Front matter (continued 4)

"André said he went over to meet them, and they stayed with him not only one month, but four. He told us the girl had a voice as sweet as the nightingale's; that her eyes were like wood violets, her laugh like the forest brook. He said they loved each other madly, so madly that even his old blood was stirred at times. He was alone with them there in that wilderness for all those months, caring for them, fishing, hunting, picking the mountain berries, till the first snow flew. Then they took their flight.

"Mère Guillardeau had sent in her message: 'Ask no questions. You can confess and be shriven when you come to Richelieu-en-Bas.' He obeyed to the letter.

"He knew, he said, that they were not married, but he caught enough of their English to know they were looking forward to being married when it should be made possible for them. Whence they came, he never knew; whither they went, he never asked. They came, as birds come that mate in the spring; they went, as the late birds go after the mating season is over, with the first snow-fall; but, Marcia—"

"Yes, Jamie."

"You won't mind my speaking out after what was said last evening?"

"I mind nothing from you."

"André told us that before they left he knew a nestling was on its way; the slender form, like a willow shoot, as he expressed it, was rounder, and the face of the girl was the face of a tender doe. You should have heard him tell it—there in the setting of forest, lake and mountain!

"'All this happened long, long ago,' he said, 'but still I hear her voice in the forest; still I see her eyes in the first wood violets; see her smile that made sunshine in the darkest woods. Still I hear her light steps about the camp and follow her still in thought across the last portage when we carried her in our arms; still see her waving her hand to me from the canoe that floated like a brown leaf on the blue lake waters. Wherever she may be, may the Holy Virgin, Our Lady of the Snows, guard her—and her child! I have waited all these years for her to come again.'

"Marcia—André called their love 'forest love'. Sometimes I think he spoke truly; untaught, he knew the difference."

I listened, caught by the pathos of the tale, the charm of old André's words; but in love I was untaught. I wondered how Jamie could know the "difference".

"But now to my point. Of course I listened all eyes and ears to André. When he finished, the camp fire was low. The full moon had risen above the waters of the lake and lighted the tree-fringed shore. I turned to Ewart, and caught the same look on his face that I saw last night when the Doctor was telling his story: the look of a man who is seeing ghosts—more than one. For three days I scarce got a decent word when he was with me, which was seldom; he was off by himself in the forest. So you see this, last night's occurrence, does not wholly surprise me."

We sat for a while without talking. Jamie took his pipe, filled and lighted it with a glowing coal.

"Jamie," I said at last. He nodded encouragingly.

"You know you told me about that queer rumor that crops out at such odd times and places—about Mr. Ewart's having been married and divorced, and the boy he is educating, 'Boy or girl?' you know he said—"

"Yes, I know."

"Might n't it be—I know you did n't believe it, but would n't it be possible that there is some truth in that, distorted, perhaps, but enough to make him suffer when there is any reference to love that has brought with it misery and suffering?"

"It may be you 're right; I had n't thought of it in that light. Of course, I never heard of the rumor till I came back from camp in September; then it seemed to be in the air. I wonder if the Doctor has ever heard anything."

"Probably his coming home so soon and making his home here started the gossip. Jamie—"

"Yes."

"You said he never spoke much to you about his personal affairs—that you don't know so very much of his intimate personal life. Does n't that prove that he has had some trouble, some painful experience?"

"Woman's logic, but I suppose he has. Most men have been through the wilderness, or been lost in it, by the time they are forty. I should think if—mind you, I say 'if'—he was ever married, ever divorced, ever had a child somewhere, he might find his special trail difficult at times; but he has n't lost it! Ewart does not lose a trail so easily! Look at his experience—Oxford, London, Australian sheep-ranchman, forester here in Lamoral! And he 's so tender with everything and everybody. That's what makes him so beloved here in this French settlement."

"Except towards the Doctor last night."

"That's so; but he is tender just the same. I 've seen that trait in him so many times."

"I should think he might be—and like adamant at others," I said, and began to put the room to rights.

XIV

"We shall miss the Doctor no end," said Jamie ruefully.

We caught the last wave of his hand; the pung's broad fur-behung back could no longer be seen; the jingle of the bells grew fainter; soon there was silence.

"He promised to come again in February. And, now, what next?" I turned to Mrs. Macleod who was standing with Jamie at the window.

"There does n't seem to be any 'next'?" she answered with such evident dejection that Jamie and I laughed at her.

"Take heart, mither," her son admonished her, using for the first time in my presence the softer Scotch for mother.

"It's been such a pleasant week for us—and I find Mr. Ewart so different; not that I mean to criticize our host," she added hastily and apologetically. She seemed to take pleasure in refusing to be comforted for the loss of the Doctor's cheering presence.

"Of course he 's different; there can't be two Doctor Rugvies in this needy world; but you wait till you know Ewart better, mother. Talk about 'what next'! You 'll find as soon as Ewart sets things humming here there 'll be plenty of the 'next'; Cale can give you a point or two on that already. By the way, he seems to have sworn allegiance to Ewart; he does n't have time for me now."

"But what are we women to do here?" I exclaimed half impatiently. My busy working life in the city, with the consequent pressure that made itself felt every hour of the day, and burdened me at night with the dreadful "what next if strength and health should fail?", had unfitted me in part for the continued quiet of domesticity. I found myself beginning to chafe under it, now that the house was settled. I wanted more work to fill my time.

"Better ask Ewart," said Jamie to tease me.

"I will." I spoke decidedly and gave Jamie a surprise. "I 'll speak to him the very first time I get the chance. He has n't given me one yet."

"You 're right there, Marcia. I noticed you and the Doctor were great chums from the first, but Ewart has n't said much to you—he is so different, though, as mother says. It takes time to know Ewart, and sometimes—"

"What 'sometimes'?"

"Sometimes when I think I know him, I find I don't. That interests me. You 'll have the same experience when you get well acquainted with him."

"There is no monotony about that at any rate."

"I should say not." He spoke emphatically.

Mrs. Macleod turned to me.

"I 'm sure I feel just as you do, Marcia, about the 'what next'. I don't know of anything except to keep house and provide for the meals—"

"That's no sinecure in this climate, mother. Such appetites! Even Marcia is developing a bank holiday one."

"And gaining both color and flesh," said Mrs. Macleod, looking me over approvingly. I dropped her a curtsey which surprised her Scotch staidness and amused Jamie.

"Are you sure you are twenty-six?" He smiled quizzically.

"As sure as you are of your three and twenty years."

Jamie turned from the window, took a book and dipped into it. I thought he was lost to us for the next two hours. Mrs. Macleod left the room.

"Sometimes I feel a hundred." Jamie spoke thoughtfully.

"And I a hundred and ten." I responded quickly to his mood.

"You 're bound to go me ten better. But no—have you, though?"

I nodded emphatically.

"Where?"

"Oh, in New York."

"Why in New York?"

"You don't know it?"

"No; but I mean to."

"I wish you joy."

"Tell me why in New York."

"You would n't understand."

"Would n't I? Try me."

I looked up at him as he stood there thoughtful, his forefinger between the leaves of the book. He had no living to earn. He had not to bear the burden and heat of an earned existence. How could he understand? So I questioned in my narrowness of outlook.

"I felt the burden," I answered.

"What burden?"

"The burden of—oh, I can't tell exactly; the burden of just that terrible weight of life as it is lived there. Before I was ill it weighed on me so I felt old, sometimes centuries old—"

Jamie leaned forward eagerly, his face alive with feeling.

"Marcia, that's just the way I felt when I was in the hospital. I was bowed down in spirit with it—"

"You?" I asked in amazement.

"Yes, I; why not? I can't help myself; I am a child of my time. Only, I felt the burden of life as humanity lives it, not touched by locality as you felt it."

"But you have n't really lived that life yet, Jamie."

"Yes, I have, Marcia."

"How?"

"I wonder now if you will understand? I get it—I get all that through the imagination."

"But imagination is n't reality."

"More real than reality itself sometimes. Look here, I 'm not a philanthropic cad and I don't mean to say too much, but I can say this: when a thinking man before he is twenty-five has run up hard against the only solid fact in this world—death, he somehow gets a grip on life and its meaning that others don't."

I waited for more. This was the Jamie of whom the depth of simplicity in "André's Odyssey" had given me a glimpse.

He straightened himself suddenly. "I want to say right here and now that if I have felt, and feel—as I can't help feeling, being the child of my time and subject to its tendencies—the burden of this life of ours as lived by all humankind, thank God, I can even when bowed in spirit, feel at times the 'rhythm of the universe' that adjusts, coordinates all—" He broke off abruptly, laughing at himself. "I 'm getting beyond my depth, Marcia?"

I shook my head. He smiled. "Well, then, I 'll get down to bed rock and say something more: you won't mind my mooning about and going off by myself and acting, sometimes, as if I had patented an aeroplane and could sustain myself for a few hours above the heads of all humanity—"

I laughed outright. "What do you mean, Jamie?"

"I mean that as I can't dig a trench, or cut wood, or run a motor bus, or be a member of a life-saving crew like other men, I 'm going to try to help a man up, and earn my living if I can, by writing out what I get in part through experience and mostly through imagination. There! Now I 've told you all there is to tell, except that I 've had something actually accepted by a London publisher; and if you 'll put up with my crotchets I 'll give you a presentation copy."

"Oh, Jamie!"

I was so glad for him that for the moment I found nothing more to say.

"'Oh, Jamie,'" he mimicked; then with a burst of laughter he threw himself full length on the sofa.

"What are you laughing at?" I demanded sternly.

"At what Ewart and the Doctor would say if they could hear us talking like this so soon as their backs were turned on the manor. I believe the Doctor's last word to you was 'griddlecakes', and Ewart's to me: 'We 'll have dinner at twelve—I 'm going into the woods with Cale'. Well, I 'm in for good two hours of reading," he said, settling himself comfortably in the sofa corner. I had come to learn that this was my dismissal.

Before Mr. Ewart's return, I took counsel with myself—or rather with my common-sense self. If I were to continue to work in this household, I must know definitely what I was to do. The fact that I was receiving wages meant, if it meant anything, that I received them in exchange for service rendered. The Doctor left the matter in an unsatisfactory, nebulous state, saying, that if Ewart insisted on paying my salary it was his affair to provide the work; and thereafter he was provokingly silent.

I had been too many years in a work-harness to shirk any responsibility along business lines now, and when, after supper, I heard Jamie say just before we left the dining-room: "I'm no end busy this evening, Gordon, I 'll work in here if you don't mind; I 'll be in for porridge," I knew my opportunity was already made for me. I told Mrs. Macleod that, as she could not tell me what was expected of me, I should not let another day go by without ascertaining this from Mr. Ewart. Perhaps she intentionally made the opening for my opportunity easier, for when I went into the living-room an hour later, I found Mr. Ewart alone with the dogs. He was at the library table, drawing something with scale and square.

"Pardon me for not rising," he said without looking up; "I don't want to spoil this acute angle; I 'm mapping out the old forest. I 'm glad you 're at liberty for I need some help."

"At liberty!" I echoed; and, perceiving the humor of the situation, I could not help smiling. "That's just what I have come to you to complain of—I have too much liberty."

"You want work?"

It was a bald statement of an axiomatic truth, and it was made while he was still intent upon finishing the angle. I stood near the table watching him.

"Yes." I thought the circumstances warranted conciseness, and my being laconic, if necessary.

"Then we can come to an understanding without further preliminaries." He spoke almost indifferently; he was still intent on his work. "Be seated," he said pleasantly, looking up at me for the first time and directly into my face.

I did as I was bidden, and waited. I am told I have a talent for waiting on another's unexpressed intentions without fidgetting, as so many women do, with any trifle at hand. I occupied myself with looking at the man whom Jamie loved, who "interested" him. I, too, found the personality and face interesting. By no means of uncommon type, nevertheless the whole face was noticeable for the remarkable moulding of every feature. There were lines in it and, without aging, every one told. They added character, gave varied expression, intensified traits. Life's chisel of experience had graven both deep and fine; not a coarse line marred the extraordinary firmness that expressed itself in lips and jaw; not a touch of unfineness revealed itself about the nose. Delicate creases beneath the eyes, and many of them, mellowed the almost hard look of the direct glance. Thought had moulded; will had graven; suffering had both hardened and softened—"tempered" is the right word—as is its tendency when manhood endures it rightly. But joy had touched the contours all too lightly; the face in repose showed absolutely no trace of it. When he smiled, however, as he did, looking up suddenly to find me studying him, I realized that here was great capacity for enjoying, although joyousness had never found itself at home about eyes and lips. He laid aside the drawing and turned his chair to face me.

"Doctor Rugvie—and Cale," he added pointedly, "tell me you were for several years in a branch of the New York Library. Did you ever do any work in cataloguing?"

"No; I was studying for the examinations that last spring before I was taken ill."

"Then I am sure you will understand just how to do the work I have laid out for you. I have a few cases still in storage in Montreal—mostly on forestry. Before sending for them, I wanted to see where I could put them."

"Cut and dried already! I need n't have given myself extra worry about my future work," I thought; but aloud I said:

"I 'll do my best; if the books are German I can't catalogue them. I have n't got so far."

"I 'll take care of those; there are very few of them. Most of them are in French; in fact, it is a mild fad of mine to collect French works, ancient and modern, on forestry. I 'll send for the books after the office has been furnished and put to rights. I am expecting the furniture from Quebec to-morrow. And now that I have laid out your work for you for the present, I 'll ask a favor—a personal one," he added, smiling as he rose, thrust his hands deep into his pockets and jingled some keys somewhere in the depths.

"What is it?" I, too, rose, ready to do the favor on the instant if possible, for his wholly businesslike manner, the directness with which he relied upon my training to help him pleased me.

"I 'd like to leave the settling of my den in your hands—wholly," he said emphatically. "You have been so successful with the other rooms that I 'd like to see your hand in my special one. How did you know just what to do, and not overdo,—so many women are guilty of that,—tell me?"

He spoke eagerly, almost boyishly. It was pleasant to be able to tell him the plain truth; no frills were needed with this man, if I read him rightly.

"Because it was my first chance to work out some of my home ideals—my first opportunity to make a home, as I had imagined it; then, too,—"

I hesitated, wondering if I should tell not only the plain truth, but the unvarnished one. I decided to speak out frankly; it could do no harm.

"I enjoyed it all so much because I could spend some money—judiciously, you know,"—I spoke earnestly. He nodded understandingly, but I saw that he suppressed a smile,—"without having to earn it by hard work; I 've had to scrimp so long—"

His face grew grave again.

"How much did you spend? I think I have a slight remembrance of some infinitesimal sum you mentioned the first evening—"

"Infinitesimal! No, indeed; it was almost a hundred—eighty-seven dollars and sixty-three cents, to be exact."

"Now, Miss Farrell!" It was his turn to protest. He went over to the hearth and took his stand on it, his back to the fire, his hands clasped behind him. "Do you mean to tell me that you provided all this comfort and made this homey atmosphere with eighty-seven dollars and sixty-three cents?—I'm particular about those sixty-three cents."

"I did, and had more good fun and enjoyment in spending them to that end, than I ever remember to have had before in my life. You don't think it too much?"

I looked up at him and smiled; and smiled again right merrily at the perplexed look in his eyes, a look that suddenly changed to one of such deep, emotional suffering that my eyes fell before it. I felt intuitively I ought not to see it.

"Too much!" he repeated, and as I looked up again quickly I found the face and expression serene and unmoved. "Well, as you must have learned already, things are relative when it comes to value, and what you have done for this house belongs in the category of things that mere money can neither purchase nor pay for."

"I don't quite see that; I thought it was I who was having all the pleasure."

His next question startled me.

"You are an orphan, I understand, Miss Farrell?"

"Yes." Again I felt the blood mount to my cheeks as I restated this half truth.

"Then you must know what it is to be alone in the world?"

"Yes—all alone."

"Perhaps to have no home of your own?"

"Yes."

"To feel yourself a stranger even in familiar places?"

"Oh, yes—many times."

"Surely, then, you will understand what it means for a lonely man to come back to this old manor, which I have occupied for years only at intervals, and more as a camping than an abiding place, and find it for the first time a home in fact?"

"I think I can understand it."

"Very well, then," he said emphatically and holding out his hand into which I laid mine, wondering as I did so "what next" was to be expected from this man, "I am your debtor for this and must remain so; and in the circumstances," he continued with an emphasis at once so frank and merry, that it left no doubt of his sincerity as well as of his appreciation of the situation, "I think there need be no more talk of work, or wages, or reciprocal service between you and me as long as you remain with us. It's a pact, is n't it?" he said, releasing my hand from the firm cordial pressure.

"But I want my wages," I protested with mock anxiety. "I really can't get on without money—and I was to have twenty-five dollars a month and 'board and room' according to agreement."

He laughed at that. I was glad to hear him.

"Oh, I have no responsibility for the agreement or what the advertisement has brought forth; it was one of the great surprises of my life to find you here. By the way, I hear you prefer to receive your pay from the Doctor?"

"Did he tell you that?" I demanded, not over courteously.

"Professionally," he replied with assumed gravity. "I insisted on taking that pecuniary burden on myself, as I seemed to be the first beneficiary; but I 've changed my mind, and, hereafter, you may apply to the Doctor for your salary. I 'll take your service gratis and tell him so. Does this suit you?"

"So completely, wholly and absolutely that—well, you 'll see! When can I take possession of the office? It needs a good cleaning down the first thing." I was eager to begin to prove my gratitude for the manner in which he had extricated me from the anomalous position in his household.

"From this moment; only—no manual labor like 'cleaning down'; there are enough in the house for that."

"Oh, nonsense!" I replied, laughing at such a restriction. "I 'm used to it—

"I intend you to be unused to it in my house—you understand?"

There was decided command in these words; they irritated me as well as the look he gave me. But I remembered in time that, after all, the old manor of Lamoral was his house, not mine, and it would be best for me to obey orders.

"Very well; I 'll ask Marie and little Pete to help me."

Marie appeared with the porridge, a little earlier than usual on Jamie's account, and Mr. Ewart asked her to bring a lighted candle.

"Come into the office for a moment," he said, leading the way with the light.

He stopped at the threshold to let me pass. The room was warm; the soapstone heater was doing effective work. The snow gleamed white beneath the curtainless windows, and the crowding hemlocks showed black pointed masses against the moonlight. There was some frost on the panes.

"It looks bare enough now," he said, raising the candle at the full stretch of his arm that I might see the oak panels of the ceiling; "I leave it to you to make it cheery. Here 's something that will help out in this room and in the living-room."

He took a large pasteboard box from the floor, and we went back into the other room. Jamie and Mrs. Macleod were there.

"Now, what have you there, Gordon?" said the former, frankly showing the curiosity that is a part of his make-up.

"Something that should delight your inner man's eye," he replied. Going to the table, he opened the box and took from it some of the exquisite first and second proofs of those wonderful etchings by Meryon.

We looked and looked again. Old Paris, the Paris of the second republic, lay spread before us: bridges, quays, chimney-pots, roofs, river and the cathedral of Notre Dame were there in black and white, and the Seine breathing dankness upon all! I possessed myself of one, the Pont Neuf, and betook myself to the sofa to enjoy it.

"You know these, Miss Farrell?"

"Only as I have seen woodcuts of them in New York."

"They are my favorites; I want nothing else on my walls. Will you select some for this room and some for the den? I will passepartout them; they should have no frames."

"You 're just giving me the best treat you could possibly provide," I said, still in possession of the proof, "and how glad I am that I 've had it—"

"What, Marcia?" This from Jamie.

"I mean the chance to extract a little honey from the strong."

Mrs. Macleod and Jamie looked thoroughly mystified, not knowing New York; but Mr. Ewart smiled at my enthusiasm and scripture application. He understood that some things during the years of my "scrimping" had borne fruit.

"I believe you 're more than half French, Ewart," said Jamie, looking up from the proof he was examining; "I mean in feeling and sympathy."

"No, I am all Canadian."

"You mean English, don't you?"

"No, I mean Canadian."

This was said with a fervor and a decision which had such a snap to it, that Jamie looked at him in surprise. Without replying, he continued his examination of the proof, whistling softly to himself.

Mr. Ewart turned to Mrs. Macleod and said, smiling:

"I want all members of my household to know just where I stand; in the future we may have a good many English guests in the house.—Please, give me an extra amount of porridge, Mrs. Macleod."

XV

With the coming of the furniture and the furnishing of the office, my hands were full for the next week. During the time, Mr. Ewart was in Ottawa on business, and I worked like a Trojan to have everything in readiness on his return. I was determined he should be the first to see the transformation of his special room, and forbade Jamie to open the door so much as a crack that might afford him a peep.

"It does n't seem much like the manor with Ewart away and you invisible except at meals," he growled from the arm-chair he had placed just outside the sill of the office door. He begged me to leave the door open just a little way, enough to enable him to have speech with me—a privilege I granted, but reluctantly, for I was putting the books on the shelves and giving the task my whole attention. The last day of the week was with us, and Mr. Ewart was expected in a few hours. I stopped long enough, however, to peep at him through the inch-wide opening. He was drawing away at a cold pipe and looked wholly disconsolate.

"A new version of Omar Khayyàm," I said.

"I suppose you 'll let me in when Ewart comes."

"I 've nothing to say about that; it is n't my den."

"I was under the impression it was wholly yours, judging from your possession of it."

"Now, no sarcasm, Jamie Macleod; work is work, and there 's been a lot to do in here—not but what I 've taken solid comfort in putting this room into shape."

"Oh, yes, we have seen that; even Cale remarked to me the other night that he 'guessed' Mr. Ewart knew a good thing when he saw it, as he had a general furnisher and library assistant all in one, who was working for his interest about as hard as she could."

"Good for Cale, he is a discerning person. But he seems to be following suit pretty closely along his lines."

"I hear you 're to catalogue the books that are in the den."

"That is my order."

"Don't you want me to help you? Old French is n't so easy sometimes," he asked, coaxing.

"Oh, no; I 've help enough in Mr. Ewart. He knows it a good deal better than you do."

"'Sass'," was Jamie's sole reply, a word he had borrowed from Cale's vocabulary; he used it to characterize my attitude towards his acquirements.

I worked on in silence till the books were housed; then I drew a long breath of satisfaction.

"What's that sigh for?" was the demand from the other side of the door.

"For a noble deed accomplished, my friend."

"Humph!"

"Now move away your chair, I 'm coming out."

"Come on."

There was no movement of the chair, and, to punish him, I locked the door on the inside and went out through the kitchen up to my room.

I recall that afternoon: the heavy first-of-December skies; the gray-black look on the hemlocks; the faded trunks of the lindens; the dullness of the unreflecting snow; the intermittent soughing of the wind in the pines. All without looked drear, jaded, almost lifeless; the cold was penetrating. I determined that all within should be bright with home cheer on the master's return. Did he not say I had made a home of the old manor?

I recall dressing myself with unusual care and wishing I had some light-colored gown to help brighten the interior for him.

For him! I was looking in the mirror and coiling my hair when I realized my thought; to my amazement my own face seemed to me almost the face of a stranger. I saw that its thin oval had rounded, the cheeks gained a faint color; animation was in every feature, life anticipant in the eyes.

"That's what the change has done so soon; pure air, home life, good food and an abundance of it."

I failed to read the first sign.

There was nothing for it but to put on the well-worn skirt of brown panama serge, a clean shirt waist and a white four-in-hand. I promised myself not only a warm coat out of the first month's wages, but a light-colored inexpensive dress that would harmonize with the general feeling of youthfulness of which my inner woman was now aware. I sat down at the window to wait for the sound of the pung bells. Soon there was a soft tap at my door.

"Come in." Jamie made his appearance with a bunch of partridge berries in his hand.

"With Cale's compliments; he found them under the snow in the woods, and hopes you will do him the honor to wear them in your hair. He left them with me just before he went to meet Ewart; I had them under the arm-chair to present to you formally when you should come out of the den; instead of which, you ignominiously—"

"Please, don't, Jamie—no coals of fire; give me the lovely things."

"But, remember, you are to wear them in your hair, so Cale says."

"It's perfectly absurd—but I must do it to please him. Who would credit him with such an attention?"

"May I stay while you put them in?" he asked meekly.

"Of course you may, you sisterless youth."

I parted the bunch, and pinned a spray on each side, in the coils and plaits of my over heavy hair. Jamie said nothing till this finishing touch had been put to my toilet.

"I say, it's ripping, Marcia. Cale will be your abject slave from henceforth. By the way, I 've never heard him call you 'Happy', as he proposed to do."

"Nor I."

"I wonder what's the reason? Perhaps he thought he had been too fresh, and he does n't dare—There 's Ewart!" He was off on a run.

I thought I would wait for the various greetings to be over before going down. I felt sure I should not see his hand withdrawn this time, as on the occasion of his first home-coming. When I heard his voice below in the hall, I was aware of a warm thrill of delight, a joyous expectancy of good, a feeling as if the home-coming were my own; for never in my life had I been welcomed as he was, with a shout from Jamie, an outburst from the dogs, and joyful ejaculations from Angélique and Marie.

I went down, my cheeks glowing, my heart warm with the home-sense, and—I wondered at myself—my hand outstretched to his. When his closed upon it with the same cordial pressure of the week before, I knew for the first time in my life the joy of being "at home".

And I failed to read the second sign.

XVI

It was a busy winter and a joyous one for me; a short and happy one for Jamie, so he said. He was correcting proof for the first venture and collecting data for the second; trying his hand at a chapter here and there; alternately despairing, rejoicing, appealing to Mr. Ewart or me for criticism—something we were unable to give him, as from disjointed portions of his work we did not know the trend of his ideas; protesting one day that he could write nothing worth reading, then on the next proclaiming to the household, including Cale, his temporary triumph of mind over material. We enjoyed his moods, all of them, whether of despair or enthusiasm, guying him in the one and encouraging him in the other.

The cataloguing took me well into the first week in January. Mr. Ewart was often in the den with me of an afternoon, and I was glad to take advantage of his knowledge of the language in translation, and the use of obsolete words. His own time seemed over full for those first few months. On Tuesday and Saturday mornings, he was always in the office to see the farmers on the estate and talk with them about his plans for future development. On other week-days, when weather permitted, he and Cale were much in the woods.

I found that Mr. Ewart did not intend it should be all work and no play for me. Twice in December he drove me in the pung—no sleigh had as yet been purchased, although a piano filled a corner of the living-room; once, early in the morning, before the sun had a chance to warm and partly melt the ice-crystals that encased every branch, every twig and twiglet. On that morning, we drove without speech for miles behind the swiftly trotting French coach horses; the beauty about us was indescribable, and silence was the best appreciation. We sped through the woods'-road, a prismatic arcade of interlaced crystals; along the river bank beside the vast frozen expanse of the St. Lawrence, gleaming and glittering with blinding reflected radiance. It was so brilliant, that against it the trees by the roadside, laden as they were with ice, stood out black and gaunt. Then into Richelieu-en-Bas, where every roof, every fence, every post and rivet, looked to be pure rock crystal. Window-frames, eaves, doors, the old pump in the marketplace were behung with icicles. The world about us that morning was another world than the work-a-day one to which I was accustomed. I had seen this special condition of ice in northern New England, but never in such beauty and grandeur.

We drove home before the ice began to soften. Afterwards, I sat for an hour at my open window, listening to the musical tinkle and metallic clink of the falling ice from the trees in the woods across the creek.

With the reason given that Jamie and I needed exercise in the open every day,—our occupations being of the sedentary kind, as he said,—Mr. Ewart bade us fare forth with him to learn the art of snowshoeing. He was past master in it and a good teacher. By the middle of January we were well on our feet and independent of any help from him.

Oh, the joy of the fleet tracks over the unbroken white! Oh, the coursing of the blood, the deep, deep breaths of what Mr. Ewart called the "iced wine" air! Oh, the blessed hunger that was satisfied with wholesome food after the invigorating exercise! Oh, the refreshing sleep, with the temperature at zero and the still air touching my cheeks under the fur robe across my bed! And with it all the sense of security, the sense of peace, of rest!

In this atmosphere, the remembrance of the weary years in the great city grew dim. I rejoiced at it.

I was beginning, also, to make myself easily understood with the French. Their language I loved; their literature I cultivated. It was a delight to be able to visit the tiny homes in the village, whither I was sent on one errand or another by Mr. Ewart, so getting extra rides in the pung and longer hours in the bracing air. It was an education to make the acquaintance of various families, learn the names of every member of the households, their interests and occupations. They were such tiny homes, made so high of stoop to avoid the rising spring flood that the great river is apt to send far and wide and deep into the village streets, covering the noble park and flooding first floors, respecting neither twin-towered church nor manor house; so low in the walls, few-windowed, and those double and packed with moss.

And such expansive souls as I found in the tiny homes: the hostess of the inn, Mrs. Macleod's dressmaker who lived beneath the shadow of the great twin-towered church; the furrier and his wife on the market-square; from them I bought my warm coat; ancient Mère Guillardeau and her old daughter, weaver of rag carpets, and some of her friends who followed the same calling and showed me, during the short winter days, how to weave them on their rough looms.

Of the three or four English families, with the exception of the postmistress, I knew nothing, or knew of them only through Mr. Ewart and Jamie. The "Seignior" and "Seignioress", so-called although English, were in Montreal for the winter. The old General and his wife were housed through infirmities. Now and then I saw a bevy of red-cheeked English girls, driving over from their home-school in Upper Richelieu for a jolly lark on their half-holiday. Of other English I heard nothing; there were none in Richelieu-en-Bas.

As the season advanced and I was firm on my winter feet, I made many a snow-shoe call on the farmers' families who lived on the old seigniory lands. It was good to hear them tell their hopes and anticipations; for Mr. Ewart's plan to do away with the old seigniorial rents and leases, and make of each farmer, at present paying rent, a freeholder, was welcomed, with almost passionate enthusiasm, in this community, where, generally, change is looked at askance. It was not long before I discovered that, on entering these homes, I found myself anticipating some word of praise, some expression of loyalty and devotion to the man who was to give them a new outlook on life. I listened with willing ears and led them, many times of my own accord, to speak of him.

In the long winter evenings I read thoroughly into the history of French Canada. It took me far afield, into English as well; into biography and the work of pioneers. It showed me the flaming enthusiasm of the fanatic, the faith of the apostle, the courage of high adventure, the chivalry of noble lives, the loyalty and devotion of the humble. It showed me, also, the cruelty of man to man, the divergence of race, the warring of nations, the battlefields, the conquests, the heavy hand of the conqueror, the red man's friendship, the red man's enmity, fire, sword, torture. But in and through and above all, it opened to me the high heart of the Canadian, the undaunted faith in established principles, and the patriotism that is a veritable passion.

"O Canada, my Canada!" an old French Canadian once exclaimed to me as we sat by the box-stove in his little "cabin". "There is no land like it; no land where they live at peace as we do here; no land where they are so content by their own fireside." And he spoke the truth.

I began to understand, through my intercourse with our neighbors on the estate and the village people, those words of Drummond—Drummond who has shown us the hearts of Canada's children:

One night in February, just before the Doctor's mid-winter visit, a friend of the dead poet passed a night beneath the roof of the old manor house as Mr. Ewart's guest. After the yellow chintz curtains were close drawn, so shutting out the wintry night, and while the backlog was glowing, he read to us from those poems that at the author's will exact tears or smiles from their hearers. After the reading of "The Rossignol", Jamie took his seat at the piano and played softly that exquisite old French Canadian air "Sur la montagne".

Mr. Ewart rose and, taking his stand beside him, sang the words of the poem which have been set to this music.

They recalled to me that twin song of Björnson's which, despite its joyous note of anticipation, holds the same pathos of unsatisfied longing.

The last note had scarcely been struck when Jamie broke into the jolly accompaniment to

And, listening so to poems and music and the talk of these men of fine mind and high aspirations, to their hopes for Canada as a whole, to their expression of pride in her marvellous growth and their faith in her future, I said to myself:

"Am I the girl, or rather woman now, who a few years ago made her way up from the narrow thoroughfares about Barclay Street to her attic room in 'old Chelsea'—up through the traffic-congested streets of New York, in the dark of the late winter afternoon, the melting snow falling in black drops and streams from the elevated above her; the avenues running brown snow-water; the rails gleaming; the steaming horses plashing through slush; the fog making haloes about the dimmed arc-lights; the hurrying, pressing tide of humanity surging this way and that and nearly taking her off her feet at the crossings; the whole city reeking with a warm-chill mist, and the shrieking, grinding, grating, whistling, roaring polyglot din of the metropolis half deafening her?"

Thinking of this as I stared into the fire, listening to the good talk on many subjects, something—was it the frost of homelessness?—melted in my heart. The feelings and emotions that had been benumbed through the icy chill of circumstance, thawed within me. The tears, usually unready, filled my eyes. I bent my head that the others might not see, but they fell faster and faster. And with every one that plashed on my hands, as they lay folded in my lap, I felt the unbinding from my life of one hard year after another, until the woman who rose to bring in the porridge, in order to cover her emotion, was one who rose free of all thwarting circumstance. I had come into my own—a woman's own.

But I failed to read the third sign.

XVII

Doctor Rugvie's visit! It was fruitful of much, little as I anticipated that.

I wrote regularly every month to Delia Beaseley telling her all that I knew would be of interest to her about my life at Lamoral, and assuring her that my lines had fallen in pleasant places. She wrote, at first, to tell me that my wish, in regard to keeping my identity from Doctor Rugvie for the present, would be respected; but in a later letter she urged me to make it known to him; to ascertain all the facts possible about my parentage. I replied that I preferred to wait.

And why did I prefer to wait? I asked myself this question and found no answer. When the answer came, it was unmistakable in its leadings.

"A letter from Doctor Rugvie; he is coming Monday!" I cried joyfully, flourishing the sheet in Jamie's face when he appeared at the door to ask for his mail.

I was sitting on the floor by the shelves in the living-room, for I was busy cataloguing the books in the general and mixed collection, and searching for allied subjects. This work Mr. Ewart assigned to me after I had finished the "forestry" cataloguing.

"Where 's mine?"

"You have n't any, nor Mr. Ewart—from the Doctor, I mean."

"You seem to be particularly elated over the fact."

"Jamie, my friend, feel—" I held up the envelope to him; he took it and fingered it investigatingly.

"What's this in it?"

"That is an object which in international currency exchange we call a draft—the equivalent of my wages, Jamie; in other words, payment for industrial efficiency; do you hear?"

"My, but you are a mercenary woman! One of the kind we read of in the States," he retorted.

"Wait till you get your first check for royalties from London, then use that word and tone to me again if you dare."

Mr. Ewart opened the door of the office.

"What's this I hear about the Doctor and mercenary tendencies—the two don't go together as I happen to know." He spoke from the threshold.

Jamie showed him the envelope, holding it high above my head.

"This, Ewart, is the compensation for sundry days of so-called labor on the part of Miss Farrell—drives, snow-shoeing, tobogganing with Cale not discounted, of course. Shall I read it, Marcia?"

"For all I care."

Mr. Ewart looked on smiling at our chaff.

"It's on the First National Bank of New York, Ewart, for the amount of fifty-two dollars and eighty-seven cents—how 's that about the cents, Marcia?"

"Because the Doctor insists on paying me every two months and seems to call thirty days a month—why every two, I don't know, do you?" I said laughing, and looking up, questioning, into Mr. Ewart's face. What I saw there, what I am sure Jamie saw, was not encouraging for more jesting on Jamie's part or mine. He turned away abruptly and sat down at his desk before he spoke:

"The Doctor wired me this afternoon that he would be here to-night instead of Monday, as he can get in an extra day. I can't say how sorry I am it has happened so, for I made arrangements to be in Quebec to-night and in Ottawa to-morrow night. I return Monday. Well, I must leave him in your hands—he won't lack entertainment. I wish, Jamie, it were possible for you to risk it and meet him with me this evening; but I suppose this night air is too keen—it's ten below now. I shall take the train he comes on and may not have time for a word of welcome."

"I suppose it would be risking too much." Jamie spoke with something that sounded like a sigh. "I don't want the Doctor to roar at me the first thing because I am indiscreet—not after what he and his advice and kindness have done for me already."

Mr. Ewart laid a hand on his shoulder.

"You 're another man, Macleod, since coming here. We won't make any back tracks into that wilderness, will we?" He spoke so gently, so affectionately, that Jamie turned suddenly to him, exclaiming impulsively:

"Gordon, if you were a woman I 'd kiss you for saying that."

I knew what courage it gave him to hear this from his friend; and I wondered what kind of a man this might be who, one moment, could look stern and unyielding at our half childish chaffing, and in the next be all affectionate solicitude for this younger man who, at times, was all boy.

"Then, Miss Farrell," he turned to me, "won't you come? Cale will drive me over in the double pung."

There was no hesitation in my giving an affirmative answer.

"We 'll have supper within an hour, please, Mrs. Macleod," he said, as she entered the room. He looked at the pile of books on the floor beside me.

"It's too late for you to work any more." He stooped and, gathering up an armful, began to place them. "Will you be so kind as to speak to Marie and tell her to have four soapstones thoroughly heated, and ask Cale to warm the robes? It will be twenty below before you get back."

"Just what I 've wanted to do all winter," I exclaimed; "a drive on such a clear, full-moon night to Richelieu-en-Haut will be something to remember."

"I hope to make it so; for it's a typical Canadian midwinter night—a thing of splendor if seen with seeing eyes."

"Then you won't expect me to talk much, will you?"

"No,"—he smiled genially, and Jamie audaciously winked at me behind his back,—"it's apt to make my teeth ache, and although yours are as sound as mine, I don't believe they can stand prolonged exposure to severe cold any better. But how about Cale? There is no ice embargo on his flow of speech."

Jamie burst into a laugh. "You 're right, Gordon, he 'll do all the talking for both, and for the Doctor too. By the way, mother," he said, turning to Mrs. Macleod and at the same time holding out a hand to help me up from the floor—an attention I ignored to save his strength—"something Cale said the other day, but casually, led me to think he may be a benedict instead of a bachelor; you have n't found out yet?"

"No, but sometime it will come right for me to ask him. He has consideration for women in just those little things that would lead me to believe that he has been married—"

"Oh, I say, mother, that's rough on Ewart and me. Give us a point or two on the 'little things', will you?"

"Stop teasing, Jamie; I still think, as I thought from the first, that he has been—"

"Perhaps more than once, mother! Perhaps he 's a widower, or even a grass widower—I 've heard of such in the States—or he might be a divorcé, or a Mormon, or a swami gone astray—"

"Havers!" she exclaimed, with a show of resentment which caused her son to rejoice, for it was only when thoroughly out of patience with him that she used the Scotch.

"You 're too absurd," I said with a warning look.

"Mother is for stiff back-boned unrelentingness in such things," he remarked soberly, after she and Mr. Ewart left the room; "and I 've put my foot into it too," he added dolefully. "Why, the deuce, did n't you stop me in time?"

"How did I know how far your nonsense would lead you?"

"Well, I don't care—much; I can't step round on eggs just because of what I 've heard—"

"If only you had n't said anything about 'grass widower'!"

"Don't rub it in so," he said pettishly, and by that same token I knew he was repentant because, without intention, he might have spoken in a way to hurt momentarily his friend.

"Beats all how dumb critters scent a change," said Cale, just after supper. He was loaded with the robes he had been warming. Pierre was waiting in the pung, having brought the horses around a little early. Little Pete with a soapstone was following Cale. "They begun to be uneasy 'bout two hours ago; I take it they heard Mr. Ewart say he was leavin' on the night express, and begun to get nerved up."

"So they did, Cale; they were in the office, all four of them, and heard every word. Look at them!"

Cale stopped on his way to the front door and looked up the stairway. Mr. Ewart was coming down, a dog on each side of him, and two behind fairly nosing his heels. They made no demonstration; were not apparently expectant; but, as Cale remarked 'they froze mighty close to him', sneaking down step by step beside and behind him, ears drooping, tails well curled between their legs—four despairing setters!

We watched them. Mr. Ewart paid no heed to them. They heeled along in the passageway almost on their bellies when he took his fur coat from the hook. He had another on his arm which he held open for me.

"I really am warmly enough dressed," I said.

"I don't doubt it—for now; but you 'll be grateful enough to me three hours later for insisting on your wearing it—in with you!" He moved a dog or two from under his feet, gently but forcibly with the tip of his boot; whereupon they literally crawled on the floor.

"If you don't mind, Cale,"—he spoke purposely in a low monotone, but with a look of amusement,—"if you don't mind having the dogs in with you under the robes on the front seat, I 'm willing to have them go, but I don't want them to run with the pung."

I noticed no movement on the part of the dogs except an intense quivering of the whole body. One who does not understand doghood might have fancied they were shivering at the prospect of the eighteen-mile drive in the cold.

"I ain't no objection," said Cale; "the fact is there ain't no better foot-warmer 'n a dog on a cold night, an' I was goin' ter ask if I could n't have the loan of one of 'em fer ter-night."

"Well, they can all go—"

The last word was drowned in a chaos of frantically joyous barks. They leaped on him, caressed him, stood up with their forepaws stemmed on the breast of his fur coat, licked his boots, his hands, and attempted his face—but of that he would have none.

"Be still now—and come on, comrades!" he said. The four made a mad but silent rush for the door. Cale gave them right of way; Pierre swore great French oaths wholly disproportionate to the occasion, for the outrush of the dogs caused the French coach horses to plunge only twice. At last we were in—the dogs in front with Cale, and Mr. Ewart and I on the back seat, so muffled in furs, fur robes, fur caps, coats and mittens, that we humans were scarce to be distinguished from our canine neighbors.

We no longer used the frozen creek for a crossing, but drove a mile up the road to the highroad bridge. The night was very cold. The moon had not yet risen. The stars shone with Arctic splendor. Cale drove us rapidly over the dry, hard-packed snow—to my amazement in silence. Through the woods, down the river road we sped, and on through Richelieu-en-Bas. The light in the cabaret by the steamboat landing shone dimly; the panes were thick with frost. Here and there a bright lamp gleamed from some window, but, as a whole, the village was dark. We drove on to the open country towards Richelieu-en-Haut six miles away, sometimes through a short stretch of deep woods where the horses shied at the misshapen stumps, snow-covered. Then out into the open again, the flat expanse of white seemingly unbroken. Here and there, far across the snow-fields, I caught a glimpse of a light from some farmhouse. Once we heard the baying of a hound, at which all four setters came suddenly to life from beneath the robes and barked vindictive response.

To the north the sky was dark and less star-strewn than above. Suddenly I was aware of a wondrous change: the stars paled; the north glowed with tremulous light, translucent yellow that deepened to gold—an arc of gold spanning twenty degrees on the horizon. The glory quivered; ran to and fro; fluctuated from east to west, unstable as liquid, ethereal as gas; paled gradually; then, in the twinkling of an eye, dissolved, and in its dissolution sent streamer after streamer, rose, saffron, pale crocus and white, rapidly zenithward, rising, sinking, undulating, till the heavens were filled with marvellous light. Cale reined in the horses for a moment.

"Guess this can't be beat by the biggest show on earth," he remarked appreciatively.

"Look to the right—the east, Miss Farrell," said Mr. Ewart.

I leaned forward to look past him. Over the white expanse, lightened in the rays of the northern aurora, the moon, nearly full, showed the half of its red-gold disk.

The glory faded from the heavens; the moon, rising rapidly, sent its beams over the fields; the horses saw their shadows long on the off side. Cale chirruped to them, and we sped onwards to the station.

I was happy! If Cale had called me by that name at this time I would have welcomed it. It applied to me. It was good to be alive; good to be out in such a world of natural glory; good to have, in the night and the silence, such companionship that understood my own silence of enjoyment.

I was happy at the prospect of the Doctor's coming. The thought of the future removal to the farm no longer filled me with misgivings. "I shall still be near the manor, it will not be banishment in any sense." So I comforted myself.

I turned to get a look over the ridge of fur at the man beside me. He had spoken but once, to ask if I were comfortable. I wondered if he were enjoying all this as much as I? He must have read my thought for he turned his face to me, saying:

"I am enjoying all this on my own behalf, and doubly because your enjoyment of it is so evident."

"How evident? You can't see that, and I have n't said a word."

"Perhaps for that very reason."

He leaned over and drew the robe farther about my exposed shoulder. I felt the strength of his arm as he pulled at the heavy pelt, the gentleness of his touch as he tucked it behind my back. So little of this thoughtfulness and care had been mine! Almost nothing of it in my life! No wonder that other women who are cared for, carried on loving hands, protected by the bulwark of a man's love, cannot understand what the simple adjustment of that robe around a chilled shoulder meant to me, Marcia Farrell!

He was always doing something in general for my comfort and pleasure, but never anything special. Even this drive I owed to Jamie's physical inability to accept his friend's invitation. But this fact did not quench my joy.

"Are you comfortable—feet warm?" he asked for the second time.

"As warm as toast."

What was it that I felt as I continued to sit silent by this man's side?—an alien, I had called him to the Doctor; fool that I was! I felt a peculiar sense of perfect physical rest I had never before experienced, a consciousness of happy companionship that needed no word to make itself understood. This sense of companionship, this rest of soul and body during the two hours I passed at this man's side—I enjoyed them to the full. The feelings and emotions of the woman who, only a few evenings before, had thrown off the yoke of burdening circumstance, who had broken, to her own physical benefit, with past associations and memories, found scope, in the protecting night and the silence, for perilous nights of imagination. Thoughts undreamed of hitherto, desires I had never supposed permissible in my narrow walk of life, proved their power over me at this hour. Hopes unbounded, if wholly unfounded,—for what had this man ever said to me since his home-coming that he had not said a dozen times to every member of his household?—imagined joys of another, a dual life—

"Yes," I said to myself, giving rein to pleasing fantasy, "a dual life in one—our lives, his and mine, one and inseparable; why not, Marcia Farrell? Why should n't I grasp with both hands outstretched at all life may have to give me? Why not hold it fast even if it have thorns?"

Imagination was carrying me out of myself. I called a halt to all this frenzy, as it at once appeared to me by the cold light of the moon, and brought myself down to earth and common sense with a jolt. I moved uneasily.

"Are you cold?" Mr. Ewart asked, evidently noticing the movement.

"No; but too much aurora, I 'm afraid."

"Did you feel that too? I thought I would n't mention it, but something affected me powerfully for the moment, and there has been an aftermath of sensation since. If this display is wholly electrical, it may easily be that some human machines are tuned like the wireless to catch certain vibrations at certain times."

I sat down hard, metaphorically, on eight feet of frozen earth upon hearing this explanation. "You little fool," I said to myself, but aloud:

"Whatever it was, it was effectual; I have never experienced anything like it."

"Never?"

"No; have you?"

The answer seemed long in coming.

"Yes, many years ago; and it was here in this northern country too. Sometime I would like to tell you about it.—Cale," he spoke quickly, abruptly, "I hear the train. Keep the horses in the open roadway behind the station, then if they bolt at the headlight you can have free rein and a clear road. They 've never seen that light. We 'll get out here," he said, throwing off the robes as Cale drew rein at the edge of the platform, "and you can welcome the Doctor for me if I miss him."

He whisked me out of the pung, giving me both hands as aid, and replaced the robes.

"Keep the horses head on, and don't let the dogs run," were his last words to Cale.

The Quebec express whistled at the curve an eighth of a mile distant from the junction; the sound fell strangely flat in the intense cold. Cale braced himself to handling the horses. I followed Mr. Ewart to the front of the platform.

The engine was thundering past us, and the train drawing to a stop of fifteen seconds.

"Take off your mitten," he said abruptly; I pulled it off with a jerk. He held out his ungloved hand, and I laid mine within it. The two palms, warm, throbbing with coursing life, met—

"Goodby till Monday—and thank you for coming. There he is!"

He had just time to see the Doctor appear on the platform at the other end of the car. Mr. Ewart called to him as he swung himself on to the already moving train:

"John, look out for Miss Farrell—"

The dazed Doctor failed to grasp the situation. Mr. Ewart waved his hand as he passed him; "Till Monday—Miss Farrell will explain."

"Miss Farrell, eh?" The Doctor turned to me who was at his side by means of an awkward skip and a jump, cumbered as I was with the long coat. "Br-r-rre! Is this the weather you give me as a greeting?"

"Why don't you say rather: 'Is this the weather you brave to meet me in?' Would n't that sound more to the point? Come on to the pung; the soapstones are fine."

"Ah—that sounds more like Canadian hospitality. Come on yourself, Marcia Farrell; where's the pung?"

"Behind the station, that is, if the horses have n't bolted with Cale and the four dogs. Here he is."

Four canine noses were visible above the robes; eight delicate nostrils were flaring after the departing train. At the sound of the Doctor's voice a concerted howl arose from among the robes on the front seat—a howl expressive of disappointment, of betrayal by their master: "He is gone, we are left behind."

"Shut up," said Cale shortly, with a significant movement of his foot beneath the robes.

"Oh, Cale!" I made protest, for at that moment I sympathized. I should have felt the same had I been a dog; as it was—

I looked after the swiftly receding train, a bright beaded trailing line of black in the white night. The Doctor was opening the robes.

"In with you, and then we can talk; there 's no wind to prevent."

As soon as he was seated beside me and the horses' heads turned homewards, he began to chat in his cheery way, he asking, I answering the many questions; he telling of Delia Beaseley and his delight to be in Canada again, I inquiring, until we found ourselves passing through Richelieu-en-Bas. And during all the time I was listening to his merry chat and chaffing, to his kindly expressed interest in all that pertained to my small doings at the manor, I was hearing the on-coming thunder of the engine and those last words: "Take off your mitten—Good-by till Monday—thank you for coming."

During that hour and a half of our homeward drive, I gave no heed to the perfect Canadian night, its silver radiance, its snow gleam and sparkle enhancing the violet shadows. I was seeing only that long-stretching waste of white beyond the junction, that bright beaded trailing line of black, narrowing and foreshortened as it receded swiftly into the night.

And where was the sense of physical rest? Why had this unrest I was experiencing taken its place? I was sitting beside as good a man, as fine a man, one more than that other's equal in achievement, as the world counts achievement. I was groping for a solution when the Doctor exclaimed: "There's the manor!"

The white walls and snow-covered roof stood out boldly against the black massed background of spruce, hemlock and pine. The yellow chintz curtains were drawn apart, showing us both the gleam of lamplight and the leaping firelight. At the windows in the living-room were Jamie and his mother; at those of the dining-room both Angélique and Marie were visible for a moment. The Pierres, father and son, were at the steps to lend a helping hand.

"We are at home again, Marcia," the Doctor spoke significantly. I responded, simulating joyousness:

"Yes, and does n't it give us a warm cheery welcome?"

But even as I replied, I was conscious that the old manor of Lamoral without its master would never be home for me.

I went up the steps answering gayly to Jamie's "Is he here?" But by the emptiness of heart, by the emptiness of the passageway, by the empty sound of the various greetings, joyous and hearty as they in truth were, I knew I needed no fourth sign to interpret myself to myself.

My woman's hour had struck—and with no uncertain sound.

XVIII

"And what next?" I asked myself after my head was on the pillow and while staring hour after hour at the opposite wall. Surely I had read enough of love! I had imagined what it might be like, even if I had never experienced it, even if I had thought little enough about it in connection with myself. I did not know it on what might be called the positive side, but I seemed to have some knowledge of it negatively. I knew it could be cruel, cruel as death; my own mother was a dead witness to that. I knew it could be brutal when passion alone means love; I was eye witness to this on Columbia Heights not so very long ago. I knew, or thought I knew, that it could be killed, or rather worn to a thread by the slow grinding of adverse circumstance. I recalled my own lack of affection after the years of sacrifice for the imbecile grandfather, my shiftless aunt.

And now, in the face of such knowledge, to have this revelation! This sudden absorption in another of my humankind; all my thought at once, without warning, transferred to that other wherever he might be; all interest in life centering with the force of gravity in that other's life; "at home" only in that other's presence; at rest only by his side—

"Now, look here, Marcia Farrell, don't you be Jane Eyrey," I said to myself in a low but stern voice. I sat up in bed and drew the extra comforter about my shoulders. "No nonsense at your age! You accept the fact that you love this man,—and you will have to whether you want to or not,—a man who has never spoken a word of love to you, who has treated you with the consideration, it is no more, no less than that, which he shows to every member of his household. Now, make the most of this fact, but without showing it. Don't make the youthful mistake, since you are no longer a girl, of fancying he is reciprocating what you feel, feeling your every feeling, thinking your every thought. And, above all, don't betray your self at this crisis of your life, to him or any member of his household—not to Delia Beaseley, not to Doctor Rugvie. Rest in his presence when you can. Rejoice to be near him—but inwardly, only, remember that!—when you shall find opportunity, but don't make one; discipline yourself in this, there will be need enough for it. 'Stick to your sure trot'; give full compensation in work for your wages—and enjoy what this new life may offer you from day to day. This new joy is your own; keep it to yourself. Now lie down for good and all, and go to sleep."

Thereupon I snugged down among the welcome warmth of the bed-clothes, saying to myself:

"I don't care 'what next'. I am so happy—happy—happy—"

But, even as I spoke that word softly—oh, so softly!—laying the palm of my right hand, that still felt the strong throbbing of his, under my cheek, I remembered that Cale had never once called me by the name he had proposed, "Happy"; that Jamie noticed the omission and remarked on it.

And what did Cale know? What could he know? There used to be a family of Marstins in our town before I was born. My aunt told me once that her sister married into the family; that, too, was before I was born. I never knew any one of the name, and I never cared to look at the old family headstones. The churchyard, because it held my mother, was hateful to me.

And I? I was too cowardly to ask Cale why he omitted to call me by his chosen name; for by that name my mother was known among her own, so I was told—that mother whom I never knew, whose memory I never loved, of whom I was ashamed because people said she had belied her womanhood.

But ever since Delia Beaseley opened my eyes to a portion of the truth concerning her, I had felt great pity for her. Now, at the thought of her, dying for love, for this very thing that had come to me like lightning out of the blue, dying without friends in that dull basement in V—— Court, my heartstrings contracted, literally, for I experienced a feeling of suffocation.

"Mother, oh, mother," I cried out under my breath, "was it for this, that I know to be love, you gave your all, even life itself? Oh, I have understood so little—so little; I have been so hard, mother. I did n't know—forgive me, mother—forgive, I never knew—"

It eased me to speak out these words, although I knew that in giving utterance to them my ears were the only ones the sound of my pleading could reach. Those ears, on which the word mother would have fallen so blessedly, would never hear, could never hear. Not so very far away, in northern New England, the snows lay white and deep, as white and deep as in Canada, on her neglected grave.

Something Delia Beaseley quoted from my mother in her hour of trial flashed again into consciousness: "The little life that is coming is worth all this." And my mother must have said it knowing all the joy, the bliss, the suffering, both of body and of soul, that this love must in due time bring to her daughter, because she was a woman-child.

What a Dolorous Way my mother must have trodden, must have been willing to tread for this!

There are minutes, rare in the longest lives, when life becomes so intensified that vision clears almost preternaturally, sees through telescopic lenses, so to speak. At such moments, the soul becomes so highly sensitized that it may photograph for future reference the birth or passing of Love's star.

XIX

"It's my innings now, while Ewart is away," said the Doctor; "Marcia, will you go skiing to-morrow with me and Cale?"

"Did n't I promise you I would wait till you came?"

"I know you did; but possession, you know, is nine tenths of the law, and Ewart has been having it all his own way here with you since I left. He did, however, give me a parting word to look out for you. I don't see that you need much looking after; a young lady perfectly able to look out for herself, eh, Mrs. Macleod?"

"Perhaps the circumstances warranted some sort of chaperonage, Doctor," said Mrs. Macleod, entering into his fun and frolic as into no one's else. "As Marcia sets it forth, she was alone, except for you, on the platform of the junction nine miles from home, with Cale braced in the pung on the highroad, ready for the horses to bolt."

"Yes," said the Doctor, musing, "the circumstances were slightly out of the ordinary.—A full bowl, if you please, Marcia."

We were sitting around the hearth in the livingroom on the following Sunday evening. Porridge had just been brought in and I was dispensing it. Mr. Ewart's insistence upon Cale's joining us at this hour every evening, and remaining with us when no guest was present—the Doctor we counted one of us—had for result that, many an evening, we listened delighted and interested to his stories of adventure in the new Northwest. He was, in truth, a man of the woods, a man also of their moods, and like them showing track and trail, leafy underbrush, primeval forest trees, and the darling flowers of the forest as well; but, also, like them, withholding from our eyes the secret springs of his life. We often wondered if ever he would disclose any one of them.

"A Yankee brother to old André," was Jamie's definition of him. He seldom spoke of matters personal to himself, so seldom that Jamie's great joke, perpetrated in his mother's presence and mine, was to the effect that "Ewart and Cale and Marcia are all enlisted in the reserves, mother; and only you, the Doctor, and I are able to fight in the open." The full significance of which good-natured raillery I understood, and answered him accordingly:

"All in good time, Jamie. There is so little to tell, it's worth while to keep you guessing."

I was serving Cale with his portion of porridge when he spoke, answering the question put by the Doctor to me. Cale had been gradually appropriating me since my coming, and I had no cause to resent his right of proprietorship.

"Guess 'twill take two ter hold her up the fust few times; but Marcia's nimble on her feet; she 'll outstrip us soon. She 's a mighty good one on snowshoes."

"Ewart taught you, did n't he?" said the Doctor, turning to me and holding out his bowl the second time. "Just a spoonful more, if you please. I take it this oatmeal came direct from Scotland, did n't it, Mrs. Macleod?" She nodded a pleased affirmative.

"Yes, and a fine teacher he is too," I responded heartily. I was determined the Doctor should not find me backward or awkward when his friend's name was mentioned. With the thought that to-morrow that friend would be with me—us—again, I found my spirits rising. It was hard to repress them. Perhaps the Doctor's keen eye noticed something in my manner, for he spoke with emphasis:

"Well, something has made you over; there 's no exercise like it in this northern climate."

"I guess 't ain't all snow-shoeing," said Cale sententiously.

"You 're right, Cale," I said.

"Account for it then, Cale; I 'd like to hear."

"We 'll give Doctor Rugvie the recipe for all the future farm-folks, won't we?" I nodded understandingly at Cale.

"So we will—so we will," he replied thoughtfully. "Out with it, Cale. What is it has changed Marcia so?"

"Wal, if you want to know I can give it ter you—a reg'lar tonic to be taken daily in big doses. It's old-fashioned, mebbe, but genuine," he said with so comical an emphasis and inflection that we laughed. "It can't be beat, you 'll see. Take equal parts of dry clean air, so bracin' thet sometimes a man feels as if he was walkin' on it, good food and plenty of it, good comp'ny. Shake 'em well together to get out the lumps, and mix well in—a good home. I take it thet's about it, Doctor?"

"Cale, you old Hippocrates," said the Doctor, delighted at Cale's gift of speech, for he had heard him discourse only on "hosses" when he was with us the first time, "you 'd be worth three thousand dollars a year to me as consulting hygienist. Do you want the job?"

"No." He spoke decidedly. "This job 's good enough fer me. I hope 't will be for life now."

"Ewart's colors again, eh, Jamie?" He turned to Jamie with a lift of his eyebrows.

"Winning all along the course, Doctor."

"How do you know all that, Cale?" The Doctor dropped his chaffing and looked over earnestly at Cale beside the chimney-piece.

"Know what?"

"The fact that those special ingredients must be mixed in a good home to prove so effectual as in Marcia's case?" He turned to examine me.

"How do I know it?" He spoke slowly, almost with hesitation, and beneath his bushy eyebrows I thought I saw a suspicious glitter in his small keen gray eyes, but it may have been imagination. "I have n't always been a lonely man, you know—"

"That's just what I don't know, Cale." The Doctor spoke with the encouragement of good fellowship, not as one willing or wanting to ask his confidence, but as one hoping in friendship to receive it. I am sure we all felt with the Doctor at this moment, for Cale's reticence had been a matter of concern to Jamie and Mrs. Macleod. But Jamie had respected his silence.

Cale set his emptied bowl on the tray and sat down again, making himself comfortable by crossing his legs. He heaved a sigh of satisfaction. Mrs. Macleod, Jamie and I read that sign; Cale was ready to expand a little more in the cheerful atmosphere of friends and fireside. We three knew that what he had to retail would be well worth hearing. Jamie settled himself in the sofa corner as usual. The Doctor insisted on carrying the tray to the kitchen.

"Ah, this is good," he said, seating himself by me and spreading his hands to the blaze. "We shan't be interrupted, and the rest of the evening is ours. It's a bitter night, too, which, by contrast, makes this comfort delectable."

We waited, expectant, for Cale.

"You 've been wonderin' now fer 'bout six months, Mis' Macleod, you an' Jamie, whether I was a married man or not, now, hain't you?" He smiled as he spoke, the creases about his eyes deepening slowly.

Mrs. Macleod, with an embarrassment we all enjoyed seeing, moved to a seat beside him; saying gently, if deprecatingly:

"Yes, I could n't help it, Cale."

"How could you, bein' a woman?" he replied as gently. "An' you too, Marcia?"

"Of course; don't I belong to the weaker sex? But here is Jamie, although a man—"

"Oh, I say, Marcia, that's not playing fair," Jamie growled at me as if indifferent; but I knew his curiosity was at the flood, and Cale knew it too. I feared he might tease without satisfying.

"Yes, I 'm married, Mis' Macleod, an' it seems as if I 'd always been married."

Jamie's recent remark about Cale's being a widower, grass-widower, divorcé, Mormon, etc., came back to me, and I could hardly keep from laughing aloud at Mrs. Macleod's look of dismay and amazement.

"I say I'm married, fer you see that once married is always married with me," he repeated emphatically.

The Doctor nodded approvingly. "No uncertain note about that, Cale."

"No sir—ee," Cale nodded understandingly at him in turn, much to Jamie's delight. "A marriage when it is a marriage—'fore God an' men, an' 'fore the altar of two lovin' hearts, is fer good—fer this world anyway, an' fer the next if there is one. 'T ain't often you can come acrosst 'em now-a-days. I guess some men, put it to 'em on a sudden, could n't say under oath whether they was married or single, seein' this divorce business mixes things up worse 'n a progressive euchre party. I 'm only speakin' fer myself, mind you, an' I don't set up fer judgin' others."

"Good for you, Cale! Those are my sentiments," said the Doctor laughing heartily at Cale's idea of the "progressive euchre party".

"It's what keeps me young," Cale continued earnestly; "fer jest the thought of the one woman I loved, an' love now with all the love thet 's in me, warms me jest as this blaze would thaw freezin' sap; it keeps me, as you might say, kinder thawed out with folks, an' a durned cussed tough world."

He paused a moment and, leaning forward, clasped his hands around his crossed knees. I had seen him do this only when he was bracing himself to say something of deep significance. He faced me squarely, with the same keen look that I detected on the first night of my arrival.

"I 've been wonderin', Marcia, if you did n't hail from somewheres near my place, Spencerville, in northern New England, jest over the line—though come ter think of it, you said you was born in New York, did n't you?"

Brought to bay by this question, put to me suddenly without warning, I brought all my self control to bear on my voice and answered:

"Yes, I was born there, but my home for two thirds of my life was in the vicinity of Spencerville."

"I thought so," said Cale almost indifferently. "You had a way with you like the folks round there—not that I know any of your generation," he added hastily. "I left there over a quarter of a century ago. Only, now and then, your ways take me back into another generation where my wife belonged," he said, as if explaining why he had taken the liberty to approach me with the direct question. I forced myself to put on a bold front and ask:

"Who was your wife, Cale? I may know of the family."

"I have my doubts about thet," he said with considerable emphasis. "Girls of your age ain't apt to know of folks thet lived, an' loved, an'—I was goin' to say 'lost', but she ain't never thet to me, 'fore they was born. My wife's name, Marcia, was Morey, Jemimy Morey—one of three—"

"Triplets? Yes marm," he said, in reply to Mrs. Macleod's look of surprise. "Job Morey, her father, was a poor man, poor, as we used ter say, as Job's turkey. He 'd had a hard time, no mistake. He 'd had five boys ter raise on a farm thet was half rocks. Then come the war an' the two oldest had ter go. The third an' fourth was drafted an' Job hired the money to pay bounty; but the cuss turned bounty jumper an' they had ter go. Thet was the year when there was a bleedin' heart an' a rag of crape in most every house in the village. Two on 'em come home ter die, an' the t' other two was never heard from; it most killed Aunt Sally. They 'd had poor luck with four boys, an', by George, after the youngest of them five was fifteen if Aunt Sally did n't have triplets—gals all on em!

"Mother said half the women in the village was there ter help. She said she was out in the woodshed cuttin' up some kindlin'—Job never was known ter be forehanded in anythin'—an' Job come out the kitchen end without seein' her. She heard him give a groan an' say, all to himself he s'posed, as plain as could be: 'O Lord, three more mouths ter fill, an' so little ter fill 'em with!' Then, turnin' an' seeing mother, he smiled as well as he could in the circumstances, an' tried ter put a good face on it by sayin':

"'Well, Aunt Marthy, I ain't got all the material goods thet Old Testament Job had, but I 've got one of his latter day blessings, three daughters, an' I guess, if Sally don't mind, I 'll name 'em after 'em.'

"Thet 'show they come by their names: Keziah, Jemimy, and Keren-happuch, which was the most outlandish name fer about the prettiest baby, mother said, thet ever she 'd set eyes on. They shortened it to 'Happy' mighty quick.

"Aunt Sally who 'd never been strong sence the girls was born, broke right down under her trouble, when she lost her last boy, and never rallied. She died when the girls was n't more 'n ten year old, an' after thet, those six little hands worked early an' late to keep the house for their father. An' they kept it well too.

"Many 's the time after chores was done, I 'd sly over to Job's to fetch wood an' carry water for the sake of gettin' a smile from my pet, thet was Jemimy—a fair-skinned, blue-eyed little thing thet looked as if a breath of wind would blow her over. I watched her grow up like one of them pink-and-white wind-flowers thet come so early in spring, an' I used ter pull whole basketfuls for her, jest ter see her flush up so pleased like, an' get a kiss for my pains.

"I was ten years older than her—old enough ter know what would happen when Jemimy was ten years older too. She growed right inter my life, an' I growed right inter hers, so 't was nat'ral enough when she was seventeen for us ter say we belonged to one another.

"Job never could get ahead, and the farm was mortgaged clear up to the handle. I had n't much neither, for I had mother ter support and worked out by the month, an' Jemimy said 't was no time ter think of gettin' married; we 'd better wait till we could get a little ahead. She said she 'd heard of a place in the mills down Mass'chusetts way, an' although I stood out against it, she had set her heart on goin' an' earnin' a little extra, an' I let her have her way. Keziah married jest 'bout thet time a poor shote of a feller, an' went out West with him on ter some gov'ment lands. Happy was ter keep the house.

"Jemimy promised faithfully ter write, an' so she did, though 't was hard work after mill hours, she said, for she was so tired; but she loved me too well to have me fret an' worry, so she wrote pretty reg'lar every two weeks.

"She 'd been away 'bout seven months an' Job was lookin' like a man with some backbone in him, for half of Jemimy's pay kept comin' reg'lar an' Happy made everything she come nigh like sunshine, when one evenin' Job come over an' asked me how long it had been sence I heard from Jemimy. 'Goin' on four weeks,' says I. 'She told me not to expect much this month she 's so busy.'

"'We ain't heard for six weeks,' says Job, 'an' t'other night I had a dream; 't war n't much of a dream neither—only I can't get rid of it, work it off nor sleep it off, neither. S'posin' you write.'

"You may be pretty sure I did, an', not gettin' an answer, I drove down ter the nearest station an' sent a telegram, an' thet not gettin' an answer neither, I jest put myself aboard the next train for Lowell. Fust time I 'd been on the cars too, but they could n't go fast enough for me.

"I went straight ter the mill she 'd been workin' in, an' asked fer the boss. Then I put the question thet had been hangin' round me like a nightmare for twenty-four hours back.

"'Can you tell me where ter find Jemimy Morey?'

"There was a cur'ous sort er smile went curlin' round the man's lips as he opened a great ledger, an' read an entry thet made me set down on a chair handy, feelin' weak as water:

"'Entered February 2.—Left July 19.'

"Thet was all, but 't was enough.

"'Where 's she gone ter?' says I.

"'We don't keep run of the hands after they 've left unless they go ter another mill, an' she ain't,' says he, clappin' to the ledger with a bang thet said plain as could be, 'Time 's up.'

"'I guess you 'll have ter let me see the women, fer it's a life an' death matter ter me', says I, fer his drivin' ways madded me, an' I was pretty green an' did n't know as much as I might have.

"The strength seemed ter come floodin' right in ter me when I 'd said thet, and I guess there must have been a kinder 'knock-yer-down' look in my eyes, fer the feller sort o' winced—there war n't but us two in the office—an' said:

"'It's against the rules an' 't won't do no good, but if you 'll feel any better you can this time.'

"You see I thought if I could see the women, I 'd ask 'em, an' p'raps they 'd know 'bout her. But, Lord! when I see thet great room stretchin' away ter nothin', an' them hundreds of girls and women a-workin', tendin' them looms as if their life depended on them wooden bolts shovin' back'ards an' for'ards like lightnin', I jest set down on the first bench I come ter sicker 'n death.

"A great wave of black an' a wave of green went through the room. My pulses kept time to the rick-rack of the flyin' shuttles, an' my head swum with the dizzyin' of the wheels an' the pumpin' of the shafts.

"'Good God,' I thought, 'is this the place she 's been breathin' out her sweet life in!'

"I tried ter think, but could n't, the floor jarred so with the rumble of the great machines; an' the air grew as thick with dust as a barn floor in threshin' time; an' right through it all, a scorchin' August sun burned in great quiverin' furrers; an' from outside where it slanted on the river rushin' through the mill-sluices, it sent a blindin' reflection whirlin' an' eddyin' along the glarin' white ceilin's till I felt like a drownin' man bein' sucked under...

"I got out somehow, fer I found myself on the street. I went ter every mill in the place—an' might have spared myself the trouble.

"Then I took the houses by rote, askin' at each one for Jemimy Morey. Up one street, down another, I went, the little red brick boxes lookin' as like as one honeycomb ter another; most of 'em was empty—all at the mills except the old women and babies; the fust could n't give me no kind of an answer, an' the second I stumbled over.

"It was gettin' towards six, an' I war n't no nearer findin' what I 'd come fer than when I started, when I heard a factory bell ringin' an' asked what it meant. They told me a quarter ter six an' shuttin' off steam. I started on a dead run fer the little footbridge thet led from the canal alongside, to the mill gates. There I took my stand jest as the six o'clock whistle blew and the great mill gates was hoisted, an' the women an' children come flockin' out an' over the bridge.

"I asked every squad of 'em—they could n't get by me without answerin' me fer 't was only a foot-bridge—if they knew a mill hand by name Jemimy Morey?

"For five minutes I got pretty much the same answer, then a little slip of a gal no higher'n my elbow says: 'What d' you want of her? You can't see her for she 's up at Granny's sick of the fever, an' nobody dass n't go near her.'

"There 's no use my tellin' you how I found her nor what we said—only 't war n't exactly what I 'd planned all through hayin' time when, noonin's, I 'd stretch out in the shadder of a hayrick an', buryin' my face in the coolin' grass, think how 't would seem to have her hand strokin' my forehead an' smoothin' all care away by her lovin' ways.

"Jest as soon as she was strong enough, I took her home; an' without much ceremony, she sittin' in the arm-chair an' I standin' by her side, we was made man an' wife.... Oh, we was happy! an' thet choice of our happiness, for we both knew it war n't for long. I 've sometimes thought we took out a mortgage on our future bliss we was so happy.... Six months from the day I took her home, the church bell tolled nineteen—an' might have tolled a thousand for all I heard."