donelle,
tell me before God, has he done to you what—what
your father did to Mam'selle Jo?"

For an instant Donelle repeated the words in her
inner consciousness until the meaning was quite
plain.  Her lovely eyes never faltered, but suddenly
a new knowledge rose in them.

"No," she whispered, "no, Tom, not that.  It
was only—the love."

"Thank God, then, I've got you in time."

"Yes, in time, Tom.  That's what I meant.  He
would never hurt me that way, Tom—never!  But
I do not want him to know that he could hurt me at
all!  Don't you see, Tom, if he thought that I was
caring for you all the time and just playing with him,
it——"

The quivering face writhed in Tom's hands.

"Oh!  Tom, I know it is wicked for me to ask you to
do this for me, but all my life long I will repay you!"

The man looked down at the girl, who was pleading
with him to take that for which his soul hungered—at
any price!  Full well he knew that she would keep
her bargain, poor little hurt thing.  And he could
slave and work for her—he could shield her from
harm and make her safer than she could be in any
other way.  The devil tempted him, and for the
moment, claimed him.

"Yes, by God!" he cried.  "I will take you to
Father Mantelle's now!  We'll make our future
beyond the reach of that infernal scoundrel, Norval,
or whatever his name is!"

"Tom, never any more must we talk about him.
We must just begin from now—you and I.  All these
years Mamsey has let people think well—of my
father.  I think I am a little like Mamsey, Tom, and
from now on, it is just you and I.  You must promise
or I could not marry you."

"Come on, Donelle!  See, it is raining, you must
wear this heavy coat, it will quite cover you.  Come!"

Tom had appropriated her, taken command.  His
face was almost terrible in its set purpose.

She followed him mutely, obediently, as any
little hill woman might have done.  Her face was
ghastly, but she did not tremble.  Side by side they
made their way to Father Mantelle's; the rain poured
upon them, their steps sloughed in the soft earth,
and behind them trudged Nick, looking old and
forsaken!

Father Mantelle did his duty—as he saw it.  He
made sure that Tom fully understood what he was
undertaking; he made sure that Donelle was wiser
than he had believed her.  He winced as she
confessed that her love for Mam'selle Morey had, after
full comprehension of their relation, brought her
back and kept her silent.  She had known about
herself all along.

"And that's why," Tom put in, "that we insist
upon silence now.  I'm going to run things
hereafter."

And so Father Mantelle married them and put the
blessing of the Church upon them.

It was quite dark when they left the priest's house;
dark and still storming in the quiet, persistent way
that spring knows.

"Was Mam'selle going to leave you in the house
with—with that man to-night?" Tom asked suddenly.

"No—I was going to Marcel's.  But, Tom, I
must go and feed the animals."  Almost Donelle
had forgotten the helpless creatures.  She was
terribly afraid that she might encounter the man
she most dreaded in the world, for he was quite
one of the family and often made his own meal
when Jo and Donelle were away.  But if he had
gone to the wood-cabin first, she argued, he would
not come to the little white house.  Of that she
felt sure!

So she and Tom fed the animals and made them
safe for the night.  In doing the homely, familiar
tasks Donelle felt a certain peace, but she had not
yet recovered from her terrible shock; she was
spiritually numb.

"Come, now!" Tom said at last.  "We must get
back to the hut, you're wet to the skin and I haven't
eaten since morning."

"Tom!"  Donelle was aghast; and then she remembered
that she, too, had fasted since breakfast.

So, silently, stolidly they went down the Right
of Way to the river-hut.  The fire was still burning
on the hearth, the room was hot and still.

"Come in, Nick!" called Tom to the dog who had
kept close to them; "come in!"

Wet and bedraggled Nick slouched in and, eyeing
Donelle as if she were a stranger, passed to the far
side of the room and lay down, his head upon his
paws, his eyes alert.

Tom brought out food and they all ate, Nick
condescending to come nearer.

The heat, the weariness and suffering of the day,
began to tell upon Donelle and presently a terror
seized her—a terror she had never known in her
life before.  She looked at Tom with wide eyes, her
face became livid.

The rain outside beat against the window and
pattered on the roof.

The devil that had tempted Tom earlier was taking
control of the situation.  His face was tense, his
eyes burning.  He was thinking, thinking, and his
thoughts scorched.  He was thinking of women,
women, his mother, Mam'selle Morey—even that
unknown woman, the wife of the man who had all
but ruined Donelle.  Then he thought of Donelle
herself, but he dared not look at the pale little
thing by the fire.  She was his!  She had done
him a great injustice, it was only fair that he
should hold her to her bargain.  She had only
thought of herself, how to save herself, she ought to
pay for that.

Pay—pay—pay!  The word was hateful and ugly.
Again Tom thought of his mother, and her face rose
sharply before him.

Then the finest thing that Tom ever did in his life
he did at that moment.

In the still, hot room, with eyes at last resting upon
Donelle's bowed head, he vowed to his God that *she*
should not pay, not if it cost him all that life held dear!
If the time ever came when she could give—Tom
breathed hard.  Then he spoke.

"Donelle," his voice was deep and solemn, "you're
tired, done almost to death, but you're safe—safer
than you know.  I want you to go to that bed"—Gavot
pointed to his cot in the far corner by the side
of which Nick lay curled—"and you are to sleep.
I'm going to pile the fire high, and——"

"Tom, let me go to Marcel's just for to-night,
please, Tom!"

The agony in Donelle's eyes made Gavot shudder.

"I guess I'd rather have my wife stay here," he
said.  Then added, "You must do what I say,
Donelle.  I've done my part, you've got to do
yours."

"I will, Tom.  I will."

Gropingly she walked across the room, while Tom
piled wood on the fire.  In the dark shadows she
waited.  Then Tom rose up, took his heavy coat,
his fur cap, and went toward the door.

"Good-night," he said.  It was like a groan.
"Good-night, and you're safe, Donelle, so help me
God!  After I am gone, draw the bar across the
door."

Then Donelle was alone with Nick.  She stood
and looked blankly after Tom.  Then she tiptoed
across the room, took the bar in her hand, paused,
lifted it, and—let it fall!  Proudly she went back,
her eyes were aflame, her heart beat until it hurt.
She lay down upon the wide cot, drew over her the
heavy blankets Mam'selle had donated for Tom's
comfort, and fear left her.

"Nick," she whispered, "Nick, come here!"

The dog came close, licked the hand reaching out
to him in the darkness, then lay down close to the
bed.

For an hour Donelle listened, waited, then she
began to suffer.  But she made no moan and always
no matter how she thrashed the matter over, she saw
St. Michael's-on-the-Rocks.  It seemed like home
after a hard journey; her home, the place where she
belonged.  The only place to which she had a right
to go.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`TOM GAVOT SETTLES THE MATTER`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XVIII


.. class:: center medium bold

   TOM GAVOT SETTLES THE MATTER

.. vspace:: 2

The rain had detained Norval.  He had
watched the sunrise on the river and he had
caught as much of it as his soul could take in.
He had eaten a hasty lunch at noon and then
became absorbed by the beauty of the gray mists that
were rising, where, but a little time before, the glory
had controlled everything.  He painted until
mid-afternoon, then a raindrop caused him to glance up.

"Hello!" he said, and scrambled for his belongings.
In a few minutes he was on his way back, but to
protect his sketches, he had to pause every now and
then, when the downpour was heaviest.

He had meant to go right to Jo's and get dry
clothing, but by skirting the road he could reach the
cabin *en route*, leave his paints and canvases, and the
rest did not matter.  It was after five when he came
in sight of his cabin.

"By all that's holy," he said, and laughed, "that
little rascal is there, she's made a fire.  Of course this
is all wrong, she mustn't——  But to think she has
no fear!"  Somehow this elated Norval considerably.
He hastened on, meaning to get Donelle and start
out at once for Mam'selle's, as it was growing very
dark.

He opened the door with an amused smile on his
face, then he fell back.

"My God!  Katherine," he said, "what does this mean?"

"I think, Jim, you better come in and close the
door.  I cannot go out in this rain and we can have
our talk here."  Katherine spoke as if her presence
there was the most natural thing in the world; her
voice was hard and even.  She knew her duty; she
had even acknowledged, during the hours she had
sat alone after Donelle went, that part of the blame
for all this confusion rested upon her.  She had
fallen short in her estimate of her original duty to
Norval.  She had deserted him, not without some
cause to be sure, but no matter what his selfishness
and indifference had been in the past they had not
made it right for a wife to forsake the sacred tie that
bound her.

After Donelle had left the hut Katherine went over
and over the matter from the day when with her
"Awakened Soul" in her hands she had demanded a
freedom that it was in no man's power to bestow.
It had taken her a long time to learn her lesson, but
once having learned it, having come back, her path
of duty was, to her, quite plain.  She gave not a
moment's thought to the shock her sudden appearance
would give Norval; she was rallying from the
effects of the shock that Donelle had given her.  She
must make sure, of course, but the more she
considered, the more confident she became that no real
harm had been done.  She had come in time.

Self-centred, incapable of wide visions, Katherine
Norval had leaped over non-essentials and had
arrived at safe conclusions.  But her husband was
unnerving her; he made her feel as that white slip
of a girl had and she resented it.

Norval was deliberately taking off his wet coat.
Having done this he put on an old velvet jacket, came
to the fire, leaned his arm on the mantel-shelf and
looked down upon his wife.  That she was still his
wife he had to confess, though she seemed the merest
stranger.

"I don't suppose there is a chance that I am
dreaming?" he said grimly in an effort to relieve a
situation that was becoming hideously awkward.
"You don't happen to be an optical illusion, do you?"

"I'm quite myself, Jim.  Is it such an unusual thing
for a wife to come and see her husband, especially
when she has much—much business to discuss?  And
your work——"  Katherine was struggling with
the growing impression that she was bungling
something, though absurdly enough she did not quite
know what.  "You've worked to some purpose, Jim."

Norval ignored her reference to his work.

"It's a bit queer to have my especial kind of wife
here," he said.  "You see, Katherine, I had every
reason to believe that you desired to eliminate me;
I'd taken every step possible to assist you.  I simply
cannot account for you, that's all."

Norval noted her pallor and thinness, then he
remembered that she had been ill.

"Jim," she said suddenly, her sharp little chin
raised, her cold, clear eyes searching his, "before we
go any further I must ask you a question: This girl,
this Donelle Morey, what is she to you?  What are
you to her?"

"What right have you to ask that?"  Norval grew
rigid.  "How did you manage to get here?  How
did you know I was here, anyway, Katherine?"

"You sent a letter once with the postmark on it.
Then I remembered!  For awhile, I did not care.
Then things became different.  Jim, I must know,
I have a right to know, has this girl any claim upon
you?  I could make nothing of her, I——"

"Good God!  Have you seen her?"  Norval
sprang a step forward.  "Have you talked to her?"

"Why do you glare at me so, Jim?  Of course I
have seen her, talked to her.  I came last night.
I am staying at a house down the road.  I heard
that a painter by the name of Alton lived with
Mam'selle Jo Morey, made pictures in a cabin in the
woods; I put things together.  I went to Mam'selle
Morey's, found the house empty.  I came here and
found the—the young girl quite at home, apparently
waiting for you."

The cold voice was calm and deadly distinct, the
eyes were indignant—but just.

"And then you talked!"  There was a sneer in
Norval's voice.  "I suppose you felt it your duty
to talk?  What did you talk about, Katherine?"

Norval was in a dangerous mood, but his wife had
never been afraid of him and she knew no fear now.
Besides, she had the whip hand.  He knew it; she
knew it!

"I told her your name, for one thing.  I do not
question your conscience, Jim.  I leave that to you."

"Thank you, and what next did you tell her?"

"I told her the truth.  Are you afraid of the
truth?  Are you afraid of the truth, Jim?  You
were flying under false colours, were you not?"

"Yes."

"I told her Anderson Law sent you; he did, did he
not, Jim?"

"He asked me to come, yes."

"And you think you have fulfilled your duty to
Anderson Law?  You think he would approve?"

Norval winced.

"I ask you again, Jim, has this girl any hold on
you?"

"If you mean the vile thing I fear you mean, no!
As God hears me, no!"  Norval spoke in a still fury.
"If you mean has she the highest claim a woman
can have on a man, yes.  Katherine, it may be best
for us to get this over as soon as possible.  If I seem
brutal, you'll have to forgive me.  I'm pretty far
gone in my capacity of self-control.  I dare say
you've spoken nothing but the truth to the girl you
found here.  I make no excuse for her or myself.
Think what you please, patch it up anyway you can.
Whatever wrong has been committed is mine, not
hers.  She never knew of your existence until you
informed her.  She is as simple as a child, as
wonderful as a woman can be before the world has spoiled
her.  I love her and she loves me.  I meant to tell
her everything when I was free; she could not
understand before.  My only desire is to—to marry her
and know the first pure joy of my life.  But I
suppose your plain, damnable truth has killed her.  If
it has, I swear——"

"It has not killed her, Jim."  And there was a
glint in Katherine's steely eyes.  "She said she
was going to a Tom Gavot, whoever he may be.
And, Jim, doesn't it sound a bit, well, peculiar, for
you to speak as you have just spoken to—to your
wife?  For, after all, I still am your wife."

"But that tie will soon be broken.  Why did you
come here; why, in heaven's name?"

An impotent fear held Norval.  Katherine was
there, and Donelle had gone to Tom Gavot!  That
was about all he could take in.  Suddenly Katherine
Norval's face softened, her head dropped, she looked
terribly ill and haggard.

"Please, Jim," she pleaded, "sit down, I must tell
you something I came here to tell you, and I'm not
very strong."

Norval sat down, still repeating in his clogged
thoughts:

"Donelle has gone to Tom Gavot."

"I suppose," Katherine's words ran along, at
times sinking into Norval's confused brain, "I
suppose I had to pass through a certain phase of life, as
many do.  I had been so sheltered, so, well
suppressed by my training and experience.  Then,
when I believed I could write, I felt I could not
resist the thing that rose up in me.  I almost hated
you because you seemed to stand between me and
my—my rights.  Then for a time I was bewildered
by my success, and when he, the man I told you
about, came into my life, I was driven astray!  He
seemed to see only me, my life.  He subjugated
everything to my wishes.  He was getting for me
what I did not know how to get for myself; recognition
and—and a great deal of money.  Jim, I, who
had never earned a penny!  It was wonderful!
Then, I was taken ill and he wanted me to get my
divorce and marry him at once.  I tried to, I really
felt it was right, I wanted to, but as soon as I saw him
in the light of a husband, Jim, a dreadful revulsion
came.  I kept seeing you, in him.  I wonder if you
can understand?  When he came to my room I saw
you and when I saw him I was afraid.  It seemed so
fearfully wrong.

"I was sent away into the hills where it was cold.
I had had pneumonia and the doctors thought I
should have the mountain treatment.  I would not
let him come, Jim.  I went alone, and I was so
lonely; so miserable——"  Katherine was weeping
desolately and sopping the tears up with her delicate
handkerchief.

"Often I longed to die and be put under the snow,
where it would be warmer and I could forget.  And
then I began to think of you, Jim, as I never had
before.  I saw you always patient with my moods,
always kind.  I saw you so humble about your great
talent, trying so hard to hide it and live down to me!
Yes, Jim, down to me.  And then I hated myself and
the silly ideas I had had.  I was afraid to die until
I told you.  I was afraid to go to our—our baby,
until you understood.  And so I came back, Jim,
and I found that girl—here.  Oh!  Jim, I may have
only a little while to stay, please go with me for the
rest of the way!"

Katherine stretched out her thin hands.

But Norval did not move.  He stood looking at
the woman before him with compassionate eyes,
but his soul saw Donelle.  Alone in the midst of all
this trouble stood Donelle who had done no wrong,
who had come into her great love with trust and
purity.  Must she be the sacrifice?  She, for whom
he hungered and thirsted with the best that was in him?

And yet, if he defended Donelle's claim, could he
hope to make Katherine, make any one, believe that
he was not seeking his own ends first, Donelle's
afterward?  The easiest thing to do may often be
the bravest, and after a moment Norval made his
choice.

"Katherine," he said, "this is heart-breaking,
incomprehensible.  Things have gone too far for us
to retrace our steps as simply as you think.  You
must try to believe that I do not want to hurt you,
but I fear I must.  You and I were never fitted for
each other, though I did not realize it until you took
your stand.  Your decision knocked life all out of
gear for me and I wandered about like a lost soul.
I came here to see this young girl for Andy Law's
sake and with no other intention than doing him a
good turn and learning all I could.  I grew to love
Donelle Morey and learned to know what love was
for the first time in my life.  Oh!  I know what you,
what our world would say; she's not your kind,
their kind.  But before God, she's my kind!  I
cannot set her aside.  I did not oppose your wishes,
Katherine, even before I saw this girl.  I felt I had
no right to stand in your way.  Have you a right to
stand in mine, now?  Is there no justice in my case?
Katherine, you think only of yourself.  You are a
selfish woman!"

Dumbly Katherine looked at Norval.  She was
capable of drawing only one conclusion—he was a
man!  He felt no duty, no sacred relationship.
She was ill, desperate; he wanted to be free and seek
love where youth, health, and fascination were.
She felt she understood and she must save him from
himself.

"Jim, think of our child!"  She thought she was
putting herself aside, she resented the thing Norval
had called her.

"I do think of him, Katherine.  I have never
forgotten him.  I was glad he was dead when, when
you went away."

"But, Jim, has the past no hold upon you?  No
claims?"

"Yes, and because it has, I dare not make any
further mistakes.  Listen, Katherine, I am going to
tell this—this young girl, Donelle, the whole ugly,
confused thing.  I'm going to lay my soul, yours, too,
if I can, open before her and she shall decide.  She,
young as she is, has a spirit that can face this
tremendous situation, and she has a mighty love that
can save us all.  May I take you to your boarding-place,
Katherine, or will you wait here?  I must go
to Donelle."

"Jim, Jim, what are you thinking of?  Dare you
burden this child with this hideous decision?"

"Yes."  Norval strode toward the door.

Katherine wept afresh.  "I will wait here.  I'm
tired and I cannot endure the long walk in this storm."

And then Norval was gone out into the night,
closing the door behind him with a sound so final
that the woman by the hearth moaned.

Crashing through the thicket Norval went to
Gavot's cabin only to find it empty.  But the fire
burned freshly upon the hearth.

"She's been here and made his place ready for
him," thought Norval, "and then she went back home."

So up the Right of Way Norval plodded to Mam'selle's
house.  He went into the living room and
lighted the lamp.  There on the table lay one of
Jo's queer notes of instruction.

"I can't get back to-night.  There's chicken and
stuff in the pantry.  Donelle's staying with Marcel
Longville."

Norval smiled at the note and clutched it close.
How trustingly it had been left.  And Donelle was
safe with the Longville's.  There was a gleam of
comfort in the blackness.

Norval walked to the kitchen and took two
glasses of milk.  He then went upstairs, changed
his wet clothes, came down, extinguished the light
and, with cap drawn over his face, hands plunged
in his heavy coat pockets, set forth in the drizzle
on the three-mile walk to Longville's.  Before he
reached the house he paused.  What had his wife
told them?  Did he dare present himself?  He stood
still on the road to consider.  Just then Marcel came
to the door, candle in hand, and spoke to the Captain,
who was behind her in the room.

"It's queer that that Mrs. Norval don't come back,
Captain.  I wonder if she's lost.  I wonder if we
oughtn't to set out and look her up?"

"Like as not she's found Mam'selle and Donelle
more to her taste.  You told her how to reach them,
didn't you?  She's safe enough.  Her kind hates
water as a cat does, she's under shelter.  Mam'selle
will look after her, try to keep her like as not, now
that she's out for business."

"It's early for the boarding season, anyway,"
murmured Marcel, going within, "too early by far."

"I must go back to Gavot's!" thought Norval,
and turned wearily to retrace his way over the wet,
slimy road.

It was nearly nine when he reached Tom's place
and he was just in time to see Gavot come out of the
house with bowed head and stumbling step.  He
went close and spoke before Tom realized that any
one was near.

"Gavot, in heaven's name, have you seen Donelle
Morey?"

Tom reeled back against a tree.

"You dare come here?" he growled under his
breath.  "Damn you!"

"Hold on, Gavot, you're too big a fellow to judge
a man unheard.  I know things are black against
me; I'm going to try to explain.  It's your due and
I can trust your common sense.  Can we go inside
and have it out?"

"No, I want none like you to enter my house."

"Then you shall hear what I have to say
here."  Norval drew nearer.

"Not so fast, you!" Tom warned him off.  "Answer
me a few questions first, no talk, just plain
answers.  Then we'll argue about the rest, I'm
thinking.  Is your name what you've held it to be,
Richard Alton?"

"No, Gavot——"

"Are you a married man?"

"Gavot, in God's name, let me——"

"Answer me, or I swear I'll try to kill you."

"Don't be an ass, Gavot."

"Have you a wife?"

"Yes, but——"

"And you made a girl love you, with all this in
your soul?  Well, she came to me, curse you,
before—before much harm was done.  When she
heard what she heard this morning, her eyes were
opened and she came where she rightfully belonged.
Donelle came to me!  She told me, and we were
married an hour ago.  I've always wanted her, she
knew that, and when she knew about you, she came
to her senses."

"You lie!"  Norval made a movement toward
Gavot, but Tom stayed him.

"If you touch me," he said threateningly, "I'll do
my best to end you.  Go to Father Mantelle, if
you doubt my word.  But first, look here; look
through the window you spied through once before."

Like thieves the two men went to the side of the
house.  Just then, in the fireplace a large log fell,
the sparks lighting up the room inside.  In the glow
Norval saw Donelle curled up on the bed, her hand on
the head of faithful Nick.  A deep moan escaped him,
he turned to Gavot like a stricken man.

"By all you hold holy," he whispered, "deal with
her as you hope for God's mercy.  She was driven to
you when she was beside herself.  I cannot help her,
but it lies in your power, Gavot, to keep her out of
hell."

"I know what to do with my own, you!  See to
it that you do the same."  Tom glared at Norval.

Then Norval turned and went back to the wood-cabin.
His face had grown old and stern, his eyes
hard.  Katherine was awake; she was still crying.

"Jim—what—what—is it to be?"

"I'm going the rest of the way with you, Katherine.
And as you value the future, let us bury everything
here.  To-morrow, we must take the boat back to
New York."

Early the next morning Norval, he and Katherine
having passed as comfortable a night as possible
in the cabin, went to Mam'selle Jo's and hastily
packed most of his clothing.  He sent a boy to
Longville's for Katherine's luggage, giving them no
explanations, left a brief note for Jo, and—drifted from
Point of Pines.

Mam'selle returned from her business trip late
in the afternoon.  Marcel stopped her as she passed.

"I think you'll find company at your house," she
said, quite excitedly for her.  "A boarder came here
day before yesterday; she walked down to Point of
Pines the next morning.  She knows your boarder.
The storm must have kept her.  I daresay Donelle
made her comfortable."

"Donelle?" Jo stared.  "Wasn't Donelle with
you last night, Marcel?"

"No."

Jo waited to hear no more.  She laid the whip
on Molly's surprised back and bent over the reins.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE CONFESSION`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XIX


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE CONFESSION

.. vspace:: 2

Jo was not one to take any step hurriedly.
Though her heart broke, she was cautious.
Upon entering her quiet house she found a
note from Alton.  It merely said that Donelle would
explain.  Going to the room above, Jo saw that a
hurried but orderly departure had evidently been made.

"He hasn't messed much," she muttered vaguely,
while a great fear rose in her heart, she knew not why.

"Well, there's nothing to do but wait for Donelle,"
she concluded, and began the waiting.

She went to the stable and sheds.  The animals had
evidently been fed the night before, so Jo milked the
cow, did the chores, and whistled aimlessly for Nick.
She was comforted by his absence, he was with
Donelle.  But where was Donelle?  The sun was setting,
what should be done?

Jo decided to wait until the sun had gone wholly
down before she took any steps.  She was not one
to set tongues wagging.


It was nearing sundown when Marcel Longville,
standing by her kitchen window, saw Donelle coming
toward the house.  The Captain was at Dan's
Place.  Donelle walked slowly, and when she saw
Marcel, smiled wanly and opened the door.

"Marcel," she began, and her voice was tired and
thin, "I want you to do something for me.  I want
you to—to tell a lie for me."

"Why, child, what's the matter?"

"Marcel, Mamsey thought I was here last night.
Will you please tell her I was?"

Marcel's hands were in biscuit dough; she leaned
forward heavily, and the soft, light mass rose
half-way up her arms.

"Lord! child, where were you last night?  I
thought you were keeping my boarder as well as your
own.  Mam'selle just stopped here; she looked queer
enough when she found you were not here.  There's
no use of the lie, child.  She knows."

For a moment Donelle looked as though nothing
mattered, as if the earth had slipped from beneath
her feet.

From Gavot's window she had seen the *River
Queen* depart with its two passengers from Point
of Pines.  Tom had not been visible since daybreak,
the world had drifted away.  Alone, in space, Donelle
waited, looking dumbly at Marcel.

"Where were you, child?"

"I was at Tom's cabin.  I'm married to him.
Father Mantelle married us."

Marcel raised herself, the dough clinging to her
hands.  She shook it off, tore it off, went to a bucket
of water and soaked it off, then sank into a chair.

"I'm fainting," she announced in a businesslike
tone, and seemed, for an instant, to have lost
consciousness.

This brought Donelle to her senses, she sprang
to Marcel and put her arm around the limp form.

"It's quite true," she faltered, "but of course
you could not know.  All my life has happened to me
since yesterday morning.  I've got used to it, but
I forgot you did not know.  Nothing is any use now,
nothing need be hidden.  I am going back to
Mamsey and tell her everything—everything."

Marcel was reviving.  She still lay on the young,
protecting arm, her eyes fastened on the white, sad
face above her.

"You better go slow, Donelle, when you tell
Mam'selle.  You don't want to stop her heart," she
cautioned.

"No, I do not want to stop her heart.  But I'm
going to tell her everything, beginning from the time
I came back from the Walled House, after Pierre
Gavot told me—who I was!  I can tell her now
because it does not matter; nothing matters since
I'm married to Tom Gavot."

"It will kill her, Donelle!  Mam'selle brought
you from the place where she hid you.  She's had
high hopes for you.  It will kill her to know you're
married to Tom.  Whatever made this happen?"

"Why, whatever makes such things happen to any
one?" Donelle sighed.  Then: "If you are better,
I'm going now to Mamsey."

"And I'm going with you!"

Marcel sprang to her feet.

"Come, I'm ready," she said, wrapping her rough
shawl about her head and shoulders.

And together they went to Jo, followed by poor Nick.

They found Jo sitting in the living room, knitting,
knitting.  Every nerve was strained, but outwardly
she was calm as ever.

"Well, child," she said as they entered, "you look
worn to the death.  You need not talk now unless
you want to."  She rose and went to Donelle.

"I want to, Mamsey.  I want to."

"And you want Marcel to stay?"  Jo spoke only
to the girl.  No one entered the sacred precincts of
her deepest love when Donelle needed her.

"Yes, I want her, too, Mamsey, because she is your
friend and mine."

Marcel blinked her tears back and sat down.
Jo went back to her chair and Donelle dropped
beside her and quietly told her pitiful story; both
women sat like dead figures while they listened.

"You see, Mamsey, there was no other way, I had
to do something quick.  But," and here she smiled
dimly, "there must have been some reason for what
happened.  Maybe the love was so big it caught
him and would not let him go.  I do not know, but
just as you have kept still about my father after he
left you, so I am going to keep still about my man.
Tom knows, you, and now Marcel Longville, know.
No one else matters, shall ever matter!"

But Jo was rousing herself.  Her deep eyes flamed,
she forgot Marcel, she leaned over the girl at her
feet.

"How did you know your father left me?" she
whispered.

"Pierre Gavot told me!"

"When?"

Donelle described the scene on the road by the
Walled House, but she withheld the ugly word.

"And you came back because of that?  You
believed I was——"

"I knew you were my mother, and I could not
hurt you as my father had.  You had never hurt
him.  I had to do his part.  But now, Mamsey, I
am glad, oh! so glad, for now I understand
everything that life meant for me.  I'm safe here with
you and Tom and I mean to—pay—pay.  You know
I always said I would pay, if I were part of life, and
I will!"

Jo got up unsteadily.  She seemed tall and
menacing, her breath came hard and quick.

"Whose step is that outside?" she asked suddenly.
The two had not noticed, but to Jo's "Come"
Father Mantelle entered.  He meant to make sure
that all was well; he had seen Mam'selle return and
had come as soon as he could.

"Father," Jo said solemnly, "take a seat.  I am
going to confess!  Once you would not give me an
opportunity, now I am going to take it."

Her trembling hand lay upon Donelle's head.  The
girl did not move.

"This child is not mine.  I swear it before my
God.  Her father left me for another woman.
Marcel can testify to that.  My heart broke within me,
and later, when my poor sister died, I went away.
I went to—to Langley's cabin in the woods.  I
fought out my trouble there, and then came back
to my years of labour, that you all know of.  I never
knew, until long after, the black thoughts that were
held against me.  I lived alone—alone."  Here Jo rose
majestically, threw back her head, and let her flaming
eyes rest upon the two petrified listeners.  Her hand
was still touching with a marvellously gentle touch
the bent head of Donelle, who was crouched on the
floor at her feet, and was listening, listening, her
breath coming in quick, soft little gasps.

"And then," the stern voice went on, "Pierre
Gavot did me the most hideous wrong a man can do a
woman, Gavot, Pierre Gavot, a man unworthy of
looking at an honest woman, offered to—to marry
me, for my money!  He sought to get control of the
only thing that I had won from life for my own
protection.  But out of his foul lips something was
sent to guide me.  He somehow made me see that
I might yet have what my soul had hungered and
almost died for—a child!  I went to St. Michael's.
I meant to take what some other woman had
disinherited.  I meant to take a man-child, because I
felt I could not see another woman endure what I
had endured!  But God worked a miracle.  He
drove me aside, He sent"—and here Jo's eyes
fell upon Donelle with a glance of supreme pity and
of worship—"He sent this girl to me, I found her in
the woods.  During the weeks of her sickness, which
followed her coming to my house, she revealed—her
identity.  It was marvellous.  I was frightened, but
in my soul I knew God was having His way with me.
He had sent me the child of the man I had loved, of
the woman who had betrayed me!

"I went, when I could, to St. Michael's and got
the Sisters' story, and I found——"  Jo paused.  Even
now she hesitated before delivering her best beloved
to the danger she long had feared.  Then she
remembered Tom Gavot and lifted her eyes.

"This girl's father had been accused of taking the
life of his wife.  He was bringing his child to me
because he knew I would understand.  He died before
he could reach me.  But a man, who, before God, I
believe was the guilty one, was after the girl, wanted
to get possession of her.  For what reason, who can
tell?  The Sisters saved her.  When I took her, I
tried to save her by giving her my name.  I felt that
I was less harmful to her than—than the things the
world might say.  But I see," poor Jo's voice
quivered, almost broke, "I see I was wrong.  How could
I prove my belief in the innocence of Henry Langley,
though I could stake my soul's salvation on my belief
that he did not kill his wife?"

Donelle was slowly rising to her feet.  A dazed
but brilliant light flooded her eyes, she reached out
to Jo as she used to do in those first nights of delirium
and fever.

"Mamsey, Mamsey, he did not!  It was this way.
My father came into the cabin, he had been hunting.
My mother was there.  I was there, and—and the
man!  I cannot, oh!  Mamsey, I cannot remember
his name, but I hated him.  I was afraid.  He used
to say he would carry me off if—if I told!  When
my father came into the cabin—I cannot remember
it all, for I ran and hid behind a door.  But yes, I
can remember this: the man said I was—his!  Then
my father ran toward him and he screamed
something, and my mother," Donelle was crouching,
looking beyond Mantelle and Marcel, at what no
eyes but hers could see, "and my mother cried out
that what the man said was a lie!  And then my
father and the man struggled.  They fought and the
gun went off—and—and—my mother fell!

"Mamsey, I—I cannot remember the rest.  I was
always tired, always going somewhere, but my
father did not do that awful thing!"

A sudden stillness filled the dim room, a silence
that hurt.  Then Jo's tones rang out like a clanging
bell:

"Father, this girl is Tom Gavot's wife?"

"She is."  The priest was as white as death.
Marcel was silent.

"Then no harm can reach her from that man,
wherever, whoever, he is?"

"None."

"And that boy took my girl believing what the
world thinks is the worst?"  Jo's voice suddenly
softened, her eyes dimmed.  There was no reply to this.
Marcel was crying softly, persistently, her face
covered by her poor, wrinkled hands.  The priest's white
face shone in the shadowy room.

Then Jo laughed and lifted Donelle up.

"Child, you have seen the worst and the best in
man.  We still have Tom Gavot and he will keep
all harm from you."  Then she turned to Marcel.
"Margot would have been proud of Tom, could she
have known," she said.  Marcel groped her way
across the room.  Her eyes were hidden, her sobs
choked her.

"Mam'selle," she faltered, "Mam'selle Jo!"

Then the two women clung together.  Father
Mantelle watched them.  What he thought no one
could know, but a radiance overspread his face.

"Mam'selle Morey," he said quietly at last, "you
have opened my eyes.  God's peace be with you."

Then, as if leaving a sacred place, he turned and
went out into the early evening.

Marcel soon followed, but she was not crying when
she went.  Donelle had kissed her, Jo had held her
hands and smiled into her eyes.  Marcel had received
her blessing from them.

Then, when they were alone, Jo lighted the lamp
and piled wood in the stove.

"And now we will eat, child," she said.  Donelle
was still dazed, trembling.

"I remember!" was what she kept repeating.
"How strange, Mamsey, but I see it clear and true
after all these years."

"And now, forget it, Donelle.  The vision was
given to you from God.  It has done its work.  We
must forget the past."  And for years it was never
talked of between them.

"But, Mamsey——"

"Not another word, Donelle.  We must eat and
then talk of Tom."

It was after eight when, the work indoors and out
finished, Jo and Donelle talked of Tom Gavot.  By
that time Donelle was quiet and strangely at peace.

"All night, Mamsey, while Nick and I were in his
cabin," she said, "he was out in the rain!  I crept
to the window many times and always he was there
walking about or sitting by a little fire that he made
in a dry spot to warm his poor, wet body.  Mamsey,
he told me to put the bar across the door, and I
wanted to, but I did not."  Donelle's eyes shone.
"Somehow I felt safer with the bar off.  And then,
when it was morning, Tom was gone."

"He will come again!" breathed Jo, her breast
heaving.  "And what then will you do with him, child?"

"I do not know, Mamsey."

"He has done the greatest thing for you that it is
possible for man to do."

"Yes, I know, I know.  But, Mamsey," the
agony of deadly hurt shook Donelle's voice, "Mamsey,
for a little time I want, I must stay with you.
And we must never speak of the other!  You kept
still when, when my father——"

"Yes, yes, Donelle, I understand," Jo clutched the
girl to her.  "You shall stay with me for a little time,
but I think the day will come when you will go to
Tom Gavot on bended knees."

"Perhaps, Mamsey, perhaps.  I love Tom for his
great goodness.  I see him always, so safe, so kind, so
splendid, but just now——  Oh! Mamsey," the girl
shuddered, "the love has me!  I know I am wrong
and wicked to let it hold me.  I know I was selfish
and bad to let Tom save me.  You see I had to do
something quick; I was so alone.  But by and by,
Mamsey, the way will be easier and then I will
think only of Tom Gavot.  I promised."

In the upper chamber were a few articles belonging
to Norval.  Jo put them under lock and key the
following day, and set the room in its sweet, waiting
orderliness once more.  The cabin in the wood
too, was securely closed against prying eyes and
hands.  A few sketches and pictures were still
there—"The Road" among them.  The others had been
hastily gathered together.  Books rested on a shelf
and table, the oil-stained coat hung on a peg.  Jo
longed, with human revolt, to set fire to the place
where she and Langley's child had known
Gethsemane, but her hand was held.

And still Tom Gavot did not return.  No word
came from him for a week, and a great fear rose in
Jo's heart.  Then came a brief note to Donelle.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: small

You know you can trust me.  Father Mantelle has written
to me about you and Mam'selle; it's a big thing.  And, Donelle,
I'm never going to take anything you don't want to give!
I didn't marry you to hurt you.  I did it to help you.  It seemed
the only way, in the hurry.

.. class:: small

I'm staying here in Quebec for a few months.  Nothing can
harm you now and I am thinking of longer and bigger roads,
farther away, where I can make more money and get ahead.  It
can't harm you, Donelle, to tell you that, always from the first
time I saw you, I loved you better than anything else.  I love
you now better than myself, my roads, anything!  And because
I love you this way, I'm leaving you with Mam'selle.

.. vspace:: 2

How they all evaded Norval.  It was as if he had
never been.  Point of Pines was like that.

Since Tom had not killed him, he was able to blot
him out.

"Tom is a man, a big one!" murmured Jo.  "Donelle,
you will be able to see him by and by."

"Yes, Mamsey, by and by."

Then summer came warmly, brightly, over the
hills, but with it stalked a grim, black shadow.  A
shadow that no one dared speak about aloud, though
they whispered about it at Dan's Place, on the roads,
and in the quiet houses.  Father Mantelle felt his
old blood rising hot and fierce.  He remembered
his France; but he remembered that his France had
driven his Order from its fasthold.  He remembered
England, with traditional prejudice.  Then he gazed
into the depth of the black shadow that would not
depart, and preached "peace, peace," even before
his people had thought of anything else but peace.
It was full summer.  The States' people filled
Marcel's house, the Point of Pines hamlet throbbed
and waited.  Then the shadow stood revealed—War!
And from over the sea England called to her sons.
And they no longer paused.  They lifted up their
stern young faces and turned from field, river, and
woods, turned back again Home!

And the women!  At first they were stunned;
horrified.  It could not be!  It could not be!

Soon, soon, they were to learn the lesson of
patience, bravery, and heroism, but at first they saw
only their boys going away.  They saw the deserted
houses, farms, and river, their own great helplessness,
their agony of fear.

They saw their children grow old in a night with
the acceptance of this call they could not quite
comprehend, but which could not be disregarded.  It
was such a strange call, it sounded depths they,
themselves, had never known.  It found an answer
in their untried youth.  They simply had to go.

The old men were sobered, exalted.  Even Pierre
Gavot forgot the tavern, put on his best clothes, and
waited for Tom.  Were all the others going, and
not his son?  Gavot was full of anxiety.  He did
not want to drink and forget.  He was obliged to
stay clearheaded and watch for Tom's return.  He
even forgot himself and his demands on Tom.  He'd
manage somehow, but he could not endure the
shame of Tom's not going overseas.

It was an hour when souls were marching up to
the Judgment Seat, each according to its kind.

And one day Jo Morey met Pierre on the
high-road, her burning woman-heart not yet adjusted
to the shock that was reverberating through
Canada.

"And so, Gavot," she said, "'tis taking this cause
to bring you to your senses?  I hear of your talking
of Tom as if he was a big thing.  Why, he's been
big ever since he was born, and you took no heed."

Pierre drew back.  Tom was not yet revealed as
a hero, but Gavot could not conceive of the boy
being anything else.

"I'm ready to lay my only son on the altar,"
mumbled Pierre grandiloquently.  "I can sacrifice
my all for my country."

Jo laughed, a hard, bitter laugh.

"You men!" she sneered, "ever since Abraham
carried his poor boy up the mountain to lay him on
the altar, you've all been alike, you fathers!  You
don't lay yourselves on the fire, not you!  You
don't even live your decent best when you might,
but you're ready enough with the sacrifice of your
young.  Gavot, have you ever noticed that the
Sarahs of the world don't carry their sons to the
altar?"  Jo's feelings choked her.

Gavot looked at the woman before him with
bleared and strangely serious eyes.  "That's wild
talk," he mumbled, "bad talk.  The right has to be
done.  Could such as *I* fight?"

Jo looked at the wretched creature by the
roadside and she did not laugh now.  That intangible
something that was settling on the faces of her
people hushed her.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`GAVOT GETS HIS CALL`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XX


.. class:: center medium bold

   GAVOT GETS HIS CALL

.. vspace:: 2

And Tom Gavot was in Quebec.  The alarm
had stilled, for an instant, his very heart,
and the first terrible sense of fear that
always came to him in danger rose fiercely within him.
His vivid imagination began to burn and light the
way on ahead.  Horrors that he had read of and
shuddered at clutched at his brain and made it ache
and throb.

No one knew of his sad marriage.  He was going
about his work bearing his heavy secret as best he
could, but now he began to view it in a new light.
He was married; he could remain behind with
honour.  But could he?

"Going to enlist, Tom?" the head of his firm asked
one day.  "We'd hate to lose you, we want to send
you to Vancouver.  There's something special to
do there.  After all, the matter will soon be settled
and we need some boys here."

"I'm thinking it over," Tom replied, and so he
was, over and over while his quivering flesh
challenged his bright spirit.

He walked daily in front of the Chateau
Frontenac and watched and watched the gallant boys,
oh! so pitifully young, marching, drilling with that
look in their eyes that he could not comprehend.
He went to the Plains of Abraham and stood
spellbound while the past and present flayed his fevered
imagination.  He stood in front of the pictured
appeals that the Government posted on fences and
buildings, and still his flesh held his spirit captive.
Then one day, quite unconsciously, the Government
reached him—him, Tom Gavot!  There was a new
picture among the many, an old mother with a
transfigured face, her hand on the shoulder of her boy.

"My son, your country needs you."

Tom looked, and turned away.  It did not seem
fair to—to bully fellows like that.  He was angry,
but he went back.  The boy's face seemed to grow
like his own!  Poor Tom, he could not realize that
it was the face of young Canada.  The woman
why, she was like the long-dead mother!  Tom felt
sure, had his mother lived, that she would have been
old and saintly.  Yes, saintly in spite of everything,
for would not he have seen to that?  He, and his
roads?

Tom thought of his roads, his peaceful, beautiful
roads.  Would he be fit to plan them, travel on
them if he let other men make them safe for him?

Then one September day he said quietly—and the
man to whom he spoke never forgot his eyes—"I'm
going to enlist.  I'm going back to my home place.
I'd like to start with the boys from there."  So
Tom went back to Point of Pines.  He almost forgot
that he was the husband of Donelle Langley.  He
had taken farewell of many, many things without
realizing it: his own fear, his wife, his roads, his hope
of Donelle.

He went back very simply, very quietly, and with
that new look in his sad young eyes he seemed like
a stranger.  Not for him was the glory and the
excitement.  He was going because he dared not stay.
His soul was reaching out to an ideal that was
screened in mystery, he had only just courage enough
to press on.  Pierre looked at his boy pleadingly.

"Tom," he whimpered, "I'm not much of a
father.  I can't send you off feeling proud of me,
I've held you back all your life.  But I can make
you feel easier about me by telling you that I've
got work.  You won't have to fash yourself about
that."

Tom regarded his father with a vague sense of
gladness; then he reached out falteringly and took
his hand!

Marcel drew Tom to her heart.  All her motherhood
was up in arms.

"Tom," she whispered, "all through the years I've
broken my heart over those little graves on the hill,
but to-day I thank God they're there!"

Tom held the weeping woman close.

"Aunt Marcel," he asked quietly, "if they, the
children, were here, instead of on the hill, would you
bid them stay?"

"That's it, Tom, I couldn't, and that's why I thank
God He's taken the choice from me."

Tom kissed her reverently with a mighty tenderness.

"Aunt Marcel," he went on, "when I'm over
there I shall think of you and of the children on the
hill.  I'll try and do my best for you and them.  I
may fail, but I'll try."

And at last Tom went up the road to Mam'selle
and Donelle.  They saw him coming and met him
on the way.  Jo's head was bent; her breast heaving.
A terrible fear and bitterness made her face
hard and almost cruel.

All night she had been recalling Tom's pitiful
youth.  And now this renunciation!  But on
Donelle's face shone the glory of the day.

Quietly, firmly she took Tom's hands and lifted
her eyes.

"Oh! but you are splendid," she whispered.  "I
thought perhaps you might feel you ought to stay
back for me!  But, Tom, everything is all right and
safe!  Always you are going to grow bigger, nearer,
until you make me forget everything else.  Why,
Tom now, now I would go with you on your road,
if I could!  You must believe that, dear."

Tom looked at her.  He saw the thrill of life,
adventure, and youth shake her.  He saw with an old,
old understanding that because he was going away,
alone, upon the road, he meant to her what he never
could have meant had he remained.  He saw that
his renunciation had awakened her sympathy and
admiration, but he saw that love lay dead in her eyes.

.. _`"Tom looked at her.  He saw the thrill of life, adventure, and youth shake her.  He saw with an old, old understanding that because he was going away, alone, upon the road, he meant to her what he never could have meant had he remained"`:

.. figure:: images/img-302.jpg
   :figclass: white-space-pre-line
   :align: center
   :alt: "Tom looked at her. He saw the thrill, of life, adventure and youth shake her.  He saw with an old, old understanding that because he was going away, alone, upon the road, he meant to her what he never could have meant had he remained."

   "Tom looked at her. He saw the thrill, of life, adventure and youth shake her.  He saw with an old, old understanding that because he was going away, alone, upon the road, he meant to her what he never could have meant had he remained."

And then Tom bent and kissed her.  He could
in all honour because something deep in his heart
told him that he was indeed bidding her good-bye.

"When I come back," he was saying, while he
felt far, far away, "we'll just try the road, Donelle.
I know you'll do your part.  And always keep this
in mind: when I look back home I'll see you at the
other end of the road, girl.  Your eyes will have
the yellow light in them that will brighten the
darkest night I'll ever tramp through.  I had to
tell you that."

"Thank you, Tom."

"It wasn't the honest thing to marry you the way
I did.  I had no right."

"Yes, you had, Tom.  Yes.  Yes!"

"No.  I think we could have found a better way,
if we had taken time, but I was sort of blinded."

"And so was I, Tom, blinded and crazed."

"Donelle—"

"Yes, Tom."

"I've got to tell you something—now that I'm
going.  He—he came back that night.  He came
to me and he would not believe, until I let him look
in the window to see you as you lay there asleep.  He
wanted to tell me something, and I wouldn't let
him!  But, Donelle, before God, I think we need not
hate him and if he ever gets a chance let him tell
you what he wanted to tell me."

"Tom, oh!  Tom!"  Donelle was weeping now in
Gavot's arms.  "Thank you, thank you, my own
good Tom!  And when you come back, I'll be
waiting for you, no matter what I hear."

But Tom understood.  Again he bent and kissed
her pretty hair, her little white face, then gently
pushed her toward Jo.

"Mam'selle," he said and smiled his good smile:
"I'm going, with heaven's help, to make up to my
mother."

"You have, Tom, you have!"  Jo rushed to him.
"You have by your clean, fine life and they have no
right to take that young life; they have no right, no
right!"

But Tom went away, smiling, with the little
company of Point of Pines' men.  The women watched
the going with still faces and folded hands.  Those
boys going on, on to what, they knew not; just going!
Some looked self-centred, proud, senselessly uplifted.
Others looked grim, not knowing all, but sensing it.

Tom looked at his group, his father, Marcel,
Longville, Jo, and Donelle, turned a last glance at the
white, set face of Father Mantelle, and so said
good-bye to Point of Pines.

Together Jo and Donelle returned to the little
white house.  It was like going back from a freshly
made grave.

"I'll not help the bad business, no, not I!" vowed
Mam'selle, the hard look still upon her face.
Donelle looked piteously at her.

"It is a great evil, a damnable sin; no words can
make it right.  For us to work and forgive is but to
help the sin along.  I will not stand for the cursed
wrong."

"Mamsey, it is all wrong, but it is not their wrong,
Tom's and all the other boys.  They are just doing
what they have to: holding to that something that
won't let go of us.  Mamsey, we must go along with
them.  We cannot leave them alone.  I don't quite
see yet what we can do, but Mamsey, we, too, must
hold on.  See, here is the loom.  Spin, spin, dear
Mamsey."

"No, the loom stands still!"  Jo shut her lips.
But Donelle led her forward.

"Mamsey, it will save us," she said, "save us.
We must work all the time; spin, weave, knit.  We've
got to.  It is all we can do."

"Yes.  And because we have always spun and
woven and knitted, they are going off there, those
boys!  Donelle, I will not touch the loom!"

But Donelle was placing her fingers on the frame.

Suddenly, groping for the threads, Jo said, while
her voice broke:

"Where's Nick, child?"

"He's following Tom as far as he can, Mamsey.
I did not call him back."

At that Jo bent her head until it rested on the
loom.

"That's all dogs and women can do!" she moaned;
"follow them as far as they can."

"Yes, Mamsey, and catch up with them—somehow.
We will, we will."

The two women clung together and wept until
only grief was left, the bitterness melted.

And afar in Egypt Anderson Law heard the
summons and saw the blackening cloud.

"I'm too old to take a gun," he muttered grimly,
"but my place is home!  Every man to his hearth,
now, unless he can serve his neighbour."

It was October when Law reached New York.  In
his long-deserted studio lay much that claimed his
immediate attention.  Norval had had a key to the
apartment and had seen that it was kept ready for
its absent master.  A mass of mail lay upon the
table, among it a note from Norval himself.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: small

ANDY, when you can, go to Point of Pines.  If any man in
God's world can mend the mischief I made there, it is you!  I
went innocently enough and at a time when I was down and
out.  I managed to evolve about as much hell as possible.
I don't expect you will ever be able to excuse or, in any sense,
justify my actions.  I am only thinking of that little girl of
Alice Lindsay's, the only love of my life.

.. vspace:: 2

Law was petrified.  This was a letter Norval had
written from Point of Pines, it had got no farther
than New York, for Norval in his abstraction had
addressed it there.

For an instant even the war sank into insignificance
as Law read on:

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: small

The divorce that Katherine desired was about to be consummated.
I reckoned without Katharine's sense of justice and
duty, which got active just when I thought the road was clear.
Well, Andy, you know how damnable truth can become when it
is handled in the dark?  Katherine came to Point of Pines; saw
Donelle alone.  Need I say more?  Only this, Andy: I did
not wrong the girl, I only loved her.

.. class:: small

I've left a picture.  I want you to see it before you leave for
Canada.  You'll find it by your north window.

.. class:: small

I'm going to the Adirondacks with Katherine.  She's developed
tuberculosis, this is her only chance, and, short or long,
I've sworn to go the rest of the way with her.

.. vspace:: 2

Law went across the room to his north window.
With fumbling hands he uncovered the canvas standing
there and placed it on an easel before he dared
look at it.

A bit of paper was attached to the picture.  Law
read:

"Fairer than morning, lovelier than the daylight."

Then standing in his coldest, most critical attitude,
Anderson Law feasted his eyes upon Donelle!

Not only the sweet, appealing beauty of the rare,
girlish face held Law, but the masterfulness of the
hand that had reproduced it, clutched his senses.
Such colour and light!  Why, for a moment it seemed
almost as if there were movement.

"Good God!" muttered Law.  "I stayed in
Egypt too long."

It was like him, however, to make ready at once to
go to Point of Pines.  He did not write to Norval;
how could he?  Of course he disapproved heartily of
what he knew and suspected.  No man, he reflected,
has a right to take chances at another's expense.
Norval was a fool, a damned fool, but he was no
merely selfish wretch.  That he could swear to.
But the girl—well, how could a man keep his senses
cool with those eyes fixed upon him?

"That white-flame sort," mused the man in the
still room, "is the most far reaching.  There's so
much soul along with the rest."

.. vspace:: 2

A week later the *River Queen*, rather dignifiedly,
puffed up to the wharf of Point of Pines.  The sturdy
boat was doing her bravest bit that summer.  She
went loaded down the river; she panted back
contemplatively, knowing that she must bear yet other
loads away.  Away, always, away!

"I want Mam'selle Jo Morey's," Anderson Law
said as he was deposited, with other freight and
bags on the dock.  "She takes boarders?"

Jean Duval frowned.

"She took one," he replied, "but he ran away.
I'm thinking the Mam'selle Jo is not reaching out
for more."

"Then I will go to her," said Law in his most
ingratiating manner; "she shall not reach out for me."

Jo was in the barn, but Donelle stood by the gate,
her fair, uncovered head shining in the warm October
light.

"I am Anderson Law!"

Donelle turned and her wide eyes grew dark.

"I have come late, I'm afraid, child," Law saw
that his name was familiar to the girl, saw her lips
quiver, "but I'll do my best now to mend the
trouble.  You must accept me for Alice Lindsay's
sake."

Bluntly, but with grave tenderness, he put out his
hand.

There are some people who come into the world
for no other reason, apparently, than to lighten the
burdens of others.  The mere sight of them is the
signal for the shifting of heavy loads.  Weary, lost
ones know their deliverers.  Donelle gave a long, long
look, her eyes filled with sudden and sadly-suppressed
tears.  All the weight she had borne since
the time she had entered the Walled House cried out
for support.

"Oh!  I am so glad you've come.  So glad!"

And Donelle's hands lay in Law's.

And so Mam'selle found them, clinging to each
other like shipwrecked souls, when she came up with
Nick wheezing at her heels.  Nick wheezed now,
there was no denying it.

"And, sir, you are——?" she said, standing with
her feet astride, her hands reaching down to where
her father's old pockets used to be.

"A boarder, Mam'selle, heaven willing."

"I can take no more boarders, sir.  But I can
hitch up Molly and drive you to Captain
Longville's."

"Mam'selle Morey, I am Alice Lindsay's friend,
Anderson Law."

Then Jo, who had always been a burden-bearer
herself, scented another of her kind.  She came a
step nearer.  Her lifted brows disclosed her wonderful
eyes, the eyes of a woman who had suffered and
made no cry.

Law held her by a long glance; a searching glance.

"Mam'selle," he said; "I half believe you will
reconsider and take me in."

"I half believe I will!"  Jo's lips twitched.

Her instinct guided her.

"The upper chamber is ready," she added, "and
the noon meal is about to be set on the table."

"And I'll show you the way!"  Donelle went on
before Law, a new look upon her face, a gladder look
than had rested there for many a day.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`DONELLE AT LAST SEES TOM`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXI


.. class:: center medium bold

   DONELLE AT LAST SEES TOM

.. vspace:: 2

"The greatest wrong Norval did was to leave
you in the dark."

Law and Donelle sat in the wood-cabin,
and the room was warm and bright.  Norval's
deserted pictures were hung in good light and now
some of Law's own had also found a place on the
rough walls.

"You are woman enough to have understood."

"Yes, I would have understood," Donelle replied
from her seat near the window.  She was knitting;
knitting, always knitting.

"Love is a thing you cannot always manage.  I
would have understood.  Love just came to us and
when it got hurt, I did wrong in going to Tom Gavot,
my husband.  But you see he had helped me before.
It was wrong, but there did not seem to be any other
way.  I think I felt I had to make it
impossible—for—for Mr. Norval to do anything."

"But, my child, of course—Norval wronged you
by withholding the whole truth.  Still, I wish he
could have spoken for himself, not left it for me."

"You have done it beautifully, Man-Andy!"

The name fell lingeringly from Donelle's lips.
Law had urged her to call him by it.

It was February now and still Law lingered.  He
could hardly have told why, but Canada seemed more
homelike to him than the States.  He was one of the
first to resent his country's holding back from
entering the terrific struggle that was sucking the other
countries into its hellish maw.

"If I cannot bear a gun," Law often vowed in
Jo's upper chamber, "I'll hang around close to them
who are bearing them.  The boys will be coming
back soon, some of the hurt chaps, I'll lend a hand
here in Canada."

So he remained and the little white house was
happy in its welcome.

Law went among the people.  He became a constant
visitor in Father Mantelle's house; went with
the old priest to the homes, already bereaved,
because of the son or father who had marched away
and would never come back.  The war dealt harshly
with the men of Canada who, counting not the cost,
went grimly to the front and took the heavier blows
with no thought of turning back.

"And, Man-Andy," Donelle was talking quietly
while Law smoked by the fire, "I have often thought
that Mr. Norval"—the stilted words were shy—"might
have felt that I came first.  He might have."

"I think he might."  The cloud of smoke rose
higher.  "That would have been like him."

"But it wouldn't have been right.  The big love
we couldn't help, but he once told me that it was our
part to keep it holy.  If—if—he forgot for a minute,
Man-Andy, it was for me to remember.  I think
I was afraid I might *not*, and that was why something
drove me to Tom, my husband."

Law winced at the constant reiteration of the
"husband."  It was as if she were forcing him to
keep the facts clearly in mind.

"I wouldn't have had my love be anything but
what I knew him, Man-Andy.  And now I am almost
happy thinking of him doing what is right.  It's
better, even if it is hard."

"Yes, I suppose so!"  And Law knew whereof
he spoke.

"But you?" he lifted his eyes to Donelle's white,
sweet face.

"I?  Why, it is all right for me, Man-Andy.
You see, there are many kinds of love, and Tom,
my husband, why, I love him.  He is strong, and
oh! so safe.  When his country does not need
him any more, I will make him happy.  I can.  I
am sure I can, for Tom is not one who wants all.
He has had so little in his life that he will be glad,
very glad with me.  He has the big love, too,
Man-Andy."

"You are quite beyond me!" muttered Law.
"You and your Mam'selle, you are a pair."

"I love to think that.  Mam'selle has been more
than a mother to me.  I am so glad you know all
about us."

Law did know, from Father Mantelle.

"I feel, wrong as it may seem," the priest had
once confided to Law, "like making the sign of the
cross whenever I come in the presence of Mam'selle
Morey."

"Well, crosses have apparently been quite in her
line," Law laughed back, "she'd naturally take it as
a countersign."

Law had a habit that reminded Jo of Langley,
of Donelle and, indeed now that she reflected, of
others besides, who knew her more or less intimately.
He would sit and watch her while she worked and
then, without rhyme or reason, smile.  Often, indeed,
he laughed.

"Am I so amusing?" she asked Law once.

"Not so amusing, Mam'selle, as consumedly comical."

"Comical, Mr. Law?"  Jo frowned.

"No good in scowling, Mam'selle.  I mean no
reflection.  The fact is, you've taken us all into
camp, we might as well laugh."

"Camp, Mr. Law?"  The brows lifted.

"Yes, you made us look like small beer and then
you forgive us, and label us champagne!"

"Mr. Law, you talk!"  Jo sniffed.

"I certainly do, Mam'selle."

"I do not understand your tongue."

"I'll wager a dollar to a doughnut that Donelle does."

"Umph!  Well, then, Donelle, just you tell me
what he means."

They were all sitting around the hot stove, a
winter storm howling outside.

"I'm afraid I cannot very well, Mamsey.  But I
know what he means."

"Do your best, child.  I hate to be kept guessing."

"Well, it is something like this:"  Donelle looked
at Law, getting guidance from his eyes, "some
people, not as blessed as you, Mamsey, might not
have forgiven all those years when no one knew!
You were so big and silent and brave, you made them
all look pretty small.  And now when they do know,
you somehow let them do the large, kind things that
you make possible, and you stand aside, praising
them."

"Nonsense!" Jo snapped.  "Who's blowing my
horn, I'd like to know?"

"Oh!  Mamsey, it's your horn, but you let others
think it isn't.  Who was it that made Father
Mantelle come out and compel his people to go
overseas?"

"That's silly, Donelle.  When he came to his
senses, he saw he'd be mobbed if he didn't."

"Oh!  Mamsey, you bullied him outrageously.
And who sees to old Pierre?"

"You, child.  You can't see your husband's
father want, when it's rheumatism, not bad whiskey,
that's laying him low."

"Oh!  Mamsey!  And who got Marcel little
flags to put on—on those graves on the hill because
it would make her feel proud?"

"Donelle you *are* daft.  Marcel felt she had to
do something to make it her war, too, and she's too
busy to weave and knit.  Why"—and here Jo
turned to Law whose eyes were twinkling through
the smoke that nearly hid his face—"in old times
the people around here used to light fires on
St. John's Day in front of their houses, to show there
had been a death.  I told Marcel about that and
she herself thought of the flags.  She would have
given her children if they had lived; she's brought
herself, like the rest of us, to see there is nothing else
to do but give and give!"

Mam'selle choked over her hurried words and
Law suddenly changed the subject.

"Mam'selle," he asked, "is there a chimney place
behind this red-hot monster?" he kicked the stove.

"There is, Mr. Law, one about twice too large for
the house."

"Let's take the stove down and have the chimney place!"

"Take the stove down?" Jo dropped ten stitches.
"Take that stove down!  Why, you don't know what
it cost me!  I—I am proud of that stove."

"Really, Mam'selle?"

"Well, I used to be prouder than I am now.  It
is a heap of trouble to keep clean, but it's going to
stay where it is.  When things cost what that did,
they stay.  It's like Nick and the little red cow——"

"And me!" put in Donelle softly.

"You ought to be ashamed, Donelle," Jo turned
indignant eyes upon her, "putting yourself beside
stoves and dogs and cows."

"And other things that cost too much.  Oh! Mamsey."

And still Law stayed on, the peace in his eyes
growing each day deeper, surer.  He felt, in a vague
way, as Norval had, the sense of *living* for the first
time in his life.  The wood-cabin he called the
co-operative workshop.  In time he got Donelle to
play there for him.  At first she tried and failed.
Weeping, she looked at him helplessly and put her
violin aside.

"You have no right," he said to her with infinite
tenderness, "to let any earthly thing kill the gift
God gave you."

The philosophy that had upheld poor Law had
given him courage to pass it on to others.  It now
drove Donelle to her duty.

Old Revelle had prophesied that suffering would
develop her and her talent; and it was doing so.
Her face became wonderfully strong and fine as the
months dragged on and the Fear grew in waiting
hearts.  In forgetting herself she made place for
others and they came to her faithfully.  Her music
was heard in many a hill cabin; down by the river,
where the older men worked, while their thoughts
were overseas.  She taught little children, helped
make the pitiful black dresses which meant so much
to the lonely poor who had given their all and had
so little with which to show respect to their sacred
dead.

Jo watched her girl with eyes that often ached
from unshed tears.

"It will be the death of her," she confided to
Anderson Law.  "She'll break."

"No," Law returned, "she will not break.  She's
as firm and true as steel; she's getting ready."

"Ready for what?" Jo's voice shook.

"For life.  So many, Mam'selle, simply get ready
to live.  Life is going to use this little Donelle."

"Men have caused a deal of trouble for women,"
Jo remarked irrelevantly.

"Ah! there you have us, Mam'selle.  The best
of us know that we're bad bunglers.  Most of us,
in our souls, are begging your pardon."

"Well, you're all boys, mere children."  Jo was
clicking her needles like mad.  "Sometimes I think
it would settle the whole question if we could bunch
all the men in one man and give him a good spanking."

Law's eyes twinkled.

"And after that, after the spanking, Mam'selle,
what would you do?"

"Give him an extra dose of jam, like as not.
We're fools, every last one of us, God help us!"

"Yes, thank God, you are!"

It was March when a letter came from Norval
that sent Law to the wood-cabin and to his knees.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: small

ANDY:

.. class:: small

It's over!  Poor Katherine!  I'm going to leave her body here
under the snow and the pines.  It came quite suddenly at the
last.  She just could not stand it.

.. class:: small

I'm glad I went the rest of the way with her.  I never could
have done it except that you showed me the path.  You've been
here with me close, old friend, all these months.  I wonder if you
can understand me when I say that I am glad for Katherine, for
her alone, that she is safe under the snow?  It is easier to think of
her so, than to remember the losing battle she waged for her
health.  I'm sure my being here made her less lonely, and she
grew so tender and generous, so understanding.

.. class:: small

She begged me to return to Point of Pines.  She never knew
about Gavot.

.. class:: small

And now, Andy, before you get this, I will be on my way over-seas
to offer what I have to France.  I'm strong, well, and have
nothing to hold me back.  I can do something there, I'm sure.

.. vspace:: 2

Law looked at the date on the letter, then noticed
that the postmark was nearly a month later.  There
was no need to hurry back; Norval was gone.

Law did not tell Donelle or Jo of his news.
Everything was being tossed into the seething pot; the
outcome must be awaited with patience and
whatever courage one could muster.

When spring came the little *River Queen* came
regularly to the dock.  She came quietly, reverently,
bearing now her children home: the sick, the tired,
the hopelessly maimed, the boys who had borne the
brunt of battle and had escaped with enough mind
and body to come back.  Some of them had news
of others; they had details that waiting hearts craved.
Under the soft skies of spring they told their brave
stories so simply; oh! so divinely simply.  The
bravado, the jest were stilled; they had seen and
suffered too much to dwell upon glory or upon the tales
of adventure.

Poor old Pierre went from one to another with
his question:

"Tell me about my Tom."

Tom had been transferred here, there, and
everywhere.  Only an occasional comrade who had left
home with him had been near him overseas.  But
one or two had stories about Tom that soon became
public property.

"Old Tom was always talking about being afraid,"
said one.  "In the trenches, while we were waiting
for orders, he'd beg us to see that if he were a coward
his home folks might not know the truth.  He
always expected to be the cur, and then, when the
order came, up the old duffer would get and scramble
to the front as if he was hell-bound for suicide.  It
got to be a joke and the funny part was, when it was
over, he never seemed to know he'd done the decent
thing.  He'd ask us how he had acted.  He'd
believe anything we told him.  After awhile we got
to telling him the truth."

Marcel wept beside her little row of graves after
hearing about Tom and wished, at last, that a son
of her own could be near that poor Tom of Margot's.

Jo's eyes shone and she looked at Donelle.  She
felt the girl's big heart throb with pity, but she knew
full well that even in his tragic hour of triumph Tom
had not called forth Donelle's love.

Sometimes she was almost angry at Donelle.
Why could not the girl see what she had won, and
glory in it?  What kind of reward was it to be for
Tom to have her "keep her promise?"

"Women were not worthy of men!" she blurted
out to Anderson Law.  "Think of those young
creatures offering all they have to make a world safe
for a lot of useless women!'

"They ought to be spanked, the useless women,"
Anderson remarked solemnly.

"That they should!" agreed Jo.

"Ah, well, Mam'selle," Law's face grew stern, "we
are all, men and women, getting our punishment alike.
But what has the rebel, Donelle, now done?"

"She will not see Tom Gavot, her husband, as he
is!  She only sees him as a brave soldier.  Instead, he
is a man!"

"Ah!  Mam'selle Jo, wait until he comes home
and *needs her*.  Then she will give him the best she
has to give.  Is that not enough?"

"No!" Jo exploded.  "No! it is not.  She ought to
give him, poor lad, what she has not in her power to
give."

Then they both laughed.

It was full summer when the word came that Tom
Gavot had made the supreme sacrifice.

Law brought the official announcement, the bald,
hurting fact.  He had, on his way past Dan's
Place, rescued Pierre before he had begun drinking.

"Come to Mam'selle Morey's," he commanded
calmly.  "I have news of your boy."

"And he is still brave?  It is good news?"

Gavot shuffled on beside Law.

"He's still brave, yes."

"That's good; that's good.  Tom was always one
who began by trembling and ended like iron."

Jo was at her loom, Donelle at her knitting, when
the two men entered the sunny home-room of the
little white house.

"This has come," said Law, and reverently held up
the envelope.

They all knew what it was.  In Point of Pines the
bolt had fallen too often to be misunderstood.  By
that time every heart was waiting; waiting.

"It's Tom?" asked Donelle and her face shone
like a frozen, white thing in the cheerful room.

Law read the few terrible words that could not
soften the blow, though they tried hard to do so.

"The war office regrets to announce——"

Pierre staggered to his feet.

"It's a lie!" he said thickly, "a lie!"  Then he
began to weep aloud like a frightened child.

Law went to him and shook him roughly.

"Stop that!" he said sternly.  "Can't you try
to be worthy of your boy?"

"But—but I wanted him to know how I have been
trying, even when I couldn't quite make it.  And
now——"

"Perhaps he does know," Law spoke more softly,
"perhaps he does."

Jo did not move, but her eyes seemed to reflect
all the misery of her stricken country.

"Mam'selle, can you not help us?"  Law spoke
from his place beside the groaning Pierre.

"I—I'm afraid not, Mr. Law.  Not just now."  Poor
Jo; for the first time in her life she was
overpowered.  "I somehow," she spoke as if to herself,
"I somehow thought I understood how it felt when
I saw the others.  But I didn't; I didn't."  Then
she turned to Donelle.  "Where are you going?"
she asked.

"Mamsey, I'm going down to—to Tom's hut.  It
seems as if he will be there."

Then Jo bent her head.

"Go, child," she said with a break in her hard
voice.  "Go."

And later Law found Donelle there in the little
river-hut.  She was sitting by the open door, her
face, tearless and tragically white, turned to the river
whose tide was coming in with that silent, mighty
rush that almost took away the breath of any one
who might be watching.

"Dear, little girl!" said Law soothingly, taking
his place at her feet, "I wish you would cry."

"Cry?  Why, Man-Andy, I cannot cry."

She was holding an old coat of Tom's, the one he
had discarded for the uniform of his country.

"I wish we could have known just how he went—my Tom!"

"We may some day, child.  But this we both
know: he went a hero."

"Yes, I'm sure of that.  He would be afraid, but
he would do the big thing.  He was like that.  I
think such men are the bravest.  Listen, Man-Andy!"

Law listened.  The strange, swift, silent, incoming
tide filled his ears.

"I have been thinking," Donelle whispered,
"thinking as I sat here of a wide, shining road and a
great many, many men and boys rushing along it
making the sound of the river.  I think it is that
way with the many boys who have died so suddenly;
so soon.  They are hurrying along some safe, happy
road; and oh!  Man-Andy, it seems as if it were Tom's
road.  All the afternoon as I have been sitting here
in the only place he ever knew as home," Law glanced
back into the pitiful, plain, empty room, "I have
seen Tom at the head of the great crowd going on and
on.  He seems to be leading them, showing them the
way over the road he loved."

The water was covering the highest black rocks,
the rushing, still sound was indeed like the noise of
boyish feet hurrying eagerly home.

Law stood up and took Donelle in his arms.  She
frightened him by her awful calm.

"Little girl," he whispered, "try to cry.  For
God's sake, try to cry!"

"But, Man-Andy, how can I?  If only I could
have kissed him just once so he could have
remembered——"  And then Donelle broke down.  She
relaxed in Law's arms; she clung to him sobbing
softly, wildly.

"Why, Man-Andy, I'm going to remember always
that I couldn't give him what he deserved most in
all the world."

"My dear, my dear!  You gave him of your best,
he understands that now as he could not before."

"And oh!" here Donelle lifted her tear-stained face,
"I'm so thankful I did not bar the door against him."

Law thought her mind was wandering.

"What door, child?" he asked.

"This door, the night we were married.  He—he
knew, I am sure he knew, as he watched outside,
that I trusted him."

Law's eyes dropped.

"Your husband was a big man," was all he said.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`NORVAL COMES BACK`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXII


.. class:: center medium bold

   NORVAL COMES BACK

.. vspace:: 2

Anderson Law was sawing wood behind
Mam'selle's little white house.  He was
mighty proud of his success in manual labour;
to help Jo with her wood pile was a delight,
altruistically and vaingloriously.

The summer with its heart throbs had made people
indifferent to the winter on ahead, but the days were
growing colder and shorter and even the most careless
were aware that some provision must be made at
once if one were to escape needless suffering.

Law was thinking as he worked, and occasionally
wiped the perspiration from his brow.  There were
so many things to think about in Point of Pines; to
think about, smile about tenderly, and grieve about.

There was old Pierre, the Redeemed, he was called
now.  Since Tom's going the wretched father had
ceased drinking, was housed by Father Mantelle,
and had fallen into a gentle, vague state that called
forth pity and tolerance.

Early and late he was on the highway with his
shovel or rake making the road easy for the feet of
his boy!

If any one came over the hill into Point of Pines
the wandering, bleary eyes would be raised and the
one question would break from the trembling lips:
"Have you seen my Tom?"

If any one went away over the hill, Pierre had a
message:

"Tell my Tom I'm filling in the ruts.  He won't
find it such hard travelling when he comes back."

Anderson Law often kept old Gavot company—for
Tom's sake.  Even Mam'selle had forgiven him
and, quite secretly, helped the priest in his generous
support.

The Longvilles, the Captain at least, had forsaken
Pierre.  Marcel, poor soul, gave what, and when, she
could.

As Law bent to his task at the wood pile, the priest
hailed him from the road.

"I go now," he explained as he declined the invitation
to enter, "to pray for rain.  The forest fires are
bad, but until the crops were in I would not pray."

So simply did the curé say this that Law refrained
from smiling, but he did say, looking afar to where
the heavy smoke-cloud hung above the trees:

"Ah! well, Father, now that the harvest is in,
you had better give the Lord a free hand or there
will be a sad pay-day on ahead."

"I go to pray," Mantelle rejoined and passed on.

Amused and thoughtful, Law looked after the tall,
thin, bent figure.  He recalled how the patient old
soul taught and encouraged the children, held the
older ones—children too, in their simplicity and
superstition—to the plain, common paths of life
with what success he might; remembered how day or
night he travelled near and far to watch with the
dying or comfort those from whom death had torn
their sacredest and best.

"At such," Law thought, "one cannot scoff."

And just then a fragrant odour came to Anderson
Law.  Pleasant and welcome it was.  He looked
up and, at a little distance, saw Mam'selle at her
outdoor oven, pushing into its yawning mouth a tray
of noble loaves of bread.

Down went Law's saw, out came his sketching
pad; Jo before that oven was a sight for the reverent.

"Eighteen loaves!" called Mam'selle, not realizing
that she was becoming immortal, "eighteen
loaves at a lick, Mr. Law, and but a drop in the
bucket.  The boys, whatever else was knocked out
of them over there, managed to keep their stomachs.
There's no filling the lads up, but the good Lord
knows that it's little enough for us to do, trying to
fill them."

"To-morrow will be Friday," cried a cheery young
voice from the highway, "so we must fish to-day,
Mam'selle.  I'm off to the river, but I swear I
cannot get past the smell of your oven.  And I wanted
to tell you, I have my old job back.  Hereafter I
swing the light from the dock."

Law and Jo turned.  A boy in the garb of a
great country stood leaning on his crutches, smiling;
smiling, but with that look in his eyes that was never
to depart.  The look the trenches had put there;
the hall mark of the world's wrong to its young.

"Ah! it's that nice boy, Jean," laughed Jo eagerly.
"Wait, son," the wounded and sick were all "sons"
to Mam'selle now, "wait, here is a large, brown, hot
loaf.  Take it along to munch while you catch your
fish.  And it's glad I am about the job, Jean.  No
one ever swung the lantern as you did.  The *River
Queen* will perk up when she sees you back."

Jean laughed and patted his hot loaf of bread.

"Ah!  Mam'selle.  And to think I used to run from
you when I was a silly lout of a kid.  I did not know
your great heart then, Mam'selle," he said.

The boyish eyes were lifted to Jo's face as she
pressed the crisp loaf in his bag.

"It's my turn to run after you now," she said
softly.  "It is worth the run, though, son.  You're
good sorts, the lot of you."

Law was watching and listening.  Jo affected him
strangely.  Lately he was aware of a glow whenever
he got to thinking of her.  If he meant ever to
escape from Point of Pines he had better make a hasty
retreat.  That was what the glow meant.  As if to
challenge this state of mind Jo now came toward him.

"It's a noble pile you've cut, Mr. Law," she said.
"For a painter-man you're not the useless truck one
might expect.  Mr. Law, I'll think of you often
when I burn this wood.  And now that I'm rather
soft in my feelings for your sex—those hurt boys
have pleaded for you—I might as well tell you that
I'm going to put my stove in the outhouse and open
up the chimney in the living room."

"Mam'selle!  This is surrender indeed!  A
triumph of soul over matter!" cried Law.

"This winter you can think of me toasting my shins
and shivering up the back, Mr. Law."  Jo smiled
broadly.

Anderson Law threw his head back and laughed.
Jo's plain, unvarnished Anglo-Saxon was like a
northwest wind to his mind.

And just then the postman jogged in sight, reading
the postcards with relish and letting his old horse
find his own way along the road.

"Where is Donelle?" Law was asking as the mail
man paused at the gate.  Jo's eyes darkened.

"Knitting and thinking down in the river-cabin.
Nick's with her.  Mr. Law, there are times when I
think that dog has a soul."

"I never doubt it, Mam'selle.  One look in his eyes
is enough.  But what, now, about Nick?"

"When he thinks the child has been alone long
enough he goes after her.  She says he tugs at her
skirt until she follows.  He cries if she holds back.
Mr. Law, I fear Donelle is—is—taking to Tom's
road."

Poor Jo turned away.

"Nonsense, Mam'selle."

Law often thought this, too, so his denial was
doubly intense.

"We'll find a way yet to get Donelle on the road
that belongs to her.  Ah! a letter," he broke in,
seeing the postman waving an envelope from the cart.

Law went forward and took the letter, tore it
open, and read the few words enclosed.  It was
from his lawyer.  For a moment Anderson Law
could not speak.  The bright day seemed suddenly
to darken.  Then he said slowly, though his thoughts
were swift:

"Mam'selle, Jim Norval is back in New York.
He's not able to see just now; something's gone wrong
with his eyes, and his legs, too.  There's hope, but
I must go."  Then, as if inspired, "Mam'selle, I
must take Donelle."

"No!"  Jo sprang back as if Law had hit her.

"Mam'selle, I must take Donelle.  Have these
hurt boys, here, not taught you a lesson?"

"But, Mr. Law, this is not decent."

"Norval's wife died last summer, Mam'selle.
He went abroad because there was nothing else for
him to do.  Now may I have Donelle?"

Jo reflected.

"But it will kill her," she said half-heartedly,
"the strangeness.  And what may happen."

"It will cure her," Law went on; "no matter what
happens.  She's part of it all; she must bear what is
hers."

"Mr. Law——"

"Ah!  Mam'selle," and here Anderson Law took
Jo's hand, "there is so little, after all, that we older
ones can do for them.  May I have Donelle?"

"Yes.  God help us all, Mr. Law."  And poor
Jo bowed her head.

"Thank you, Mam'selle.  The conventions have
all crumbled, we're all stripped down to our bare
souls.  We cannot afford to waste time looking
forward or back.  Keep that fire burning on the opened
hearth, Mam'selle.  Some of us will come back to
you, God willing, soon.  We must hurry.  See! there
is the child coming up the Right of Way, Nick
clinging to her skirt.  Donelle!"

Law called to her and went to meet her.

"Child, I'm going to take you to the States with
me.  Norval needs you!"

Just for an instant the white face twitched and the
yellow eyes darkened.

"When do we go?" was all the cold lips said.
Never a doubt; never a pause.

"What did I tell you?" Law turned to Jo.  "Conventions
be damned!

"To-day we start, Donelle.  And, Mam'selle,
just you 'tend to that fire!"

When Norval had been landed in New York he
was taken to a hospital—to die.  But he did not
die, though he tried hard enough, and gave no end of
trouble to his doctors and nurses.

"Whom shall we send for?" he was asked when,
helpless and blinded, he lay in the small, quiet,
white room.

"Am I going west?"  The phrase clung like an
idiom of a foreign language.

"Good Lord, man, no!  You're getting on
rippingly."  The young house doctor was tireless in
his service to this stricken man.

"Then send for no one.  I'm not eager to have a
chance acquaintance gaping at my useless legs and
sightless eyes."

"But you're going to come around all right.  It's
the effect of shock, you know.  How about your
relatives?"

"Haven't got any, thank the Lord."  Norval's
chin stiffened.  The young doctor gripped the
clasped hands on the counterpane.

"I wish you'd try a bit to buck up," he said.

"What for?"

"Well, just for your country's sake."

"My country!  Why isn't my country where I
have been, helping to lower the temperature of
hell?"

The bitter tone rang through the words.  Norval
was glad for the company of this young doctor; glad
to have someone, who, really did not matter, share
with him the moments when the memory of horrors
he had witnessed overwhelmed him.

"Our country is going to be there soon!"  The
doctor's voice was strained.  "A big country like
this has to go slow."

"Slow be damned!  This is no time to put on
brakes.  Are they, are they actually steaming up,
Burke?  You're not saying this to—to quiet my
nerves?"

"No.  Your nerves are settling into shape.  Yes,
our country is heaving from the inside."

"Thank God!" Norval sighed.

"And you bet, Mr. Norval, I'm going on the
first ship if I have to go as a stoker.  If there's one
blessed trick of my trade that can help fellows like
you, lead me to it!"

"Burke, you're a devilish good tonic."

A week later Norval had young Burke again to himself.

"Old man, I feel that I am not going west.  It's
rotten bad form for me to be holding down this bed
any longer.  I suppose I could be moved?"

"Yes, Mr. Norval.  It would do you good, I think
you ought to make an effort.

"I don't see why, old chap, but—here goes!  Send
for this man," he named Law's lawyer.  "There
is only one person in God's world I care to have see
me now.  Let them send for him."

So the lawyer came to the hospital, viewed Norval
with outward calm; felt his heart tighten and his
eyes dim, then wrote the short, stiff note that reached
Anderson Law by Mam'selle's wood pile.

From that moment events moved rapidly.
Taken from the still place where death seemed
to have crushed everything, Donelle aroused
herself slowly.  She simply could not realize the
wonderful thing that was happening; the marvellous
fact that life still persisted and that she was part
of it.

"He—he will not die?" she asked Law over and
over again, apparently forgetting that she had put
the question before.

"Die?  Jim Norval?  Certainly *not*," vowed Law
with energy born of fear and apprehension.

"And," here Donelle's eyes would glow, "he did
his duty to, to the last!  I am so glad that he stayed
with her, Man-Andy, until she needed him no
longer.  Then I'm glad he went over there to
help.  There will be nothing to be sorry for now.
It was worth waiting for.  And does he know about
Tom, my husband?"

The word husband seemed to justify the rest.

"He does not, Donelle.  And see here, child,
we've got to go slow.  Norval is going to come
around all right and God knows he needs you,
though he may not know it himself."

"But why, Man-Andy?  And what is the matter
with him, exactly?  You have not told me."

There had been so much to say and do that details
had been artistically eliminated.

"Well, his legs are wobbly."  Law sought for
the least objectionable symptoms.

"Wobbly?  But he *has* them, hasn't he?"  Donelle
thought of the boys of Point of Pines who—had not.

"Legs?  Jim Norval?  Well, I should say so!
But they've rather gone back on him for the moment.
And his eyes——"

"His eyes?"  Donelle clutched Law.  "What
about his eyes?"

"Now, see here, Donelle.  I'm taking you to
Norval because I believe you alone can cure him;
make him want to live, but you've got to behave
yourself.  My girl, I don't know much myself,
they've simply sent for me."

The river steamer was nearing New York.  It
was early morning and the gray mysterious mists
were hiding the mighty, silent city.  It was like a
dream of a distant place.  A solemn fear that
strengthened and hardened Donelle rose in her at
Law's words.  She groped for, found, and held his
hand like a good comrade.

"Whatever it is, Man-Andy," she whispered,
"I'm ready.  If—he never walks again, I can fetch
and carry.  If—if his dear eyes can never see the—the
things he loved, he shall use my eyes, always."

Law then understood that the girl near him drew
her strength and force from hidden sources.  He
knew that he could depend upon her.  He tightened
his clasp of the little hand.

"And now," he explained, gulping unvoluntarily,
"you'll understand why I cannot take you right to
Norval."

"Yes, Man-Andy."  The white face grew set.

"I'm going to have him moved from the hospital
to my studio.  I've got plenty of room and he'd
like it there."

"Yes, have him moved, have him moved."  Donelle
said the words over as if learning a lesson.  She
was trying to visualize the helpless man.

"As for you, little girl, I'm going to send you to
Revelle.  He's waiting for you.  I telegraphed from
Quebec.  There's a nice young body keeping house
for him, a Mary Walden, who once mistook love of art
*for* art.  She got saved and is now making a kind
of home for—well, people like you and old Revelle.
She's found her heaven in doing this and you'll be safe
and happy with her until you can come to Norval."

"Yes.  Quite safe and happy, Man-Andy."

And through the days that followed Donelle made
no complaint; no demands.  She kept near Revelle;
listened to his music with yearning memories; grew
to love Mary Walden, who watched over her like a
kind and wise sister.

Law came daily with his happy reports.  Norval
was gaining fast; had been overjoyed at the change
from hospital to the studio; had borne the moving
splendidly.

But still there was no mention of Donelle going
to him, and the girl asked no questions.

At last Law was driven into the open.  He was in
despair.  He'd got Norval to the studio, but there
he seemed to find himself up against a wall.

He took Donelle into his confidence.

"Perhaps if we could get him to Point of Pines,"
she suggested, her own longing and homesickness
adding force to the words.  The noise and unrest of
the city were all but killing her.

"No," Law shook his head.  "I touched on that
but he said he'd be hanged, or something to that
effect, if he'd be carried like a funeral cortege to
Point of Pines."

"Doesn't he ever speak of me?"  The question
was heavy with heartache and longing.

"No, and I wonder if you can get any happiness
out of that?  You ought to."

The deep eyes were raised to Law's.

"Yes.  I see what you mean," Donelle smiled.
Then: "Man-Andy, there are times when I think
I must go to him.  Fling everything aside and say
'here I am!'"

"There are times when I've wished to God you
could, Donelle, but I asked the doctor and he said
a shock would be a bad thing.  No, we must wait."

Then he turned to Mary Walden, who was quietly
sewing by the window.  The plain, comfortable
little woman was like a nerve tonic.

"Mary," he said, "I'm going to ask you to do
something for me."

"Yes, Mr. Law."  The voice in itself restored
poise to the poiseless.

"I'm tuckered out, I want you to come for two
or three hours each day and read to Norval.  My
voice gets raspy and he absorbs books like a sponge.
Besides, I want to paint.  I've got an idea on my
chest.  Revelle can take care of Donelle while you
are with me."

And then, so suddenly that Law fell back before
the onslaught, Donelle rushed to him.

"Why can't I go?" she demanded.  No other
word could describe the look and tone.  "He could
not see me!"

"But, good Lord, he still has his hearing, devilish
sharp hearing."

"I could talk like Mary Walden!  Why, Man-Andy,
always I could act and talk like others, if I
wanted to.  Mamsey could tell you.  I used to
make her laugh.  Please listen——"

And then in a kind of desperation Donelle made
an effort, such a pitiful one, to speak in the calm,
colourless tones of Mary Walden.  They all wanted
to laugh, even Revelle who, at the moment, entered
the room, but the strained, tense look on the girl's
face restrained them.

But a week later Donelle made a test.  From
another room she carried on quite a conversation with
Law and, until she showed herself, he could have
sworn he was talking to Mary Walden.

"Now, then!" Donelle exclaimed, confronting
him almost fiercely, "you've got to let me try.
Mary Walden and I have worked it all out.  I'm to
wear a red wig and a black dress with white collar
and cuffs.  If the bandages should slip, and he
happened at that moment to see, he wouldn't know
me.  My voice is—is perfect, Man-Andy, and
besides," here Donelle quivered, "I'm going to him,
anyway!"

"In that case," and Law shrugged his shoulders,
"I'll surrender.  You're a young wonder, Donelle."

Then Law laughed, and laughs were rare treats
to him those days.

And that night he broke the plan to Norval in
the following manner:

"See here, boy, I'm willing to go on with this job
of getting you on your feet provided I have my usual
half holidays."

"I know I'm using you up, Andy.  Why not put
me in a home for incurables?"

"Nothing doing, Jim.  They'd discover you even
in this disguise."

"It's a sin not to have a law that permits the
demolishing of derelicts."  Norval's chin looked grim.

"So it is, but there you are!"

There was a pitiful pause.  Then Law brought
forth his suggestions as to a certain Mary Walden.

"She could read you to sleep while I daub, Jim."

"She?  Good heavens!  What is it, a pretty
young female thing yearning to do her bit?"

"On the other hand, she's as plain as a pipe stem
and is an equal wage advocate.  She's red-headed,"
Law had seen the new wig, "dresses for her job, and
is warranted to read without stopping for three
hours at a stretch."

"Good Lord."  Norval moved uneasily.

"Shall we corral her, Jim?"

"Yes, run her in mornings, I can smoke and snooze
afternoons, and the evenings are your best times,
Andy.  You're almost human then.  Yes, engage the
red head."

So Donelle, after a few days of further practice in
mimicking Mary Walden's calm, even voice, went to
Norval.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`BOTH NORVAL AND DONELLE—SEE`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXIII


.. class:: center medium bold

   BOTH NORVAL AND DONELLE—SEE

.. vspace:: 2

When Donelle stood on the threshold of
Anderson Law's studio and looked within,
her courage almost deserted her.  There,
stretched on the steamer chair, was Norval, his eyes
bandaged, his helpless legs covered by a heavy rug.
He was very still and his long, thin hands were
folded in a strange, definite way that seemed to say
eloquently, "Finis."

The tears rose to Donelle's eyes, overflowed, and
rolled down her white cheeks.  She stretched out her
empty, yearning arms toward the man across the
room.  Law, standing by, shook his head warningly.
He feared the beautiful, dramatic plan was about to
crumble, but in another moment he realized that the
strength of Donelle lay in her depths, not her surfaces.

"Jim," he said, "here's Miss Walden."

Norval was alert on the instant.  Making the
best of things, as both Donelle and Law saw, he
smiled, put out a hand, and said:

"Glad to see you, Miss Walden.  It's awfully
good of you to spend hours making life a little less
of a bore to a fellow."

Donelle tried her brand-new voice:

"One has to make a living, Mr. Norval.  This is a
very pleasant way to do it."

Mary Walden had framed that speech and had
coached her pupil.  Then:

"May I go in the inner room and take off my hat?"

"Law, show her, please.  You see, Miss Walden,
I'm a squatter.  This is Mr. Law's place."

In ten minutes Donelle was back, red wig, trim
gown, white collar and cuffs, a demure and tragically
determined young person.

Law began to enjoy the sport now that he knew
Donelle was not going to betray him.

"I'm going over to the north end of the room,"
he said, "and daub.  There's a book on the stand,
Miss Walden, that Norval likes.  There's a cigarette
stump between the pages where we left off."

"Reading will not disturb you, Mr. Law?"  Donelle
was reaching for the book when suddenly Norval
started up as if an electric current had gone through
him.  Donelle shivered, that cigarette stump had
made her careless.

"What is the matter, Mr. Norval?" she asked in
Mary Walden's most casual and businesslike tones.

"Oh! just for a moment, please excuse me, but
you made me think of someone I once knew.  The
blind are subject to all sorts of fancies.  Law, did
you notice——" but Norval stopped short and
Anderson Law waved frantic hands at Donelle.

She did not let go of herself after that for many
days; not until her assumed voice became so familiar
to Norval that those undertones lost their power
over him.

Donelle read tirelessly, her practice with Jo stood
her in good stead.  Books, books, books!  Greedily
Norval demanded them, motionless he lay upon his
couch, and listened while Law at the north window
painted and dreamed, and then painted his dreams.
He got Jo at the oven on canvas for the spring
exhibit.  Donelle silently wept before it, kissed the
blessed face, and gave Law a bad half hour painting
off the kiss!

Always while life lasted Donelle was to look
back upon those studio days as a sacred memory.
Life was using her and she was ready to pay—to pay.
New York, until years later, meant to her only
three high notes: terror of its bigness and noise,
patience while she waited with Mary Walden until
she was used, glory as she served the man she loved.

The flights through the city streets grew to be
mere detail.  She neither saw nor heeded the bustle
and unrest.  She was like a little, eager soul seeking,
unerringly, its own.

There was to be a time when Donelle would know
the splendour and meaning of the City, but not then.
She was conscious at that time only of the crude joy
of existence near her love.

He depended upon, watched for her; the maternal
in her was so rapidly developed that at length
Norval, from his dark place of helplessness, confided
in her!

"Your voice is tired," he said one day; they had
been reading Olive Schreiner's "Dreams."

"Oh, no, I'm not tired, only the little Lost Joy sort
of filled me up."  That was an expression of Jo's.

"But it's infernally true," Norval went on, "these
'Dreams' are about as gripping as anything I know
of.  If we cannot have exactly what we want in life,
we are as blind as bats to, perhaps, the thing that is
better than our wishes."  Then, so suddenly that
Donelle drew back in alarm, he asked:

"Are you a big young person, or a little one?"

"Why, I'm thin, but I'm quite tall."  The voice
was sterner than Mary Walden could have evolved.

"You think me rude, presuming?"

"Oh! no, Mr. Norval.  I was only wishing I was,
well—rather nicer to talk about."

Law, by the north window, went through a series
of contortions that lightened the occasion.

"You know, here in the dark where I live now, one
has to imagine a lot.  Lately I've wanted to know
exactly—exactly as words can portray, just how you
look.  Andy?"

"Yes, Jim.  What's up?"

"Come here."

Law came forward, smudgy and dauby, pallette
on thumb.

"Tell me how Miss Walden looks.  I want to
place her.  She has a ghastly habit of escaping me
when I'm alone and thinking her over.  I can't
seem to fix her."

"Well," Law stood off and regarded Donelle
seriously, "She's red headed and thin.  She ought to
be fed up.  I don't believe she can stand the city in
summer.  She doesn't walk very well, she's at her
best when running."

"Oh!  Mr. Law."  Donelle found herself laughing
in spite of herself.

"Well, you are.  I've caught you running two or
three times on the street.  You looked as if you had
your beginnings in wide spaces and could not forget
them."

"I—I am a country girl," the practical young voice
almost broke.  "I hate the city.  Maybe I do run
sometimes.  I always feel that something is after me."

"What?" asked Norval, and he, too, was laughing.

His old depression seldom came now when his
faithful reader was present.

"I cannot describe it.  I read a child's story once
about a Kicker.  It was described as a big, round
thing with feet pointing in every direction.  One
didn't stand a chance when the Kicker got after
him.  The city seems like that to me.  The round
thing is full of noise, noise, noise; it just hurls itself
along on its thousands of feet.  I do run when I get
thinking of it."

Norval leaned his head back with a delighted
chuckle.

"Law," he asked presently, "does Miss Walden
ever remind you of any one?"

Law looked at the red wig.

"No," he said contemplatively, "she doesn't."

A week after that, it was a warm, humid day, the
windows of the studio were open.

"I suppose you'll go away when summer comes?"
Norval asked.

"And you?"  Donelle laid down her book.

"No.  I'll stay on here.  I mean to get a man to
look after me.  I'm going to send Law on an errand."

"I wish," Donelle's eyes were filled with the yellow
glow so like sunlight.  "I wish, Mr. Norval, that
you would try to walk.  Your masseur says you are
better."

"What's the use, Miss Walden?  At the best it
would mean a crutch or a cane.  I couldn't bring
myself to that.  A dog would be better, but I never
saw but one dog I'd cotton to for the job."

"Where is that dog, Mr. Norval?"

"The Lord knows.  Gone to the heaven of good,
faithful pups, probably."

"Mr. Norval?"

"Yes, Miss Walden."

"I wish, while Mr. Law is out every morning for
his airing, that you would try—you could lean on my
shoulder—to walk!  Just think how surprised he'd
be some day to find you on your feet by the north
window."

"Would that please you, Miss Walden, to act the
part of a nice little dog leading a blind man?"

"I'd love it!  And you must remember, your
doctor says your eyes are better.  Mr. Norval," here
the words came with almost cruel sternness, "I
think it is—it is cowardly for you not to try
and make the best of things.  Even if you can't
see very well, or walk very well, you have no right
to hold back from doing the best you can!  It is
mean and small."

Ah! if Norval could have seen the eyes that were
searching his grim face.

"You may be right.  I begin to feel I am not going
to die!"  Norval drew in a deep breath, his lips
relaxed.

"The shock is passing," Donelle's voice softened.
"You will recover, I know you will—if you are
brave."

"The shock!  Good God, the shock!  It was like
hell let loose.  For months I heard the splitting
noise, the hot sand in my face——!"

It was the first time Norval had spoken of the war,
and the drops of perspiration started on his forehead.

"Don't talk of it, Mr. Norval.  Please let me
help you to your feet.  Just a few steps."

Donelle was afraid of the excitement she had aroused.

In self-defense Norval let her help him.  He would
not lie still and remember.  His self-imposed silence,
once broken, might overpower him.  Something
dynamic was surging in him.

"I cannot stand," he said weakly.  "You see?"

"Of course the first time is hard.  You may fall
halfway, but I'll catch you, and I—I won't tell."

Norval laughed nervously.

"You're a brick," he faltered.

"Now then, Mr. Norval.  Put your hand on my
shoulder, the other hand on this chair.  Why, you're
not falling.  Come on!"

Two, three steps Norval took, while the veins
stood out on his temples.

"Good God!" he muttered under his breath, "I'm
not crumbling, that's a sure thing."

The next day he did a little better; the tenth day
he reached the north window with the aid of the
chair and the little shoulder, that felt, under his
hand, like fine steel.  They kept their mighty secret
from Law.

"What's on the easels?" Norval asked on the
morning of the fourteenth day when he felt the
breeze from the north coming in through the
half-opened window.

"One easel has a girl on it; a girl with a fiddle."

Norval breathed hard, then gave a laugh.

"Fairer than morning, lovelier than the daylight,"
he whispered.

"Yes.  Why, yes, Mr. Norval.  Those words are
on a piece of paper hanging from the frame.  How
did you know?"

"Miss Walden, I painted that picture.  You may
not believe it, but I did.  It is a portrait of about
the purest soul I ever met."

"Can you tell me about her?"

"No, she's not the kind to tell about."

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Norval."  But Donelle's
face was aglow.

"And the other easel?" Norval was asking.
"What's on that?"

"Such a dear, funny woman.  She's standing by
a big oven, an outdoor oven; she's got loaves of
bread on something that looks like a flat spade."

Norval's face was a study.

"Where do they use those ovens?" Donelle asked.

"Oh! somewhere in Canada."

"Did you ever know this dear, funny woman,
Mr. Norval."

"She's not the kind one *knows*.  I've seen her,
thank heaven!  I'm glad to be able to recall her
when I'm alone."

"Yes—she looks like that kind."  Donelle threw
a kiss to the pictured Jo.

Another week and then the chair was discarded.
Quite impressively Norval, his hand on the small,
steady shoulder, did the length of the studio.

"It's great," he said like a happy boy.  "Miss
Walden, you ought to have the cross, iron, gold, or
whatever it is they give to brave women."

"I have," Donelle whispered delightedly; "I have."

"What is it made of, Miss Walden, this cross that
you have won?"

"You'll have to guess."

"You're a pert young secretary if that is the title
your job goes by.  Aren't you afraid I'll bounce you?"

"I'm going to bounce myself."

"What!"  The hand on the shoulder tightened.
"You're going away?"

"Yes, I cannot stand a summer in the city.  That
Kicker almost caught me this morning."

"You treat me like a spoiled child, Miss Walden.
Amusing me, coaxing me; you'll be bringing me toys
next."

"You're a strong man, now, Mr. Norval, that
is why I'm going away.  Soon you will not need me.
The doctor told Mr. Law yesterday that surely you
would see."

"Did he?  Don't fool me, Miss Walden.  I do
not want to be eased up.  Did he say that?"

"Yes, I heard him."

A growing excitement stirred Norval and that
afternoon he met Law halfway across the room!
Not even the little shoulder aided him.  He
stretched out his hand and said:

"Andy, here I am!"

For a moment Law reeled back.  Of late he feared
that Norval would defeat all their hopes by his
indifference.

"You—you've done this?" he said to Donelle,
who stood behind Norval, her trembling hands
covering her quivering lips.

"No, he did it quite by himself, Mr. Law.  He's
been so brave," she managed to say, the tears in
Law's eyes making her afraid that she might lose
control over her own shaking nerves.

"Lord, Jim!"  Law was gripping Norval's hand.
"I feel as if—well, as if I'd seen a miracle."

The next day the specialist confirmed what
Donelle had said about the eyes.

"You're going to see again, Norval," was the
verdict.  "You'll have to go slow, wear dark
glasses for awhile, but most of all, forget what
brought this about.  Your nerves have played the
deuce with you."

"Yes," Norval replied, "for some time I've had
that line on my nerves, ever since Miss Walden
bullied me into walking."

The afternoon of that same day Norval surprised
Donelle by announcing that he was dead tired of
reading.

"I want to talk," he said.  "Where is Law?"

"He went to—to see Professor Revelle.  He
said he wanted some music; that you," the pale
face broke into a pathetic smile, "that you had got
on his nerves.  Unless he got out he'd be——"

"What, Miss Walden?  What, exactly?"

"Well, he'd be damned!  That is what he said,
exactly."

"He's beginning to treat me like a human being,
Miss Walden.  I love Law when he's at his worst.
I suppose I've been a big trial, moping here.  Have
I injured your nerves?"

"No—o!  Not for life."

"You're a comical little codjer.  Excuse me, Miss
Walden.  There are times still when you remind
me of someone to whom I once dared to speak my
mind."

Then, quite suddenly:

"Where are you going this summer?"

"I have not decided yet, Mr. Norval.  Why?"

"Nothing, I was only thinking, but I'll have to
speak to Law first.  One thing is sure, I'm not going
to be an ass much longer.  See here, Miss Walden,
you're a sturdy sort; you've stuck it out with me at
my lowest.  I'm going to repay you for the trouble
I've made you by making more for you.  I'm going
to go away this summer, too.  I've wanted to go
lately.  I've got to dreaming about it.  I'm going
to a little place hidden away in Canada.  I have
something to do there."

"Yes?"  The word was a mere breath.

"For a time I couldn't contemplate it; I was too
proud to show my battered hulk.  Now it seems
that I have no longer any right to consider myself.
I was going to ask Mr. Law to carry a message
for me to a young girl there; the girl on that
canvas by the window.  Instead—I'm going to carry it!"

Donelle's hands gripped each other.  She struggled
to keep her voice steady, cold.

"I think you ought to carry your message yourself,
if you can.  You have no right to consider only
yourself," she faltered.

"I wasn't, entirely."  This came humbly from
Norval.  "The girl to whom I am going is the sort
who would be deeply sorry for me; she'd go to any
lengths to make up to me, if she could.  Of course,
you understand, I would not let her, but I'd hate to
make life harder for her."

"Perhaps she has a right to—to judge for herself."
Donelle was holding firm.

"Well, I don't know, Miss Walden.  Such a
woman as you might judge wisely—even for
yourself.  She wouldn't.  She's the kind that risks
everything; she's what you might call a divine
gambler."

"Poor girl!"

"Yes, that's what I often say of her—poor girl!"

It was twilight in the quiet studio; there was no
one to see Donelle's tears.

"I'm going to tell you something," Norval said
suddenly, "something that has been troubling me
lately.  At first it didn't seem vital, it seemed rather
like a detail.  I'm wondering how a woman would
consider it."

"I'd love to hear unless you'd rather have me
read to you, Mr. Norval."

"No, for a wonder, I'd rather tell you a story."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE GLORY BREAKS THROUGH`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXIV


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE GLORY BREAKS THROUGH

.. vspace:: 2

And then Norval told Donelle about Tom Gavot.

"You see that girl in Canada is married—was
married, I mean; the young fellow is dead.
He lies under French earth in a pretty little village
that's been battered to the ground.  Some day it
will rise gloriously again.  I like to think of that
Canadian boy sleeping there, waiting.

"He was a surveyor and, before a dirty sniper got
him, he used to prowl about the desolated country
and lay out roads!  In his mind, you know.  He
was a fanciful chap, but a practical worker.

"I ran across him one day; I had known him
before.  He had never liked me when I knew him in
Canada, but most anything goes when you're over
there.  He got to—to rather chumming with me at
last, and many a laugh I've had with him over the
roads he saw through the hell about us.

"Once we had silently agreed to ignore the past—and
the poor fellow had something to forgive in it,
though not all he had supposed—we got on famously.
We really got to feel like brothers.  You do—there.
He was a queer chap through and through.  He
always expected he was going to do the white-livered
thing and he always did the bravest when the snap
came.  He did his thinking and squirming beforehand.
At the critical moment he just acted up
like—well, like the man he was.

"Why, he would talk by the hour of what a good
idea it was of the Government's to let the families of
men, shot as traitors, think them heroes who had died
serving their country.  He often said it didn't matter,
one way or the other, for the man who got what was
coming to him, but for them who had to live on it
was something to think the best, even if it were not so.

"Then he'd write letters and cards, to be sent
home in case he should meet a traitor's death.
Poor devil!  I have some of those letters now."

A throbbing, aching pause.  Then:

"Miss Walden, does this depress you too much?"

"No, it—I—I love it, Mr. Norval.  Please go on;
it is a beautiful story."

Donelle sat in the deepening shadows, her eyes
seeming to hold the sunlight that had long since
faded behind the west.

"Well, there isn't much more to tell and the
end—unless one happens to know how things are over
there: how big things seem little, and little things
massive—the end seems almost like a grisly joke.

"We had got to thinking the French place where
we were billeted was as safe as New York.  I wasn't
a trained man, I was doing whatever happened to be
lying around loose.  They called it reconstruction
work.  Good Lord!  My special job, though, just
then was driving an ambulance.  Well, quite
unexpectedly one night the enemy got a line on us from
God knows what distance, and they just peppered
us.  There was a hospital there, too.  They must
have known that, the fiends, and, for a time, things
were mighty ticklish.  The boys knew their duty,
however, and did it magnificently.  Those
Canadians were superb; given a moment to catch their
breath, they were as steady as steel.  By morning
the worst was over, the shelling, you know, and they
began to bring the boys in; back from the fight, back
to where the hospital used to be.  Out in the open
doctors and nurses were working; the ones who
had escaped I never saw such nerve; they just
worked over the poor hurt fellows as if nothing had
happened.

"I was jumping about.  There was plenty to do
even for an unskilled fellow who could only drive an
ambulance.  I kept bringing in loads—such loads!
And I kept an eye open for the chap from Canada
that I knew best of all.

"About noon a giant of a fellow who, they said,
had fought like a devil all night, came up to me
blubbering like a baby.  It seems my man had
been fighting beside this boy, doing what one might
expect, the big thing!  The two of them had crawled
into a shell-hole and worked from that cover where
they were comparatively safe.  In a lull—and here
comes the grim joke—a poor dog ran in front of
them with a piece of barbed wire caught about his
haunches.  The brute was howling as he ran and
my—my chap just went after him, caught him,
pulled the wire out, and—keeled over himself.  A
sniper had done for him!

"He wanted me; had sent his comrade to find me.
I got there just before the end.

"'You've heard?' he asked, and when I nodded
he whispered that I was to tell his wife; he knew she
would understand.  He was quite firm about my
telling her, he was like a boy over that, and I
promised.  He only spoke once again.

"'It paid!' he said, and with that he went over to
his rest.

"Are you crying, Miss Walden?"

"Yes, yes, but oh! how glorious they are, those boys!"

"I should not have told you this story."

"I thank God you have!  And indeed, Mr. Norval
it is your sacred duty to tell it to—to that girl
in Canada.  You promised and she ought to know."

.. _`"'Indeed, Mr. Norval, it is your sacred duty to tell it to—to that girl in Canada.  You promised and she ought to know'"`:

.. figure:: images/img-358.jpg
   :figclass: white-space-pre-line
   :align: center
   :alt: "'Indeed, Mr. Norval, it is your sacred duty to tell it to—to that girl in Canada.  You promised and she ought to know.'"

   "'Indeed, Mr. Norval, it is your sacred duty to tell it to—to that girl in Canada.  You promised and she ought to know.'"

"You, a woman, think that?  Don't you think
it might be better for her if she didn't know?"

"How dare you!  Oh! forgive me, Mr. Norval.
I was only thinking of—of—the girl."

"Well, lately, I've been wondering.  You see,
Miss Walden, soon after I saw my friend safe, I got
my baptism shock—gas and the rest.  It flattened
me out, but now I am beginning to feel, to suffer.
Using my legs has brought me to myself."

"And you will go and keep your promise, Mr. Norval,
you will?"

"Yes, that is what I've been turning over in my
mind."

"You see," Donelle was holding herself tight,
"that, that girl in Canada might be thinking,
knowing her husband, that he had not played the man
at the last.  The truth might save so much.  And
don't you understand how he, that poor boy, had
to save the dog?  It was saving himself.  Another
could have afforded to see the folly of exposing
himself, but he could not.  Had he stayed in the hole
he might have been a coward after!"

"I had not thought of that, Miss Walden.  The
deadly absurdity of the act made me bitter.  I
saw—just the dog part, you know."

"I believe the girl in Canada will see the man
part."  The words came solemnly.  "Yes, it did
pay; it did!"

"You have convinced me, Miss Walden.  I must
go and keep my promise.

"To-morrow they are going to make a big test of
my eyes.  After that I will start.  I want you and
Law to come, too."

"Oh!  I——"

"Couldn't you do this just as a last proof of your
good heartedness, Miss Walden?"

Donelle struggled with her tears.  Her heart was
beating wildly; beating for Tom and for the helpless
man before her.  She, sad little frail thing, stood
between the dead and the pitiful living.

"Yes, I will go," she said at length.

"Thank you, Miss Walden."

Norval smiled in the darkness.

The next day the test came—the test to his eyes.
Norval meant that his first look should rest upon
Miss Walden!

He heard her moving about, getting books and
tables out of the doctor's way.  He heard Law
excitedly directing her, and then—the bandages fell
away.  There was a moment of tense silence.

"What do you see, Norval?" the doctor asked.

Norval saw a slim, little black-robed back and a
red head!  But all he said was:

"I see Andy's ugly mug!"

The words were curiously broken and hoarse.  Then:

"Andy, old man, get a hold on me; it's almost too
good to be true!"

In July they went to Canada.  By that time
Norval could make quite a showing by walking
between Law and Miss Walden.  He wore heavy dark
glasses and only had periods of "seeing things."  At
such moments Miss Walden was conspicuously
absent.

The *River Queen* swept grandly up to the dock in
the full glory of high noon.  Jean Duval was there
on his crutches; he was at his old job, grateful and
at peace.

"Where are we going?" Norval asked.  He had
hardly dared put the question.

"Mam'selle Jo Morey is going to take us in," Law
replied.  "At least she'll feed us.  It's a cabin in
the woods for us, Jim."

"That sounds good to me, Andy."  Norval drew
in his breath sharply.

"The pines are corking," he added.  Then: "Miss
Walden, how do you like the looks of the place?"

Donelle, under a heavy veil, was feasting her eyes
on Point of Pines; on a blessed figure waiting by a
sturdy cart.

"It looks like heaven!" replied the even voice of
Mary Walden.

Jo Morey came to the gang plank, and found her
own among the passengers.  Then her brows drew
close, almost hiding her eyes.

"Those are my boarders!" she proclaimed loudly,
seizing Donelle.  "This way, please."

Law was the only one who spoke on the drive up.
Jo sat on the shaft, the others on the broad seat.

"I miss Nick," he remarked.

Mam'selle turned and gave him a stern look.
Could he not know, the stupid man, that Nick would
have given the whole thing away?  Nick had a sense
that defied red wigs and false voices.  Nick was at
that moment indignantly scratching splinters off the
inside of the cow-shed door.

There was a sumptuous meal in the spotless and
radiant living room.  There was a gentle fire on the
hearth, though why, who could tell?

And then, according to orders when the sun was
not too bright, Norval announced that he was going
to take off his "screens."

"I'm going to look about for a full hour," he said
quietly, but with that tone in his voice that always
made Donelle bow her head.

"Mam'selle!"

"Yes, Mr.——" Jo wanted to say Richard Alton,
instead she managed the Norval with a degree of
courtesy that put heart in the man who listened.

"Mam'selle, I haven't noticed Donelle's voice.
Where is she?"

"She'll come, if you want her, Mr. Norval."

Want her?  Want her?  The very air throbbed
with the want.

"She's upstairs," added Jo, looking grimmer than
ever.

"I—I have something to tell her about Tom
Gavot—her husband."  Norval smiled strangely.

"I'll call her, Mr. Norval."

Then they all waited.

Law walked to the window and choked.  In the
distance he could hear the howling demands of the
imprisoned Nick and the swishing of the outgoing
tide.

Mam'selle stood by the foot of the little winding
stairs.  She was afraid of herself, poor Jo, afraid she
was going to show what she felt!

Norval sat in the best rocker, his hands clasped
rigidly.  He had not removed his screens, he did
not intend to until he heard upon the stairs the step
for which he hungered.

And then Donelle came so softly that the listening
man did not know she was there until she stood
beside him.  She had put on a white dress that
Mam'selle had spun for her.  The pale hair was twisted
about her little head in the old simple way; the
golden eyes were full of the light that had never
shone there until love lighted it.

Law and Jo had stolen from the room.

"Here I am!"

Then Norval took down the screens and opened
his arms.

"My love, my love," he whispered, "come!"

"Why——"  Donelle drew back, her eyes widened.

"Donelle, Donelle, do you think you could hide
yourself from me?  Why, it was because I saw you
that I wanted to live; wanted to make the most of
what I had.

"Child, the day you got me out of the chair I was
sure!  Before that I hoped, prayed; then I knew!
I drew the bandage off a little and I saw your eyes."

"My beloved!"

And Donelle, kneeling beside him, raised her face
from his breast.

"I am going to kiss you now, Donelle," he said,
"but to think that such as I am is the best that life
has for you, is——!"

"Don't," she whispered, "don't!  Remember the
dear Dream of First Joy, my man.  I never lost our
First Joy.  God let me keep her safe."

From across the road came the wild, excited yelps
of the released Nick.  Slowly, for Nick was old, he
padded up the steps, into the room, up to the girl
on the floor beside the chair.  Donelle pressed the
shaggy head to her.

"Nick always has kept First Joy, too," she
whispered.  And oh, but her eyes were wonderful.

"And you'll play again for me, Donelle?"  Norval
still held her, though he heard Law and
Mam'selle approaching.

"Sometime, dear man, sometime I'll bring the
fiddle to the wood-cabin.  Sometime after I get
strings.  The strings, some of them, have snapped."

Late that evening, quite late, nine o'clock surely,
Law and Jo stood near the hearth where the embers
still glowed.

"Where are the children?" Law asked as if all the
mad happenings of the day were bagatelles.

"Out on the road, the road!"  Jo's face quivered.
"The moonlight is wonderful, the road is as clear as
day."  She was thinking of Tom Gavot while her
great heart ached with pity of it all.

"Queer ideas that young Gavot had about roads,"
Law said musingly, "Jim has told me."

"Poor boy, he got precious little for himself out
of life," Jo flung back.

The bitterness lay deep in Mam'selle's heart.
Almost her love for Donelle, her joy in her, were
darkened by what seemed to Jo to be forgetfulness.
That was unforgivable in her eyes.

"I wonder!" Law said gently; he was learning to
understand the woman beside him.

"If this were all of the road, you might feel the
way you do.  But it's a mighty little part of it,
Mam'selle.  To most of us is given short sight, to a few,
long.  I would wager all I have that young Gavot
always saw over the hilltop."

"That's a good thing to say and feel, Mr. Law."  Jo
tried to control her brows, failed, and let Law
look full in her splendid eyes.

"Life's too big for us, Mam'selle," he said, "too
big for us.  There are times when it lets us run
along, lets us believe we are managing it.  Then
comes something like this war that proves that when
life needs us, it clutches us again.

"It needs those two out there on the road in the
moonlight, one groping, the other leading; on and on!
Life will use them for its own purposes.  No use in
struggling, Mam'selle; life has us all by the throat."

"You're a strange man, Mr. Law."

Jo was trembling.

"You're a strange woman, Mam'selle."

There was a pause.  Out on the road Donelle was
singing a little French song, one she had brought
with her out of the Home at St. Michael's.

"You and I," Law continued, "have learned
some of life's lessons in a hard school, Mam'selle.
Many of our teachers have been the same; they've
made us *hew* where others have molded, but I'm
thinking we have come to know the true values of
things, you and I.  The value of labour, companionship
on the long road, a hearth fire somewhere at the
close of the day."

And now Law held out his hand as a good friend
does to another.

"I wish, Mam'selle," his voice grew wonderfully
kind, "I wish you could bring yourself to—travel
the rest of the way with me."

The door was wide open, the fair moonlight lay
across the porch, but Jo was thinking of another
night when the howling wind had pressed a warning
against the door and Pierre Gavot defiled the shelter
she had wrung from her life battle—Pierre the
Redeemed!

"Are you asking me to marry you, Mr. Law?"  Jo's
deep eyes were seeking an answer in the look
which was holding her.  She was dazed, frightened.

"Will you honour me by bearing my name, Mam'selle?
Will you let me help you keep the fire upon
the hearth for them?"

Nearer and nearer came Donelle and Norval,
Donelle still singing with the moonlight on her face.

"I have fought my way up from lonely boyhood,
Mam'selle.  I've lived a lonely man!  And you,
Mam'selle, I know your story.  When all is said
and done, loneliness is the hardest thing to bear."

Tears stood in Jo's eyes—tears!

"You are a strange man," she repeated.

"And you a strange woman, Mam'selle."

But they were smiling now, smiling as people
smile who, at the turn of the road, see that it does
not end, but goes on and on and on.

.. vspace:: 3

.. class:: center medium

   THE END

.. vspace:: 4

.. class:: center small white-space-pre-line

   THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS
   GARDEN CITY, \N. \Y.

.. vspace:: 6

.. pgfooter::