The Man Thou Gavest Part 32

"Con," he said, laying his hand on the light head bending over the dog, "now that you have talked and laughed with Betty, what have you got to say?"

"Congratulations, Ken, with all my heart."

"And now, Betty"--there was a new tone in Kendall's voice--"Mollie has said you may walk back with me. The taxi would stifle us. There's a moon, dear, and a star or two--"

"As if that mattered!" Betty broke in. "I'm very, very happy. Brace, you've got a nice, sensible family. They agree with me in everything."

The weeks pa.s.sed rapidly. Betty's affairs absorbed them all, though she laughingly urged them to leave her alone.

"It's quite awful enough to feel yourself being carried along by a deluge," she jokingly said, "without hearing the cheers from the banks."

But Mollie Morrell flung herself heart and soul into the arranging of the wardrobe--playing big sister for the first and only time in her life. She was older than Betty, but the younger girl had always swayed the elder.

And Lynda became fascinated with the little bungalow across the river, known as The Refuge.

The original fancy touched her imagination and she put other work aside while she vied with Betty for expression.

"I've found an old man and woman, near by," Betty said one day, "they were afraid they would have to go to the poor-house, although both are able to do a little. I'm going to put them in my bungalow--the two little upstair rooms shall be theirs. When I run down to find myself it will be homey to see the two s.h.i.+ning, old faces there to greet me. They are not a bit cringing; I think they know how much they will mean to me.

They consider me rather immoral, I know, but that doesn't matter."

And then in early October Brace and Betty were married in the church across the river. Red and gold autumn leaves were falling where earlier the roses had clambered; it was a brisk, cool day full of sun and shade and the wedding was more to the old clergyman's taste. The organist was in his place, his music discriminately chosen, there were guests and flowers and discreet costumes.

"More as it should be," thought the serene pastor; but Lynda missed the kindly old woman who had drifted in on her wedding day, and the small, tearful girl who had wanted her mother.

CHAPTER XVII

There are s.p.a.ces in all lives that seem so surrounded by safety and established conditions that one cannot conceive of change. Those particular spots may know light and shade of pa.s.sing events but it seems that they cannot, of themselves, be affected. So Truedale and Lynda had considered their lives at that period. They were supremely happy, they were gloriously busy--and that meant that they both recognized limitations. They took each day as it came and let it go at the end with a half-conscious knowledge that it had been too short.

Then one late October afternoon Truedale tapped on the door of Lynda's workshop and to her cheery "come," entered, closed the door after him, and sat down. He was very white and sternly serious. Lynda looked at him questioningly but did not speak.

"I've seen Dr. McPherson," Conning said presently, "he sent for me. He's been away, you know."

"I had not known--but--" Then Lynda remembered!

"Lynda, did you know--of my uncle's--will before his death?"

"Why, yes, Con."

Something cold and death-like clutched Lynda's heart. It was as if an icy wave had swept warmth and safety before it, leaving her aghast and afraid.

"Yes, I knew."

"Will you tell me--I could not go into this with McPherson, somehow; he didn't see it my way, naturally--will you tell me what would have become of the--the fortune had I not married you?"

The deathly whiteness of Lynda's face did not stay Truedale's hard words; he was not thinking of her--even of himself; he was thinking of the irony of fate in the broad sense.

"The money would have--come to me." Then, as if to divert any further misunderstanding. "And when I refused it--it would have reverted to charities."

"I see. And you did this for me, Lyn! How little even you understood.

Now that I have the cursed money I do not know what to do with it--how to get rid of it. Still it was like you, Lynda, to sacrifice yourself in order that I might have what you thought was my due. You always did that, from girlhood. I might have known no other woman could have done what you have done, no such woman as you, Lyn, without a mighty motive; but you did not know me, really!"

And now, looking at Lynda, it was like looking at a dead face--a face from which warmth and light had been stricken.

"I--do not know what you--mean, Con," she said, vaguely.

"Being you, Lyn, you couldn't have taken the money, yourself, particularly if you had declined to marry me. A lesser woman would have done it without a qualm, feeling justified in outwitting so cruel a thing as the bequest; but not you! You saw no other way, so you--you with your high ideals and clear beliefs--you married the man I am--in order to--to give me--my own. Oh, Lyn, what a sacrifice!"

"Stop!" Lynda rose from her chair and, by a wide gesture, swept the marks of her trade far from her. In so doing she seemed to make s.p.a.ce to breathe and think.

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

"Sell yourself? Thank G.o.d, between us, Lynda, that does not enter in."

"It would have, were I the woman your words imply. I had nothing to gain by marrying you, nothing! Nothing--that is--but--but--what you are unable to see." And then, so suddenly that Truedale could not stop her, Lynda almost ran from the room.

For an hour Truedale sat in her empty shop and waited. He dared not seek her and he realized, at last, that she was not coming back to him. His frame of mind was so abject and personal that he could not get Lynda's point of view. He could not, as yet, see the insult he had offered, because he had set her so high and himself so low. He saw her only as the girl and woman who, her life through, had put herself aside and considered others. He saw himself in the light such a woman as he believed Lynda to be would regard him. He might have known, he bitterly acknowledged, that Lynda could not have overlooked in her pure woman soul the lapse of his earlier life. He remembered how, that night of his confession, she had begged to be alone--to think! Later, her silence--oh! he understood it now. It was her only safeguard. And that once, in the woods, when he had blindly believed in his great joy--how she had solemnly made the best of the experience that was too deep in both hearts to be resurrected. What a fool he had been to dream that so wrong a step as he had once taken could lead him to perfect peace.

Thinking these thoughts, how could he, as yet, comprehend the wrong he was doing Lynda? Why, he was grieving over her, almost breaking his heart in his desire to do something--anything--to free her from the results of her useless sacrifice.

At six o'clock Truedale went downstairs, but the house was empty. Lynda had gone, taking all sense of home with her. He did not wait to see what the dinner hour might bring about; he could not trust himself just then. Indeed--having blasted every familiar landmark--he was utterly and hopelessly lost. He couldn't imagine how he was ever to find his way back to Lynda, and yet they would have to meet--have to consider.

Lynda, after leaving her workshop, had only one desire--she wanted Betty more than she wanted anything else. She put on her hat and coat and started headlong for her brother's apartment farther uptown. She felt she must get there before Brace arrived and lay her trouble before the astoundingly clear, unfaltering mind and heart of the little woman who, so short a time ago, had come into their lives. But after a few blocks, Lynda's steps halted. If this were just her own trouble--but what trouble is just one's own?--she need not hesitate; but how could she reveal what was deepest and most unfailing in her soul to any living person--even to Betty of the unhesitating vision?

Presently Lynda retraced her steps. The calm autumn night soothed and protected her. She looked up at the stars and thought of the old words: "Why so hot, little man, why so hot?" Why, indeed? And then in the still dimness--for she had turned into the side streets--she let Truedale come into her thoughts to the exclusion, for the moment, of her own bitter wrong. She looked back at his strange, lonely boyhood with so little in it that could cause him to view justly his uncle's last deed. She remembered his pride and struggle--his reserve and almost abnormal sensitiveness. Then--the experience in the mountain! How terribly deep that had sunk into Truedale's life; how unable he had been to see in it any wrong but his own. Lynda had always honoured him for that. It had made it possible for her to trust him absolutely. She had respected his fine position and had never blurred it by showing him how she, as a woman, could see the erring on the woman's part. No, she had left Nella-Rose to him as his high-minded chivalry had preserved her--she had dared do all that because she felt so secure in the love and sincerity of the present.

"And now--what?"

The bitterness was past. The shock had left her a bit weak and helpless but she no longer thought of the human need of Betty. She went home and sat down before the fire in the library and waited for light. At ten o'clock she came to a conclusion. Truedale must decide this thing for himself! It was, after all, his great opportunity. She could not, with honour and self-respect, throw herself upon him and so complicate the misunderstanding. If her life with him since June had not convinced him of her simple love and faith--her words, now, could not. He must seek her--must realize everything. And in this decision Lynda left herself so stranded and desolate that she looked up with wet eyes and saw--William Truedale's empty chair! A great longing for her old friend rose in her breast--a longing that not even death had taken from her. The clock struck the half-hour and Lynda got up and with no faltering went toward the bedroom door behind which the old man had started forth on his journey to find peace.

And just as she went, with blinded eyes and aching heart, to shut herself away from the dreariness of the present, Truedale entered the house and, from the hall, watched her. He believed that she had heard him enter, he hoped she was going to turn toward him--but no! she went straight to the never-used room, shut the door, and--locked it!

Truedale stood rooted to the spot. What he had hoped--what trusted--he could hardly have told. But manlike he was the true conservative and with the turning of that key his traditions and established position crumbled around him.

Lynda and he were married and, unless they decided upon an open break, they must live their lives. But the turning of the key seemed to proclaim to the whole city a new dispensation. A declaration of independence that spurned--tradition.

For a moment Truedale was angry, unsettled, and outraged. He strode into the room with stern eyes; he walked half way to the closed--and locked--door; he gazed upon it as if it were a tangible foe which he might overcome and, by so doing, reestablish the old ideals. Then--and it was the saving grace--Truedale smiled grimly. "To be sure," he muttered. "Of course!" and turned to his room under the eaves.

But the following day had to be faced. There were several things that had to be dealt with besides the condition arising from the locking of the door of William Truedale's room.

Conning battled with this fact nearly all night, little realizing that Lynda was feeling her way to the same conclusion in the quiet room below.

"I'm not beaten, Uncle William," she whispered, kneeling beside the bed.

"If I could only see how to meet to-morrow I would be all right."

And then a queer sort of comfort came to her. The humour with which her old friend would have viewed the situation pervaded the room, bringing strength with it.