At the Crossroads Part 43

"To yourself, son. Bad news and the sudden going away----" the old voice choked. It was hard to use an enemy's weapon against one's own, even to save him.

"Aunt Polly, look at me." This was spoken sternly.

"I _am_ looking, son, I am looking." And so she was.

"I'm going out, because I must, if I am to do my duty by others. You must trust me. And I want you to know that all my future life will be the stronger, the safer, because of my weeks here with you all! I came to you with no purpose--just a tired, half-sick man, but things were taken out of my hands. I've been used, and I don't know myself just yet for what. I'm going to have faith and you must have it--I'm with you, not against you. Will you kiss me, Aunt Polly?"

From his height Northrup bent to Polly's littleness, but she reached up to him with her frail tender arms and seemed to gather him into her denied motherhood. Without a word she kissed him and--let him go!

Northrup found Rivers in his shack. He looked as if he had been sitting where Northrup left him the night before. He was unkempt and haggard and there were broken bits of food on the untidy table, and stains of coffee.

"I'm going away, Rivers," Northrup explained, sitting opposite Larry.

"I couldn't wait to get word from you--my mother is ill. I must put this business through in a sloppy way. It may need a lot of legal patching after, but I'll take my chances. Heathcote has straightened out your wife's part--the Point is yours. I've made sure of that. Now I'm going to write out something that I think will hold--anyway, I want your signature to it and to a receipt for money I will give you.

What we both know will after all be the real deed, for if you don't keep your bargain, I'll come back."

Larry stared dully, insolently at Northrup but did not speak. He watched Northrup writing at the table where the food lay scattered.

Then, when the clumsy doc.u.ment was finished, Northrup pushed it toward Rivers.

"Sign there!" he said.

"I'll sign where I d.a.m.n please." Larry showed his teeth. "How much you going to give me for my woman?"

For a moment the sordid room seemed to be swirling in a flood of red and yellow. Northrup got on his feet.

"I don't want to kill you," he muttered, "but you deserve it."

"Ah, have it your own way," Larry cringed. The memory of the night before steadied him. He'd been drinking heavily and was stronger--and weaker, in consequence.

"How much is--is the price for the Point?" he mumbled.

Northrup mastered his rage and sat down. Feeling sure that Rivers would d.i.c.ker he said quietly:

"A thousand dollars."

"Double that!" Rivers's eyes gleamed. A thousand dollars would take him out of Maclin's reach, but all that he could get beyond would keep him there longer.

"Rivers, I expected this, so I'll name my final price. Fifteen hundred! Hurry up and sign that paper."

Larry signed it unsteadily but clearly.

"Have you seen your wife, Rivers?" Northrup pa.s.sed a cheque across the table.

"I'm going to see her to-morrow--I have up to Friday, you know."

"Yes, that's true. I must go to-morrow morning, but I'll make sure you keep to your bargain."

"And--you?" Rivers's lips curled.

"I have kept my bargain."

"And you'll get away without talking to my wife?"

Northrup's eyes grew dark.

"Yes. But, Rivers, if I find that you play loose in any way, by G.o.d, I'll settle with you if I have to scour the earth for you. Remember, she is to know everything--everything, and after that--you're to get out--quick."

"I'll get out all right."

"I hope, just because of your wife and child, Rivers, that you'll straighten up; that something will get a grip on you that will pull you up--not down further. No man has a right to put the burden of his right living or his going to h.e.l.l on a woman's conscience, but women like your wife often have to carry that load. You've got that in you which, put to good purpose, might----"

"Oh! cut it out." Rivers could bear no more. "I'm going to get out of your way--what more in h.e.l.l do you want?"

"Nothing." Northrup rose, white-lipped and stern. "Nothing. We are both of us, Rivers, paying a big price for a woman's freedom. It's only just--we ought not to want anything more."

With that Northrup left the shack and retraced his lonely way to the inn.

CHAPTER XVII

Northrup arose the next morning before daylight and tried to write a note to Mary-Clare. It was the most difficult thing he had ever undertaken. If he could speak, it would be different, but the written word is so rigid.

This last meeting had been so distraught, they had beaten about so in the dark, that his uncertainty as to what really was arrived at confused him.

Could he hope for her understanding if without another word he left her to draw her own conclusions from his future life?

She would be alone. She could confide in no one. She might, in the years ahead, ascribe his actions to the lowest motives, and he had, G.o.d knew, meant her no harm.

Then, as it was always to be in the time on ahead, Mary-Clare herself seemed to speak to him.

"It is what one does to love that matters." That was it--"What one does."

With this fixed in his mind Northrup wrote:

I want you to know that I love you. I believe you love me. We couldn't help this--but you have taught me how not to kill it.

There are big, compelling things in your life and mine that cannot be ignored--you showed me that, too. I do not know how I am to go on with my old life--but I am going to try to live it--as you will live yours.

There was a mad moment on the hill that last day we met--you saved it.

There is a greater thing than love--it is truth, and that is why I must bid you good-bye--in this way.

Crude and jagged as the thought was, Northrup, in rereading his words, did not now shrink from Mary-Clare's interpretation. She _would_ understand.

After an early breakfast, at which Kathryn did not appear--Aunt Polly had carried Kathryn's to her room--Northrup went out to see that everything was ready for the journey home. To his grim delight--it seemed almost a postponed sentence--he discovered the chauffeur under the car and in a state of _calm_ excitement. In broken but carefully selected English the man informed Northrup that he could repair what needed repair but must have two hours or more in which to do it.