Fidelity Part 34

she hastily added. "You stay with him till he can get off. I've made all the arrangements with Mrs. Baxter for packing up--sending on the things.

It would be hard for him to do that, I know. And once away from here--new interests--life all new again--oh, no, Ted dear," she laughed a little chokingly, "don't worry about Stuart."

"I'm not worrying about Stuart," he muttered. "I'm worrying about you."

She squeezed his arm in affectionate grat.i.tude for the love in the growling words. "Don't _worry_ about me, Ted," she implored, "be glad with me! I'm alive again! It's so wonderful to be alive again. There's the future--a great, beautiful unknown. It _is_ wonderful, Ted," she said with insistence, as if she would banish his fears--and her own.

They had a few minutes to wait, and Ted ran over to the postoffice to get her mail for her--she was expecting a paper she wanted to read on the train. She tucked what he handed her into her bag and then when she heard the train coming she held on to Ted's arm, held it as if she could not bear letting it go. "It's all right," were her last words to him, smiling through tears.

She had been trying all along to hold her mind from the thought that they would pa.s.s through Freeport. Late the next afternoon, when she knew they were nearing it, she grew restless. It was then she remembered the paper in her bag--she had been in no mood for reading, too charged with her own feeling. She got it out now and found that with the paper was a letter. It was a letter from Deane Franklin.

She held it for a little while without opening it. It seemed so strange to have it just as she was nearing Freeport.

The letter was dated the week before. It read:

"_Dear Ruth:_

"I'm leaving Freeport tonight. I'm going to Europe--to volunteer my services as a doctor. Parker, whom I knew well at Hopkins, is right in the midst of it. He can work me in. And the need for doctors is going to go on for some time, I fancy; it won't end with the war.

"I'm happy in this decision, Ruth, and I know you'll be glad for me. It was your letter that got me--made me see myself and hate myself, made me know that I had to 'come out of it.' And then this idea came to me, and I wish I could tell you how different everything seemed as soon as I saw some reason for my existence. I'm ashamed of myself for not having seen it this way before. As if this were any time for a man who's had my training to sit around moping!

"Life is bigger than just ourselves. And isn't it curious how seeing that brings us back to ourselves?

"I'll enclose Parker's address. You can reach me in care of him. I want to hear from you.

"I can hardly wait to get there!

"DEANE."

She managed to read the letter through with eyes only a little dimmed.

But by the time she got to Parker's address she could not make it out.

"I knew it!" she kept saying to herself triumphantly.

Deane had been too big not to save himself. Absorbed in thoughts of him she did not notice the country through which they were pa.s.sing. She was startled by a jolt of the train, by the conductor saying, "Freeport!"

For several minutes the train waited there. She sat motionless through that time, Deane Franklin's letter clasped tight in her hand. Freeport!

It claimed her:--what had been, what was behind her; those dead who lived in her, her own past that lived in her. Freeport.... It laid strong hold on her. She was held there in what had been. And then a great thing happened. The train jolted again--moved. It was moving--moving on. _She_ was moving--moving on. And she knew then beyond the power of anyone's disapproval to break down that it was right she move on. She had a feeling of the whole flow of her life--and it was still moving--moving on. And because she felt she was moving on that sense of failure slipped from her. In secret she had been fighting that all along. Now she knew that love had not failed because love had transpired into life. What she had paid the great price for was not hers to the end. But what it had made of her was hers! Love could not fail if it left one richer than it had found one. Love had not failed--nothing had failed--and life was wonderful, limitless, a great adventure for which one must have great courage, glad faith. Let come what would come!--she was moving on.

THE END