← catalogue

The Man Thou Gavest

by Harriet T. Comstock · English · Gutenberg #14858 · 468,727 chars · public domain (US)

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Man Thou Gavest
    
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: The Man Thou Gavest

Author: Harriet T. Comstock


        
Release date: February 1, 2005 [eBook #14858]
                Most recently updated: December 19, 2020

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14858

Credits: Produced by David Garcia, Robert Ledger and the PG Online Distributed
        Proofreading Team.


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAN THOU GAVEST ***




Produced by David Garcia, Robert Ledger and the PG Online Distributed
Proofreading Team.







[Illustration: "Do you think I am the sort of girl who would sell
herself for anything--even for the justice I might think was yours?"]

THE MAN THOU GAVEST

BY

HARRIET T. COMSTOCK

AUTHOR OF JOYCE OF THE NORTH WOODS, A SON OF THE HILLS, ETC.

FRONTISPIECE BY E.F. WARD



DEDICATION

_I dedicate this book of mine to the lovely spot where most of it was
written_

THE MACDOWELL COLONY PETERBOROUGH NEW HAMPSHIRE

AND

"TO HER WHO UNDERSTANDS"

Deep in the pine woods is the little Studio where work is made supremely
possible. Around the house the birds and trees sing together and no
disturbing thing is permitted to trespass.

Within, like a tangible Presence, an atmosphere of loved labour; good
will and high hopes greet the coming guests and speed the parting.

Little Studio in the pine woods, my appreciation and affection are
yours!

HARRIET T. COMSTOCK




THE MAN THOU GAVEST




CHAPTER I


The passengers, one by one, left the train but Truedale took no heed. He
was the only one left at last, but he was not aware of it, and then,
just as the darkness outside caught his attention, the train stopped so
suddenly that it nearly threw him from his seat.

"Accident?" he asked the conductor. "No, sah! Pine Cone station. I
reckon the engineer come mighty nigh forgetting--he generally does at
the end. The tracks stop here. You look mighty peaked; some one
expecting yo'?"

"I've been ill. My doctor ordered me to the hills. Yes: some one will
meet me." Truedale did not resent the interest the man showed; he was
grateful.

"Well, sah, if yo' man doesn't show up--an' sometimes they don't, owing
to bad roads--you can come back with us after we load up with the wood.
I live down the track five miles; we lie thar fur the night. Yo' don't
look equal to taking to yo' two standing feet."

The entire train force of three men went to gather fuel for the return
trip and, dejectedly, Truedale sat down in the gloom and silence to
await events.

No human being materialized and Truedale gave himself up to gloomy
thoughts. Evidently he must return on the train and to-morrow morning
take to--just then a spark like a falling star attracted his attention
and to his surprise he saw, not a dozen feet away, a tall lank man
leaning against a tree in an attitude so adhesive that he might have
been a fungus growth or sprig of destroying mistletoe. It never occurred
to Truedale that this indifferent onlooker could be interested in him,
but he might be utilized in the emergency, so he saluted cordially.

"Hello, friend!"

By the upward and downward curve of the glowing pipe bowl, Truedale
concluded the man was nodding.

"I'm waiting for Jim White."

"So?" The one word came through the darkness without interest.

"Do you happen to know him?"

"Sorter."

"Could you--get me to his place?"

"I reckon. That's what I come ter do."

"I--I had a trunk sent on ahead; perhaps it is in that shed?"

"It's up to--to Jim's place. Can you ride behind me on the mare?
Travelling is tarnation bad."

Once they were on the mare's back, conversation dragged, then died a
natural death. Truedale felt as if he were living a bit of anti-war
romance as he jogged along behind his guide, his grip knocking
unpleasantly against his leg as the way got rougher.

It was nine o'clock when, in a little clearing close by the trail, the
lights of a cabin shone cheerily and the mare stopped short and
definitely.

"I hope White is at home!" Truedale was worn to the verge of exhaustion.

"I be Jim White!" The man dismounted and stood ready to assist his
guest.

"Welcome, stranger. Any one old Doc McPherson sends here brings his
welcome with him."

About a fortnight later, Conning Truedale stretched his long legs out
toward Jim White's roaring fire of pine knots and cones. It was a fierce
and furious fire but the night was sharp and cold. There was no other
light in the room than that of the fire--nor was any needed.

Jim sat by the table cleaning a gun. Truedale was taking account of
himself. He held his long, brown hand up to the blaze; it was as steady
as that of a statue! He had walked ten miles that day and felt
exhilarated. Night brought sleep, meal time--and often in between
times--brought appetite. He had made an immense gain in health.

"How long have I been here, Jim?" he asked in a slow, calm voice.

"Come Thursday, three weeks!" When Jim was most laconic he was often
inwardly bursting with desire for conversation. After a silence Conning
spoke again:

"Say, Jim, are there any other people in this mountain range, except you
and me?"

"Ugh! just bristlin' with folks! Getting too darned thick. That's why
I've got ter get into the deep woods. I just naturally hate folks except
in small doses. Why"--here Jim put the gun down upon the table--"five
mile back, up on Lone Dome, is the Greyson's, and it ain't nine miles to
Jed Martin's place. Miss Lois Ann's is a matter o' sixteen miles; what
do you call population if them figures don't prove it?"

Something had evidently disturbed White's ideas of isolation and
independence--it would all come out later. Truedale knew his man fairly
well by that time; at least he thought he did. Again Jim took up his gun
and Con thought lazily that he must get over to his shack. He occupied a
small cabin--Dr. McPherson's property for sleeping purposes.

"Do yo' know," Jim broke in suddenly; "yo' mind me of a burr runnin'
wild in a flock of sheep--gatherin' as yo' go. Yo' sho are a miracle!
Now old Doc McPherson was like a shadder when he headed this way--but he
took longer gatherin', owin' to age an' natural defects o' build. Your
frame was picked right close, but a kind o' flabby layer of gristle and
fat hung ter him an' wasn't a good foundation to build on."

Conning gave a delighted laugh. Once Jim White began to talk of his own
volition his discourse flowed on until hunger or weariness overtook him.
His silences had the same quality--it was the way Jim began that
mattered.

"When I first took ter handlin' yo' for ole Doc McPherson, I kinder
hated ter take my eyes off yo' fearin' yo' might slip out, but Gawd! yo'
can grapple fo' yo' self now and--I plain hanker fur the sticks."

"The sticks?" This was a new expression.

"Woods!" Jim vouchsafed (he despised the stupidity that required
interpretation of perfectly plain English), "deep woods! What with Burke
Lawson suspected of bein' nigh, an' my duty as sheriff consarnin' him
hittin' me in the face, I've studied it out that it will be a mighty
reasonable trick fur this here officer of the law to be somewhere else
till Burke settles with his friends an' foes, or takes himself off,
'fore he's strung up or shot up."

Truedale turned his chair about and faced Jim.

"Do you know," he said, "you've mentioned more names in the last ten
minutes than you've mentioned in all the weeks I've been here? You give
me a mental cramp. Why, I thought you and I had these hills to
ourselves; instead we're threatened on every side, and yet I haven't
seen a soul on my tramps. Where do they keep themselves? What has this
Burke Lawson done, to stir the people?"

"You don't call your santers real tramps, do you? Why folks is as thick
as ticks up here, though they don't knock elbows like what they do where
you cum from. They don't holler out ter 'tract yer attention, neither.
But they're here."

"Let's hear more of Burke Lawson." Truedale gripped _him_ from the
seething mass of humanity portrayed by White, as the one promising most
colour and interest. "Just where does Burke live?"

"Burke? Gawd! Burke don't live anywhere. He is a born floater. He
scrooges around a place and raises the devil, then he just naturally
floats off. But he nearly always comes back. Since the trap-settin' a
time back, he has been mighty scarce in these parts; but any day he may
turn up."

"The trap, eh? What about that?" With this Truedale turned about again,
for Jim, having finished his work on the gun, had placed the weapon on
its pegs on the wall and had drawn near the fire. He ran his hand
through his crisp, gray hair until it stood on end and gave him a
peculiarly bristling appearance. He was about to enjoy himself. He was
as keen for gossip as any cabin woman of the hills, but Jim was an
artist about sharing his knowledge. However, once he decided to share,
he shared royally.

"I've been kinder waitin' fur yo' to show some interest in us-all," he
began, "it's a plain sign of yo' gettin' on. I writ the same to old Doc
McPherson yesterday! 'When he takes to noticin',' I writ, 'he's on the
mend.'"

Conning laughed good naturedly. "Oh! I'm on the mend, all right," he
said.

"Now as to that trap business," Jim took up the story, "I'll have to go
back some and tell yo' about the Greysons and Jed Martin--they all be
linked like sassages. Pete Greyson lives up to Lone Dome. Pete came from
stock; he ain't trash by a long come, but he can act like it! Pete's
forbears drank wine and talked like lords; Pete has ter rely on mountain
dew and that accounts fur the difference in his goin's-on; but once he's
sober, he's quality--is Pete. Pete's got two darters--Marg an'
Nella-Rose. Old Doc McPherson use' ter call 'em types, whatever that
means. Marg is a type, sure and sartin, but Nella-Rose is a little
no-count--that's what I say. But blame it all, it's Nella-Rose as has
set the mountains goin', so far as I can see. Fellers come courtin' Marg
and they just slip through her fingers an' Nella-Rose gets 'em. She
don't want 'em 'cept to play with and torment Marg. Gawd! how them two
gals do get each other edgy. Round about Lone Dome they call Nella-Rose
the doney-gal--that meaning 'sweetheart'; she's responsible for more
trouble than a b'ar with a sore head, or Burke Lawson on a tear."

Conning was becoming vitally interested and showed it, to Jim's
delight; this was a dangerous state for White, he was likely, once
started and flattered, to tell more than was prudent.

"Jed Martin"--Jim gave a chuckle--"has been tossed between them two gals
like a hot corn pone. He'd take Nella-Rose quick enough if she'd have
him, but barrin' her, he hangs to Marg so as ter be nigh Nella-Rose in
any case. And right here Burke Lawson figgers. Burke's got two naturs,
same as old Satan. Marg can play on one and get him plumb riled up to
anythin'; Nella-Rose can twist him around her finger and make him act
like the Second Coming."

Conning called a halt. "What's the Second Coming?" he asked, his eyes
twinkling.

"Meaning?--good as a Bible character," Jim explained huffily. "Gawd,
man! do your own thinkin'. I can't talk an' splanify ter onct."

"Oh! I see. Well, go on, Jim."

"There be times of the moon when I declare that no-count Nella-Rose just
plain seems possessed; has ter do somethin' and does it! Three months
ago, come Saturday, or thereabouts, she took it into her head to worst
Marg at every turn and let it out that she was goin' to round up all the
fellers and take her pick! She had the blazin' face ter come down here
and tell _me_ that! Course Marg knew it, but the two most consarned
didn't--meaning Jed and Burke. Least they suspected--but warn't sure.
Jed meant to get Burke out o' the way so he could have a clear space to
co't Nella-Rose, so he aimed to shoot one o' Burke's feet just enough to
lay him up--Jed is the slow, calculatin' kind and an almighty sure shot.
He reckoned Burke couldn't walk up Lone Dome with a sore foot, so he
laid for him, meanin' afterward to say he was huntin' an' took Burke for
a 'possum. Well, Burke got wind of the plot; I'm thinkin' Marg put a
flea in his ear, anyway he set a trap just by the path leading from the
trail to Lone Dome. Gawd! Jed planted his foot inter it same as if he
meant ter, and what does that Burke do but take a walk with Nella-Rose
right past the place where Jed was caught! 'Corse he was yellin'
somethin' terrible. They helped Jed out and I reckon Nella-Rose was
innocent enough, but Jed writ up the account 'gainst Burke and Burke
floated off for a spell. He ain't floated back yet--not _yet!_ But so
long as Nella-Rose is above ground he'll naturally cum back."

"And Nella-Rose, the little no-count; did she repay Jed, the poor cuss?"

"Nella-Rose don't repay no one--she ain't more'n half real, whatever way
you put it. But just see how this fixes a sheriff, will yo'? Knowing
what I do, I can't jail either o' them chaps with a cl'ar conscience.
Gawd! I'd like to pass a law to cage all females and only let 'em out
with a string to their legs!" Then White laughed reminiscently.

"What now, Jim?"

"Gals!" White fairly spit out the word. "Gals!" There was an eloquent
pause, then more quietly: "Jest when yo' place 'em and hate 'em proper,
they up and do somethin' to melt yo' like snow on Lone Dome in May. I
was harkin' back to the little white hen and Nella-Rose. There ain't
much chance to have a livin' pet up to Greyson's place. Anything fit to
eat is et. Pete drinks the rest. But once Nella-Rose came totin' up here
on a cl'ar, moonlight evenin' with somethin' under her little, old
shawl. 'Jim' she says--wheedlin' and coaxin'--'I want yo' to keep this
here hen fo' me. I'll bring its keep, but I love it, and I can't see
it--killed!' That gal don't never let tears fall--they jest wet her eyes
and make 'em shine. With that she let loose the most owdacious white
bantam and scattered some corn on the floor; then she sat down and
laughed like an imp when the foolish thing hopped up to her and flopped
onter her lap. Well, I kept the sassy little hen--there wasn't anything
else ter do--but one day Marg, she followed Nella-Rose up and when she
saw what was going on, she stamped in and cried out: 'So! yo' can have
playthings while us-all go starved! Yo' can steal what's our'n,--an'
with that she took the bantam and fo' I could say a cuss, she wrung that
chicken's neck right fo' Nella-Rose's eyes!"

"Good Lord!" exclaimed Conning; "the young brute! And the other
one--what did she do?"

"She jest looked at me--her eyes swimmin'. Nella-Rose don't talk much
when she's hurt, but she don't forget. I tell yo', young feller, bein' a
sheriff in this settlement ain't no joke. Yo' know folks too well and
see the rights and wrongs more'n is good for plain justice."

"Well?" Jim rose and stretched himself, "yo' won't go on the b'ar hunt
ter-morrer?"

"No, Jim, but I'll walk part of the way with you. When do you start?"

"'Bout two o' the mornin'."

"Then I'll turn in. Good-night, old man! You've given me a great
evening. I feel as if I were suddenly projected into a crowd with human
problems smashing into each other for all they're worth. You cannot
escape, old man; that's the truth. You cannot escape. Life is life no
matter where you find it."

"Now don't git ter talkin' perlite to me," Jim warned. "Old Doc
McPherson's orders was agin perlite conversation. Get a scrabble on yer!
I'll knock yer up 'bout two or thereabouts."

Outside, Truedale stood still and looked at the beauty of the night. The
moon was full and flooded the open space with a radiance which
contrasted sharply with the black shadows and the outlines of the near
and distant peaks.

The silence was so intense that the ear, straining for sound, ached from
the effort. And just then a bewitched hen in White's shed gave a weird
cry and Truedale started. He smiled grimly and thought of the little
no-count and the tragedy of the white bantam. In the shining light
around him he seemed to see her pitiful face as White had described
it--the eyes full of tears but never overflowing, the misery and hate,
the loneliness and impotency.

At two the next morning Jim tapped on Truedale's window with his gun.

"Comin' fur a walk?"

"You bet!" Con was awake at once and alert. Ten minutes later, closing
the doors and windows of his cabin after him, he joined White on the
leaf-strewn path to the woods. He went five miles and then bade his host
good-bye.

"Don't overwork!" grinned Jim sociably. "I'll write to old Doc McPherson
when I git back."

"And when will that be, Jim?"

"I ain't goin' ter predict." White set his lips. "When I stay, I stay,
but once I take ter the woods there ain't no sayin'. I'll fetch fodder
when I cum, and mail, too--but I ain't goin' ter hobble myself when I
take ter the sticks."

Tramping back alone over the wet autumn leaves, Truedale had his first
sense of loneliness since he came. White, he suddenly realized, had
meant to him everything that he needed, but with White unhobbled in the
deep woods, how was he to fill the time? He determined to force himself
to study. He had wedged one solid volume in his trunk, unknown to his
friends. He would brush up his capacity for work--it could not hurt him
now. He was as strong as he had ever been in his life and the prospect
ahead promised greater gains.

Yes, he would study. He would write letters, too--real letters. He had
neglected every one, especially Lynda Kendall. The others did not
matter, but Lynda mattered more than anything. She always would! And
thinking of Lynda reminded him that he had also, in his trunk, the play
upon which he had worked for several years during hours that should have
been devoted to rest. He would get out the play and try to breathe life
into it, now that he himself was living. Lynda had said, when last they
had discussed his work, "It's beautiful, Con; you shall not belittle it.
It is beautiful like a cold, stone thing with rough edges. Sometime you
must smooth it and polish it, and then you must pray over it and believe
in it, and I really think it will repay you. It may not mean anything
but a sure guide to your goal, but you'd be grateful for that, wouldn't
you?" Of course he would be grateful for that! It would mean life to
him--life, not mere existence. He began to hope that Jim White would
stay away a month; what with study, and the play, and the doing for
himself, the time ahead was provided for already!

Stalking noiselessly forward, Truedale came into the clearing, passed
White's shack, and approached his own with a fixed determination. Then
he stopped short. He was positive that he had closed windows and
doors--the caution of the city still clung to him--but now both doors
and windows were set wide to the brilliant autumn day and a curl of
smoke from a lately replenished fire cheerfully rose in the clear, dry
air.

"Well, I'll be--!" and then Truedale quietly slipped to the rear of
the cabin and to a low, sliding window through which he could peer,
unobserved. One glance transfixed him.




CHAPTER II


The furnishing of the room was bare and plain--a deal table, a couple of
wooden chairs, a broad comfortable couch, a cupboard with some
nondescript crockery, and a good-sized mirror in the space between the
front door and the window. Before this glass a strange figure was
walking to and fro, enjoying hugely its own remarkable reflection.
Truedale's bedraggled bath robe hung like a mantle from the shoulders of
the intruder--they were very straight, slim young shoulders; an old
ridiculous fez--an abomination of his freshman year, kept for
sentimental reasons--adorned the head of the small stranger and only
partly held in check the mass of shadowy hair that rippled from it and
around a mischievous face.

Surprise, then wonder, swayed Truedale. When he reached the wonder
stage, thought deserted him. He simply looked and kept on wondering.
Through this confusion, words presently reached him. The masquerader
within was bowing and scraping comically, and in a low, musical voice
said:

"How-de, Mister Outlander, sir! How-de? I saw your smoke a-curling way
back from home, sir, and I've come a-visiting 'long o' you, Mister
Outlander."

Another sweeping curtsey reduced Truedale to helpless mirth and he
fairly shouted, doubling up as he did so.

The effect of his outburst upon the young person within was tremendous.
She seemed turned to stone. She stared at the face in the window; she
turned red and white--the absurd fez dangling over her left ear. Then
she emitted what seemed to be one word, so lingeringly sweet was the
drawl.

"Godda'mighty!"

Seeing that there was going to be no other concession, Truedale pulled
himself together, went around to the front door and knocked,
ceremoniously. The girl turned, as if on a pivot, but spoke no word.

She had the most wonderful eyes--innocent and pleading; she was a mere
child and, although she looked awed now, was evidently a forward young
native who deserved a good lesson. Truedale determined to give her one!

"If you don't mind," he said, "I'll come in and sit down."

This he did while the big, solemn eyes followed him alertly.

"And now will you be kind enough to tell me what you mean by--wearing my
clothes?"

Still the silence and the blank stare.

"You must answer my questions!" Truedale's voice sounded stern. "I
suppose you didn't expect me back so soon?"

The deep eyes confirmed this by the drooping of the lids.

"And you broke in--what for?"

No answer.

"Who are you?"

Really the situation was becoming unbearable, so Truedale changed his
tactics. He would play with the poor little thing and reassure her.

"Now that I look at you I see what you are. You're not a human at all.
You're a spirit of something or other--probably of one of those perky
mountains over yonder. The White Maid, I bet! You had to don my clothes
in order to materialize before my eyes and you had to use that word of
the hills--so that I could understand you. It's quite plain now and you
are welcome to my--my bath robe; I dare say that, underneath it, you are
decked out in filmy clouds and vapours and mists. Oh! come now--" The
strange eyes were filling--but not overflowing!

"I was only joking. Forgive me. Why--"

The wretched fez fell from the soft hair--the bedraggled robe from the
rigid shoulders--and there, garbed in a rough home-spun gown, a little
plaid shawl and a checked apron, stood--

"It's the no-count," thought Truedale. Aloud he said, "Nella-Rose!"

With the dropping of the disguise years and dignity were added to the
girl and Truedale, who was always at his worst in the presence of
strange young women, gazed dazedly at the one before him now.

"Perhaps"--he began awkwardly--"you'll sit down. Please do!" He drew a
chair toward her. Nella-Rose sank into it and leaned her bowed head upon
her arms, which she folded on the table. Her shoulders rose and fell
convulsively, and Truedale, looking at her, became hopelessly wretched.

"I'm a beast and nothing less!" he admitted by way of apology and
excuse. "I--I wish you _could_ forgive me."

Then slowly the head was raised and to Truedale's further consternation
he saw that mirth, not anguish, had caused the shaking of those
deceiving little shoulders.

"Oh! I see--you are laughing!" He tried to be indignant.

"Yes."

"At what?"

"Everything--you!"

"Thank you!" Then, like a response, something heretofore unknown and
unsuspected in Truedale rose and overpowered him. His shyness and
awkwardness melted before the warmth and glow of the conquering emotion.
He got up and sat on the corner of the table nearest his shabby little
guest, and looking straight into her bewitching eyes he joined her in a
long, resounding laugh.

It was surrender, pure and simple.

"And now," he said at last, "you must stay and have a bite. I am about
starved. And you?"

The girl grew sober.

"I'm--I'm always hungry," she admitted softly.

They drew the table close to the roaring fire, leaving doors and windows
open to the crisp, sweet; morning air.

"We'll have a party!" Truedale announced. "I'll step over to Jim's cabin
and bring the best he's got."

When he returned Nella-Rose had placed cups, saucers, and plates on the
table.

"Do you--often have parties?" she asked.

"I never had one before. I'll have them, though, from now on if--if you
will come!"

Truedale paused with his arms full of pitchers and platters of food, and
held the girl with his admiring eyes.

"And you will let me come and see you--you and your sister and your
father? I know all about you. White has explained--everything. He--"

Nella-Rose braced herself against the table and quietly and definitely
outlined their future relations.

"No, you cannot come to see us-all. You don't know Marg. If she doesn't
find things out, there won't be trouble; when she does find things out
there's goin' t' be a right smart lot of trouble brewing!"

This was said with such comical seriousness that Truedale laughed
again, but sobered instantly when he recalled the incident of the white
bantam which Jim had so vividly portrayed.

"But you see," he replied, "I don't want to let you go after this first
party, and never see you again!"

The girl shrugged her shoulders and apparently dismissed the matter. She
sat down and, with charming abandon, began to eat. Presently Truedale,
amused and interested, spoke again:

"It would be very unkind of you not to let me see you."

"I'm--thinking!" Nella-Rose drew her brows together and nibbled a bit of
corn bread meditatively. Then--quite suddenly:

"I'm coming here!"

"You--you mean that?" Truedale flushed.

"Yes. And the big woods--you walk in them?"

"I certainly do."

"Sometimes--I am in the big woods."

"Where--specially?" Truedale was playing this new game with the foolish
skill of the novice.

"There's a Hollow--where--" (Nella-Rose paused) "where the laurel tangle
is like a jungle--"

Truedale broke in: "I know it! There's a little stream running through
it, and--trails."

"Yes!" Nella-Rose leaned back and showed her white teeth alluringly.

"I--I should not--permit this!" For a moment Truedale broke through the
thin ice of delight that was luring him to unknown danger and fell upon
the solid rock of conservatism.

"Why?" The eyes, so tenderly innocent, confronted him appealingly.
"There are nuts there and--and other things! You are just teasing;
you'll let me--show you the way about?"

The girl was all child now and made Truedale ashamed to hold her to any
absurd course that his standards acknowledged but that hers had never
conceived.

"Of course. I'll be glad to have you for a guide. Jim White has no ideas
about nuts and things--he goes to the woods to kill something; he's
there now. I dare say mere are other things in the mountains
besides--prey?"

Nella-Rose nodded.

"Let's sit by the fire!" she suddenly said. "I--I want to tell
you--something, and then I must go."

The lack of shyness and reserve might so easily have become
boldness--but they did not! The girl was like a creature of the wilds
which, knowing no reason for fear, was revelling in heretofore
unsuspected enjoyment. Truedale pulled the couch to the hearth for
Nella-Rose, piled the pillows on one end and then seated himself on the
stump of a tree which served as a settee.

"Now, then!" he said, keeping his eyes on his breezy little guest.
"What have you got to tell me--before you go?"

"It's something that happened--long ago. You will not laugh if I tell
you? You laugh right much."

"I? You think I laugh a good deal? Good Lord! Some folk think I don't
laugh enough." He had his friends back home in mind, and somehow the
memory steadied him for an instant.

"P'r'aps they-all don't know you as well as I do." This with amusing
conviction.

"Perhaps they don't." Truedale was deadly solemn. "But go on,
Nella-Rose. I promise not to laugh now."

"It was the beginning of--you!" The girl turned her eyes to the
fire--she was quaintly demure. "At first when I saw you looking in that
window, yonder, I was right scared."

Jim White's statement that Nella-Rose wasn't more than half real seemed,
in the light of present happenings, little less than bald fact.

"It was the way _you_ looked--way back there when I was ten years old. I
had run away--"

"Are you always running away?" asked Truedale from the hollow depths of
unreality.

"I run away a smart lot. You have to if you want to--see things and be
different."

"And you--you want to be different, Nella-Rose?"

"I--why, can't you see?--I _am_ different."

"Of course. I only meant--do you like to be different."

"I have to like it. I was born with a cawl."

"In heaven's name, what's that?"

"Something over your eyes, and when they take it off you see more, and
farther, than any one else. You're part ha'nt."

Truedale wiped his forehead--the room was getting hot, but the heat
alone was not responsible for his emotions; he was being carried beyond
his depth--beyond himself--by the wild fascination of the little
creature before him. He would hardly have been surprised had a draught
of air wafted her out of the window like a bit of mountain mist.

"But you mustn't interrupt so much!" She turned a stern face upon him.
"I ran away that time to see a--railroad train! One of the niggers told
me about it--he said it was the Bogy Man. I wanted to know, so I went to
the station. It's a right smart way down and I had to sleep one night
under the trees. Don't the stars look starry sometimes?"

The interruption made Truedale jump.

"They certainly do," he said, looking at the soft, dark eyes with their
long lashes.

"I wasn't afraid--and I didn't hurry. It was evening, and the sun just
a-going down, when I got to the station. There wasn't any one about so
I--I ran down the big road the train comes on--to meet it. And then"
(here Nella-Rose clasped her hands excitedly and her breath came short),
"and then I saw it a-coming and a-coming. The big fire-eye a-glaring and
the mighty noise a-snorting and I reckoned it was old Master Satan and I
just--couldn't move!"

"Go on! go on!" Truedale bent close to her--she had caught him in the
mesh of her dramatic charm.

"I saw it a-coming, and set on--on devouring o' me, and still I couldn't
stir. Everything was growing black and black except a big square with
that monster eye a-glaring into the soul o' me!"

The girl's face was set--her eyes vacant and wild; suddenly they
softened, and her little white teeth showed through the childish, parted
lips.

"Then the eye went away, there was a blackness in the square place, and
then a face came--a kind face it was--all a-laughing and it--it kept
going farther and farther off to one side and I kept a-following and
a-following and then--the big noise went rushing by me, and there I was
right safe and plump up against a tree!"

"Good Lord!" Again Truedale wiped his brow.

"Since then," Nella-Rose relaxed, "I can shut my eyes and always there
is the black square and sometimes--not always, but sometimes--things
come!"

"The face, Nella-Rose?"

"No, I can't make that come. But things I want to, do and have. I
always think, when I see things, that I'm going to do a big, fine thing
some day. I feel upperty and then--poof! off go the pictures and I am
just--lil' Nella-Rose again!"

A comically heavy sigh brought Truedale back to earth.

"But the face you saw long ago," Truedale whispered, "was it my face, do
you think?"

Nella-Rose paused--then quietly:

"I--reckon it was. Yes, I'm mighty sure it was your face. When I saw it
at that window"--she pointed across the room--"I certainly thought my
eyes were closed and that--it had come--the kind, good face that saved
me!" A sweet, friendly smile wreathed the girl's lips and she rose with
rare dignity and held out her thin, delicate hand:

"Mister Outlander, we're going to be neighbours, aren't we?"

"Yes--neighbours!" Truedale took the hand with a distinct sense of
suffocation, "but why do you call me an outlander?"

"Because--you are! You're not _of_ our mountains."

"No, I wish I were!"

"Wishing can't make you. You are--or you aren't."

Truedale noted the girl's language. Distorted and crude as it often was,
it was never positively illiterate. This surprised him.

"You--oh! you're not going yet!" He put his hand out, for the definite
way in which Nella-Rose turned was ominous. Already she seemed to belong
to the cabin room--to Truedale himself. Not a suggestion of strangeness
clung to her. It was as if she had always been there but that his eyes
had been holden.

"I must go!"

"Wait--oh! Nella-Rose. Let me walk part of the way with you. I--I have a
thousand things to say."

But she was gone out of the door, down the path.

Truedale stood and looked after her until the long shadows reached up to
Lone Dome's sharpest edge. White's dogs began nosing about, suggesting
attention to affairs nearer at hand. Then Truedale sighed as if waking
from a dream. He performed the duties Jim had left to his tender
mercy--the feeding of the animals, the piling up of wood. Then he forced
himself to take a long walk. He ate his evening meal late, and finally
sat down to his task of writing letters. He wrote six to Brace Kendall
and tore them up; he wrote one to his uncle and put it aside for
consideration when the effect of his day dreams left him sane enough to
judge it. Finally he managed a note to Dr. McPherson and one to Lynda
Kendall.

"I think"--so the letter to Lynda ran--"that I will work regularly, now,
on the play. With more blood in my own body I can hope to put more into
that. I'm going to get it out to-morrow and begin the infusion. I wish
you were here to-night--to see the wonderful effect of the moon on the
mists--but there! if I said more you might guess where I am. When I come
back I shall try to describe it and some day you must see it. Several
times lately I have imagined an existence here with one's work and
enough to subsist on. No worry, no nerve-racking, and always the
tremendous beauty to inspire one! Nothing seems wholly real here."

Then Truedale put down his pen. Nella-Rose crowded Lynda Kendall from
the field of vision; later, he simply signed his name and let the note
go with that.

As for Nella-Rose, as soon as she left Truedale, her mind turned to
sterner matters close at hand. She became aware before long of some one
near by. The person, whoever it was, seemed determined to remain hidden
but for that very reason it called out all the girl's cunning and
cleverness. It might be--Burke Lawson! With this thought Nella-Rose
gasped a little. Then, it might be Marg; and here the dark eyes grew
hard--the lips almost cruel! She got down upon her knees and crawled
like a veritable little animal of the wilds. Keeping close to the
ground, she advanced to where the trail from Lone Dome met the broader
one, and there, standing undecided and bewildered, was a tall, fair
girl.

Nella-Rose sprang to her feet, her eyes ablaze.

"Marg! What you--hounding me for?"

"Nella-Rose, where you been?"

"What's that to you?"

"You've been up to Devil-may-come Hollow!"

"Have I? Let me pass, Marg. Have your mully-grubs, if you please; I'm
going home."

As Nella-Rose tried to pass, Marg caught her by the arm.

"Burke's back!" she whispered, "he's hiding up to Devil-may-come! He's
been seen and you know it!"

"What if I do?" Nella-Rose never ignored a possible escape for the
future.

"You've been up there--to meet him. You ought to be licked. If you don't
let him alone--let him and me alone--I'll turn Jed on him, I will; I
swear it!"

"What is he--to you!" Nella-Rose confronted her sister squarely. Blue
eyes--bold, cold blue they were--looked into dark ones even now so soft
and winning that it was difficult to resist them.

"If you let him alone, he'll be everything to me!" Marg blurted out.
"What do you want of him, Nella-Rose?--of him or any other man? But if
you must have a sweetheart, pick and choose and let me have my day."

The rough appeal struck almost brutally on Nella-Rose's ears. She was as
un-moral, perhaps, as Marg, but she was more discriminating.

"I'm mighty tired of cleaning and cooking for--for father and you!"
Marg tossed her head toward Lone Dome. "Father's mostly always drunk
these days and you--what do you care what becomes of me? Leave me to get
a man of my own and then I'll be human. I've been--killing the hog
to-day!" Marg suddenly and irrelevantly burst out; "I--I shall never do
it again. We'll starve first!"

"Why didn't father?" Nella-Rose said, softly.

"Father? Huh! he couldn't have held the knife. He went for the jug--and
got it full! No, I had to do it, but it's the last time. Nella-Rose,
tell me where Burke is hidden--tell me! Leave me free to--to win him;
let me have my chance!"

"And then who'll kill the pig?" Nella-Rose shuddered.

"Who cares?" Marg flung back.

"No! Find him if you can. Fair play--no favours; what I find is open to
you!" Nella-Rose laughed impishly and, darting past her sister, ran down
the path.

Marg stood and watched her with baffled rage and hate. For a moment she
almost decided to take her chances and seek Burke Lawson in the distant
Hollow. But night was coming--the black, drear night of the low places.
Marg was desperate, but a primitive conservatism held her. Not for all
she hoped to gain would she brave Burke Lawson alone in the secret
places of Devil-may-come Hollow! So she followed after Nella-Rose and
reached home while her sister was preparing the evening meal.

Peter Greyson, the father, sat huddled in a big chair by the fire. He
had arrived at that stage of returning consciousness when he felt that
it was incumbent upon him to explain himself. He had been a handsome
man, of the dashing cavalry type and he still bore traces of past glory.
In his worst moments he never swore before ladies, and in his best he
remembered what was due them and upheld their honour and position with
fervour.

"Lil' Nella-Rose," he was saying as Marg paused outside the door in the
dark, "why don't you marry Burke Lawson and settle down here with me?"

"He hasn't asked me, father."

"He isn't in any position now to pick and choose"--this between
hiccoughs and yawns--"I saw him early this morning; I know his back
anywhere. I'd just met old Jim White. I reckon Burke was calculating to
shoot Jim, but my coming upset his plans. Shooting a sheriff ain't safe
business." What Greyson really had seen was Truedale's retreat after
parting company with Jim, but not knowing of Truedale's existence he
jumped to the conclusion which to his fuddled wits seemed probable, and
had so informed Marg upon his return.

"I tell yo', Nella-Rose," he ran on, "yo' better marry Burke and tame
him. There ain't nothing as tames a man like layin' responsibilities on
him."

"Come, father, let me help you to the table. I don't want to talk about
Burke. I don't believe he's back." She steadied the rolling form to the
head of the table.

"I tell yo', chile, I saw Burke's back; don't yo' reckon I know Lawson
when I see him, back or front? Don't yo' want ter marry Lawson,
Nella-Rose?"

"No, I wouldn't have him if he asked me. It would be like marrying a
tree that the freshet was rolling about. I'm not going to seek and hide
with any man."

"Why don't yo' let Marg have 'im then? She'd be a right smart
responsibility."

"She can have him and welcome, if she can find him!" Then, hearing her
sister outside, she called:

"Come in, Marg. Shut out the cold and the dark. What's the use of acting
like a little old hateful?"

Marg slouched in; there was no other word to describe her indifferent
and contemptuous air.

"He's coming around?" she asked, nodding at her father.

"Yes--he's come," Nella-Rose admitted.

"All right, then, I'm going to tell him something!" She walked over to
her father and stood before him, looking him steadily in the eyes.

"I--I killed the hog to-day;" she spoke sharply, slowly, as to a dense
child. Peter Greyson started.

"You--you--did that?"

"Yes. While you were off--getting drunk, and while Nella-Rose was
traipsing back there in the Hollow I killed the hog; but I'll never do
it again. It sickened the soul of me. I'm as good as Nella-Rose--just as
good. If you can't do your part, father, and she _won't_ do hers, that's
no reason for me being benastied with such work as I did to-day. You
hear me?"

"Sure I hear you, Marg, and I'm plumb humiliated that--that I let you.
It--it sha'n't happen again. I'll keep a smart watch next year. A
gentleman can't say more to his daughter than that--can he?"

"Saying is all very well--it's the doing." Marg was adamant. "I'm going
to look out for myself from now on. You and Nella-Rose will find out."

"What's come to you, Marg?" Peter looked concerned.

"Something that hasn't ever come before," Marg replied, keeping her eyes
on Nella-Rose. "There be times when you have to take your life by the
throat and strangle it until it falls into shape. I'm gripping mine
now."

"It's the killing of that hog!" groaned Peter. "It's stirred you, and I
can't blame you. Killing ain't for a lady; but Lord! what a man you'd
ha' made, Marg!"

"But I ain't!" Marg broke in a bit wildly, "and other things are not
for--for women to do and bear. I'm through. It's Nella-Rose and me to
share and share alike, or--"

But there was nothing more to say--the pause was eloquent. The three ate
in silence for some moments and then talked of trivial things. Peter
Greyson went early to bed and the sisters washed the dishes, sharing
equally. They did the out-of-door duties of caring for the scanty live
stock, and at last Nella-Rose went to her tiny room under the eaves,
while Marg lay down upon the living-room couch.

When everything was at rest once more Nella-Rose stole to the low window
of her chamber and, kneeling, looked forth at the peaceful moonlit
scene. How still and white it was and how safe and strong the high hills
looked! What had happened? Why, nothing _could_ happen and yet--and
yet--Then Nella-Rose closed her eyes and waited. With all her might she
tried to force the "good, kind face" to materialize, but to no purpose.
Suddenly an owl hooted hideously and, like a guilty thing, the girl by
the window crept back to bed.

Owls were very wise and they could see things in the dark places with
their wide-open eyes! Just then Nella-Rose could not have borne any
investigation of her throbbing heart.




CHAPTER III


Lynda Kendall closed her desk and wheeled about in her chair with a
perplexed expression on her strong, handsome face. Generally speaking,
she went her way with courage and conviction, but since Conning
Truedale's breakdown, an element in her had arisen that demanded
recognition and she had yet to learn how to control it and insist upon
its subjection.

Her life had been a simple one on the whole, but one requiring from
early girlhood the constant use of her faculties. Whatever help she had
had was gained from the dependence of others upon her, not hers upon
them. She was so strong and sweet-souled that to give was a joy, it was
a joy too, for them that received. That she was ever tired and longed
for strong arms to uphold her rarely occurred to any one except,
perhaps, William Truedale, the invalid uncle of Conning.

At this juncture of Lynda's career, she shrank from William Truedale as
she never had before. Had Conning died, she knew she would never have
seen the old man again. She believed that his incapacity for
understanding Conning--his rigid, unfeeling dealing with him--had been
the prime factor in the physical breakdown of the younger man. All
along she had hoped and believed that her hold upon old William Truedale
would, in the final reckoning, bring good results; for that reason, and
a secret one that no one suspected, she kept to her course. She paid
regular visits to the old man--made him dependent upon her, though he
never permitted her to suspect this. Always her purpose had centred upon
Con, who had, at first, appealed to her loyalty and justice, but of late
to something much more personal and tender.

The day's work was done and the workshop, in which the girl sat, was
beginning to look shadowy in the far corners where evidences of her
profession cluttered the dim spaces. She was an interior decorator, but
of such an original and unique kind that her brother explained her as a
"Spiritual and Physical Interpreter." She had learned her trade, but she
had embellished it and permitted it to develop as she herself had grown
and expanded.

Lynda looked now at her wrist-watch; it was four-thirty. The last mail
delivery had brought a short but inspiring note from Con--per Dr.
McPherson.

"I've got my grip again, Lynda! The day brings appetite and strength;
the night, sleep! I wonder whether you know what that means? I begin to
believe I am reverting to type, as McPherson would say, and I'm
intensely interested in finding out--what type? Whenever I think of
study, I have an attack of mental indigestion. There is only one fellow
creature to share my desolation but I am never lonely--never lacking
employment. I'm busy to the verge of exhaustion in doing nothing and
getting well!"

Lynda smiled. "So he's not going to die!" she murmured; "there's no use
in punishing Uncle William any longer. I'll go up and have dinner with
him!"

The decision made, and Conning for the moment relegated to second place,
Lynda rose and smiled relievedly. Then her eyes fell upon her mother's
photograph which stood upon her desk.

"I'm going, dear," she confided--they were very close, that dead mother
and the live, vital daughter--"I haven't forgotten."

The past, like the atmosphere of the room, closed in about the girl. She
was strangely cheerful and uplifted; a consciousness of approval soothed
and comforted her and she recalled, as she had not for many a day, the
night of her mother's death--the night when she, a girl of seventeen,
had had the burden of a mother's confession laid upon her young
heart....

"Lynda--are you there, dear?"

It had been a frequent, pathetic question during the month of illness.
Lynda had been summoned from school. Brace was still at his studies.

"Yes, mother, right here!"

"You are always--right here! Lyn, once I thought I could not stand it,
and I was going to run away--going in the night. As I passed your door
you awoke and asked for a drink of water. I gave it, trembling lest you
might notice my hat and coat; but you did not--you only said: 'What
would I do if I woke up some night and didn't have a mother?' Lyn, dear,
I went back and--stayed!"

Lynda had thought her mother's mind wandering so she patted the seeking
hands and murmured gently to her. Then, suddenly:

"Lyn, when I married your father I thought I loved him--but I loved
another! I've done the best I could for you all; I never let any one
know; I dared not give a sign, but I want you--by and by--to go
to--William Truedale! You need not explain--just go; you will be my gift
to him--my last and only gift."

Startled and horrified, Lynda had listened, understood, and grown old
while her mother spoke....

Then came the night when she awoke--and found no mother! She was never
the same. She returned to school but gave up the idea of going to
college. After her graduation she made a home for the father who now--in
the light of her secret knowledge--she comprehended for the first time.
All her life she had wondered about him. Wondered why she and Brace had
not loved and honoured him as they had their mother. His weakness, his
superficiality, had been dominated by the wife who, having accepted her
lot, carried her burden proudly to the end!

Brace went to college and, during his last year there, his father died;
then, confronting a future rich in debts but little else, he and Lynda
consequently turned their education to account and were soon
self-supporting, full of hope and the young joy of life.

Lynda--her mother's secret buried deep in her loyal, tender heart--began
soon after her return from school to cultivate old William Truedale,
much to that crabbed gentleman's surprise and apparent confusion. There
was some excuse for the sudden friendship, for Brace during preparatory
school and college had formed a deep and sincere attachment for Conning
Truedale and at vacation time the two boys and Lynda were much together.
To be sure the visiting was largely one-sided, as the gloomy house of
the elder Truedale offered small inducement for sociability; but Lynda
managed to wedge her way into the loneliness and dreariness and
eventually for reasons best known to herself became the one bright thing
in the old man's existence.

And so the years had drifted on. Besides Lynda's determination to prove
herself as her mother had directed, she soon decided to set matters
straight between the uncle and the nephew. To her ardent young soul,
fired with ambition and desire for justice, it was little less than
criminal that William Truedale, crippled and confined to his chair--for
he had become an invalid soon after Lynda's mother's marriage--should
misunderstand and cruelly misjudge the nephew who, brilliantly, but
under tremendous strain, was winning his way through college on a
pittance that made outside labour necessary in order to get through. She
could not understand everything, but her mother's secret, her growing
fondness for the old man, her intense interest in Conning, all held her
to her purpose. She, single-handed, would right the wrong and save them
all alive!

Then came Conning's breakdown and the possibility of his death or
permanent disability. The shock to all the golden hopes was severe and
it brought bitterness and resentment with it.

Something deep and passionate had entered into Lynda's relations with
Conning Truedale. For him, though no one suspected it, she had broken
her engagement to John Morrell--an engagement into which she had drifted
as so many girls do, at the age when thought has small part in primal
instinct. But Conning had not died; he was getting well, off in his
hidden place, and so, standing in the dim workshop, Lynda kissed her
mother's picture and began humming a glad little tune.

"I'll go and have dinner with Uncle William!" she said--the words
fitting into the tune--"we'll make it up! It will be all right." And so
she set forth.

William Truedale lived on a shabby-genteel side street of a
neighbourhood that had started out to be fashionable but had been
defeated in its ambitions. It had never lost character, but it certainly
had lost lustre. The houses themselves were well built and sternly
correct. William Truedale's was the best in the block and it stood with
a vacant lot on either side of it. The detachment gave it dignity and
seclusion.

There had been a time when Truedale hoped that the woman he loved would
choose and place furniture and hangings to her taste and his, but when
that hope failed and sickness fell upon him, he ordered only such rooms
put in order as were necessary for his restricted life. The library on
the first floor was a storehouse of splendid books and austere luxury;
beyond it were bath and bedroom, both fitted out perfectly. The long,
wide hall leading to these apartments was as empty and bare as when
carpenter and painter left it. Two servants--husband and wife--served
William Truedale, and rarely commented upon anything concerning him or
their relations to him. They probably had rooms for themselves
comfortably furnished, but in all the years Lynda Kendall had never been
anywhere in the house except in the rooms devoted to her old friend's
use. Sometimes she had wondered how Con fared, but nothing was ever
said on the subject and she and Brace had been, in their visiting,
limited to the downstair rooms.

When Lynda was ushered now into the library from the cold, outer hall it
was like finding comfort and luxury in the midst of desolation. The
opening door had not roused the man by the great open fire. He seemed
lost in a gloomy revery and Lynda had time to note, unobserved, the
tragic, pain-racked face and the pitifully thin outlines of the figure
stretched on the invalid chair and covered by a rug of rare silver fox.

There were birds in gilded cages by the large south window--mute little
mites they were; they rarely if ever sang but they were alive! There
were plants, too, luxuriously growing in pots and boxes--but not a
flower on one! They existed, not joyously, but persistently. A Russian
hound, white as snow, lay before the fire; his soft, mournful eyes were
fixed upon Lynda, but he did not stir or announce the intrusion. A cat
and two kittens, also white, were rolled like snowballs on a crimson
cushion near the hearth; Lynda wondered whether they ever played. Alone,
like a dead thing amid the still life, William Truedale, helpless--death
ever creeping nearer and nearer to his bitter heart--passed his weary
days.

As she stood, watching and waiting, Lynda Kendall's eyes filled with
quick tears. The weeks of her absence had emphasized every tragic
detail of the room and the man. He had probably missed her terribly from
his bare life, but he had made no sign, given no call.

"Uncle William!"

Truedale turned his head and fixed his deep-sunk, brilliant eyes upon
her.

"Oh! So you've thought better of it?" was all that he said.

"Yes, I've thought better of it. Will you let me stay to dinner?"

"Take off your wraps. There now! draw up the ottoman; so long as you
have a spine, rely upon it. Never lounge if you can help it."

Lynda drew the low, velvet-covered stool near the couch-chair; the hound
raised his sharp, beautiful head and nestled against her knee. Truedale
watched it--animals never came to him unless commanded--why did they go
to Lynda? Probably for the same reason that he clung to her, watched for
her and feared, with sickening fear, that she might never come again!

"I suppose, since Con's death isn't on my head, you felt that you could
forgive me, eh?"

"Well, something like that, Uncle William."

"What business is it of yours what I do with my money--or my nephew?"

These two never approached each other by conventional lines. Their
absences were periods in which to store vital topics and
questions--their meetings were a series of explosive outbursts.

"None of my business, Uncle William, but if I could not approve, why--"

"Approve! Huh! Who are you that you should judge, approve, or disapprove
your elders?"

There was no answer to this. Lynda wanted to laugh, but feared she might
cry. The hard, indignant words belied the quivering gladness of the
voice that greeted her in every tone with its relief and surrender.

"I've got a good deal to say to you, girl. It is well you came
to-day--you might otherwise have been too late. I'm planning a long
journey."

Lynda started.

"A--long journey?" she said. Through the past years, since the dread
disease had attacked Truedale, his travelling had been confined to
passing to and from bedchamber and library in the wheelchair.

"You--you think I jest?" There was a grim humour in the burning eyes.

"I do not know."

"Well, then, I'll tell you. I am quite serious. While I have been exiled
from your attentions--chained to this rock" (he struck the arms of the
chair like a passionate child), "I have reached a conclusion I have
always contemplated, more or less. Now that I have recognized that the
time will undoubtedly come when you, Con--the lot of you--will clear
out, I have decided to prove to you all that I am not quite the
dependant you think me."

"Why--what can you mean, Uncle William?"

This was a new phase and Lynda bent across the dog at her knee and put
her hand on the arm of the chair. She was frightened, aroused. Truedale
saw this and laughed a dry, mirthless laugh.

"Oh! a chair that can roll the length of this house can roll the
distance I desire to go. Money can pay for anything--anything! Thank
God, I have money, plenty of it. It means power--even to such a thing as
I am. Power, Lynda, power! It can snarl and unsnarl lives; it can buy
favour and cause terror. Think what I would have been without it all
these years. Think! Why, I have bargained with it; crushed with it;
threatened and beckoned with it--now I am going to play with it! I'm
going to surprise every one and have a gala time myself. I'm going to
set things spinning and then I'm going on a journey. It's queer" (the
sneering voice fell to a murmur), "all my prison-years I've thought of
this and planned it; the doing of it seems quite the simplest part. I
wonder now why I have kept behind the bars when, by a little exertion--a
little indifference to opinion--I might have broadened my horizon. But
good Lord! I haven't wasted time. I've studied every detail; nothing has
escaped me. This" (he touched his head--a fine, almost noble head,
covered by a wealth of white hair), "this has been doing double duty
while these" (he pointed to his useless legs) "have refused to play
their part. While I felt conscientiously responsible, I stuck to my job;
but a man has a right to a little freedom of his own!"

Lynda drew so close that her stool touched the chair. She bent her cheek
upon the shrivelled hand resting upon the arm. The excitement and
feverish banter of Truedale affected her painfully. She reproached
herself bitterly for having left him to the mercy of his loneliness and
imagination. Her interest in, her resentment for, Conning faded before
the pitiful display of feeling expressed in every tone and word of
Truedale.

The touch of the warm cheek against his hand stirred the man. His eyes
softened, his face twitched and, because the young eyes were hidden, he
permitted his gaze to rest reverently upon the bowed head. She was the
only thing on earth he loved--the only thing that cut through his crust
of hardness and despair and made him human. Then, from out the
unexpected, he asked:

"Lynda, when did you break your engagement to John Morrell?"

The girl started, but she did not change her position. She never lied or
prevaricated to Truedale--she might keep her own counsel, but when she
spoke it was simple truth.

"About six months ago."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"There was nothing to tell, Uncle William."

"There was the fact, wasn't there?"

"Oh! yes, the fact."

"Why did you do it?"

"That--is--a long story." Lynda looked up, now, and smiled the rare
smile that only the stricken man understood. Appeal, confusion, and
detachment marked it. She longed, helplessly, for sympathy and
understanding.

"Well, long stories are welcome enough here, child; especially after the
dearth of them. Ring the bell; let's have dinner. Pull down the shades
and" (Truedale gave a wide gesture) "put the live stock out! An early
meal, a long evening--what better could we add than a couple of long
stories?"

In the doing of what Truedale commanded, Lynda found a certain relief.
These visits were like grim plays, to be sure, but they were also sacred
duties. This one, after the lapse of time filled with new and strange
emotions, was a bit grimmer than usual, but it had the effect of a tonic
upon the ragged nerves of the two actors.

The round table was set by the fire--it was the manservant who attended
now; silver and glass and linen were perfect, and the simple fare
carefully chosen and prepared.

Truedale was never so much at his ease as when he presided at these
small dinners. He ate little; he chose the rarest bits for his guest; he
talked lightly--sometimes delightfully. At such moments Lynda realized
what he must have been before love and health failed him.

To-night--shut away from all else, the strain of the past weeks ignored,
the long stories deliberately pushed aside--Truedale spoke of the books
he had been reading; Lynda, of her work.

"I have two wonderful houses to do," she said, poising a morsel of food
gracefully. "One is for a couple recently made rich; they do not dare to
move for fear of going wrong. I have that place from garret to cellar.
It's an awful responsibility--but lots of fun!"

"It must be. Spending other people's money and making them as good as
new at the same time, must be rare sport. And the other contract?"

"Oh! that is another matter." Lynda leaned back and laughed. "I'm toning
up an old house. Putting false fronts on, a bit of rouge, filling in
wrinkles; in short, giving a side-tracked old lady something to interest
her. She doesn't know it, but I'm letting her do the work, and she's
very happy. She has a kind of rusty good taste. I'm polishing it without
hurting her. The living room! Why, Uncle William, it is a picture. It is
a tender dream come true."

"And you are charging for that, you pirate?"

"I do not have to. The dear soul is so grateful that I'm forced to
refuse favours."

"Lynda, ring for Thomas." Truedale drew his brows close. "I think
I'll--I'll smoke. It may help me to sleep after the long stories
and--when I am alone." He rarely indulged in this way--tobacco excited
instead of soothed him--but the evening must have all the clear thought
possible!




CHAPTER IV


Lynda sat again upon her ottoman--her capacity for sitting hours without
a support to her back had always been one of her charms for William
Truedale. The old man looked at her now; how strong and fine she was!
How reliant and yet--how appealing! How she would always give and
give--be used to the breaking point--and rarely understood. Truedale
understood her through her mother!

"I want to ask you, Lynda, why do you come here--you of all the world? I
have often wondered."

"I--I like to come, generally, Uncle William."

"But--other times, out of the general? You come oftener then. Why?"

And now Lynda turned her clear, dark eyes upon him. A sudden resolve had
been taken. She was going to comfort him as she never had before, going
to recompense him for the weeks just past when she had failed him while
espousing Con's cause. She was going to share her secret with him!

"Just before mother went, Uncle William, she told me--"

The hand holding the cigar swayed--it was a very frail, thin hand.

"Told you--what?"

"That you once--loved her."

The old wound ached as it was bared. Lynda meant to comfort, but she was
causing excruciating pain.

"She--told you that? And you so young! Why should she so burden you--she
of all women?"

"And--my mother loved you, Uncle William! She found it out too late
and--and after that she did her best for--for Brace and me and--father!"

The room seemed swaying, as all else in the universe was, at that
moment, for William Truedale. Everything that had gone to his
undoing--to the causing of his bitter loneliness and despair--was beaten
down by the words that flooded the former darkness with almost
terrifying light. For a moment or two he dared not speak--dared not
trust his voice. The shock had been great. Then, very quietly:

"And--and why did she--speak at the last?"

Lynda's eyes filled with tears.

"Because," she faltered, "since she could not have come to you without
dishonour--she sent me! Her confidence has been the sacredest thing in
my life and I have tried to do as she desired. I--I have failed
sadly--lately, but try to forgive me for--my mother's sake!"

"And you--have"--the voice trembled pitifully in spite of the effort
Truedale made to steady it--"kept silence--since she went; why? Oh!
youth is so ignorant, so cruel!" This was said more to himself than to
the girl by his knee upon whose bowed head his shrivelled hand
unconsciously rested.

"First it was for father that I kept the secret. He seemed so stricken
after--after he was alone. And then--since I was trying to be to you
what mother wanted me to be--it did not seem greatly to matter. I wanted
to win my way. I always meant to tell you, and now, after these weeks of
misunderstanding, I felt you should know that there will always be a
reason for me, of all the world, to share your life."

"I see! I see!" A great wave of emotion rose and rose, carrying the past
years of misery with it. The knowledge, once, might have saved him, but
now it had come too late. By and by he would be able to deal with this
staggering truth that had been so suddenly hurled upon him, but not now
while Katherine Kendall's daughter knelt at his side!

"Lynda, I cannot talk to you about this. When you are older--when life
has done its best or its worst for you--you will understand better than
you do to-day; but remember this: what you have told me has cut deep,
but it has cut, by one stroke, the hardness and bitterness from my
heart. Remember this!"

Then with a sudden reversion to his customary manner he said:

"And now tell me about Morrell."

Lynda started; the situation puzzled her. She had meant to
comfort--instead she seemed to have hurt and confused her old friend.

"About John Morrell?" she murmured with a rising perplexity; "there
isn't much to tell."

"I thought it was a long story, Lynda."

"Somehow it doesn't seem long when you get close to it. But surely you
must see, Uncle William, that after--after father and mother--I would
naturally be a bit keener than most girls. It would never do for me to
marry the wrong man and, of course, a girl never really knows until--she
faces the situation at close quarters. I should never have engaged
myself to John Morrell--that was the real mistake; and it was only when
he felt sure of me--that I knew! Uncle William, I must have my own life,
and John--well, he meant to have his own and mine, too. I couldn't stand
it! I have struggled up and conquered little heights just as he
has--just as Con and Brace have; we've all scrambled up together. It
didn't seem quite fair that they should--well, fly their colours from
their peaks and that I should" (here Lynda laughed) "cuddle under John's
standard. I don't always believe in his standard; I don't approve of it.
Much as I like men, I don't think they are qualified to arrange, sort,
fix, and command the lives of women. If a woman thinks the abdication
justifies the gains, that's all right. If I had sold myself,
honourably, to John Morrell I would have kept to the agreement; I hate
and loathe women who don't! I'm not belittling the romance and
sentiment, Uncle William, but when all's told the usual marriage is a
bargain and half the women whine about holding to it--the others play up
and, if there is love enough, it pans out pretty well--but I couldn't!
You see I had lived with father and mother--felt the lack between
them--and I saw mother's eyes when she--let go and died! No! I mean to
have my own life!"

"And you are going to forego a woman's heritage--home and children--for
such a whim? Your mother had recompenses; are you not afraid of
the--future?"

"Not if I respect it and do not dishonour the present."

"A lonely man or woman--an outcast from the ordinary--is a creature of
hell!"

Lynda shook her head.

"Go on!" Truedale commanded sternly. "Morrell is a good fellow. From my
prison I took care to find that out. Brace did me practical service when
he acted as sleuth before your engagement!"

Lynda coloured and frowned.

"I did not know about that," was all she said.

"It doesn't matter--only I'm glad I can feel sorry for him and angry at
you. I never knew you could be a fool, Lynda."

"I dare say we all can, if we put our minds to it--sometimes without.
Well! that's the whole story, Uncle William."

"It's only the preface. See here, Lynda, did it ever strike you that a
woman like you doesn't come to such a conclusion as you have without an
experience--a contrast to go by?"

"I--I do not know what you mean, Uncle William."

"I think you do. I have no right to probe, but I have a right to--to
help you if I can. You've done much for your mother; can you deny me
the--the honour of doing something for her?"

"There's nothing--to do."

"Let us see! You're just a plain girl when all's said and done. You've
got a little more backbone and wit than some, but your heart's in the
same place as other women's and you're no different in the main. You
want the sane, right things just as they do--home, children, and
security from the things women dread. A man can give a woman a chance
for her best development; she ought to recognize that and--yes--appreciate
it."

"Surely!" this came very softly from the lips screened now by two cold
shivering hands. "A woman does recognize it; she appreciates it, but
that does not exclude her from--choice."

"One man--of course within limits and reason--is as good as another when
he loves a woman and makes her love him. You certainly thought you
loved Morrell. You had nothing to gain unless you did. You probably
earned as much as he."

"That's true. All quite true."

"Then something happened!" Truedale flung his half-smoked cigar in the
fire. "What was it, Lynda?"

"There--was nothing--really--"

"There was something. There was--Con!"

"Oh! how--how can you?" Lynda started back. She meant to say "How dare
you?"--but the drawn and tortured face restrained her.

"Because I must, Lynda. Because I must. You know I told you I had a
story? You must bear with me and listen. Sit down again and try to
remember--I am doing this for your mother! I repeat--there was Con. At
first you took up arms for him as Brace did; your sex instincts were not
awakened. You were all good fellows together until you drifted,
blindfolded, into the trap poor Morrell set for you. You thought I was
ill-treating Con--disregarding his best interests--starving his soul!
Oh! you poor little ignoramus; the boy never had a soul worth mentioning
until it got awakened, in self-defense, and grew its own limit. What did
you and Brace know of the past--the past that went into Con's making?
You were free enough with your young condemnation and misplaced
loyalty--but how about justice?"

Lynda's eyes were fixed upon Truedale's face. She had never seen him in
this mood and, while he fascinated, he overawed her.

"Why, girl, Con's father, my younger brother, was as talented as Con,
but he was a scamp. He had money enough to pave the way to his own
destruction. Until it was gone he spurned me--spurned even his own
genius. He married a woman as mad as himself and then--without a
qualm--tossed her aside to die. He had no sense of responsibility--no
shame. He had temperament--a damnable one--and he drifted on it to the
end. When it was all over, I brought Conning here. Just at that
time--well, it was soon after your mother married your father--this
creeping disease fell upon me. If it hadn't been for the boy I'd have
ended the whole thing then and there, but with the burden laid upon me I
couldn't slip out. It has been a kind of race ever since--this menace
mounting higher and higher and the making of Con keeping pace. I swore
that if he had talent it must prove itself against hardship, not in
luxury. I made life difficult in order to toughen and inspire. I never
meant to kill--you must do me that justice. Only you see, chained here,
I couldn't follow close enough, and Con had pride, thank God! and he
thought he had hate--but he hasn't or he'd have starved rather than
accept what I offered. In his heart he--well, let us say--respects me to
a certain extent. I saw him widening the space between himself and his
inheritance--and it has helped me live; you saw him making a man of
himself and it became more absorbing than the opportunity of annexing
yourself to a man already made. Oh, I have seen it all and it has helped
me in my plan."

"Your--plan?" The question was a feeble attempt to grapple with a
situation growing too big and strong. "Your plan--what is your plan?"

"Lynda, I have made my will! Sitting apart and looking on, the doing of
this has been the one great excitement of my life. Through the years I
have believed I was doing it alone; now I see your mother's guiding hand
has led me on; I want you to believe this as--I do!"

"I--I will try, Uncle William." Lynda no longer struggled against that
which she could not understand. She felt it must have its way with her.

"This house," Truedale was saying, "was meant for your mother. I left it
bare and ready for her taste and choice. After--I go, I want you to fit
it out for her--and me! You must do it at once."

"No! No!" Lynda put up a protesting hand, but Truedale smiled her into
silence and went on: "I may let you begin to-morrow and not wait! You
must fill the bare corners--spare no expense. You and I will be quite
reckless; I want this place to be a--home at last."

And now Lynda's eyes were shining--her rare tears blinded her.

"You have always tried indirectly, Lynda, to secure Con's greatest good;
you have done it! I mean to leave him a legacy of three thousand a year.
That will enable him to let up on himself and develop the talent you
think he has. I have seen to it that the two faithful souls who have
served me here shall never know want. There will be money, and plenty of
it, for you to carry out my wishes regarding this house,
should--well--should anything happen to me! After these details are
attended to, my fortune, rather a cumbersome one, goes to--Dr.
McPherson, my old and valued friend!"

Lynda started violently.

"To--to Dr. McPherson?" she gasped, every desire for Conning up in arms.

"There! there! do not get so excited, Lynda. It is only for--three
years. McPherson and I understand."

"And then?"

"It will go to Conning--if--"

"If what?" Lynda was afraid now.

"If he--marries you!"

"Oh! this is beyond endurance! How could you be so cruel, Uncle
William?" The hot, passionate tears were burning the indignant face.

"He will not know. The years will test and prove him."

"But I shall know! If you thought best to do this thing, why have you
told me?"

"There have been hours when I myself did not know why; I understand
to-night. Your mother led me!"

"My mother could never have hurt me so. Never!"

"You must trust--her and me, Lynda."

"Suppose--oh! suppose--Con does not ... Oh! this is degrading!"

"Then the fortune will--be yours. McPherson and I have worked this
out--most carefully."

"Mine! Mine! Why"--and here Lynda flung her head back and laughed
relievedly--"I refuse absolutely to accept it!"

"In that case it goes--to charities."

A hush fell in the room. Baffled and angry, Lynda dared not trust
herself to speak and Truedale sank back wearily. Then came a rattle of
wheels in the quiet street--a toot of a taxi horn.

"Thomas has not forgotten to provide for your home trip; but the man can
wait. The night is mild"--Truedale spoke gently--"and you and I are
rich."

Lynda did not seem to hear. Her thoughts were rushing wildly over the
path set for her by her old friend's words.

"Conning would not know!" she grasped and held to that; "he would be
able to act independently. At first it had seemed impossible. Her
knowledge could affect no one but herself! If"--and here Lynda breathed
faster--"if Conning should want her enough to ask her to share his life
that the three thousand dollars made possible, why then the happiness
of bringing his own to him would be hers!--hers!"

Again the opposite side of the picture held her. "But suppose he did
_not_ want her--in that way? Then she, his friend--the one who, in all
the world, loved him the best--would profit by it; she would be a
wealthy woman, for her mother's sake or"--the alternative staggered
her--"she could let everything slip, everything and bear the
consequences!"

At this point she turned to Truedale and asked pitifully again:

"Oh! why, why did you do this?"

There was no anger or rebellion in the words, but a pathos that caused
the old man to close his eyes against the pleading in the uplifted face.
It was the one thing he could not stand.

"Time will prove, child; time will prove. I could not make you
understand; your mother might have--I could not. But time will show.
Time is a strange revealer. All my life I have been working in darkness
until--now! I should have trusted more--you must learn from me.

"There, do not keep the man waiting longer. I wonder--do not do it
unless you want to, or think it right--but I wonder if you could kiss me
good-bye?"

Lynda rose and, tear-blinded, bent over and kissed him--kissed him
twice, once for her mother!--and she felt that he understood. She had
never touched her lips to his before, and it seemed a strange ceremony.

An hour later Truedale called for Thomas and was wheeled to his bedroom
and helped to bed.

"Perhaps," he said to the man, "you had better put those drops on the
stand. If I cannot sleep--" Thomas smiled and obeyed. There had been a
time when he feared that small, dark bottle, but not now! He believed
too sincerely in his master's strength of character. Having the medicine
near might, by suggestion, help calm the restlessness, but it had never
been resorted to, so Thomas smiled as he turned away with a cheery:

"Very well, sir; but there will be no need, I hope."

"Good-night, Thomas. Raise the shade, please. It's a splendid night,
isn't it? If they should build on that rear lot I could not see the moon
so well. I may decide to buy that property."

When Thomas had gone and he was alone at last, Truedale heaved a heavy
sigh. It seemed to relieve the restraint under which he had been
labouring for weeks.

All his life the possibility of escape from his bondage had made the
bondage less unendurable. It was like knowing of a secret passage from
his prison house--an exit dark and attended by doubts and fears, but
nevertheless a sure passage to freedom. It had seemed, in the past, a
cowardly thing to avail himself of his knowledge--it was like going
with his debts unpaid. But now, in the bright, moonlit room it no
longer appeared so. He had finished his task, had ended the bungling,
and had heard a clear call ringing with commendation and approval. There
was nothing to hold him back!

Over in the cabinet by the window were a photograph and a few letters;
Truedale turned toward them and wondered if Lynda, instead of his old
friend McPherson, would find them? He wished he had spoken--but after
all, he could not wait. He had definitely decided to take the journey!
But he spoke softly as if to a Presence:

"And so--you played a part? Poor girl! how well--you played it! And
you--suffered--oh! my God--and I never did you the justice of
understanding. And you left your girl--to me--I have tried not to fail
you there, Katherine!"

Then Truedale reached for the bottle. He took a swallow of the contents
and waited! Presently he took another and a thrill of exhilaration
stirred his sluggish blood. Weakly, gropingly, he stretched his benumbed
hand out again; he was well on his way now. The long journey was begun
in the moonlight and, strange to say, it did not grow dark, nor did he
seem to be alone. This surprised him vaguely, he had always expected it
would be so different!

And by and by one face alone confronted him--it was brighter than the
moonlit way. It smiled understandingly--it, too, had faced the broad
highway--it could afford to smile.

Once more the heavy, dead-cold hand moved toward the stand beside the
bed, but it fell nerveless ere it reached what it sought.

The escape had been achieved!




CHAPTER V


The days passed and, unfettered, Jim White remained in the deep woods.
After Nella-Rose's disturbing but thrilling advent, Truedale rebounded
sharply and, alone in his cabin, brought himself to terms. By a rigid
arraignment he relegated, or thought he had relegated, the whole matter
to the realm of things he should not have permitted, but which had done
no real harm. He brought out the heavy book on philosophy and
endeavoured to study. After a few hours he even resorted to the wet
towel, thinking that suggestion might assist him, but Nella-Rose
persistently and impishly got between his eyes and the pages and flouted
philosophy by the magic of her superstition and bewitching charm.

Then Truedale attacked his play, viciously, commandingly. This was more
successful. He reconstructed his plot somewhat--he let Nella-Rose in!
Curbed and somewhat re-modelled, she materialized and, while he dealt
strictly with her, writing was possible.

So the first day and night passed. On the second day Truedale's new
strength demanded exercise and recreation. He couldn't be expected to
lock himself in until White returned to chaperone him. After all, there
was no need of being a fool. So he packed a gunny sack with food and a
book or two, and sallied forth, after providing generously for the live
stock and calling the dogs after him.

But Truedale was unaware of what was going on about him. Pine Cone
Settlement had, since the trap episode, been tense and waiting. Not many
things occurred in the mountains and when they did they were made the
most of. With significant silence the friends and foes of Burke Lawson
were holding themselves in check until he returned to his old haunts;
then there would be considerable shooting--not necessarily fatal, a
midnight raid or two, a general rumpus, and eventually, a truce.

All this Jim White knew, and it was the propelling factor that had sent
him to the deep woods. His sentiments conflicted with duty. Guilty as
Lawson was, the sheriff liked him better than he did Martin and he
meant, should he come across Burke in "the sticks," to take him off for
a bear hunt and some good advice. Thus he would justify his conscience
and legal duties. But White, strange to say, was as ignorant as Truedale
was of an element that had entered into conditions. It had never
occurred to Jim to announce or explain his visitor's arrival. To Pine
Cone a "furriner" aroused at best but a superficial interest and, since
Truedale had arrived, unseen, at night, why mention him to a community
that could not possibly have anything in common with him? So it was
that Greyson and a few others, noting Truedale at a distance and losing
sight of him at once, concluded that he was Burke, back and in hiding;
and a growing but stealthy excitement was in the air. He was supposed by
both factions to be with the sheriff, and feeling ran high. In the final
estimate, could White have known it, he himself held no small part!

Beloved and hated, Lawson divided the community for and against himself
about equally. There were those who defended and swore they would kill
any who harmed the young outlaw--he was of the jovial, dare-devil type
and as loyal to his friends as he was unyielding to his foes. Others
declared that the desperado must be "finished"; the trap disagreement
was but the last of a long list of crimes; it was time to put a quietus
on one who refused to fall into line--who called the sheriff his friend
and had been known to hobnob with revenue men! That, perhaps, was the
blackest deed to be attributed to any native.

So all Pine Cone was on the war path and Truedale, heedless and unaware,
took his air and exercise at his peril.

The men of the hills had a clear case now, since Peter Greyson had given
his evidence, which, by the way, became more conclusive hour by hour as
imagination, intoxication, and the delight of finding himself important,
grew upon Greyson.

"Jim told me," Peter had confided to Jed Martin, "that he was going to
get a posse from way-back and round Lawson up."

This was wholly false. White never took any one into his business
secrets, least of all Greyson for whom he had deep contempt. "But I
don't call that clean to us-all, Jed. We don't want strangers to catch
Burke; we don't want them to--to string him up or shoot him full of
holes; what we-all want is to force White to hand him over to justice,
give him a fair trial, and then send him to one of them prison traps to
eat his soul out behind bars. Jed--just you shut your eyes and _see_
Burke Lawson behind bars--eating sop from a pan, drinking prison
water--just you call that picture up."

Jed endeavoured to do so and it grew upon his imagination.

"We-all wants to trail him," Greyson continued, "we don't want to give
him a free passage to Kingdom-Come by rope or shot--we-all want prison
for Lawson, prison!"

As Jed was the one most concerned, this edict went abroad by mountain
wireless.

"Catch him alive!" Friend and foe were alert.

"And when all's fixed and done--when Burke's trapped," Greyson said,
"what you going to do--for me, Jed?"

This was a startling, new development.

"I didn't reckon yo' war doin' this--fur pay!" Jed faltered. Then
Greyson came forth:

"No pay, Jed. Gawd knows I do my duty as I see it. But being keen about
duty, I see more than one duty. When you catch and cage Lawson, Jed, I
want to be something closer to you than a friend."

"Closer than--" Jed gasped.

"And duty drives me to confess to you, Jed, that the happiness of a lady
is at stake."

Jed merely gaped now. Visions of Nella-Rose made him giddy and
speechless.

"The day you put Lawson in jail, Jed, that day I'll give you the hand of
my daughter. She loves you; she has confessed! You shall come here and
share--everything! The hour that Burke is convicted--Marg is yours!"

"Marg!" The word came on a gasp.

"Not a word!" Greyson waved his hand in a princely way--this gesture was
an heirloom from his ancestry. "I understand your feelings--I've seen
what has been going on--but naturally I want my daughter to marry one
worthy of her. You shall have my Marg when you have proven yourself!
I've misjudged you, Jed, but this will wipe away old scores."

With a sickening sense of being absorbed, Jed sank into black silence.
If Marg wanted him and old Greyson was helping her, there was no hope!
Blood and desire would conquer every time; every mountaineer recognized
that!

And so things were seething under a surface of deadly calm, when
Truedale, believing that he had himself well in control, packed his
gunny sack and started forth for a long tramp. He had no particular
destination in mind--in fact, the soft, dreamy autumn day lulled him to
mental inertia--he simply went along, but he went as directly toward the
rhododendron slick as though he had long planned his actions. However,
it was late afternoon before he came upon Nella-Rose.

On the instant he realized that he had been searching for her all day.
His stern standards crumbled and became dry dust. One might as well
apply standards to flickering sunlight or to swirling trifles of
mountain mist as to Nella-Rose. She came upon him gaily; the dogs had
discovered her on one of their ventures and were now quietly
accompanying her.

"I--I've been looking for you--all day!" Truedale admitted, with truth
but indiscretion. And then he noted, as he had before, the strange
impression the girl gave of having been blown upon the scene. The
pretty, soft hair resting on the cheek in a bewildering curve; the
large, dreamy eyes and black lashes; the close clinging of her shabby
costume, as if wrapped about her slim body by the playful gale that had
wafted her along; all held part in the illusion.

"I had to--to lead Marg to Devil-may-come Hollow. She's hunting there
now!" Nella-Rose's white teeth showed in a mischievous smile. "We're
right safe with Marg down there, scurrying around. Come, I know a sunny
place--I want to tell you about Marg."

Her childish appropriation of him completed Truedale's surrender. The
absolute lack of self-consciousness drove the last remnant of caution
away. They found the sunny spot--it was like a dimple in a hill that had
caught the warmth and brightness and held them always to the exclusion
of shadows. It almost seemed that night could never conquer the nook.

And while they rested there, Nella-Rose told him of the belief of the
natives that he was the refugee Lawson.

"And Marg would give you up like--er--this" (Nella-Rose puffed an
imaginary trifle away with her pretty pursed lips). "She trailed after
me all day--she lost me in a place where hiding's good--and there I left
her! She'll tell Jed Martin this evening when she gets back. Marg is
scenting Burke for Jed and his kind to catch--that's her way and Jed's!"
Stinging contempt rang in the girl's voice.

"But not your way I bet, Nella-Rose." The fun, not the danger, of the
situation struck Truedale.

"No!--I'd do it all myself! I'd either warn him and have done with it,
or I'd stand by him."

"I'm not sure that I like the misunderstanding about me," Truedale half
playfully remarked, "they may shoot me in the back before they find
out."

"Do you" (and here Nella-Rose's face fell into serious, dangerously
sweet, lines), "do you reckon I would leave you to them-all if there was
that danger? They don't aim to shoot or string Burke up; they reckon
they'll take him alive and--get him locked up in jail to--to--"

"What, Nella-Rose?"

"Die of longing!"

"Is that what would happen to Burke Lawson?"

The girl nodded. Then the entrancing mischief returned to her eyes and
she became a child once more--a creature so infinitely young that
Truedale seemed grandfatherly by comparison.

"Can't you see how mighty funny it will be to lead them and let them
follow on and then some day--they'll plump right up on you and find out!
Godda'mighty!"

Irresponsible mirth swayed the girl to and fro. She laughed, silently,
until the tears stood in the clear eyes. Truedale caught the spirit of
her mood and laughed with her. The picture she portrayed of setting
jealousy, malice, and stupidity upon the wrong trail was very funny, but
suddenly he paused and said seriously:

"But in the meantime this Burke Lawson may return; you may be the death
of him with your pranks."

Nella-Rose shook her head. "I would know!" she declared confidently. "I
know everything that's going on in the hills. Burke would let me
know--first!"

"It's like melodrama," Truedale murmured half to himself. By some trick
of fancy he seemed to be looking on as Brace Kendall might have. The
thought brought him to bay. What would good old Brace do in the present
situation?

"What is melodrama?" Nella-Rose never let a new word or suggestion
escape her. She was as keen as she was dramatic and mischievous.

"It would be hard to make you understand--but see here"--Truedale drew
the gunny sack to him--"I bet you're hungry!" He deliberately put Brace
from his thoughts.

"I reckon I am." The lovely eyes were fixed upon the hand that was
bringing forth the choicest morsels of the food prepared early that
morning. As he laid the little feast before her, Truedale acknowledged
that, in a vague way, he had been saving the morsels for Nella-Rose even
while he had fed, earlier, upon coarser fare.

"I don't know about giving you a chicken wing!" he said playfully. "You
look as if you were about to fly away as it is--but unfortunately I've
eaten both legs!"

"Oh! please"--Nella-Rose reached across the narrow space separating
them, she was pleading prettily--"I just naturally admire wings!"

"I bet you do! Well, eat plenty of bread with them. And see here,
Nella-Rose, while you are eating I'm going to read a story to you. It is
the sort of thing that we call melodrama."

"Oh!" This through the dainty nibbling of the coveted wing. "I'm right
fond of stories."

"Keep quiet now!" commanded Truedale and he began the spirited tale of
love and high adventure that, like the tidbits, he knew he had brought
for Nella-Rose!

The warm autumn sun fell upon them for a full hour, then it shifted and
the chill of the approaching evening warned the reader of the flight of
time. He stopped suddenly to find that his companion had long since
forgotten her hunger and food. Across the debris she bent, absorbed and
tense. Her hands were clasped close--cold, little hands they were--and
her big eyes were strained and wonder-filled.

"Is that--all?" she asked, hoarsely.

"Why, no, child, there's more."

"Go on!"

"It's too late! We must get back."

"I--I must know the rest! Why, don't you see, you know how it turns out;
I don't!"

"Shall I tell you?"

"No, no. I want it here with the warm sun and the pines and
your--yourself making it real."

"I do not understand, Nella-Rose!" But as he spoke Truedale began to
understand and it gave him an uneasy moment. He knew what he ought to
do, but knew that he was not going to do it! "We'll have to come again
and hear the rest," was what he said.

"Yes? Why"--and here the shadowy eyes took on the woman-look, the look
that warned and lured the man near her--"I did not know it ever came
like that--really."

"What, Nella-Rose?"

"Why--love. They-all knew it--and took it. It was just like it was
something all by itself. That's not the sort us-all have. Does it only
come that--er--way in mel--melerdrammer?"

"No, little girl. It comes that way in real life when hearts are big
enough and strong enough to bear it." Truedale watched the effect of his
words upon the strange, young face before him. They forced their way
through her ignorance and untrained yearning for love and admiration. It
was a perilous moment, for conscience, on Truedale's part, seemed
drugged and sleeping and Nella-Rose was awakening to that which she had
never known before. Gone, for her, were caprice and mischief; she seemed
about to see and hear some wonderful thing that eluded but called her
on.

And after that first day they met often. "Happened upon each other" was
the way Truedale put it. It seemed very natural. The picturesque spots
appealed to them both. There was reading, too--carefully selected bits.
It was intensely interesting to lead the untrained mind into bewildering
mazes--to watch surprise, wonder, and perplexity merge into
understanding and enjoyment. Truedale experienced the satisfaction of
seeing that, for the first time in his life, he was a great power. The
thought set his brain whirling a bit, but it made him seriously humble
as well.

Gradually his doubts and introspections became more definite; he lived
day by day, hour by hour; while Jim White tarried, Nella-Rose remained;
and the past--Truedale's past--faded almost from sight. He could hardly
realize, when thinking of it afterward, where and how he decided to cut
loose from his past, and all it meant, and accept a future almost
ludicrously different from anything he had contemplated.

One day a reference to Burke Lawson was made and, instead of letting it
pass as heretofore, he asked suddenly of Nella-Rose:

"What is he to you?"

The girl flushed and turned away.

"Burke?--oh, Burke isn't--anything--now!"

"Was he ever--anything?"

"I reckon he wasn't; I _know_ he wasn't!"

Then, like a flash, Truedale believed he understood what had happened.
This simple girl meant more to him than anything else--more than the
past and what it held! A baser man would not have been greatly disturbed
by this knowledge; a man with more experience and background would have
understood it and known that it was a phase that must be dealt with
sternly and uncompromisingly, but that it was merely a phase and as such
bound to pass. Not so Truedale. He was stirred to the roots of his
being; every experience was to him a concrete fact and, consequently,
momentous. In order to keep pure the emotions that overpowered him at
times, he must renounce all that separated him from Nella-Rose and
reconstruct his life; or--he must let _her_ go!

Once Truedale began to reason this out, once he saw Nella-Rose's
dependence upon him--her trust and happiness--he capitulated and
permitted his imagination to picture and colour the time on ahead. He
refused to turn a backward glance.

Of course all this was not achieved without struggle and foreboding; but
he saw no way to hold what once was dear, without dishonour to that
which now was dearer; and he--let go!

This determined, he strenuously began to prepare himself for the change.
Day by day he watched Nella-Rose with new and far-seeing interest--not
always with love and passion-blinded eyes. He felt that she could, with
his devotion and training, develop into a rarely sweet and fine woman.
He was not always a fool in his madness; at times he was wonderfully
clear-sighted. He meant to return home, when once his health was
restored, and take the Kendalls into his confidence; but the thought of
Lynda gave him a bad moment now and then. He could not easily depose her
from the most sacred memories of his life, but gradually he grew to
believe that her relations to him were--had always been--platonic; and
that she, in the new scheme, would play no small part in his life and
Nella-Rose's.

There would be years of self-denial and labour and then, by and by,
success would be achieved. He would take his finished work, and in this
he included Nella-Rose, back to his old haunts and prove his wisdom and
good fortune. In short, Truedale was love-mad--ready to fling everything
to the ruthless winds of passion. He blindly called things by wrong
names and steered straight for the rocks.

He meant well, as God knew; indeed all the religious elements, hitherto
unsuspected in him, came to the fore now. Conventions were absurd when
applied to present conditions, but, once having accepted the inevitable,
the way was divinely radiant. He meant to pay the price for what he
yearned after. He had no other intention.

Now that he was resigned to letting the past go, he could afford to
revel in the joys of the present with a glad sense of responsibility for
the future.

Presently his course seemed so natural that he wondered he had ever
questioned it. More and more men with a vision--and Truedale devoutly
believed he had the vision--were recognizing the absurdity of old
ideals.

Back to the soil meant more than the physical; it meant back to the
primitive, the simple, the real. The artificial exactions of society
must be spurned if a new and higher morality were to be established.

If Truedale in this state of mind had once seen the actual danger, all
might have been well; but he had swung out of his orbit.

At this juncture Nella-Rose was puzzling her family to the extent of
keeping her father phenomenally sober and driving Marg to the verge of
nerve exhaustion.

The girl had, to put it in Greyson's words, "grown up over night." She
was dazzling and recalled a past that struck deep in the father's heart.

There had been a time when Peter Greyson, a mere boy, to be sure--and
before the cruel war had wrecked the fortunes of his family--had been
surrounded by such women as Nella-Rose now suggested. Women with dancing
eyes and soft, white hands. Women born and bred for love and homage, who
demanded their privileges with charm and beauty. There had been one
fascinating woman, a great-aunt of Nella-Rose's, who had imperilled the
family honour by taking her heritage of worship with a high hand.
Disregarding the rights of another, she boldly rode off with the man of
her choice and left the reconstruction of her reputation to her kith and
kin who roused instantly to action and lied, like ladies and gentlemen,
when truth was impossible. Eventually they so toned down and polished
the deed of the little social highwaywoman as to pass her on in the
family history with an escutcheon shadowed only, rather than smirched.

Nella-Rose, now that her father considered, was dangerously like her
picturesque ancestress! The thought kept Peter from the still, back in
the woods, for many a day. He, poor down-at-heel fellow, was as ready as
any man of his line to protect women, especially his own, but he was
sorely perplexed now.

Was it Burke Lawson who, from his hiding place, was throwing a glamour
over Nella-Rose?

Then Peter grew ugly. The protection of women was one thing; ridding the
community of an outlaw was another. Men knew how to deal with such
matters and Greyson believed himself to be very much of a man.

"Nella-Rose," he said one day as he smoked reflectively and listened to
his younger daughter singing a camp meeting hymn in a peculiarly sweet
little voice, "when my ship comes in, honey, I'm going to buy you a
harp. A gold one."

"I'd rather have a pink frock, father, and a real hat; I just naturally
hate sunbonnets! I'd favour a feather on my hat--flowers fade right
easy."

"But harps is mighty elegant, Nella-Rose. Time was when your--aunts
and--and grandmothers took to harps like they was their daily
nourishment. Don't you ever forget that, Nella-Rose. Harps in families
mean _blood_, and blood don't run out if you're careful of it."

Nella-Rose laughed, but Marg, in the wash-house beyond, listened
and--hated!

No one connected _her_ with harps or blood, but she held, in her sullen
heart and soul, the true elements of all that had gone into the making
of the best Greysons. And as the winter advanced, Marg, worn in mind and
body, was brought face to face with stern reality. Autumn was
gone--though the languorous hours belied it. She must prepare. So she
gathered her forces--her garden products that could be exchanged for
necessities; the pork; the wool; all, all that could be spared, she must
set in circulation. So she counted three dozen eggs and weighed ten
pounds of pork and called Nella-Rose, who was driving her mad by singing
and romping outside the kitchen door.

"You--Nella-Rose!" she called, "are you plumb crazy?"

Nella-Rose became demure at once and presented herself at the door.

"Do I look it?" she said, turning her wonderful little face up for
inspection. Something in the words and in the appealing beauty made Marg
quiver. Had happiness and justice been meted out to Marg Greyson she
would have been the tenderest of sisters to Nella-Rose. Several years
lay between them; the younger girl was encroaching upon the diminishing
rights of the older. The struggle between them was as old as life
itself, but it could not kill utterly what should have existed ardently.

"You got to tote these things"--Marg held forth the basket--"down to the
Centre for trade, and you can fetch back the lil' things like pepper,
salt, and sugar. Tell Cal Merrivale to fetch the rest and bargain for
what I've got ready here, when he drives by. If you start now you can be
back by sundown."

To Marg's surprise, Nella-Rose offered no protest to the seven-mile
walk, nor to the heavy load. She promptly pulled her sunbonnet to the
proper angle on her head and gripped the basket.

"Ain't you goin' to eat first?" asked Marg.

"No. Put in a bite; I'll eat it by the way."

As the Centre was in the opposite direction from the Hollow, as seven
miles going and seven miles coming would subdue the spirits and energy
even of Nella-Rose, Marg was perplexed. However, she prepared food,
tucked it in the basket, and even went so far as to pin her sister's
shawl closely under her chin. Then she watched the slim, straight figure
depart--still puzzled but at peace for the day, at least.

Nella-Rose, however, was plotting an attack upon Truedale quite out of
the common. By unspoken consent he and she had agreed that their
meetings should be in the open. Jim White might return at anytime and
neither of them wanted at first to include him in the bewildering drama
of their lives. For different reasons they knew that Jim's cold
understanding of duty would shatter the sacred security that was all
theirs. Truedale meant to confide everything to White upon his
return--meant to rely upon him in the reconstruction of his life; but he
knew nothing could be so fatal to the future as any conflict at the
present with the sheriff's strict ideas of conduct. As for Nella-Rose,
she had reason to fear White's power as woman-hater and upholder of law
and order. She simply eliminated Jim and, in order to do this, she must
keep him in the dark.

Early that morning she had looked, as she did every day, from the hill
behind the house and she had seen but one thin curl of smoke from the
clearing! If White had not returned the night before the chances were
that he would make another day of it! Nella-Rose often wondered why
others did not note the tell-tale smoke--a clue which often played a
vital part in the news of the hills. Only because thoughts were focussed
on the Hollow and on White's absence, was Truedale secure in his
privacy.

"I'll hurry mighty fast to the Centre," Nella-Rose concluded, after
escaping from Marg's disturbed gaze, "then I'll hide the things by the
big road and I'll--go to his cabin. I'll--I'll surprise him!"

Truedale had told her the day before, in a moment of caution, that he
would have to work hard for a time in order to make ready for White's
return. The fact was he had now got to that point in his story when he
longed for Jim as he might have longed for safety on a troubled sea.
With Jim back and fully informed--everything on ahead would be safe.

"I'll surprise him!" murmured Nella-Rose, with the dimples in full play
at the corners of her mouth; "old Jim White can't keep me away. I'll
watch out--it's just for a minute; I'll be back by sundown; it will be
only to say 'how-de?'"

Something argued with the girl as she ran on--something quite new and
uncontrolled. Heretofore no law but that of the wilds had entered into
her calculations. To get what she could of happiness and life--to make
as little fuss as possible--that had been her code; but now, the same
restraint that had held Marg from going to the Hollow awhile back, when
she thought that, with night, Burke Lawson might disclose his
whereabouts, held Nella-Rose! So insistent was the rising argument that
it angered the girl. "Why? Why?" her longings and desires cried.
"Because! Because!" was the stern response, and the _woman_ in
Nella-Rose thrilled and throbbed and trembled, while the girlish spirit
pleaded for the excitement of joy and sweetness that was making the
grim stretches of her narrow existence radiant and full of meaning.

On she went doggedly. The dimples disappeared; the mouth fell into the
pathetic, drooping lines that by and by, unless something saved
Nella-Rose, would become permanent and mark her as a hill-woman--one to
whom soul visions were denied.




CHAPTER VI


Wisdom had all but conquered Nella-Rose's folly when she came in sight
of Calvin Merrivale's store. But--who knows?--perhaps the girl's story
had been written long since, and she was not entirely free. Be that as
it may, she paused, for no reason whatever as far as she could tell, and
carefully took one dozen eggs from the basket and hid them under some
bushes by the road! Having done this she went forward so blithely and
lightly that one might have thought her load had been considerably
eased. She appeared before Calvin Merrivale, presently, like a
refreshing apparition from vacancy. It was high noon and Merrivale was
dozing in a chair by the rusty stove, in which a fire, prepared against
the evening chill, was already burning.

"How-de, Mister Merrivale?" Calvin sprang to his feet.

"If it ain't lil' Nella-Rose. How'se you-all?"

"Right smart. I've brought you three dozen eggs and ten pounds of pork."
Nella-Rose almost said po'k--not quite! "And you must be mighty generous
with me when you weigh out--let me see!--oh, yes, pepper, salt, and
sugar."

"I'll lay a siftin' more in the scale, Nella-Rose, on 'count o' yo'
enjoyin' ways. But I can't make this out"--he was counting the
eggs--"yo' said three dozen aigs?"

"Three dozen, and ten pounds of pork!" This very firmly.

Merrivale counted again and as he did so Nella-Rose remembered! The red
came to her face--the tears to her ashamed eyes.

"Stop!" she said softly, going close to the old man. "I forgot. I took
one dozen out!"

Merrivale stood and looked at her and then, what he thought was
understanding, came to his assistance.

"Who fo', Nella-Rose, who fo'?"

There was no reply to this.

"Yo' needn't be afraid to open yo' mind ter me, Nella-Rose. Keeping sto'
is a mighty help in gettin' an all-around knowin' o' things. Folks jest
naterally come here an' talk an' jest naterally I listen, an' 'twixt Jim
White, the sheriff, an' old Merrivale, there ain't much choosin',
jedgmatically speakin'. I know White's off an' plannin' ter round up
Burke Lawson from behind, as it war. T'warnt so in my day, lil'
Nella-Rose. When we-uns had a reckonin comin', we naterally went out an'
shot our man; but these torn-down scoundrels like Jed Martin an' his
kind they trap 'em an' send 'em to worse'n hell. Las' night"--and here
Merrivale bent close to Nella-Rose--"my hen coop was 'tarnally gone
through, an' a bag o' taters lifted. I ain't makin' no cry-out. I ain't
forgot the year o' the fever an'--an'--well, yo' know who--took care o'
me day an' night till I saw faces an' knew 'em! What's a matter o' a hen
o' two an' a sack o' taters when lined up agin that fever spell? I tell
yo', Nella-Rose, if _yo'_ say thar war three dozen aigs, thar _war_
three dozen aigs, an' we'll bargain accordin'!"

And now the dimples came slowly to the relieved face.

"I'll--I'll bring you an extra dozen right soon, Mister Merrivale."

"I ain't a-goin' ter flex my soul 'bout that, Nella-Rose. Aigs is aigs,
but human nater is human nater; an' keepin' a store widens yo' stretch
o' vision. Now, watch out, lil' girl, an' don't take too much fo'
granted. When a gun goes off yo' hear it; but when skunks trail, yo'
don't get no sign, 'less it's a smell!"

Nella-Rose took her packages, smiled her thanks, and ran on. She ate her
lunch by the bushes where the eggs lay hidden, then depositing in the
safe shelter the home bundles Merrivale had so generously weighed, she
put the eggs in the basket, packed with autumn leaves, and turned into
the trail leading away from the big road.

Through the bare trees the clear sky shone like a shield of blue-gray
metal. It was a sky open for storm to come and pass unchecked. The very
stillness and calm were warnings of approaching disturbance. Nature was
listening and waiting for the breaking up of autumn and the clutch of
frost.

It was only two miles from the Centre to White's clearing and the
afternoon was young when Nella-Rose paused at the foot of the last climb
and took breath and courage. There was a tangled mass of rhododendrons
by the edge of the wood and suddenly the girl's eyes became fixed upon
it and her heart beat wildly. Something alive was crouching there,
though none but a trained sense could have detected it! They waited--the
hidden creature and the quivering girl! Then a pair of eager, suspicious
eyes shone between the dead leaves of the bushes; next a dark, thin face
peered forth--it was Burke Lawson's! Nella-Rose clutched her basket
closer--that was all. After a moment she spoke softly, but clearly:

"I'm alone. You're safe. How long have you been back?"

"Mor'n two weeks!"

Nella-Rose started. So they had known all along, and while she had
played with Marg the hunt might at any moment have become deadly
earnest.

"More'n two weeks," Lawson repeated.

"Where?" The girl's voice was hard and cold.

"In the Holler. Miss Lois Ann helped--but Lord! you can't eat a helpless
old woman out of house and home. Last night--"

"Yes, yes; I know. And oh, Burke, Mister Merrivale hasn't forgot--the
fever and your goodness. He won't give you up."

"He won't need to. I'm right safe, 'cept for food. There's an old hole,
back of a deserted still--I can even have a bit of fire. The devil
himself couldn't find me. After a time I'm going--"

"Where? Where, Burke?"

"Nella-Rose, would you come with me? 'Twas you as brought me back--I had
to come. If you will--oh! my doney-gal--"

"Stop! stop, Burke. Some one might be near. No, no; I couldn't leave the
hills--I'd die from the longing, you know that!"

"If I--dared them all--could you take me, Nella-Rose? I'd run my chances
with you! Night and day you tug and pull at the heart o' me,
Nella-Rose."

Fear, and a deeper understanding, drove Nella-Rose to the wrong course.

"When you dare to come out--when they-all let you stay out--then ask me
again, Burke Lawson. I'm not going to sweetheart with one who dare not
show his head."

Her one desire was to get Lawson away; she must be free!

"Nella-Rose, I'll come out o' this."

"No! no!" the girl gasped, "they're not after you to shoot you, Burke;
Jed Martin is for putting you in jail!"

"Good God--the sneaking coward."

"And Jim White is off raising a posse, he means to--to see fair play.
Wait until Jim comes back; then give yourself up."

"And then--then, Nella-Rose?"

The young, keen face among the dead leaves glowed with a light that sent
the blood from Nella-Rose's heart.

"See"--she said inconsequently--"I have" (she counted them out), "I have
a dozen eggs; give them to Miss Lois Ann!"

"Let me touch you, Nella-Rose! Just let me touch your lil' hand."

"Wait until Jim White comes back!"

Then, because a rabbit scurried from its shelter, Burke Lawson sank into
his, and Nella-Rose in mad haste took to the trail and was gone! A
moment later Lawson peered out again and tried to decide which way she
went, but his wits were confused--so he laughed that easy, fearless
laugh of his and put in his hat the eggs Nella-Rose had left. Then,
crawling and edging along, he retraced his steps to that hole in the
Hollow where he knew he was as safe as if he were in his grave.

With distance and reassurance on her side, Nella-Rose paused to take
breath. She had been thoroughly frightened. Her beautiful plans,
unsuspected by all the world, had been threatened by an unlooked-for
danger. She had never contemplated Burke Lawson as a complication. She
was living day by day, hour by hour. Jim White she had accepted as a
menace--but Burke never! She was no longer the girl Lawson had known,
but how could she hope to make him understand that? Her tender,
love-seeking nature had, in the past, accepted the best the mountains
offered--and Burke had been the best. She had played with him--teased
Marg with him--revelled in the excitement, but _now_? Well, the
blindness had been torn from her eyes--the shackles from her feet. No
one, nothing, could hold her from her own! She must not be defrauded and
imprisoned again!

Yes, that was it--imprisoned just when she had learned to use her wings!

Standing in the tangle of undergrowth, Nella-Rose clenched her small
hands and raised wide eyes to the skies.

"I seem," she panted--and at that moment all her untamed mysticism
swayed her--"like I was going along the tracks in the dark and something
is coming--something like that train long ago!"

Then she closed her eyes and her uplifted face softened and quivered.
Behind the drooping lids she saw--Truedale! Quite vividly he
materialized to her excited fancy. It was the first time she had ever
been able to command him in this fashion.

"I'm going to him!" The words were like a passionate prayer rather than
an affirmation. "I'm going to follow like I followed long ago!" She
clutched the basket and fled along.

And while this was happening, Truedale, in his cabin, was working as he
had not worked in years. He had burned all his bridges and outlying
outposts; he was waiting for White, and his plans were completed. He
meant to confide everything to his only friend--for such Jim seemed in
the hazy and desolated present--then he would marry Nella-Rose off-hand;
there must be a minister somewhere! After that? Well, after that
Truedale grasped his manuscript and fell to work like one inspired.

Lynda Kendall would never have known the play in its present form.
Truedale's ideal had always been to portray a free woman--a super-woman;
one who had evolved into the freedom from shattered chains. He now had a
heroine free, in that she had never been enslaved. If one greater than
he had put a soul in a statue, Truedale believed that he could awaken a
child of nature and show her her own beautiful soul. He had outlined, a
time back, a sylvan Galatea; and now, as he sat in the still room, the
framework assumed form and substance; it breathed and moved him
divinely. It and he were alone in the universe; they were to begin the
world--he and--

Just then the advance messenger of the coming change of weather entered
by way of a lowered window. It was a smart little breeze and it
flippantly sent the ashes flying on the hearth and several sheets of
paper broadcast in the room. Truedale sprang to recover his treasures;
he caught four or five, but one escaped his notice and floated toward
the door, which was ajar.

"Whew!" he ejaculated, "that was a narrow escape," and he began to sort
and arrange the sheets on the table.

"Sixty, sixty-one, sixty-two. Now where in thunder is that sixty-three?"

A light touch on his arm made him spring to his feet, every nerve
a-tingle.

"Here it is! It seemed like it came to meet me."

"Nella-Rose!"

The girl nodded, holding out the paper.

"So you have come? Why--did you?"

The dimples came into play and Truedale stood watching them while many
emotions flayed him; but gradually his weakness passed and he was able
to assume an extremely stern though kindly manner. He meant to set the
child right; he meant to see _only_ the _child_ in her until White
returned; he would ignore the perilously sweet woman-appeal to his
senses until such time as he could, with safety, let them once more hold
part in their relations with each other.

But even as he arrived at this wise conclusion, he was noting, as often
before he had noted, the fascinating colour and quality of Nella-Rose's
hair. It was both dark and light. If smoke were filled with sunlight it
would be something like the mass of more or less loosened tendrils that
crowned the girl's pretty head. Stern resolve began to melt before the
girlish sweetness and audacity, but Truedale made one last struggle; he
thought of staunch and true Brace Kendall! And, be it to Brace Kendall's
credit, the course Conning endeavoured to take was a wise one.

"See here, Nella-Rose, you ought not to come here--alone!"

"Why? Aren't you glad to see me?"

"Of course. But why did you come?" This was risky. Truedale recognized
it at once.

"Just to say--'how-de'! You certainly do look scroogy."

At this Truedale laughed. Nella-Rose's capacity for bringing forth his
happier, merrier nature was one of her endearing charms.

"You didn't come just for that, Nella-Rose!" This with stern
disapproval.

"Take off the scroogy face--then I'll tell you why I came."

"Very well!" Truedale smiled weakly. "Why?"

"I'm right hungry. I--I want a party."

Of course this would never do. White, or one of the blood-and-thunder
raiders, might appear.

"You must go, Nella-Rose."

"Not"--here she sat down firmly and undid her ridiculous plaid
shawl--"not till you give me a bite. Just a mighty little bite--I'm
starving!"

At this Truedale roared with laughter and went hurriedly to his closet.
The girl must eat and--_go_. Mechanically he set about placing food upon
the table. Then he sat opposite Nella-Rose while she ate with frank
enjoyment the remains of his own noon-day meal. He could not but note,
as he often did, the daintiness with which she accomplished the task.
Other women, as Truedale remembered, were not prepossessing when
attacking food; but this girl made a gracious little ceremony of the
affair. She placed the small dishes in orderly array before her; she
poised herself lightly on the edge of the chair and nibbled--there was
no other word for it--as a perky little chipmunk might, the morsels she
raised gracefully to her mouth. She was genuinely hungry and for a few
minutes devoted her attention to the matter in hand.

Then, suddenly, Nella-Rose did something that shattered the last scrap
of self-control that was associated with the trusty Kendall and his good
example. She raised a bit of food on her fork and held it out to
Truedale, her lovely eyes looking wistfully into his.

"Please! I feel so ornery eating alone. I want to--share! Please play
party with me!"

Truedale tried to say "I had my dinner an hour ago"; instead, he leaned
across his folded arms and murmured, as if quite outside his own
volition:

"I--I love you!"

Nella-Rose dropped the fork and leaned back. Her lids fell over the wide
eyes--the smile faded from her lips.

"Do you belong to any one--else, Nella-Rose?"

"No--oh! no." This like a frightened cry.

"But others--some one must have told you--of love. Do you know what love
means?"

"Yes."

"How?"

And now she looked at him. Her eyes were dark, her face deadly pale; her
lips were so red that in the whiteness they seemed the only trace of
colour.

"How do I know? Why because--nothing else matters. It seems like I've
been coming all my life to it--and now it just says: 'Here I am,
Nella-Rose--here'!"

"I, too, have been coming to it all my life, little girl. I did not
know--I was driven. I rebelled, because I did not know; but nothing else
_does_ matter, when--love gets you!"

"No. Nothing matters." The girl's voice was rapt and dreamy. Truedale
put his hands across the space dividing them and took hold of hers.

"You will be--mine, Nella-Rose?"

"Seems like I must be!"

"Yes. Doesn't it? Do you--you must understand, dear? I mean to live the
rest of my life here in the hills--your hills. You once said one was of
the hills or one wasn't; will they let me stay?"

"Yes"--almost fiercely--"but--but your folks--off there--will they let
you stay?"

"I have no folks, Nella-Rose. I'm lonely and poor--at least I was until
I found you! The hills have given me--everything; I mean to serve them
well in return. I want you for my wife, Nella-Rose; we'll make a
home--somewhere--it doesn't matter; it will be a shelter for our love
and--" He stopped short. Reality and conventions made a last vain
appeal. "I don't want you ever again to go out of my sight. You're mine
and nothing could make that different--but" (and this came quickly,
desperately) "there must be a minister somewhere--let's go to him! Do
not let us waste another precious day. When he makes you mine by
his"--Truedale was going to say "ridiculous jargon" but he modified it
to--"his authority, no one in all God's world can take you from me.
Come, come _now_, sweetheart!"

In another moment he would have had her in his arms, but she held him
off.

"I'm mighty afraid of old Jim White!" she said.

Truedale laughed, but the words brought him to his senses.

"Then you must go, darling, until White returns. After I have explained
to him I will come for you, but first let me hold you--so! and kiss
you--so! This is why--you must go, my love!"

She was in his arms, her lifted face pressed to his. She shivered, but
clung to him for a moment and two tears rolled down her cheeks--the
first he had ever seen escape her control. He kissed them away.

"Of what are you thinking, Nella-Rose?"

"Thinking? I'm not thinking; I'm--happy!"

"My--sweetheart!" Again Truedale pressed his lips to hers.

"Us-all calls sweetheart--'doney-gal'!"

"My--my doney-gal, then!"

"And"--the words came muffled, for Truedale was holding her still--"and
always I shall see your face, now. It came to-day like it came long ago.
It will always come and make me glad."

Truedale lifted her from his breast and held her at arms' length. He
looked deep into her eyes, trying to pierce through her ignorance and
childishness to find the elusive woman that could meet and bear its part
in what lay before. Long they gazed at each other--then the light in
Nella-Rose's face quivered--her mouth drooped.

"I'm going now," she said, "going till Jim White comes back."

"Wait--my--"

But the girl had slipped from his grasp; she was gone into the misty,
threatening grayness that had closed in about them while love had
carried them beyond their depths. Then the rain began to fall--heavy,
warning drops. The wind, too, was rising sullenly like a monster roused
from its sleep and slowly gathering power to vent its rage.

Into this darkening storm Nella-Rose fled unheedingly. She was not
herself--not the girl of the woods, wise in mountain lore; she was
bewitched and half mad with the bewildering emotions that, at one moment
frightened her--the next, carried her closer to the spiritual than she
had ever been.




CHAPTER VII


Alone in his cabin, Truedale was conscious of a sort of groundless
terror that angered him. The storm could not account for it--he had the
advantage of ignorance there! Certainly his last half-hour could not be
responsible for his sensations. He justified every minute of it by terms
as old as man's desires and his resentment of restrictions. "Our lives
are our own!" he muttered, setting to work to build a fire and to light
the lamp. "They will all come around to my way of seeing things when I
have made good and taken her back to them!"

Still this arguing brought no peace, and more and more Truedale found
himself relying upon Jim White's opinions. In that troubled hour the
sheriff stood like a rugged sign post in the path. One unflinching
finger pointed to the past; the other--to the future.

"Well! I've chosen," thought Truedale; "it's the new way and--thank
God!" But he felt that the future could be made possible or miserable by
Jim's favour or disapproval.

Having decided to follow upon White's counsel, Truedale mentally prayed
for his return, and at once. The fact was, Truedale was drugged and he
had just sense enough left to know it! He vaguely realized that the
half-hour with Nella-Rose had been a dangerous epoch in his life. He was
safe, thank heaven! but he dared not trust himself just now without a
stronger will to guide him!

While he busied himself at feeding the animals, preparing and clearing
away his own evening meal, he grew calmer. The storm was gaining in
fury--and he was thankful for it! He was shut away from possible
temptation; he even found it easy to think of Kendall and of Lynda, but
he utterly eliminated his uncle from his mind. Between him and old
William Truedale the gulf seemed to have become impassable!

And while Truedale sank into an unsafe mental calm, Nella-Rose pushed
her way into the teeth of the storm and laughed and chattered like a mad
and lost little nymph. Wind and rain always exhilarated her and the fury
of the elements, gaining force every minute, did not alarm her while the
memory of her great experience held sway over her. She shook her hair
back from her wide, vague eyes. She was undecided where to go for the
night--it did not matter greatly; to-morrow she would go again to
Truedale, or he would come to her. At last she settled upon seeking the
shelter of old Lois Ann, in Devil-may-come Hollow, and turned in that
direction.

It was eight o'clock then and Truedale, with his books and papers on
the table before him, declared: "I am quite all right now," and fell to
work upon the manuscript that earlier had engrossed him.

As the time sped by he was able to visualize the play; _he_ was sitting
in the audience--he beheld the changing scenes and the tense climax. He
even began to speculate upon the particular star that would be fitted
for the leading part. His one extravagance, in the past, had been
cut-rate seats in the best theatres.

Suddenly the mood passed and all at once Truedale realized that he was
tired--deadly tired. The perspiration stood on his forehead--he ached
from the strain of cramped muscles. Then he looked at his watch; it was
eleven o'clock! The stillness out of doors bespoke a sullen break in the
storm. A determined drip-drip from roof and trees was like the ticking
of a huge clock running down, but good for some time. The fire had died
out, not a bit of red showed in the ashes, but the room was hot, still.
Truedale decided to go to bed without it, and, having come to that
conclusion, he bent his head upon his folded arms and sank into a deep
sleep.

Suddenly he awoke. The room was cold and dark! The lamp had burned
itself out and the storm was again howling in its second attack. Chilled
and obsessed by an unnerving sense of danger, Truedale waited for--he
knew not what! Just then something pressed against his leg and he put
his hand down thinking one of the dogs was crouching close, but a
whispered "sh!" set every muscle tense.

"Nella-Rose?"

"Yes--but, oh! be mighty still. They may be here any minute."

"They? Who?"

"All of them. Jed Martin, my father, and the others--the ones who are
friends of--of--"

"Whom, Nella-Rose?"

"Burke Lawson! He's back--and they think--oh! they think they are on his
trail--here! I--I was trying to get away but the streams were swollen
and the big trees were bending and--and I hid behind a rock and--I
heard!

"First it was Jed and father; they said they were going to shoot--they'd
given up catching Burke alive! Then they went up-stream and the--the
others came--the friends, and they 'lowed that Burke was here and they
meant to get here before Jed and--and da some killing on their side.
I--I thought it was fun when they-all meant to take Burke alive, but
now--oh! now can't you see?--they'll shoot and find out afterward! They
may come any minute! I put the light out. Come, we must leave the cabin
empty-looking--like you had gone--and hide!"

The breathless whispering stopped and Truedale collected his senses in
the face of this real danger.

"But you--you must not be here, Nella-Rose!"

Every nerve was alert now. "This is pure madness. Great heavens! what
am I going to do with you?"

The seriousness of the situation overpowered him.

"Sh!" The warning was caused by the restlessness of the dogs outside.
Their quick ears were sensing danger or--the coming of their master!
Either possibility was equally alarming.

"Oh! you do not understand," Nella-Rose was pleading by his knee. "If
they-all see you, they will have you killed that minute. Burke is the
only one in their minds--they don't even know that you live; they're too
full of Burke, and if they see me--why--they'd kill you anyway."

"But what can I do with you?" That thought alone swayed Truedale.

Then Nella-Rose got upon her feet and stood close to him.

"I'm yours! I gave myself to you. You--you wanted me. Are you sorry?"

The simple pride and dignity went straight to Truedale's heart.

"It's because I want you so, little girl, that I must save you."

Somehow Nella-Rose seemed to have lost her fear of the oncoming raiders;
she spoke deliberately, and above a whisper:

"Save me?--from what?"

There were no words to convey to her his meaning. Truedale felt almost
ashamed to hold it in his own mind. They so inevitably belonged to each
other; why should they question?

"I--I shall not go away--again!"

"My darling, you must."

"Where?"

The word brought him to his senses--where, indeed? With the dark woods
full of armed men ready to fire at any moving thing in human shape, he
could not let her go! That conclusion reached, and all anchors cut, the
danger and need of the hour claimed him.

"Yes; you are mine!" he whispered, gathering her to him. "What does
anything matter but our safety to-night? To-morrow; well, to-morrow--"

"Sh!"

No ear but one trained to the secrets of the still places could have
detected a sound.

"They are coming! Yes, not the many--it is Jed! Come! While you slept I
carried a right many things to the rhododendron slick back of the house!
See, push over the chair--leave the door open like you'd gone away
before the storm."

Quickly and silently Nella-Rose suited action to word. Truedale watched
her like one bewitched. "Now!" She took him by the hand and the next
minute they were out on the wet, sodden leaves; the next they were
crouching close under the bushes where even the heavy rain had not
penetrated. Half-consciously Truedale recognized some of his property
near by--his clothing, two or three books, and--yes--it was his
manuscript! The white roll was safe! How she must have worked while he
slept.

Once only did she speak until danger was past. Nestling close in his
arms, her head upon his shoulder, she breathed:

"If they-all shoot, we'll die together!"

The unreality of the thing gradually wore upon Truedale's tense nerves.
If anything was going to happen he wanted it to happen! In another
half-hour he meant to put an end to the farce and move his belongings
back to the cabin and take Nella-Rose home. It was a nightmare--nothing
less!

"Sh!" and then the waiting was over. Two dark figures, guns ready, stole
from the woods behind White's cabin. Where were the dogs? Why did they
not speak out?--but the dogs were trained to be as silent as the men.
They were all part and parcel of the secret lawlessness of the hills. In
the dim light Truedale watched the shadowy forms enter Jim's unlocked
cabin and presently issue forth, evidently convinced that the prey was
not there--had not been there! Then as stealthy as Indians they made
their way to the other cabin--Truedale's late shelter. They kept to the
bushes and the edge of the woods--they were like creeping animals until
they reached the shack; then, standing erect and close, they went in the
doorway. So near was the hiding place of Truedale and his companion
that they could hear the oaths of the hunters as they became aware that
their quarry had escaped.

"He's been here, all right!" It was Jed Martin who spoke.

"I reckon he's caught on," Peter Greyson drawled, "he's makin' for Jim
White. White ain't more'n fifteen miles back; we can cut him off, Jed,
'fore he reaches safety--the skunk!"

Then the two emerged from the cabin and strode boldly away.

"The others!" whispered Truedale--"will they come?"

"Wait!"

There was a stir--a trampling--but apparently the newcomers did not see
Martin and Greyson. There was a crackling of underbrush by feet no
longer feeling need of caution, then another space of silence before
safety was made sure for the two in the bushes.

At last Truedale dared to speak.

"Nella-Rose!" He looked down at the face upon his breast. She was
asleep--deeply, exhaustedly asleep!

Truedale shifted his position. He was cramped and aching; still the even
breathing did not break. He laid her down gently and put a heavy coat
about her--one that earlier she had carried from the cabin in her effort
to save him. He went to the house and grimly set to work. First he
lighted a fire; then he righted the chairs and brought about some order
from the chaos. He was no longer afraid of any man on God's earth; even
Jim White was relegated to the non-essentials. Truedale was merely a
primitive creature caring for his own! There was no turning back now--no
waiting upon conventions. When he had made ready he was going out to
bring his own to her home!

The sullen, soggy night, with its bursts of fury and periods of calm,
had settled down, apparently, to a drenching, businesslike rain. The
natives knew how to estimate such weather. By daylight the streams would
be raging rivers on whose currents trees and animals would be carried
ruthlessly to the lowlands. Roads would be obliterated and human beings
would seek shelter wherever they could find it.

But Truedale was spared the worry this knowledge might have brought him.
He concentrated now upon the present and grimly accepted conditions as
they were. All power or inclination for struggle was past; the
inheritance of weakness which old William Truedale had feared and with
which Conning himself had so contended in his barren youth, asserted
itself and prepared to take unquestioningly what the present offered.

At that moment Truedale believed himself arbiter of his own fate and
Nella-Rose's. Conditions had forced him to this position and he was
ready to assume responsibility. There was no alternative; he must
accept things as they were and make them secure later on. For himself
the details of convention did not matter. He had always despised them.
In his youthful spiritual anarchy he had flouted them openly; they made
no claim upon his attention now, except where Nella-Rose was concerned.
Appearances were against him and her, but none but fools would allow
that to daunt them. He, Truedale, felt that no law of man was needed to
hold him to the course he had chosen, back on the day when he determined
to forsake the past and fling his fortunes in with the new. Never in his
life was Conning Truedale more sincere or, he believed, more wise, than
he was at that moment. And just then Nella-Rose appeared coming down the
rain-drenched path like a little ghost in the grim, gray dawn. She still
wore the heavy coat he had put about her, and her eyes were dreamy and
vague.

Truedale strode toward her and took her in his arms.

"My darling," he whispered, "are you able to come with me now--at
once--to the minister? It must be now, sweetheart--now!"

She looked at him like a child trying to understand his mood.

"Oh!" she said presently, "I 'most forgot. The minister has gone to a
burying back in the hills; he'll be gone a right long time. Bill Trim,
who carries all the news, told me to-day."

"Where is he, Nella-Rose?" Something seemed tightening around
Truedale's heart.

"Us-all don't know; he left it written on his door."

"Where is there another minister, Nella-Rose?"

"There is no other."

"This is absurd--of course there is another. We must start at once and
find him."

"Listen!" The face upon Truedale's breast was lifted. "You hear that?"

"Yes. What is it?" Truedale was alarmed.

"It means that the little streams are rivers; it means that the trails
are full of rocks and trees; it means"--the words sank to an awed
whisper--"it means that we must _fight_ for what we-all want to keep."

"Good God! Nella-Rose, but where can I take you?"

"There is no place--but here."

It seemed an hour that the silence lasted while Truedale faced this new
phase and came to his desperate conclusion.

Had any one suggested to him then that his decision was the decision of
weakness, or immemorial evil, he would have resented the thought with
bitterest scorn. Unknowingly he was being tempted by the devil in him,
and he fell; he had only himself to look to for salvation from his
mistaken impulses, and his best self, unprepared, was drugged by the
overpowering appeal that Nella-Rose made to his senses.

Standing with the girl in his arms; listening to the oncoming danger
which, he realized at last, might destroy him and her at any moment;
bereft of every one--everything that could have held them to the old
ideals; Truedale saw but one course--and took it.

"There is no place but here--no one but you and me!"

The soft tones penetrated to the troubled place where Truedale seemed to
stand alone making his last, losing fight.

"Then, by heaven!" he said, "let us accept it--you and I!"

He had crossed his Rubicon.

They ate, almost solemnly; they listened to that awful roar growing more
and more distinct and menacing. Nella-Rose was still and watchful, but
Truedale had never been more cruelly alive than he was then when, with
his wider knowledge, he realized the step he had taken. Whether it were
for life or death, he had blotted out effectually all that had gone to
the making of the man he once was. Whatever hope he might have had of
making Lynda Kendall and Brace understand, had things gone as he once
had planned, there was no hope now. No--he and Nella-Rose were alone and
helpless in the danger-haunted hills. He and she!

The sun made an effort to come forth later but the rush and roar of the
oncoming torrent seemed to daunt it. For an hour it struggled, then gave
up. But during that hour Truedale led Nella-Rose from the house.
Silently they made their way to a little hilltop from which they could
see an open space of dull, leaden sky. There Truedale took the girl's
hands in his and lifted his eyes while his benumbed soul sought whatever
God there might be.

"In Thy sight," he said slowly, deeply, "I take this woman for my wife.
Bless us; keep us; and"--after a pause--"deal Thou with me as I deal
with her."

Then the earnest eyes dropped to the frightened ones searching his face.

"You are mine!" Truedale spoke commandingly, with a force that never
before had marked him.

"Yes." The word was a faint, frightened whisper.

"My darling, kiss me!"

She kissed him with trembling lips.

"You love me?"

"I--I love you."

"You--you trust me?"

"I--oh! yes; yes."

"Then come, my doney-gal! For life or death, it is you and I, little
woman, from now on!"

Like a flash his gloom departed. He was gay, desperate, and free of all
hampering doubts. In such a mood Nella-Rose lost all fear of him and
walked by his side as complacently as if the one minister in her sordid
little world had with all his strange authority said his sacred "Amen"
over her.




CHAPTER VIII


There were five days of terrific storm. Truedale and Nella-Rose had
fought to save White's live stock--even his cabin itself; for the deluge
had attacked that while leaving safe the smaller cabin near by. All one
morning they had worked gathering debris and placing it so that it
turned the course of a rapid stream that threatened the larger house. It
had been almost a lost hope, but as the day wore on the torrent
lessened, the rough barrier held--they were successful! The gate and
snake-fence were carried away, but the rest was saved!

In the strenuous labour, in the dangerous isolation, the ordinary things
of life lost their importance. With death facing them their love and
companionship were all that were left to them and neither counted the
cost. But on the sixth day the sun shone, the flood was past, and with
safety and the sure coming of Jim White at hand, they sat confronting
each other in a silence new and potent.

"Sweetheart, you must go--for a few hours!"

Truedale bent across the table that separated them and took her clasped
hands in his. He had burned all his social bridges, but poor
Nella-Rose's progress through life had not been made over anything so
substantial as bridges. She had proceeded by scrambling down and up
primitive obstacles; she felt that at last she had come to her Land of
Promise.

"You are going to send me--away? Where?"

"Only until White returns, little girl. See here, dear, you and I are
quite gloriously mad, but others are stupidly sane and we've got to
think of them."

Truedale was talking over her head, but already Nella-Rose accepted this
as a phase of their new relations. A mountain man might still love his
woman even if he beat her and, while Nella-Rose would have scorned the
suggestion that she was a mountain woman, she did seriously believe that
men were different from women and that was the end of the matter!

"You run along, small girl of mine--the skies are clear, the sun
warm--but I want you to meet me at three o'clock at the spot where the
trail joins the road. I will be there and I will wait for you."

"But why?--why?" The blue-gray eyes were troubled.

"Sweetheart, we're going to find that minister of yours if we have to
travel from one end of the hills to the other!"

"But we-all are married!" This with a little gasp. "Back on the hill,
when you told God and said He understood; then we-all were married."

"And so we were, my sweet, no minister could make you more mine than
you already are, but the others--your people. Should they try to
separate us they might cause trouble and the minister can make it
impossible for any one to take you away from my love and care."

And at that moment Truedale actually believed what he said. In his heart
he had always been a rebel--defiant and impotent. He had, in this
instance, proved his theories; but he did not intend to leave loose ends
that might endanger the safety of others--of this young girl, most of
all. He was only going to carry out his original plans for her
safety--not his own. After the days just past--days of anxiety, relief,
and the proving of his love and hers--no doubt remained in Truedale's
heart; he was of the hills, now and forever!

"No one can--_now_!" This came passionately from Nella-Rose as she
watched him.

"They might make trouble until they found that out. They're too free
with their guns. There's a lot to explain, little doney-gal." Conning
smiled down her doubts.

"Until three o'clock!" Nella-Rose pouted, "that's a right long time. But
I'll--just run along. Always and always I'm going to do what you say!"
Already his power over her was absolute. She put her arms out with a
happy, wilful gesture and Truedale held her closer.

"Only until three, sweetheart."

Nella-Rose drew herself away and turned to pick up her little shawl and
hat from the couch by the fire; she was just reaching for her basket,
when a shadow fell across the floor. Truedale and the girl turned and
confronted--Jim White! What he had seen and heard--who could tell from
his expressionless face and steady voice? The door had been on the latch
and he had come in!

"Mail, and truck, and rabbits!" he explained, tossing his load upon the
table. Then he turned toward Truedale as if noticing him for the first
time.

"How-de?" he said. Finally his gaze shifted to Nella-Rose and seemed to
burn into her soul.

"Goin', p'r'aps, or--comin'?" he questioned.

"I--I am--going!" Fright and dismay marked the girl's voice. Truedale
went toward her. The covert brutality in White's words shocked and
angered him. He gave no thought to the cause, but he resented the
insult.

"Wait!" he commanded, for Nella-Rose was gone through the open door.
"Wait!"

Seeing that she had for the moment escaped him, Truedale turned to White
and confronted him with clear, angry eyes.

"What have you got to say for yourself?" he demanded fiercely.

The shock had been tremendous for Jim. Three weeks previously he had
left his charge safe and alone; he had come back and found--But shock
always stiffened Jim White; that was one reason for his success in life.
He was never so inflexible and deadly self-possessed as he was when he
could not see the next step ahead.

"Gawd, but I'm tired!" he said, when he had stared at Truedale as long
as he cared to, "I'm going over to my place to turn in. Seems like I'll
sleep for a month once I get started."

"You don't go, White, until you explain what you meant by--"

But Truedale mistook his man. Jim, having drawn his own conclusion,
laughed and strode toward the door.

"I go when I'm damned pleased ter go!" he flung out derisively, "and I
come the same way, young feller. There's mail for yo' in the sack and--a
telegram." White paused by the door a moment while Truedale picked the
yellow envelope from the bag and tore it open.

     "Your uncle died suddenly on the 16th. Come at once. Vitally
     important. McPHERSON."

For a moment both men forgot the thing that had driven them wide apart.

"Bad news?" asked the sheriff.

Something was happening to Truedale--he felt as if the effect of some
narcotic were losing its power; the fevered unreality was giving place
to sensation but the brain was recording it dully.

"What date is this?" he asked, dazed.

"Twenty-fifth," Jim replied as he moved out of the door.

"When can I get a train from the station?"

"There's one as leaves anywhere 'twixt nine and ten ter-night."

"That gives me time to pack. See here, White, while it isn't any of your
business, I want to explain a thing or two--before I go. I'll be back as
soon as I can--in a week or ten days at furthest. When I return I intend
to stay on, probably for the rest of my life."

White still held Truedale by the cold, steely gleam of his eyes which
was driving lucidity home to the dulled brain. By a power as unyielding
as death Jim was destroying the screen Truedale had managed to raise
against the homely codes of life and was leaving his guest naked and
exposed.

The shock of the telegram--the pause it evolved--had given Truedale time
to catch the meaning of White's attitude; now that he realized it, he
knew he must lay certain facts open--he could not wait until his return.

Presently Jim spoke from outside the door.

"I ain't settin' up for no critic. I ain't by nater a weigher or trimmer
and I don't care a durn for what ain't my business. When I _see_ my
business I settle it in my own way!"--there was almost a warning in
this. "I'm dead tired, root and branch. I'm goin' ter take a bite an'
turn in. I may sleep a couple o' days; put off yo' 'splainifyin' 'til
yo' come back ter end yo' days. Take the mare an' leave her by the
trail; she'll come home. Tell old Doc McPherson I was askin' arter him."

By that time Jim had ceased scorching his way to Truedale's soul and was
on the path to his own cabin.

"Looks like yo' had a tussle with the storm," he remarked. "Any livin'
thing killed?"

"No."

"Thank yo'!" Then, as if determined not to share any further confidence,
White strode on.

For a moment Truedale stood and stared after his host in impotent rage.
Was Jim White such a lily of purity that he presumed to take that
attitude? Was the code of the hills that of the Romany gypsies? How dare
any man judge and sentence another without trial?

The effect of the narcotic still worked sluggishly, now that White's
irritating presence was removed. Truedale shrugged his shoulders and
turned to his packing. He was feverishly eager to get to Nella-Rose.
Before nightfall she would be his before the world; in two weeks he
would be back; the future would shame White and bring him to his senses.
Jim had a soft heart; he was just, in his brutal fashion. When he
understood how matters were, he would feel like the fool he was--a fool
willing to cast a man off, unheard! But Truedale blamed himself for the
hesitation that meant so much. The telegram--his fear of making a wrong
step--had caused the grave mistake that could not be righted now.

At two o'clock Truedale started--on Jim's mare! White's cabin had all
the appearance of being barred against intrusion. Truedale did not mean
to test this, but it hurt him like a blow. However, there was nothing to
do but remedy, as soon as possible, the error he had permitted to arise.
No man on earth could make Nella-Rose more his than his love and good
faith had made her, still he was eager now to resort to all the
time-honoured safeguards before he left. Once married he would go with a
heart almost light. He would confide everything to Kendall and Lynda--at
least he would his marriage--and urge them to return with him to the
hills, and after that White and all the others would have an awakening.
The possibility thus conceived was like a flood of light and sweet air
in a place dark and bewildering but not evil--no, not that!

As he turned from the clearing Truedale looked back at his cabin.
Nella-Rose seemed still there. She would always be part of it just as
she was now part of his life. He would try and buy the cabin--it would
be sacrilege for others to enter!

So he hurried the mare on, hoping to be at the crossing before
Nella-Rose.

The crisp autumn air was redolent of pines and the significance of
summer long past. It had a physical and spiritual power.

Then turning suddenly from the trail, Truedale saw Nella-Rose sitting on
a rock--waiting! She had on a rough, mannish-looking coat, and a coarse,
red hood covered her bright head. Nella-Rose was garbed in winter
attire. She had worn this outfit for five years and it looked it.

Never again was Truedale to see a face of such radiant joy and trust as
the girl turned upon him. Her eyes were wide and filled with a light
that startled him. He jumped from the horse and took her in his arms.

"What is it?" he asked, fearing some intangible danger.

"The minister was killed by the flood!" Nella-Rose's tones were
thrilling. "He was going through Devil-may-come Hollow and a mighty big
rock struck him and--he's dead!"

"Then you must come with me, Nella-Rose." Truedale set his lips grimly;
there was no time to lose. Between three and nine o'clock surely they
could locate a minister or a justice of the peace. "Come!"

"But why, Mister Man?" She laughed up at him. "Where?"

"It doesn't matter. To New York if necessary. Jump up!" He turned to the
horse, holding the girl close.

"Me go away--in this? Me shame you before--them-all?"

Nella-Rose stood her ground and throwing the rough coat back displayed
her shabby, shrunken dress.

"I went home--they-all were away. I got my warm things, but I have a
white dress and a pink ribbon--I'll get them to-morrow. Then--But why
must we go--away?"

For the first time this thought caught her--she had been whirled along
too rapidly before to note it.

"I have had word that my uncle is dead. I must go at once, my dear, and
you--you must come with me. Would you let a little thing like a--a dress
weigh against our love, and honour?"

Above the native's horror of being dragged from her moorings was that
subtle understanding of honour that had come to Nella-Rose by devious
ways from a source that held it sacred.

"Honour?" she repeated softly; "honour? If I thought I had to go in rags
to make you sure; if I thought I needed to--I'd--"

Truedale saw his mistake. Realizing that if in the little time yet his
he made her comprehend, he might lose more than he could hope to gain,
he let her free while he took a card and pen from his pocket. He wrote
clearly and exactly his address, giving his uncle's home as his.

"Nella-Rose," he said calmly, "I shall be back in two or three weeks at
the latest, but if at any moment you want me, send word here--telegraph
from the station--_you_ come first, always! You are wiser than I, my
sweet; our honour and love are our own. Wait for me, my doney-gal
and--trust me."

She was all joy again--all sweetness. He kissed her, turned, then came
back.

"Where will you go, my darling?" he asked.

"Since they-all do not know"--she was lying against his breast, her eyes
heavy now with grief at the parting--"I reckon I will go home--to wait."

Solemnly Truedale kissed her and turned dejectedly away. Once again he
paused and looked back. She stood against the tree, small and shabby,
but the late afternoon sun transfigured her. In the gloomy setting of
the woods, that fair, little face shone like a gleaming star and so
Truedale remembered her and took her image with him on his lonely way.

Nella-Rose watched him out of sight and then she turned and did
something that well might make one wonder if a wise God or a cruel demon
controls our fates--she ran away from the home path and took the trail
leading far back to the cabin of old Lois Ann!

There was safety; there were compassion and comprehension. The old woman
could tell marvellous tales and so could beguile the waiting days.
Nella-Rose meant to confide in her and ask her to hide her until
Truedale came for her. It was a sudden inspiration and it brought
relief.

And that night--it was past midnight and cold as the north land--Burke
Lawson came face to face with Jed Martin! Lawson was issuing from his
cranny behind the old still and Martin was nosing about alone. He, like
a hungry thing of the wilds, had found his foe's trail and meant to bag
him unaided and have full vengeance and glory. But so unexpectedly, and
alarmingly unconcerned, did Burke materialize in the emptiness that
Jed's gun was a minute too late in getting into position. Lawson had the
drop on him! They were both very quiet for a moment, then Lawson laughed
and did it so boldly that Jed shrank back.

"Coming to make a friendly call, Martin?"

"Something like that!"

"Well, come in, come right in!"

"I reckon you an' me can settle what we've got ter settle in the open!"
Jed stuttered. It seemed a hideous, one-sided settlement.

"As yo' please, Jed, as yo' please. I have a leanin' to the open myself.
I'd just decided ter come out; I was going up ter Jim White's and help
him mete out justice, but maybe you and me can save him the trouble."

"You--goin' ter shoot me, Burke--like a--like a--hedgehog?"

"No. I'm goin' ter do unto yo' as yo' would have--" Here Burke
laughed--he was enjoying himself hugely.

"What yo' mean?"

"Well, I'm goin' ter put yer in my quarters and tie yer to a chair.
Yo'll be able to wiggle out in time, but it will take yer long enough
fur me to do what I'm set about doin'. Yo' torn down traitor!--yo' were
'lowing to put me behind bars, wasn't yer? Yo' meant to let outsiders
take the life out o' me--yo' skunk! Well, instead, Jed--I'm goin' on my
weddin' trip--me and lil' Nella-Rose. I've seen her; she done promised
to have me, when I come out o' hidin'. I'm coming out now! Nella-Rose
an' me are goin' to find a bigger place than Pine Cone Settlement. Yo'll
wiggle yer blasted hide loose by mornin' maybe; but then her an' me'll
be where you-all can't ketch us! Go in there, now, you green lizard;
turn about an' get on yer belly like the crawlin' thing yo' are! That's
it--go! the way opens up."

Jed was crawling through the bushes, Lawson after him with levelled gun.
"Now, then, take a seat an' make yerself ter home!" Jed got to the chair
and turned a green-white face upon his tormentor.

"Yer goin' ter let me starve here?" he asked with shaking voice.

"That depends on yo' power to wiggle. See, I tie you so!" Lawson had
pounced upon Jed and had him pinioned. "I ain't goin' ter turn a key on
yer like yo' was aimin' ter do on me! It's up to yo' an' yer wigglin'
powers, when yo' get free. The emptier yer belly is, the more room
ye'll have fer wiggling. God bless yer! yer dog-gone hound! Bless yer
an'--curse yer! I'm off--with the doney-gal!"

And off he was--he and his cruel but gay laugh.

There was no fire in the cave-like place; no light but the indirect
moonlight which slanted through the opening. It was death or wiggle for
Jed Martin--so he wiggled!

In the meantime, Burke headed for Jim White's. He meant to play a high
game there--to fling himself on White's mercy--appeal to the liking he
knew the sheriff had for him--confess his love for Nella-Rose--make his
promise for future redemption and then go, scot-free, to claim the girl
who had declared he might speak when once again he dared walk upright
among his fellows. So Lawson planned and went bravely to the doing of
it.




CHAPTER IX


At Washington, Truedale telegraphed to Brace Kendall. He felt, as he
drew nearer and nearer to the old haunts, like a stranger, and a blind,
groping one at that. The noises of the city disturbed and confused him;
the crowds irritated him. When he remembered the few weeks that lay
between the present and the days when he was part and parcel of this
so-called life, he experienced a sensation of having died and been
compelled to return to earth to finish some business carelessly
overlooked. He meant to rectify the omission as soon as possible and get
back to the safety and peace of the hills. How different it all would be
with settled ideas, definite work, and Nella-Rose!

While waiting for his train in the Washington station he was startled to
find that, of a sudden, he was adrift between the Old and the New. If he
repudiated the past, the future as sternly repudiated him. He could not
reconcile his love and desire with his identity. Somehow the man he had
left, when he went South, appeared now to have been waiting for him on
his return, and while his plans, nicely arranged, seemed feasible the
actual readjustment struck him as lurid and impossible. The fact was
that his experience of life in Pine Cone made him now shrink from
contact with the outside world as one of its loyal natives might have
done. It could no more survive in the garish light of a city day than
little Nella-Rose could have. That conclusion reached, Truedale was
comforted. He could not lure his recent past to this environment, but so
long as it lay safe and ready to welcome him when he should return, he
could be content. So he relegated it with a resigned sigh, as he might
have done the memory of a dear, absent friend, to the time when he could
call it forth to some purpose.

It was well he could do this, for with the coming of Brace Kendall upon
the scene all romantic sensation was excluded as though by an icy-clear,
north wind. Brace was at the New York station--Brace with the armour of
familiarity and unbounded friendliness. "Old Top!" he called Truedale,
and shook hands with him so vigorously that the last remnant of thought
that clung to the distant mountains was freed from the present.

"Well, of all the miracles! Why, Con, I bet you tip the scales at a
hundred and sixty. And look at your paw! Why, it's callous and actually
horny! And the colour you've got! Lord, man! you're made over.

"You're to come to your uncle's house, Con. It's rather a shock, but we
got you as soon as we could. In the meantime, we've followed directions.
The will has not been read, of course, but there was a letter found in
your uncle's desk that commanded--that's the only word to express it,
really--Lynda and you and me to come to the old house right after the
funeral. We waited to hear from you, Con, but since you could not get
here we had to do the best we could. Dr. McPherson took charge."

"I was buried pretty deep in the woods, Ken, and there was a bad hitch
in the delivery of the telegram. Such things do not count down where I
was. But I'm glad about the old house--glad you and Lynda are there."

"Con!"--and at this Brace became serious--"I think we rather overdid our
estimate of your uncle. Since his--his going, we've seen him, Lyn and I,
in a new light. He was quite--well, quite a sentimentalist! But
see--here we are!"

"The house looks different already!" Conning said, leaning from the cab
window.

"Yes, Lyn's had a lot to do, but she's managed to make a home of the
place in the short time."

Lynda Kendall had heard the sound of wheels in the quiet street--had set
the door of welcome open herself, and now stood in the panel of light
with outstretched hands. Like a revelation Truedale seemed to take in
the whole picture at once. Behind the girl lay the warm, bright hall
that had always been so empty and drear in his boyhood. It was furnished
now. Already it had the look of having been lived in for years. There
were flowers in a tall jar on the table and a fire on the broad hearth.
And against this background stood the strong, fine form of the young
mistress.

"Welcome home, Con!"

Truedale, for a moment, dared not trust his voice. He gripped her hands
and felt as if he were emerging from a trance. Then, of a sudden, a deep
resentment overpowered him. They could not understand, of course, but
every word and tone of appropriation seemed an insult to the reality
that he knew existed. He no longer belonged to them, to the life into
which they were trying to draw him. To-morrow he would explain; he was
eager to do so and end the restraint that sprang into being the moment
he touched Lynda's hands.

Lynda watched the tense face confronting her and believed Conning was
suffering pangs of remorse and regret. She was filled with pity and
sympathy shone in her eyes. She led him to the library and there
familiarity greeted him--the room was unchanged. Lynda had respected
everything; it was as it always had been except that the long, low chair
was empty.

They talked together softly in the quiet place until dinner--talked of
indifferent things, realizing that they must keep on the surface.

"This room and his bedchamber, Con," Lynda explained, "are the same.
For the rest? Well, I hope you will like it."

Truedale did like it. He gave an exclamation of delight when later they
entered the dining room, which had never been furnished in the past;
like much of the house it had been a sad tribute to the emptiness and
disappointment that had overcome William Truedale's life. Now it shone
with beauty and cheer.

"It is not merely a place in which to eat," explained Lynda; "a dining
room should be the heart of the home, as the library is the soul."

"Think of living up to that!"--Brace gave a laugh--"and not having it
interfere with your appetite!" They were all trying to keep cheerful
until such time as they dared recall the recent past without restraint.

Such an hour came when they gathered once more in the library. Brace
seized his pipe in the anticipation of play upon his emotions. By tacit
consent the low chair was left vacant and by a touch of imagination it
almost seemed as if the absent master were waiting to be justified.

"And now," Truedale said, huskily, "tell me all, Lynda."

"He and I were sitting here just as we all are sitting now, that last
night. He had forgiven me for--for staying away" (Lynda's voice shook),
"and we were very happy and confidential. I told him some things--quite
intimate things, and he, well, he came out of his reserve and gruffness,
Con--he let me see the real man he was! I suppose while he had been
alone--for I had neglected him--he had had time to think, to regret his
mistakes; he was very just--even with himself. Con"--and here Lynda had
to pause and get control of herself--"he--he once loved my mother! He
bought this house hoping she would come and, as its mistress, make it
beautiful. When my mother married my father, nothing mattered--nothing
about the house, I mean. Before my mother died she told me--to be kind
to Uncle William. She, in a sacred way, left him to me; me to him. That
was one of the things I told him that last night. I wish I had told him
long ago!" The words were passionate and remorseful. "Oh, it might have
eased his pain and loneliness. When shall we ever learn to say the right
thing when it is most needed? Well, after I had told him he--he grew
very still. It was a long time before he spoke--the joy was sinking in,
I saw that, and it carried the bitterness away. When he did speak he
made me understand that he could not trust himself further on that
subject, but he tried to--to explain about you, Con. Poor man! He
realized that he had made a failure as a guide; but in his own way he
had endeavoured to be a guardian. You know his disease developed just
before you came into his life. Con, he lived all through the years just
for you--just to stand by!"

From out the shadow where he sat, Brace spoke unevenly:

"Too bad you don't--smoke, old man!" It was the only suggestion he had
to offer in the tense silence that gripped them all.

"It's all right!" Truedale said heavily. "Go on when you can, Lynda."

"Do you--remember your father, Con?"

"Yes."

"Well, your uncle feared that too much ease and money might--"

"I--I begin to understand."

"So he went to the other extreme. Every step of your well-fought way was
joy to him--the only joy he knew. From his detachment and loneliness he
planned--almost plotted--for you, but he did not tell you. It would all
have been so different--oh! so different if we had all known. Then he
told me a little--about his will."

No one saw the sudden crimson that dyed Lynda's white face and throat.
"He was very fantastic about that. He made certain arrangements that
were to take effect at once. He has left you three thousand a year, Con,
without any restrictions whatever. He told me that. He left his servants
and employees generous annuities. He left me this house--for my mother's
sake. He insisted that it should be a home at last. A large sum is
provided for its furnishing and upkeep--I'm a trustee! The most
beautiful thing, perhaps, was the thought expressed in these words of
his, 'I want you to do your mother's work and mine, while still
following your own rightful desires. Make this house a place of welcome,
peace, and friendliness!' I mean to do my best, Con."

"And he's left me"--Brace found relief in the one touch of humour that
presented itself--"he's left me a thousand dollars as a token of his
appreciation of my loyalty to you, when you most needed it."

But Truedale hardly heeded. His eyes were fixed upon the empty chair
and, since he had not understood in the past, he could not express
himself now. He was suffering the torture that all feel when, too late,
revealment makes clear what never should have been hidden.

"And then"--Lynda's low, even voice went on--"he sent me away and Thomas
put him to bed. He asked for some medicine that it seems he always had
in case of need; he took too much--and--"

"So it was suicide!" Truedale broke in desperately. "I feared that. Good
God!" The tragedy and loneliness clutched his imagination--he seemed to
see it all, it was unbearable!

"Con!" Lynda laid her firm hand upon his arm, "I have learned to call it
something else. It has helped me; perhaps it will help you. He had
waited wearily on this side of the door of release; he--he told me that
he was going on a long journey he had often contemplated--I did not
understand then! I fancy the--the journey was very short. There was no
suffering. I wish you could have seen the peace and majesty of his face!
He could wait no longer. Nothing mattered here, and all that he yearned
for called loudly to him. He simply opened the door himself--and went
out!"

Truedale clasped the hand upon his arm. "Thank you, Lynda. I did not
realize how kind you could be," was all he said.

The logs fell apart and filled the room with a rich glow. Brace shook
the ashes from his pipe upon the hearth--he felt now that he could trust
himself.

"For the future," Lynda's calm voice almost startled the two men by its
practicability and purpose, "this is home--in the truest, biggest sense.
No one shall even enter here and feel--friendless. This is my trust; it
shall be as _he_ wished it, and I mean to have my own life, too! Why,
the house is big enough for us all to live our lives and not interfere
with each other. I mean to bring my private business here in the rooms
over the extension. I'll keep the uptown office for interviews. And you,
Con?"

Truedale almost sprang to his feet, then, hands plunged in pockets, he
said:

"There does not seem to be anything for me to do; at least not until the
will is read. I think I shall go back--I left things at loose ends;
there will be time to consider--later."

"But, Con, there is something for you to do. You will understand after
you see the lawyers in the morning. There is a great deal of business:
many interests of your uncle's that he expected you to represent in his
name--to see that they were made secure. Dr. McPherson has told me
something about the will--enough to help me to begin."

Truedale looked blankly at Lynda. "Very well, after that--I will go
back," he spoke almost harshly. "I will arrange affairs somehow. I'm no
business man, but I daresay Uncle William chose wise assistants."

"What's the matter with you, Con?" Brace eyed his friend critically;
"you look fit as a fellow can. This has demanded a good deal of
self-denial and faith from us all, but somehow this duty was the biggest
thing in sight; we rather owe him that, I fancy. You know you cannot run
to cover just now, old man. This has been a jog, but by morning you'll
reconsider and play your part." There was a new note in Kendall's voice.
It was a call to something he hoped was in his friend, but which he had
never tested. There was a sudden fear, too, of the change that had come
to Truedale. It was not all physical. There was a baffling suggestion of
unreality about him that made him almost a stranger.

"I dare say you are right, Ken." Truedale walked the length of the room
and back. "I own to being cut up over this. I never did my part--I see
that now--and of course I'll endeavour to do what I should. My body's
all right but my nerves still jangle at a shock. To-morrow the whole
thing will settle into shape. You and Lynda have been--well--I cannot
express what I feel." He paused. The hour was late, and for the first
time he seemed to realize that the old home was not his in the sense it
once had been. Lynda understood the moment's hesitation and smiled
slightly.

"Con, there's one other thing in the house that remains as it was. Under
the eaves the small room that was yours is yours still. I saw to it
myself that not a book or picture was displaced. There are other rooms
at your disposal--to share with us--but that room is yours, always."

Truedale stood before Lynda and put out his hands in quite the old way.
His eyes were dim and he said hoarsely: "That's about the greatest thing
you've done yet, Lyn. Thank you. Good-night."

At the door he hesitated--he felt he must speak, but to bring his own
affairs into the tense and new conditions surrounding him seemed
impossible. To-morrow he would explain everything. It was this slowness
in reaching a decision that most defeated Truedale's best interest.
While he deplored it--he seemed incapable of overcoming it.

Alone in the little room, later, he let himself go. Burying his tired
head upon his folded arms he gave himself up to waves of recollection
that threatened to engulf him. Everything was as it always had been--a
glance proved that. When he had parted from his uncle he had taken only
such articles as pertained to his maturer years. The pictures on the
walls--the few shabby books that had drifted into his lonely and
misunderstood childhood--remained. There was the locked box containing,
Conning knew full well, the pitiful but sacred attempts at
self-expression. The key was gone, but he recollected every scrap of
paper which lay hidden in the old, dented tin box. Presently he went to
the dormer window and opened it wide. Leaning out he tried to find his
way back to Pine Cone--to the future that was to be free of all these
cramping memories and hurting restrictions--but the trail was too
cluttered; he was lost utterly!

"It is because they do not know," he thought. "After to-morrow it will
be all right."

Then he reflected that the three thousand dollars Lynda had mentioned
would clear every obstacle from his path and Nella-Rose's. He no longer
need struggle--he could give his time and care to her and his work. He
did not consider the rest of his uncle's estate, it did not matter.
Lynda was provided for and so was he. And then, for the first time in
many days, Truedale speculated upon bringing Nella-Rose away from her
hills. He found himself rather insisting upon it, until he brought
himself to terms by remembering her as he had seen her last--clinging to
her own, vehemently, passionately.

"No, I've made my choice," he finally exclaimed; "the coming back
unsettled me for the moment but her people shall be my people."

Below stairs Lynda was humming softly an old tune--"The Song of
To-morrow," it was called. It caught and held Truedale's imagination. He
tried to recall the lines, but only the theme was clear. It was the
everlasting Song of To-morrow, always the one tune set to changing
ideals.

It was the same idea as the philosophy about each man's "interpretation"
of the story already written, which Conning had reflected upon so often.

At this time Truedale believed he firmly accepted the principle of
foreordination, or whatever one chose to call it. One followed the path
upon which one's feet had been set. One might linger and wander, within
certain limits, but always each must return to his destined trail!

A distant church clock struck one; the house was still at last--deathly
still. Two sounded, but Truedale thought on.

He finally succeeded in eliminating the entangling circumstances that
seemed to lie like a twisted skein in the years stretching between his
going forth from his uncle's house to this night of return. He tried to
understand himself, to estimate the man he was. In no egotistical sense
did he do this, but sternly, deliberately, because he felt that the
future demanded it. He must account to others, but first he must account
to himself.

He recalled his boyhood days when his uncle's distrust and apparent
dislike of him had driven him upon himself, almost taking self-respect
with it. He re-lived the barren years when, longing for love and
companionship, he found solace in a cold pride that carried him along
through school and into college, with a reputation for hard, unyielding
work, and unsocial habits.

How desperately lonely he had been--how cruelly underestimated--but he
had made no outcry. He had lived his years uncomplainingly--not even
voicing his successes and achievements. Through long practise in
self-restraint, his strength lay in deliberate calculation--not
indifferent action. He hid, from all but the Kendalls, his private
ambitions and hopes. He studied in order that he might shake himself
free from his uncle's hold upon him. He meant to pay every cent he had
borrowed--to secure, by some position that would supply the bare
necessities of life, time and opportunity for developing the talent he
secretly believed was his. He was prepared, once loose from obligation
to old William Truedale, to starve and prove his faith. And then--his
breakdown had come!

Cast adrift by loss of health, among surroundings that appealed to all
that was most dangerous in his nature--believing that his former
ambitions were defeated--old longings for love, understanding and
self-revealment arose and conquered the weak creature he was. But they
had appealed to the best in him--not the evillest--thank God! And now?
Truedale raised his head and looked about in the dim room, as if to find
the boy he once had been and reassure him.

"There is no longer any excuse for hesitation and the damnable weakness
of considering the next step," thought Truedale. "I have chosen my own
course--chosen the simple and best things life has to offer. No man in
God's world has a right to question my deeds. If they cannot understand,
more's the pity."

And in that hour and conclusion, the indifference and false pride that
had upheld Truedale in the past fell from him as he faced the demands of
the morrow. He was never again to succumb to the lack of confidence his
desolate youth had developed; physically and spiritually he roused to
action now that exactions were made upon him.




CHAPTER X


The following day Truedale heard the will read. Directly after, he felt
like a man in a quicksand. Every thought and motion seemed but to sink
him deeper until escape appeared impossible.

He had felt, for a moment, a little surprise that the bulk of his
uncle's great fortune had gone to Dr. McPherson--an already rich and
prosperous man; then he began to understand. Although McPherson was left
free to act as he chose, there had evidently been an agreement between
him and William Truedale as to the carrying out of certain affairs and,
what was more startling and embarrassing, Conning was hopelessly
involved in these. Under supervision, apparently, he was to be
recognized as his uncle's representative and, while not his direct heir,
certainly his respected nephew.

Truedale was confounded. Unless he were to disregard his uncle's wishes,
there was no way open for him but to follow--as he was led. Far from
being dissatisfied with the distribution of the fortune, he had been
relieved to know that he was responsible for only a small part of it;
but, on the other hand, should he refuse to cooperate in the schemes
outlined by McPherson, he knew that he would be miserably
misunderstood.

Confused and ill at ease he sought McPherson later in the day and that
genial and warm-hearted man, shrinking always behind so stern an
exterior that few comprehended him, greeted him almost affectionately.

"I ordered six months for you, Truedale," he exclaimed, viewing the
result of his prescription keenly, "and you've made good in a few weeks.
You're a great advertisement for Pine Cone. And White! Isn't he God's
own man?"

"I hadn't thought of him in just that way"--Conning reverted to his last
memory of the sheriff--"but he probably showed another side to you. He
has a positive reverence for you and I imagine he accepted me as a duty
you had laid upon him."

"Nonsense, boy! his health reports were eulogies--he was your friend.

"But isn't he a freebooter with all his other charms? His contempt for
government, as we poor wretches know it, is sublime; and yet he is the
safest man I know. The law, he often told me, was like a lie; useful
only to scoundrels--torn-down scoundrels, he called them.

"I tell you it takes a God's man to run justice in those hills! White's
as simple and direct as a child and as wise as a judge ought to be. I
wouldn't send some folk I know to White, they might blur his vision;
but I could trust him to you."

Silently Truedale contemplated this image of White; then, as McPherson
talked on, the dead uncle materialized so differently from the stupid
estimate he had formed of him that a sense of shame overpowered him.
Lynda had somewhat opened Truedale's eyes, but Lynda's love and
compassion unconsciously coloured the picture she drew. Here was a
hard-headed business man, a man who had been close to William Truedale
all his life, proving him now, to his own nephew, as a far-sighted,
wise, even patient and merciful friend.

Never had Truedale felt so small and humble. Never had his past
indifference and false pride seemed so despicable and egotistical--his
return for the silent confidence reposed in him, so pitifully shameful.

He must bear his part now! There was no way but that! If he were ever to
regain his own self-respect or hope to hold that of others, he must, to
the exclusion of private inclination, rise as far as in him lay to the
demands made upon him.

"Your uncle," McPherson was saying, "tied hand and foot as he was,
looked far and wide during his years of illness. I thought I knew,
thought I understood him; but since his death I have almost felt that he
was inspired. It's a damnable pity that our stupidity and callousness
prevent us realizing in life what we are quick enough to perceive in
death--when it is too late! Truedale's faith in me, when I gave him so
little to go by, is both flattering and touching. He knew he could trust
me--and that knowledge is the best thing he bequeathed to me. But I
expect you to do your part, boy, and by so doing to justify much that
might, otherwise, be questioned. To begin with, as you have just heard,
the sanatorium for cases like your uncle's is to be begun at once. Now
there is a strip of land, which, should it suit our purpose, can be had
at great advantage if taken at once, and for cash. We will run down to
see it this week and then we'll know better where we stand."

"I'd like," Truedale coloured quickly, "to return to Pine Cone for a few
days. I could start at once. You see I left rather suddenly and
brought--"

But McPherson laughed and waved his hand in the wide gesture that
disposed of hope and fear, lesser business and even death itself, at
times.

"Oh! Jim won't tamper with anything. Certainly your traps are safe
enough there. Such things can wait, but this land-deal cannot. Besides
there are men to see: architects, builders, etc. The wishes of your
uncle were most explicit. The building, you recall, was to be begun
within three months of his death. Having all the time there was,
himself, he has left precious little for others."

Again the big laugh and wide gesture disposed of Pine Cone and the
tragic affairs of little Nella-Rose. Unless he was ready to lay bare his
private reasons, Truedale saw he must wait a few days longer. And he
certainly had no intention of confiding in McPherson.

"Very well, doctor," he said after a slight pause, "set me to work. I
want you to know that as far as I can I mean--too late, as you say--to
prove my good intentions at least to--my uncle."

"That's the way to talk!" McPherson rose and slapped Conning on the
back. "I used to say to old Truedale, that if he had taken you more into
his confidence, he might have eased life for us all; but he was timid,
boy, timid. In many ways he was like a woman--a woman hurt and
sensitive."

"If I had only known--only imagined"; Conning was walking toward the
door; "well, at least I'm on the job now, Dr. McPherson."

And then for an hour or two Truedale walked the city streets perplexed
and distraught. He was being absorbed without his own volition. By a
subtle force he was convinced that he was part of a scheme bigger and
stronger than his own desires and inclinations. Unless he was prepared
to play a coward's role he must adjust his thoughts and ideas to
coincide with the rules and regulations of the game of life and men.
With this knowledge other and more blighting convictions held part. In
his defiance and egotism he had muddled things in a desperate way. In
the cold, clear light of conventional relations the past few weeks,
shorn of the glamour cast by his romantic love and supposed contempt for
social restrictions, stood forth startlingly significant. At the moment
Truedale could not conceive how he had ever been capable of playing the
fool as he had! Not for one instant did this realization affect his love
and loyalty to Nella-Rose; but that he should have been swept from his
moorings by passion, reduced him to a state of contempt for the folly he
had perpetrated. And, he thought, if he now, after a few days, could so
contemplate his acts how could he suppose that others would view them
with tolerance and sympathy?

No; he must accept the inevitable results of his action. His love, his
earnest intention of some day living his own life in his own way, were
to cost him more than he, blinded by selfishness and passion in the
hills, had supposed.

Well, he was ready to pay to the uttermost though it cost him the
deepest heart-ache. As he was prepared to undertake the burden his
uncle's belief in him entailed, so he was prepared, now that he saw
things clearly, to forego the dearest and closest ties of his old life.

He wondered how he could ever have dreamed that he could go to Lynda and
Brace with his amazing confession and expect them, in the first moment
of shock, to open their hearts and understand him. He almost laughed,
now, as he pictured the absurdity. And just then he drew himself up
sharply and came to his conclusion.

He could not lay himself bare to any one as a sentimental ass; he must
arrange things as soon as possible to return South; he would, just
before starting, tell Lynda and Brace of his attachment for Nella-Rose.
They would certainly understand why, in the stress and strain of recent
events, he had not intruded his startling news before. He would neither
ask nor expect sympathy or cooperation. He must assume that they could
not comprehend him. This was going to be the hardest wrench of his life,
Truedale recognized that, but it was the penalty he felt he must pay.

Then he would go--for his wife! He would secure her privately, by all
the necessary conventions he had spurned so madly--he would bring her to
his people and leave to her sweetness and tender charm the winning of
that which he, in his blindness, had all but lost.

So, in this mood, he returned to his uncle's house and wrote a long
letter to Nella-Rose. He phrased it simply, as to a little child. He
reminded her of the old story she had once told him of her belief that
some day she was to do a mighty big thing.

"And now you have your chance!" he pleaded. "I cannot live in your
hills, dear, though often you and I will return to them and be happy in
the little log house. But you must come with me--your husband. Come
down the Big Road, letting me lead you, and you must trust me and oh! my
doney-gal, by your blessed sweetness and power you must win for me--for
us both--what I, alone, can never win."

There was more, much more, of love and longing, of tender loyalty and
passionate reassurance, and having concluded his letter he sealed it,
addressed it, and putting it in an envelope with a short note of
explanation to Jim White as to its delivery, etc., he mailed it with
such a sense of relief as he had not known in many a weary day.

He prepared himself for a period of patient waiting. He knew with what
carelessness mail matter was regarded in the hills, and winter had
already laid its hold upon Pine Cone, he felt sure. So while he waited
he plunged eagerly into each day's work and with delight saw how
everything seemed to go through without a hitch. It began to look as if,
when Nella-Rose's reply came, there would be no reason for delay in
bringing her to the North.

But this hope and vision did not banish entirely Truedale's growing
sorrow for the part he must inevitably take when the truth was known to
Lynda and Brace. Harder and harder the telling of it appeared as the
time drew near. Never had they seemed dearer or more sacred to him than
now when he realized the hurt he must cause them. There were moments
when he felt that he could not bear the eyes of Lynda--those friendly,
trusting eyes. Would she ever be able, in the years to come, to forgive
and forget? And Brace--how could that frank, direct nature comprehend
the fever of madness that had, in the name of love, betrayed the
confidence and faith of a lifetime? Well, much lay in the keeping of the
little mountain girl whose fascination and loveliness would plead
mightily. Of Nella-Rose's power Truedale held no doubt.

Then came White's devastating letter at the close of an exhausting day
when Conning was to dine with the Kendalls.

That afternoon he had concluded the immediate claims of business, had
arranged with McPherson for a week's absence, and meant in the evening
to explain to Brace and Lynda the reason for his journey. He was going
to start South on the morrow, whether a letter came or not. He had
steeled himself for the crucial hour with his friends; had already, in
his imagination, bidden farewell to the relations that had held them
close through the past years. He believed, because he was capable of
paying this heavy price for his love, that no further proof would be
necessary to convince even Lynda of its intensity.

They dined cheerfully and alone and, as they crossed the hall afterward,
to the library, Lynda asked casually:

"Did you get the letters for you, Con? The maid laid them on the stand
by the door."

Then she went on into the bright room with its long, vacant chair,
singing "To-morrow's Song" in that sweet contralto of hers that deserved
better training.

There were three letters--one from a man whose son Truedale had tutored
before he went away, one from the architect of the new hospital, and a
bulky one from Dr. McPherson. Truedale carried them all into the library
where Brace sat comfortably puffing away before the fire; and Lynda,
some designs for interior decoration spread out before her on a low
table, still humming, rocked gently to and fro in a very feminine
rocker. Conning drew up a chair opposite Kendall and tore open the
envelope from his late patron.

"I tell you, Brace," he said, "if any one had told me six weeks ago that
I should ever be indifferent to a possible offer to tutor, I would have
laughed at him. But so it is. I must turn down the sure-paying Mr. Smith
for lack of time."

Lynda laughed merrily. "And six weeks ago if any one had come to me in
my Top Shelf where I carried on my profession, and outlined this for
me"--she waved her hand around the room--"I'd have called the janitor to
put out an unsafe person. Hey-ho!" And then the brown head was bent over
the problem of an order which had come in that day.

"Oh! I say, Lyn!" Truedale turned from his second letter. "Morgan
suggests that _you_ attend to the decorating and furnishing of the
hospital. I told him to choose his man and he prefers you if I have no
objection. Objection? Good Lord, I never thought of you. I somehow
considered such work out of your line, but I'm delighted."

"Splendid!" Lynda looked up, radiant. "How I shall revel in those broad,
clean spaces! How I shall see Uncle William in every room! Thank him,
Con, and tell him I accept--on his terms!"

Then Truedale opened the third envelope and an enclosed letter fell out,
bearing the postmark of the Junction near Pine Cone!

There was a small electric reading lamp on the arm of Truedale's chair;
he turned the light on and, while his face was in shadow, the words
before him stood out illumined.

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

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

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

     Your letter to a certain young person has come and been destroyed
     owing to my thinking under the present circumstances, some folks
     what don't know about you, better not hear now. I took the letter
     to Lone Dome as you set down for me to do meaning to give it to
     Nella-Rose like what you said, but she wasn't there. Pete was there
     and Marg--she's Nella-Rose's sister, and getting ready to marry
     that torn-down scamp Jed Martin which to my way of thinking is
     about the best punishment what could be dealt out to him. Pete was
     right sober for him and spruced up owing to facts I am now coming
     to and when Pete's sober there ain't a more sensible cuss than what
     he is nor a gentlemaner. Well, I asked natural like for Nella-Rose
     and Marg scrooged up her mouth, knowing full well as how I knew Jed
     was second choice for her--but Pete he done tell me that Nella-Rose
     had married Burke Lawson and run to safer parts and when I got over
     the shock I was certainly thankful for being a sheriff ain't all it
     might be when your ideas of justice and liking gets crossed. I
     didn't ask any more questions. Peter was sober--he only lies when
     he's drunk and not having any wish to rouse Marg I just come away
     and burned the letter what you sent. But I've done some thinking on
     my own 'count since your letter came and I reckon I've studied the
     thing clear on circumstantial evidence which is what I mostly have
     to go on in the sticks. I certainly done you a black insult that
     day I came upon you and Nella-Rose. I didn't let on, and I never
     will, about her being to my place, but no wonder the poor child was
     terrible upset when I came in. She had come to me, so I study out,
     and found you--stark stranger! How you ever soothed the poor little
     thing I don't know--her being wild as a flea--but on top of that,
     in I slam and lit out on you both and 'corse she couldn't 'splain
     about Burke before you and that's plain enough what she had come to
     do, and I didn't leave either one of you a leg to stand on. I've
     been pretty low in my spirits I can tell you and I beg your pardon
     humble, young feller, and if ever I can do Nella-Rose a turn by
     letting Burke free, no matter what he does--I will! But 'tain't
     likely he'll act up for some time. Nella-Rose always could tame him
     and he's been close on her trail ever since she was a toddler. I'm
     right glad they took things in their own hands and left. She didn't
     sense the right black meaning I had in my heart that day when she
     ran--but you did and I sure am ashamed of the part I done played.

     If you can overlook what no man has a call to overlook in
     another--your welcome is red hot here for you at any time.

     JIM WHITE

     Sheriff.

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

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

"Yes. Dead tired."

"You'll travel easier when you get the gait."

"Undoubtedly."

"Take a bit of a nap," Lynda suggested.

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

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

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

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

"Con, what is it--a bad dream?" Lynda touched his arm to arouse him.

"Yes--a mighty bad one!"

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

Truedale turned dark, sorrowful eyes upon Lynda.

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

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

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




CHAPTER XI


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

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

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

"But this is a special case, Lyn."

Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/14858