Chapter V: Part 5

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.

*CHAPTER XI*

*THE GREAT DECISION*

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.

*CHAPTER XII*

*THE HIDDEN CURRENT TURNS*

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 protegee, 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?

*CHAPTER XIII*

*THE INEVITABLE*

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:

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.

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:

JIM, I am not coming back. Here in my little bungalow I have found myself and I mean to keep myself!

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?

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."