At the Crossroads Part 38

"Stop that!" Northrup's face was livid. He wanted to throttle Rivers but he could not shake off the feeling of pity for the man he had so tragically in his grip.

There was a heavy pause. It seemed weighted with tangible things.

Hate; pity; distrust; helpless truth. They became alive and fluttering. Then truth alone was supreme.

"I told you, Rivers, that I knew you couldn't believe me--you cannot. Partly this is due to life, as we men know it; partly to your interpretation of it, but at least I owe it to you and myself to speak the truth and let truth take care of itself. By the code that is current in the world, I might claim all that you believe I am after, for I think your wife might learn to love me--I know I love her. If I set her free from you, permit her to see you as you are, in her shock and relief she might turn to me and I might take her and, G.o.d helping me, make a safe place for her; give her what her hungry soul craves, and still feel myself a good sort. That would be the common story--the thing that might once have happened. But, Rivers, you don't know me and you don't know--your wife. I've only caught the glimmer of her, but that has caused me to grow--humble.

She's got to be free, because that is justice, and you and I must give it to her. When you free her--it's up to me not to cage her!"

Northrup found expression difficult--it all sounded so utterly hopeless with that doubting, sneering face confronting him; and his late distrust of himself--menacing.

"Besides, your wife has her own ideals. That's hard for us men to understand. Ideals quite detached from us; from all that we might like to believe is good for us. I have my own life, Rivers. Frankly, I was tempted to turn my back on it and with courage set sail for a new port. I had contemplated that, but I'm going back to it and, by G.o.d's help, live it!"

And now Northrup's face twitched. He waited a moment and then went hopelessly on:

"What the future holds--who knows? Life is a thundering big thing, Rivers, if we play it square, and I'm going to play it square as it's given me to see it. You don't believe me?" Almost a wistfulness rang in the words. Larry leaned back and laughed a hollow, ugly laugh.

"Believe you?" he said. "h.e.l.l, no!"

"I thought you couldn't." Northrup got up.

Around the edges of the lowered shades, a gray, drear light gave warning of coming day. The effect of Larry's last drink was wearing off--he looked near the breaking point.

"Rivers, I'll make a pact with you. Set your wife free--in my way. If you do that, I'll leave the place; never see her again unless a higher power than yours or mine decrees otherwise in the years on ahead. Take your last chance, man, to do the only decent thing left you to do: start afresh somewhere else. Forget it all. I know this sounds devilish easy and I know it's devilish hard, but"--and here the iron was driven into Rivers's consciousness--"either you or I set Mary-Clare free before"--he hesitated; he wanted to give all that he humanly could--"before another forty-eight hours."

Larry felt the cold perspiration start on his forehead; his stomach grew sick.

Faint and fear-filled, he seemed to feel Maclin after him; Mary-Clare confronting him, smileless, terrifying. On the other hand he saw freedom; money; a place in which he could breathe, once more, with Maclin's hands off his throat and Mary-Clare's coldness forgotten.

"I'll go to her; I'll do your h.e.l.l-work, but give me another day." He gritted his teeth.

"Rivers, this is Tuesday. On Friday you must be gone, and remember this: I've got it in my power to set your wife free and imprison you and I'll not hesitate to do it if you try any tricks. I'd advise you to keep clear of Maclin and leave whiskey alone. You'll need all the power of concentration you can summon." Then Northrup turned to the table and gathered up the scattered papers.

"What----" Larry put out a trembling hand.

"I'll take charge of these," Northrup said. "I am going to give them to the Heathcotes. They'll keep them with the other papers belonging to your wife."

"Curse you!"

"Good morning, Rivers! I mean it, good morning! You won't believe this either, but it's so. For the sake of your wife and your little girl, I wish you well. When you send word to the inn that you are ready for the business deal I'll have the money for you."

Then Northrup opened the door and stepped out into the chill light of the coming day. He s.h.i.+vered and stumbled over a ma.s.s of rubbish. A clock struck in a quiet house.

"Five o'clock," counted Northrup, and plunging his hands in his pockets he made his way to Twombley's shack.

CHAPTER XV

Kathryn Morris had her plans completed, and if the truth were known she had never felt better pleased with herself--and she was not utterly depraved, either.

She was far more the primitive female than was Mary-Clare. She was simply claiming what she devoutly believed was her own; reclaiming it, rather, for she sagely concluded that on this runaway trip Northrup was in great danger and only the faith and love of a good woman could save him! Kathryn believed herself good and n.o.ble.

Mary-Clare had her Place in which she had been fed through many lonely, yearning years, but Kathryn had no such sanctuary. The dwelling-places of her fellow creatures were good enough for her and she never questioned the codes that governed them--though sometimes she evaded them!

After her talk with Helen Northrup, Kathryn did a deal of thinking, but she moved cautiously. She had never forgotten the address on Northrup's letter to his mother and she believed he was still there.

She again looked up road maps, located King's Forest, and made some clever calculations. She could go in the motor. The autumn was just the time for such a trip. It would be easy to satisfy her aunt, Kathryn very well knew. The mere statement that she was going to meet Northrup and return with him would account for everything and relieve the situation existing at present with Sandy Arnold in daily evidence.

"And if Brace is not playing in some messy puddle in his old Forest, I can get on his trail from there," she reasoned secretly.

But, for some uncanny cause, Kathryn was confident that Northrup _was_ at his first address. It was so like him to creep into a hole and be very dramatic and secretive. It was his temperament, Kathryn felt, and she steeled herself against him.

On the morning that Northrup staggered over the rubbish of Hunter's Point toward Twombley's, Kathryn took her place in her limousine--her nice little travelling bag at her feet--and viewed with complacency the back of her j.a.panese chauffeur who had absorbed and digested all her directions and would be, henceforth, a well-oiled, safe-running part of the machinery, without curiosity or opinions.

They stopped for luncheon at a comfortable road-house, rested for an hour, and then went on. It was mid-afternoon when the yellow house at the crossroads made its appeal to be questioned.

"I'll run in and ask the way," Kathryn explained, and slowly went up to the door that once opened so humorously to Northrup's touch. Again the door responded, and a bit startled, Kathryn found herself in the presence of a dull-faced girl seated by the table apparently doing nothing.

"I beg your pardon. Really, I did knock--the door just opened."

Kathryn was confused and stepped back.

In all her dun-coloured life Jan-an had never seen anything so wonderful as the girl on the doorstep. She was not at all sure but that she was one of Noreen's fiction creatures. There was a story that Northrup had told Noreen about Eve's Other Children, and for an instant Jan-an estimated the likelihood of the stranger being one--she wasn't altogether wrong, either!

"What you want?" she asked cautiously. Jan-an was, as she put it, "all skew-y," for the work of the evening before had brought her to a more confused state than usual.

The world was widening--she included Northrup now in her circle of protection and she wasn't sure what Eve's Other Children were capable of doing.

"I want to find out the way to the inn, Heathcote Inn." Kathryn smiled alluringly.

"Why don't you look at the sign?" There was witchery about that sign, certainly.

"I did not see the sign. Please excuse me." Then, "Do you happen to know if there is a Mr. Northrup at the inn?"

"He sleeps there!" Jan-an looked stupid but honest. "Days, he takes to the woods."

Jan-an meant, as soon as the unearthly visitor departed, to find Northrup and give the alarm. Kathryn thanked the girl sweetly and returned to her car. As she did so she saw the sign-board as Northrup had before her, and felt a bit foolish, but she also recalled that Northrup might be in the woods!

"You may go on to the inn," she said to her man, "and make arrangements.

I am going to remain over night and start back early to-morrow morning. Explain that I am walking and will be there shortly."

The quiet man at the door of the car touched his cap and took his place at the wheel.

This was to Kathryn a thrilling adventure. The silence and beauty were as novel as any experience she had ever known, and her pulses quickened. The solitude of the woods was not restful to her, but it stimulated every sense. The leaves were dropping from the trees; the sunlight slanted through the lacy boughs in exquisite design, and the sky was as blue as midsummer. There was a smell of wood smoke in the crisp air; the feel of the sweet leaves, underfoot, was delightful.

Kathryn "scruffed" along, unmindful of her high heels and thin silk stockings. She did not know that she _could_ be so excited.

She crossed the road and turned to the hill. An impish impulse swayed her. If she came upon Northrup! Well, how romantic and thrilling it would be! She fancied his surprise; his----Here she paused. Would it be joy or consternation that would betray Northrup?

Now, as it happened, Mary-Clare had given her morning up to the business of the Point and she was worn and super-sensitive. An underlying sense of hurry was upon her. When she had done all that she could do, she meant to go to her Place and lay her tired soul open to the influence that flooded the quiet sanctuary. All day this had sustained her. She would leave Noreen at the inn; send Jan-an back there, and would, after her hour in the cabin, seek Larry out and give him what he asked--the Point.

Through the hours at the inn she had feared Northrup's appearance, but when she learned that he had been away all night, she feared _for_ him. Her uneventful days seemed gone forever, and yet Mary-Clare knew that soon--oh, very soon--there would be to-morrows, just plain to-morrows running one into another.