further chronicles of avonlea which have to do with many personalities and events in and about avonlea, the home of the heroine of green gables, including tales of aunt cynthia, the materializing of cecil, david spencer's daughter, jane's baby, the failure of robert monroe, the return of hester, the little brown book of miss emily, sara's way, the son of thyra carewe, the education of betty, the selflessness of eunice carr, the dream-child, the conscience case of david bell, only a common fellow, and finally the story of tannis of the flats. all related by l. m. montgomery author of "anne of green gables," "anne of avonlea," "anne of the island," "chronicles of avonlea," "kilmeny of the orchard," etc. introduction it is no exaggeration to say that what longfellow did for acadia, miss montgomery has done for prince edward island. more than a million readers, young people as well as their parents and uncles and aunts, possess in the picture-galleries of their memories the exquisite landscapes of avonlea, limned with as poetic a pencil as longfellow wielded when he told the ever-moving story of grand pre. only genius of the first water has the ability to conjure up such a character as anne shirley, the heroine of miss montgomery's first novel, "anne of green gables," and to surround her with people so distinctive, so real, so true to psychology. anne is as lovable a child as lives in all fiction. natasha in count tolstoi's great novel, "war and peace," dances into our ken, with something of the same buoyancy and naturalness; but into what a commonplace young woman she develops! anne, whether as the gay little orphan in her conquest of the master and mistress of green gables, or as the maturing and self-forgetful maiden of avonlea, keeps up to concert-pitch in her charm and her winsomeness. there is nothing in her to disappoint hope or imagination. part of the power of miss montgomery--and the largest part--is due to her skill in compounding humor and pathos. the humor is honest and golden; it never wearies the reader; the pathos is never sentimentalized, never degenerates into bathos, is never morbid. this combination holds throughout all her works, longer or shorter, and is particularly manifest in the present collection of fifteen short stories, which, together with those in the first volume of the chronicles of avonlea, present a series of piquant and fascinating pictures of life in prince edward island. the humor is shown not only in the presentation of quaint and unique characters, but also in the words which fall from their mouths. aunt cynthia "always gave you the impression of a full-rigged ship coming gallantly on before a favorable wind;" no further description is needed--only one such personage could be found in avonlea. you would recognize her at sight. ismay meade's disposition is summed up when we are told that she is "good at having presentiments--after things happen." what cleverer embodiment of innate obstinacy than in isabella spencer--"a wisp of a woman who looked as if a breath would sway her but was so set in her ways that a tornado would hardly have caused her to swerve an inch from her chosen path;" or than in mrs. eben andrews (in "sara's way") who "looked like a woman whose opinions were always very decided and warranted to wear!" this gift of characterization in a few words is lavished also on material objects, as, for instance; what more is needed to describe the forlornness of the home from which anne was rescued than the statement that even the trees around it "looked like orphans"? the poetic touch, too, never fails in the right place and is never too frequently introduced in her descriptions. they throw a glamor over that northern land which otherwise you might imagine as rather cold and barren. what charming springs they must have there! one sees all the fruit-trees clad in bridal garments of pink and white; and what a translucent sky smiles down on the ponds and the reaches of bay and cove! "the eastern sky was a great arc of crystal, smitten through with auroral crimsonings." "she was as slim and lithe as a young white-stemmed birch-tree; her hair was like a soft dusky cloud, and her eyes were as blue as avonlea harbor in a fair twilight, when all the sky is a-bloom over it." sentiment with a humorous touch to it prevails in the first two stories of the present book. the one relates to the disappearance of a valuable white persian cat with a blue spot in its tail. "fatima" is like the apple of her eye to the rich old aunt who leaves her with two nieces, with a stern injunction not to let her out of the house. of course both sue and ismay detest cats; ismay hates them, sue loathes them; but aunt cynthia's favor is worth preserving. you become as much interested in fatima's fate as if she were your own pet, and the climax is no less unexpected than it is natural, especially when it is made also the last act of a pretty comedy of love. miss montgomery delights in depicting the romantic episodes hidden in the hearts of elderly spinsters as, for instance, in the case of charlotte holmes, whose maid nancy would have sent for the doctor and subjected her to a porous plaster while waiting for him, had she known that up stairs there was a note-book full of original poems. rather than bear the stigma of never having had a love-affair, this sentimental lady invents one to tell her mocking young friends. the dramatic and unexpected denouement is delightful fun. another note-book reveals a deeper romance in the case of miss emily; this is related by anne of green gables, who once or twice flashes across the scene, though for the most part her friends and neighbors at white sands or newbridge or grafton as well as at avonlea are the persons involved. in one story, the last, "tannis of the flats," the secret of elinor blair's spinsterhood is revealed in an episode which carries the reader from avonlea to saskatchewan and shows the unselfish devotion of a half-breed indian girl. the story is both poignant and dramatic. its one touch of humor is where jerome carey curses his fate in being compelled to live in that desolate land in "the picturesque language permissible in the far northwest." self-sacrifice, as the real basis of happiness, is a favorite theme in miss montgomery's fiction. it is raised to the nth power in the story entitled, "in her selfless mood," where an ugly, misshapen girl devotes her life and renounces marriage for the sake of looking after her weak and selfish half-brother. the same spirit is found in "only a common fellow," who is haloed with a certain splendor by renouncing the girl he was to marry in favor of his old rival, supposed to have been killed in france, but happily delivered from that tragic fate. miss montgomery loves to introduce a little child or a baby as a solvent of old feuds or domestic quarrels. in "the dream child," a foundling boy, drifting in through a storm in a dory, saves a heart-broken mother from insanity. in "jane's baby," a baby-cousin brings reconciliation between the two sisters, rosetta and carlotta, who had not spoken for twenty years because "the slack-twisted" jacob married the younger of the two. happiness generally lights up the end of her stories, however tragic they may set out to be. in "the son of his mother," thyra is a stern woman, as "immovable as a stone image." she had only one son, whom she worshipped; "she never wanted a daughter, but she pitied and despised all sonless women." she demanded absolute obedience from chester--not only obedience, but also utter affection, and she hated his dog because the boy loved him: "she could not share her love even with a dumb brute." when chester falls in love, she is relentless toward the beautiful young girl and forces chester to give her up. but a terrible sorrow brings the old woman and the young girl into sympathy, and unspeakable joy is born of the trial. happiness also comes to "the brother who failed." the monroes had all been successful in the eyes of the world except robert: one is a millionaire, another a college president, another a famous singer. robert overhears the old aunt, isabel, call him a total failure, but, at the family dinner, one after another stands up and tells how robert's quiet influence and unselfish aid had started them in their brilliant careers, and the old aunt, wiping the tears from her eyes, exclaims: "i guess there's a kind of failure that's the best success." in one story there is an element of the supernatural, when hester, the hard older sister, comes between margaret and her lover and, dying, makes her promise never to become hugh blair's wife, but she comes back and unites them. in this, margaret, just like the delightful anne, lives up to the dictum that "nothing matters in all god's universe except love." the story of the revival at avonlea has also a good moral. there is something in these continued chronicles of avonlea, like the delicate art which has made "cranford" a classic: the characters are so homely and homelike and yet tinged with beautiful romance! you feel that you are made familiar with a real town and its real inhabitants; you learn to love them and sympathize with them. further chronicles of avonlea is a book to read; and to know. nathan haskell dole. contents i. aunt cynthia's persian cat ii. the materializing of cecil iii. her father's daughter iv. jane's baby v. the dream-child vi. the brother who failed vii. the return of hester viii. the little brown book of miss emily ix. sara's way x. the son of his mother xi. the education of betty xii. in her selfless mood xiii. the conscience case of david bell xiv. only a common fellow xv. tannis of the flats further chronicles of avonlea i. aunt cynthia's persian cat max always blesses the animal when it is referred to; and i don't deny that things have worked together for good after all. but when i think of the anguish of mind which ismay and i underwent on account of that abominable cat, it is not a blessing that arises uppermost in my thoughts. i never was fond of cats, although i admit they are well enough in their place, and i can worry along comfortably with a nice, matronly old tabby who can take care of herself and be of some use in the world. as for ismay, she hates cats and always did. but aunt cynthia, who adored them, never could bring herself to understand that any one could possibly dislike them. she firmly believed that ismay and i really liked cats deep down in our hearts, but that, owing to some perverse twist in our moral natures, we would not own up to it, but willfully persisted in declaring we didn't. of all cats i loathed that white persian cat of aunt cynthia's. and, indeed, as we always suspected and finally proved, aunt herself looked upon the creature with more pride than affection. she would have taken ten times the comfort in a good, common puss that she did in that spoiled beauty. but a persian cat with a recorded pedigree and a market value of one hundred dollars tickled aunt cynthia's pride of possession to such an extent that she deluded herself into believing that the animal was really the apple of her eye. it had been presented to her when a kitten by a missionary nephew who had brought it all the way home from persia; and for the next three years aunt cynthia's household existed to wait on that cat, hand and foot. it was snow-white, with a bluish-gray spot on the tip of its tail; and it was blue-eyed and deaf and delicate. aunt cynthia was always worrying lest it should take cold and die. ismay and i used to wish that it would--we were so tired of hearing about it and its whims. but we did not say so to aunt cynthia. she would probably never have spoken to us again and there was no wisdom in offending aunt cynthia. when you have an unencumbered aunt, with a fat bank account, it is just as well to keep on good terms with her, if you can. besides, we really liked aunt cynthia very much--at times. aunt cynthia was one of those rather exasperating people who nag at and find fault with you until you think you are justified in hating them, and who then turn round and do something so really nice and kind for you that you feel as if you were compelled to love them dutifully instead. so we listened meekly when she discoursed on fatima--the cat's name was fatima--and, if it was wicked of us to wish for the latter's decease, we were well punished for it later on. one day, in november, aunt cynthia came sailing out to spencervale. she really came in a phaeton, drawn by a fat gray pony, but somehow aunt cynthia always gave you the impression of a full rigged ship coming gallantly on before a favorable wind. that was a jonah day for us all through. everything had gone wrong. ismay had spilled grease on her velvet coat, and the fit of the new blouse i was making was hopelessly askew, and the kitchen stove smoked and the bread was sour. moreover, huldah jane keyson, our tried and trusty old family nurse and cook and general "boss," had what she called the "realagy" in her shoulder; and, though huldah jane is as good an old creature as ever lived, when she has the "realagy" other people who are in the house want to get out of it and, if they can't, feel about as comfortable as st. lawrence on his gridiron. and on top of this came aunt cynthia's call and request. "dear me," said aunt cynthia, sniffing, "don't i smell smoke? you girls must manage your range very badly. mine never smokes. but it is no more than one might expect when two girls try to keep house without a man about the place." "we get along very well without a man about the place," i said loftily. max hadn't been in for four whole days and, though nobody wanted to see him particularly, i couldn't help wondering why. "men are nuisances." "i dare say you would like to pretend you think so," said aunt cynthia, aggravatingly. "but no woman ever does really think so, you know. i imagine that pretty anne shirley, who is visiting ella kimball, doesn't. i saw her and dr. irving out walking this afternoon, looking very well satisfied with themselves. if you dilly-dally much longer, sue, you will let max slip through your fingers yet." that was a tactful thing to say to me, who had refused max irving so often that i had lost count. i was furious, and so i smiled most sweetly on my maddening aunt. "dear aunt, how amusing of you," i said, smoothly. "you talk as if i wanted max." "so you do," said aunt cynthia. "if so, why should i have refused him time and again?" i asked, smilingly. right well aunt cynthia knew i had. max always told her. "goodness alone knows why," said aunt cynthia, "but you may do it once too often and find yourself taken at your word. there is something very fascinating about this anne shirley." "indeed there is," i assented. "she has the loveliest eyes i ever saw. she would be just the wife for max, and i hope he will marry her." "humph," said aunt cynthia. "well, i won't entice you into telling any more fibs. and i didn't drive out here to-day in all this wind to talk sense into you concerning max. i'm going to halifax for two months and i want you to take charge of fatima for me, while i am away." "fatima!" i exclaimed. "yes. i don't dare to trust her with the servants. mind you always warm her milk before you give it to her, and don't on any account let her run out of doors." i looked at ismay and ismay looked at me. we knew we were in for it. to refuse would mortally offend aunt cynthia. besides, if i betrayed any unwillingness, aunt cynthia would be sure to put it down to grumpiness over what she had said about max, and rub it in for years. but i ventured to ask, "what if anything happens to her while you are away?" "it is to prevent that, i'm leaving her with you," said aunt cynthia. "you simply must not let anything happen to her. it will do you good to have a little responsibility. and you will have a chance to find out what an adorable creature fatima really is. well, that is all settled. i'll send fatima out to-morrow." "you can take care of that horrid fatima beast yourself," said ismay, when the door closed behind aunt cynthia. "i won't touch her with a yard-stick. you had no business to say we'd take her." "did i say we would take her?" i demanded, crossly. "aunt cynthia took our consent for granted. and you know, as well as i do, we couldn't have refused. so what is the use of being grouchy?" "if anything happens to her aunt cynthia will hold us responsible," said ismay darkly. "do you think anne shirley is really engaged to gilbert blythe?" i asked curiously. "i've heard that she was," said ismay, absently. "does she eat anything but milk? will it do to give her mice?" "oh, i guess so. but do you think max has really fallen in love with her?" "i dare say. what a relief it will be for you if he has." "oh, of course," i said, frostily. "anne shirley or anne anybody else, is perfectly welcome to max if she wants him. _i_ certainly do not. ismay meade, if that stove doesn't stop smoking i shall fly into bits. this is a detestable day. i hate that creature!" "oh, you shouldn't talk like that, when you don't even know her," protested ismay. "every one says anne shirley is lovely--" "i was talking about fatima," i cried in a rage. "oh!" said ismay. ismay is stupid at times. i thought the way she said "oh" was inexcusably stupid. fatima arrived the next day. max brought her out in a covered basket, lined with padded crimson satin. max likes cats and aunt cynthia. he explained how we were to treat fatima and when ismay had gone out of the room--ismay always went out of the room when she knew i particularly wanted her to remain--he proposed to me again. of course i said no, as usual, but i was rather pleased. max had been proposing to me about every two months for two years. sometimes, as in this case, he went three months, and then i always wondered why. i concluded that he could not be really interested in anne shirley, and i was relieved. i didn't want to marry max but it was pleasant and convenient to have him around, and we would miss him dreadfully if any other girl snapped him up. he was so useful and always willing to do anything for us--nail a shingle on the roof, drive us to town, put down carpets--in short, a very present help in all our troubles. so i just beamed on him when i said no. max began counting on his fingers. when he got as far as eight he shook his head and began over again. "what is it?" i asked. "i'm trying to count up how many times i have proposed to you," he said. "but i can't remember whether i asked you to marry me that day we dug up the garden or not. if i did it makes--" "no, you didn't," i interrupted. "well, that makes it eleven," said max reflectively. "pretty near the limit, isn't it? my manly pride will not allow me to propose to the same girl more than twelve times. so the next time will be the last, sue darling." "oh," i said, a trifle flatly. i forgot to resent his calling me darling. i wondered if things wouldn't be rather dull when max gave up proposing to me. it was the only excitement i had. but of course it would be best--and he couldn't go on at it forever, so, by the way of gracefully dismissing the subject, i asked him what miss shirley was like. "very sweet girl," said max. "you know i always admired those gray-eyed girls with that splendid titian hair." i am dark, with brown eyes. just then i detested max. i got up and said i was going to get some milk for fatima. i found ismay in a rage in the kitchen. she had been up in the garret, and a mouse had run across her foot. mice always get on ismay's nerves. "we need a cat badly enough," she fumed, "but not a useless, pampered thing, like fatima. that garret is literally swarming with mice. you'll not catch me going up there again." fatima did not prove such a nuisance as we had feared. huldah jane liked her, and ismay, in spite of her declaration that she would have nothing to do with her, looked after her comfort scrupulously. she even used to get up in the middle of the night and go out to see if fatima was warm. max came in every day and, being around, gave us good advice. then one day, about three weeks after aunt cynthia's departure, fatima disappeared--just simply disappeared as if she had been dissolved into thin air. we left her one afternoon, curled up asleep in her basket by the fire, under huldah jane's eye, while we went out to make a call. when we came home fatima was gone. huldah jane wept and was as one whom the gods had made mad. she vowed that she had never let fatima out of her sight the whole time, save once for three minutes when she ran up to the garret for some summer savory. when she came back the kitchen door had blown open and fatima had vanished. ismay and i were frantic. we ran about the garden and through the out-houses, and the woods behind the house, like wild creatures, calling fatima, but in vain. then ismay sat down on the front doorsteps and cried. "she has got out and she'll catch her death of cold and aunt cynthia will never forgive us." "i'm going for max," i declared. so i did, through the spruce woods and over the field as fast as my feet could carry me, thanking my stars that there was a max to go to in such a predicament. max came over and we had another search, but without result. days passed, but we did not find fatima. i would certainly have gone crazy had it not been for max. he was worth his weight in gold during the awful week that followed. we did not dare advertise, lest aunt cynthia should see it; but we inquired far and wide for a white persian cat with a blue spot on its tail, and offered a reward for it; but nobody had seen it, although people kept coming to the house, night and day, with every kind of a cat in baskets, wanting to know if it was the one we had lost. "we shall never see fatima again," i said hopelessly to max and ismay one afternoon. i had just turned away an old woman with a big, yellow tommy which she insisted must be ours--"cause it kem to our place, mem, a-yowling fearful, mem, and it don't belong to nobody not down grafton way, mem." "i'm afraid you won't," said max. "she must have perished from exposure long ere this." "aunt cynthia will never forgive us," said ismay, dismally. "i had a presentiment of trouble the moment that cat came to this house." we had never heard of this presentiment before, but ismay is good at having presentiments--after things happen. "what shall we do?" i demanded, helplessly. "max, can't you find some way out of this scrape for us?" "advertise in the charlottetown papers for a white persian cat," suggested max. "some one may have one for sale. if so, you must buy it, and palm it off on your good aunt as fatima. she's very short-sighted, so it will be quite possible." "but fatima has a blue spot on her tail," i said. "you must advertise for a cat with a blue spot on its tail," said max. "it will cost a pretty penny," said ismay dolefully. "fatima was valued at one hundred dollars." "we must take the money we have been saving for our new furs," i said sorrowfully. "there is no other way out of it. it will cost us a good deal more if we lose aunt cynthia's favor. she is quite capable of believing that we have made away with fatima deliberately and with malice aforethought." so we advertised. max went to town and had the notice inserted in the most important daily. we asked any one who had a white persian cat, with a blue spot on the tip of its tail, to dispose of, to communicate with m. i., care of the _enterprise_. we really did not have much hope that anything would come of it, so we were surprised and delighted over the letter max brought home from town four days later. it was a type-written screed from halifax stating that the writer had for sale a white persian cat answering to our description. the price was a hundred and ten dollars, and, if m. i. cared to go to halifax and inspect the animal, it would be found at 110 hollis street, by inquiring for "persian." "temper your joy, my friends," said ismay, gloomily. "the cat may not suit. the blue spot may be too big or too small or not in the right place. i consistently refuse to believe that any good thing can come out of this deplorable affair." just at this moment there was a knock at the door and i hurried out. the postmaster's boy was there with a telegram. i tore it open, glanced at it, and dashed back into the room. "what is it now?" cried ismay, beholding my face. i held out the telegram. it was from aunt cynthia. she had wired us to send fatima to halifax by express immediately. for the first time max did not seem ready to rush into the breach with a suggestion. it was i who spoke first. "max," i said, imploringly, "you'll see us through this, won't you? neither ismay nor i can rush off to halifax at once. you must go to-morrow morning. go right to 110 hollis street and ask for 'persian.' if the cat looks enough like fatima, buy it and take it to aunt cynthia. if it doesn't--but it must! you'll go, won't you?" "that depends," said max. i stared at him. this was so unlike max. "you are sending me on a nasty errand," he said, coolly. "how do i know that aunt cynthia will be deceived after all, even if she be short-sighted. buying a cat in a joke is a huge risk. and if she should see through the scheme i shall be in a pretty mess." "oh, max," i said, on the verge of tears. "of course," said max, looking meditatively into the fire, "if i were really one of the family, or had any reasonable prospect of being so, i would not mind so much. it would be all in the day's work then. but as it is--" ismay got up and went out of the room. "oh, max, please," i said. "will you marry me, sue?" demanded max sternly. "if you will agree, i'll go to halifax and beard the lion in his den unflinchingly. if necessary, i will take a black street cat to aunt cynthia, and swear that it is fatima. i'll get you out of the scrape, if i have to prove that you never had fatima, that she is safe in your possession at the present time, and that there never was such an animal as fatima anyhow. i'll do anything, say anything--but it must be for my future wife." "will nothing else content you?" i said helplessly. "nothing." i thought hard. of course max was acting abominably--but--but--he was really a dear fellow--and this was the twelfth time--and there was anne shirley! i knew in my secret soul that life would be a dreadfully dismal thing if max were not around somewhere. besides, i would have married him long ago had not aunt cynthia thrown us so pointedly at each other's heads ever since he came to spencervale. "very well," i said crossly. max left for halifax in the morning. next day we got a wire saying it was all right. the evening of the following day he was back in spencervale. ismay and i put him in a chair and glared at him impatiently. max began to laugh and laughed until he turned blue. "i am glad it is so amusing," said ismay severely. "if sue and i could see the joke it might be more so." "dear little girls, have patience with me," implored max. "if you knew what it cost me to keep a straight face in halifax you would forgive me for breaking out now." "we forgive you--but for pity's sake tell us all about it," i cried. "well, as soon as i arrived in halifax i hurried to 110 hollis street, but--see here! didn't you tell me your aunt's address was 10 pleasant street?" "so it is." "'t isn't. you look at the address on a telegram next time you get one. she went a week ago to visit another friend who lives at 110 hollis." "max!" "it's a fact. i rang the bell, and was just going to ask the maid for 'persian' when your aunt cynthia herself came through the hall and pounced on me." "'max,' she said, 'have you brought fatima?' "'no,' i answered, trying to adjust my wits to this new development as she towed me into the library. 'no, i--i--just came to halifax on a little matter of business.' "'dear me,' said aunt cynthia, crossly, 'i don't know what those girls mean. i wired them to send fatima at once. and she has not come yet and i am expecting a call every minute from some one who wants to buy her.' "'oh!' i murmured, mining deeper every minute. "'yes,' went on your aunt, 'there is an advertisement in the charlottetown _enterprise_ for a persian cat, and i answered it. fatima is really quite a charge, you know--and so apt to die and be a dead loss,'--did your aunt mean a pun, girls?--'and so, although i am considerably attached to her, i have decided to part with her.' "by this time i had got my second wind, and i promptly decided that a judicious mixture of the truth was the thing required. "'well, of all the curious coincidences,' i exclaimed. 'why, miss ridley, it was i who advertised for a persian cat--on sue's behalf. she and ismay have decided that they want a cat like fatima for themselves.' "you should have seen how she beamed. she said she knew you always really liked cats, only you would never own up to it. we clinched the dicker then and there. i passed her over your hundred and ten dollars--she took the money without turning a hair--and now you are the joint owners of fatima. good luck to your bargain!" "mean old thing," sniffed ismay. she meant aunt cynthia, and, remembering our shabby furs, i didn't disagree with her. "but there is no fatima," i said, dubiously. "how shall we account for her when aunt cynthia comes home?" "well, your aunt isn't coming home for a month yet. when she comes you will have to tell her that the cat--is lost--but you needn't say when it happened. as for the rest, fatima is your property now, so aunt cynthia can't grumble. but she will have a poorer opinion than ever of your fitness to run a house alone." when max left i went to the window to watch him down the path. he was really a handsome fellow, and i was proud of him. at the gate he turned to wave me good-by, and, as he did, he glanced upward. even at that distance i saw the look of amazement on his face. then he came bolting back. "ismay, the house is on fire!" i shrieked, as i flew to the door. "sue," cried max, "i saw fatima, or her ghost, at the garret window a moment ago!" "nonsense!" i cried. but ismay was already half way up the stairs and we followed. straight to the garret we rushed. there sat fatima, sleek and complacent, sunning herself in the window. max laughed until the rafters rang. "she can't have been up here all this time," i protested, half tearfully. "we would have heard her meowing." "but you didn't," said max. "she would have died of the cold," declared ismay. "but she hasn't," said max. "or starved," i cried. "the place is alive with mice," said max. "no, girls, there is no doubt the cat has been here the whole fortnight. she must have followed huldah jane up here, unobserved, that day. it's a wonder you didn't hear her crying--if she did cry. but perhaps she didn't, and, of course, you sleep downstairs. to think you never thought of looking here for her!" "it has cost us over a hundred dollars," said ismay, with a malevolent glance at the sleek fatima. "it has cost me more than that," i said, as i turned to the stairway. max held me back for an instant, while ismay and fatima pattered down. "do you think it has cost too much, sue?" he whispered. i looked at him sideways. he was really a dear. niceness fairly exhaled from him. "no-o-o," i said, "but when we are married you will have to take care of fatima, _i_ won't." "dear fatima," said max gratefully. ii. the materializing of cecil it had never worried me in the least that i wasn't married, although everybody in avonlea pitied old maids; but it did worry me, and i frankly confess it, that i had never had a chance to be. even nancy, my old nurse and servant, knew that, and pitied me for it. nancy is an old maid herself, but she has had two proposals. she did not accept either of them because one was a widower with seven children, and the other a very shiftless, good-for-nothing fellow; but, if anybody twitted nancy on her single condition, she could point triumphantly to those two as evidence that "she could an she would." if i had not lived all my life in avonlea i might have had the benefit of the doubt; but i had, and everybody knew everything about me--or thought they did. i had really often wondered why nobody had ever fallen in love with me. i was not at all homely; indeed, years ago, george adoniram maybrick had written a poem addressed to me, in which he praised my beauty quite extravagantly; that didn't mean anything because george adoniram wrote poetry to all the good-looking girls and never went with anybody but flora king, who was cross-eyed and red-haired, but it proves that it was not my appearance that put me out of the running. neither was it the fact that i wrote poetry myself--although not of george adoniram's kind--because nobody ever knew that. when i felt it coming on i shut myself up in my room and wrote it out in a little blank book i kept locked up. it is nearly full now, because i have been writing poetry all my life. it is the only thing i have ever been able to keep a secret from nancy. nancy, in any case, has not a very high opinion of my ability to take care of myself; but i tremble to imagine what she would think if she ever found out about that little book. i am convinced she would send for the doctor post-haste and insist on mustard plasters while waiting for him. nevertheless, i kept on at it, and what with my flowers and my cats and my magazines and my little book, i was really very happy and contented. but it did sting that adella gilbert, across the road, who has a drunken husband, should pity "poor charlotte" because nobody had ever wanted her. poor charlotte indeed! if i had thrown myself at a man's head the way adella gilbert did at--but there, there, i must refrain from such thoughts. i must not be uncharitable. the sewing circle met at mary gillespie's on my fortieth birthday. i have given up talking about my birthdays, although that little scheme is not much good in avonlea where everybody knows your age--or if they make a mistake it is never on the side of youth. but nancy, who grew accustomed to celebrating my birthdays when i was a little girl, never gets over the habit, and i don't try to cure her, because, after all, it's nice to have some one make a fuss over you. she brought me up my breakfast before i got up out of bed--a concession to my laziness that nancy would scorn to make on any other day of the year. she had cooked everything i like best, and had decorated the tray with roses from the garden and ferns from the woods behind the house. i enjoyed every bit of that breakfast, and then i got up and dressed, putting on my second best muslin gown. i would have put on my really best if i had not had the fear of nancy before my eyes; but i knew she would never condone that, even on a birthday. i watered my flowers and fed my cats, and then i locked myself up and wrote a poem on june. i had given up writing birthday odes after i was thirty. in the afternoon i went to the sewing circle. when i was ready for it i looked in my glass and wondered if i could really be forty. i was quite sure i didn't look it. my hair was brown and wavy, my cheeks were pink, and the lines could hardly be seen at all, though possibly that was because of the dim light. i always have my mirror hung in the darkest corner of my room. nancy cannot imagine why. i know the lines are there, of course; but when they don't show very plain i forget that they are there. we had a large sewing circle, young and old alike attending. i really cannot say i ever enjoyed the meetings--at least not up to that time--although i went religiously because i thought it my duty to go. the married women talked so much of their husbands and children, and of course i had to be quiet on those topics; and the young girls talked in corner groups about their beaux, and stopped it when i joined them, as if they felt sure that an old maid who had never had a beau couldn't understand at all. as for the other old maids, they talked gossip about every one, and i did not like that either. i knew the minute my back was turned they would fasten into me and hint that i used hair-dye and declare it was perfectly ridiculous for a woman of fifty to wear a pink muslin dress with lace-trimmed frills. there was a full attendance that day, for we were getting ready for a sale of fancy work in aid of parsonage repairs. the young girls were merrier and noisier than usual. wilhelmina mercer was there, and she kept them going. the mercers were quite new to avonlea, having come here only two months previously. i was sitting by the window and wilhelmina mercer, maggie henderson, susette cross and georgie hall were in a little group just before me. i wasn't listening to their chatter at all, but presently georgie exclaimed teasingly: "miss charlotte is laughing at us. i suppose she thinks we are awfully silly to be talking about beaux." the truth was that i was simply smiling over some very pretty thoughts that had come to me about the roses which were climbing over mary gillespie's sill. i meant to inscribe them in the little blank book when i went home. georgie's speech brought me back to harsh realities with a jolt. it hurt me, as such speeches always did. "didn't you ever have a beau, miss holmes?" said wilhelmina laughingly. just as it happened, a silence had fallen over the room for a moment, and everybody in it heard wilhelmina's question. i really do not know what got into me and possessed me. i have never been able to account for what i said and did, because i am naturally a truthful person and hate all deceit. it seemed to me that i simply could not say "no" to wilhelmina before that whole roomful of women. it was too humiliating. i suppose all the prickles and stings and slurs i had endured for fifteen years on account of never having had a lover had what the new doctor calls "a cumulative effect" and came to a head then and there. "yes, i had one once, my dear," i said calmly. for once in my life i made a sensation. every woman in that room stopped sewing and stared at me. most of them, i saw, didn't believe me, but wilhelmina did. her pretty face lighted up with interest. "oh, won't you tell us about him, miss holmes?" she coaxed, "and why didn't you marry him?" "that is right, miss mercer," said josephine cameron, with a nasty little laugh. "make her tell. we're all interested. it's news to us that charlotte ever had a beau." if josephine had not said that, i might not have gone on. but she did say it, and, moreover, i caught mary gillespie and adella gilbert exchanging significant smiles. that settled it, and made me quite reckless. "in for a penny, in for a pound," thought i, and i said with a pensive smile: "nobody here knew anything about him, and it was all long, long ago." "what was his name?" asked wilhelmina. "cecil fenwick," i answered promptly. cecil had always been my favorite name for a man; it figured quite frequently in the blank book. as for the fenwick part of it, i had a bit of newspaper in my hand, measuring a hem, with "try fenwick's porous plasters" printed across it, and i simply joined the two in sudden and irrevocable matrimony. "where did you meet him?" asked georgie. i hastily reviewed my past. there was only one place to locate cecil fenwick. the only time i had ever been far enough away from avonlea in my life was when i was eighteen and had gone to visit an aunt in new brunswick. "in blakely, new brunswick," i said, almost believing that i had when i saw how they all took it in unsuspectingly. "i was just eighteen and he was twenty-three." "what did he look like?" susette wanted to know. "oh, he was very handsome." i proceeded glibly to sketch my ideal. to tell the dreadful truth, i was enjoying myself; i could see respect dawning in those girls' eyes, and i knew that i had forever thrown off my reproach. henceforth i should be a woman with a romantic past, faithful to the one love of her life--a very, very different thing from an old maid who had never had a lover. "he was tall and dark, with lovely, curly black hair and brilliant, piercing eyes. he had a splendid chin, and a fine nose, and the most fascinating smile!" "what was he?" asked maggie. "a young lawyer," i said, my choice of profession decided by an enlarged crayon portrait of mary gillespie's deceased brother on an easel before me. he had been a lawyer. "why didn't you marry him?" demanded susette. "we quarreled," i answered sadly. "a terribly bitter quarrel. oh, we were both so young and so foolish. it was my fault. i vexed cecil by flirting with another man"--wasn't i coming on!--"and he was jealous and angry. he went out west and never came back. i have never seen him since, and i do not even know if he is alive. but--but--i could never care for any other man." "oh, how interesting!" sighed wilhelmina. "i do so love sad love stories. but perhaps he will come back some day yet, miss holmes." "oh, no, never now," i said, shaking my head. "he has forgotten all about me, i dare say. or if he hasn't, he has never forgiven me." mary gillespie's susan jane announced tea at this moment, and i was thankful, for my imagination was giving out, and i didn't know what question those girls would ask next. but i felt already a change in the mental atmosphere surrounding me, and all through supper i was thrilled with a secret exultation. repentant? ashamed? not a bit of it! i'd have done the same thing over again, and all i felt sorry for was that i hadn't done it long ago. when i got home that night nancy looked at me wonderingly, and said: "you look like a girl to-night, miss charlotte." "i feel like one," i said laughing; and i ran to my room and did what i had never done before--wrote a second poem in the same day. i had to have some outlet for my feelings. i called it "in summer days of long ago," and i worked mary gillespie's roses and cecil fenwick's eyes into it, and made it so sad and reminiscent and minor-musicky that i felt perfectly happy. for the next two months all went well and merrily. nobody ever said anything more to me about cecil fenwick, but the girls all chattered freely to me of their little love affairs, and i became a sort of general confidant for them. it just warmed up the cockles of my heart, and i began to enjoy the sewing circle famously. i got a lot of pretty new dresses and the dearest hat, and i went everywhere i was asked and had a good time. but there is one thing you can be perfectly sure of. if you do wrong you are going to be punished for it sometime, somehow and somewhere. my punishment was delayed for two months, and then it descended on my head and i was crushed to the very dust. another new family besides the mercers had come to avonlea in the spring--the maxwells. there were just mr. and mrs. maxwell; they were a middle-aged couple and very well off. mr. maxwell had bought the lumber mills, and they lived up at the old spencer place which had always been "the" place of avonlea. they lived quietly, and mrs. maxwell hardly ever went anywhere because she was delicate. she was out when i called and i was out when she returned my call, so that i had never met her. it was the sewing circle day again--at sarah gardiner's this time. i was late; everybody else was there when i arrived, and the minute i entered the room i knew something had happened, although i couldn't imagine what. everybody looked at me in the strangest way. of course, wilhelmina mercer was the first to set her tongue going. "oh, miss holmes, have you seen him yet?" she exclaimed. "seen whom?" i said non-excitedly, getting out my thimble and patterns. "why, cecil fenwick. he's here--in avonlea--visiting his sister, mrs. maxwell." i suppose i did what they expected me to do. i dropped everything i held, and josephine cameron said afterwards that charlotte holmes would never be paler when she was in her coffin. if they had just known why i turned so pale! "it's impossible!" i said blankly. "it's really true," said wilhelmina, delighted at this development, as she supposed it, of my romance. "i was up to see mrs. maxwell last night, and i met him." "it--can't be--the same--cecil fenwick," i said faintly, because i had to say something. "oh, yes, it is. he belongs in blakely, new brunswick, and he's a lawyer, and he's been out west twenty-two years. he's oh! so handsome, and just as you described him, except that his hair is quite gray. he has never married--i asked mrs. maxwell--so you see he has never forgotten you, miss holmes. and, oh, i believe everything is going to come out all right." i couldn't exactly share her cheerful belief. everything seemed to me to be coming out most horribly wrong. i was so mixed up i didn't know what to do or say. i felt as if i were in a bad dream--it must be a dream--there couldn't really be a cecil fenwick! my feelings were simply indescribable. fortunately every one put my agitation down to quite a different cause, and they very kindly left me alone to recover myself. i shall never forget that awful afternoon. right after tea i excused myself and went home as fast as i could go. there i shut myself up in my room, but not to write poetry in my blank book. no, indeed! i felt in no poetical mood. i tried to look the facts squarely in the face. there was a cecil fenwick, extraordinary as the coincidence was, and he was here in avonlea. all my friends--and foes--believed that he was the estranged lover of my youth. if he stayed long in avonlea, one of two things was bound to happen. he would hear the story i had told about him and deny it, and i would be held up to shame and derision for the rest of my natural life; or else he would simply go away in ignorance, and everybody would suppose he had forgotten me and would pity me maddeningly. the latter possibility was bad enough, but it wasn't to be compared to the former; and oh, how i prayed--yes, i did pray about it--that he would go right away. but providence had other views for me. cecil fenwick didn't go away. he stayed right on in avonlea, and the maxwells blossomed out socially in his honor and tried to give him a good time. mrs. maxwell gave a party for him. i got a card--but you may be very sure i didn't go, although nancy thought i was crazy not to. then every one else gave parties in honor of mr. fenwick and i was invited and never went. wilhelmina mercer came and pleaded and scolded and told me if i avoided mr. fenwick like that he would think i still cherished bitterness against him, and he wouldn't make any advances towards a reconciliation. wilhelmina means well, but she hasn't a great deal of sense. cecil fenwick seemed to be a great favorite with everybody, young and old. he was very rich, too, and wilhelmina declared that half the girls were after him. "if it wasn't for you, miss holmes, i believe i'd have a try for him myself, in spite of his gray hair and quick temper--for mrs. maxwell says he has a pretty quick temper, but it's all over in a minute," said wilhelmina, half in jest and wholly in earnest. as for me, i gave up going out at all, even to church. i fretted and pined and lost my appetite and never wrote a line in my blank book. nancy was half frantic and insisted on dosing me with her favorite patent pills. i took them meekly, because it is a waste of time and energy to oppose nancy, but, of course, they didn't do me any good. my trouble was too deep-seated for pills to cure. if ever a woman was punished for telling a lie i was that woman. i stopped my subscription to the _weekly advocate_ because it still carried that wretched porous plaster advertisement, and i couldn't bear to see it. if it hadn't been for that i would never have thought of fenwick for a name, and all this trouble would have been averted. one evening, when i was moping in my room, nancy came up. "there's a gentleman in the parlor asking for you, miss charlotte." my heart gave just one horrible bounce. "what--sort of a gentleman, nancy?" i faltered. "i think it's that fenwick man that there's been such a time about," said nancy, who didn't know anything about my imaginary escapades, "and he looks to be mad clean through about something, for such a scowl i never seen." "tell him i'll be down directly, nancy," i said quite calmly. as soon as nancy had clumped downstairs again i put on my lace fichu and put two hankies in my belt, for i thought i'd probably need more than one. then i hunted up an old _advocate_ for proof, and down i went to the parlor. i know exactly how a criminal feels going to execution, and i've been opposed to capital punishment ever since. i opened the parlor door and went in, carefully closing it behind me, for nancy has a deplorable habit of listening in the hall. then my legs gave out completely, and i couldn't have walked another step to save my life. i just stood there, my hand on the knob, trembling like a leaf. a man was standing by the south window looking out; he wheeled around as i went in, and, as nancy said, he had a scowl on and looked angry clear through. he was very handsome, and his gray hair gave him such a distinguished look. i recalled this afterward, but just at the moment you may be quite sure i wasn't thinking about it at all. then all at once a strange thing happened. the scowl went right off his face and the anger out of his eyes. he looked astonished, and then foolish. i saw the color creeping up into his cheeks. as for me, i still stood there staring at him, not able to say a single word. "miss holmes, i presume," he said at last, in a deep, thrilling voice. "i--i--oh, confound it! i have called--i heard some foolish stories and i came here in a rage. i've been a fool--i know now they weren't true. just excuse me and i'll go away and kick myself." "no," i said, finding my voice with a gasp, "you mustn't go until you've heard the truth. it's dreadful enough, but not as dreadful as you might otherwise think. those--those stories--i have a confession to make. i did tell them, but i didn't know there was such a person as cecil fenwick in existence." he looked puzzled, as well he might. then he smiled, took my hand and led me away from the door--to the knob of which i was still holding with all my might--to the sofa. "let's sit down and talk it over 'comfy,'" he said. i just confessed the whole shameful business. it was terribly humiliating, but it served me right. i told him how people were always twitting me for never having had a beau, and how i had told them i had; and then i showed him the porous plaster advertisement. he heard me right through without a word, and then he threw back his big, curly, gray head and laughed. "this clears up a great many mysterious hints i've been receiving ever since i came to avonlea," he said, "and finally a mrs. gilbert came to my sister this afternoon with a long farrago of nonsense about the love affair i had once had with some charlotte holmes here. she declared you had told her about it yourself. i confess i flamed up. i'm a peppery chap, and i thought--i thought--oh, confound it, it might as well out: i thought you were some lank old maid who was amusing herself telling ridiculous stories about me. when you came into the room i knew that, whoever was to blame, you were not." "but i was," i said ruefully. "it wasn't right of me to tell such a story--and it was very silly, too. but who would ever have supposed that there could be a real cecil fenwick who had lived in blakely? i never heard of such a coincidence." "it's more than a coincidence," said mr. fenwick decidedly. "it's predestination; that is what it is. and now let's forget it and talk of something else." we talked of something else--or at least mr. fenwick did, for i was too ashamed to say much--so long that nancy got restive and clumped through the hall every five minutes; but mr. fenwick never took the hint. when he finally went away he asked if he might come again. "it's time we made up that old quarrel, you know," he said, laughing. and i, an old maid of forty, caught myself blushing like a girl. but i felt like a girl, for it was such a relief to have that explanation all over. i couldn't even feel angry with adella gilbert. she was always a mischief maker, and when a woman is born that way she is more to be pitied than blamed. i wrote a poem in the blank book before i went to sleep; i hadn't written anything for a month, and it was lovely to be at it once more. mr. fenwick did come again--the very next evening, but one. and he came so often after that that even nancy got resigned to him. one day i had to tell her something. i shrank from doing it, for i feared it would make her feel badly. "oh, i've been expecting to hear it," she said grimly. "i felt the minute that man came into the house he brought trouble with him. well, miss charlotte, i wish you happiness. i don't know how the climate of california will agree with me, but i suppose i'll have to put up with it." "but, nancy," i said, "i can't expect you to go away out there with me. it's too much to ask of you." "and where else would i be going?" demanded nancy in genuine astonishment. "how under the canopy could you keep house without me? i'm not going to trust you to the mercies of a yellow chinee with a pig-tail. where you go i go, miss charlotte, and there's an end of it." i was very glad, for i hated to think of parting with nancy even to go with cecil. as for the blank book, i haven't told my husband about it yet, but i mean to some day. and i've subscribed for the _weekly advocate_ again. iii. her father's daughter "we must invite your aunt jane, of course," said mrs. spencer. rachel made a protesting movement with her large, white, shapely hands--hands which were so different from the thin, dark, twisted ones folded on the table opposite her. the difference was not caused by hard work or the lack of it; rachel had worked hard all her life. it was a difference inherent in temperament. the spencers, no matter what they did, or how hard they labored, all had plump, smooth, white hands, with firm, supple fingers; the chiswicks, even those who toiled not, neither did they spin, had hard, knotted, twisted ones. moreover, the contrast went deeper than externals, and twined itself with the innermost fibers of life, and thought, and action. "i don't see why we must invite aunt jane," said rachel, with as much impatience as her soft, throaty voice could express. "aunt jane doesn't like me, and i don't like aunt jane." "i'm sure i don't see why you don't like her," said mrs. spencer. "it's ungrateful of you. she has always been very kind to you." "she has always been very kind with one hand," smiled rachel. "i remember the first time i ever saw aunt jane. i was six years old. she held out to me a small velvet pincushion with beads on it. and then, because i did not, in my shyness, thank her quite as promptly as i should have done, she rapped my head with her bethimbled finger to 'teach me better manners.' it hurt horribly--i've always had a tender head. and that has been aunt jane's way ever since. when i grew too big for the thimble treatment she used her tongue instead--and that hurt worse. and you know, mother, how she used to talk about my engagement. she is able to spoil the whole atmosphere if she happens to come in a bad humor. i don't want her." "she must be invited. people would talk so if she wasn't." "i don't see why they should. she's only my great-aunt by marriage. i wouldn't mind in the least if people did talk. they'll talk anyway--you know that, mother." "oh, we must have her," said mrs. spencer, with the indifferent finality that marked all her words and decisions--a finality against which it was seldom of any avail to struggle. people, who knew, rarely attempted it; strangers occasionally did, misled by the deceit of appearances. isabella spencer was a wisp of a woman, with a pale, pretty face, uncertainly-colored, long-lashed grayish eyes, and great masses of dull, soft, silky brown hair. she had delicate aquiline features and a small, babyish red mouth. she looked as if a breath would sway her. the truth was that a tornado would hardly have caused her to swerve an inch from her chosen path. for a moment rachel looked rebellious; then she yielded, as she generally did in all differences of opinion with her mother. it was not worth while to quarrel over the comparatively unimportant matter of aunt jane's invitation. a quarrel might be inevitable later on; rachel wanted to save all her resources for that. she gave her shoulders a shrug, and wrote aunt jane's name down on the wedding list in her large, somewhat untidy handwriting--a handwriting which always seemed to irritate her mother. rachel never could understand this irritation. she could never guess that it was because her writing looked so much like that in a certain packet of faded letters which mrs. spencer kept at the bottom of an old horsehair trunk in her bedroom. they were postmarked from seaports all over the world. mrs. spencer never read them or looked at them; but she remembered every dash and curve of the handwriting. isabella spencer had overcome many things in her life by the sheer force and persistency of her will. but she could not get the better of heredity. rachel was her father's daughter at all points, and isabella spencer escaped hating her for it only by loving her the more fiercely because of it. even so, there were many times when she had to avert her eyes from rachel's face because of the pang of the more subtle remembrances; and never, since her child was born, could isabella spencer bear to gaze on that child's face in sleep. rachel was to be married to frank bell in a fortnight's time. mrs. spencer was pleased with the match. she was very fond of frank, and his farm was so near to her own that she would not lose rachel altogether. rachel fondly believed that her mother would not lose her at all; but isabella spencer, wiser by olden experience, knew what her daughter's marriage must mean to her, and steeled her heart to bear it with what fortitude she might. they were in the sitting-room, deciding on the wedding guests and other details. the september sunshine was coming in through the waving boughs of the apple tree that grew close up to the low window. the glints wavered over rachel's face, as white as a wood lily, with only a faint dream of rose in the cheeks. she wore her sleek, golden hair in a quaint arch around it. her forehead was very broad and white. she was fresh and young and hopeful. the mother's heart contracted in a spasm of pain as she looked at her. how like the girl was to--to--to the spencers! those easy, curving outlines, those large, mirthful blue eyes, that finely molded chin! isabella spencer shut her lips firmly and crushed down some unbidden, unwelcome memories. "there will be about sixty guests, all told," she said, as if she were thinking of nothing else. "we must move the furniture out of this room and set the supper-table here. the dining-room is too small. we must borrow mrs. bell's forks and spoons. she offered to lend them. i'd never have been willing to ask her. the damask table cloths with the ribbon pattern must be bleached to-morrow. nobody else in avonlea has such tablecloths. and we'll put the little dining-room table on the hall landing, upstairs, for the presents." rachel was not thinking about the presents, or the housewifely details of the wedding. her breath was coming quicker, and the faint blush on her smooth cheeks had deepened to crimson. she knew that a critical moment was approaching. with a steady hand she wrote the last name on her list and drew a line under it. "well, have you finished?" asked her mother impatiently. "hand it here and let me look over it to make sure that you haven't left anybody out that should be in." rachel passed the paper across the table in silence. the room seemed to her to have grown very still. she could hear the flies buzzing on the panes, the soft purr of the wind about the low eaves and through the apple boughs, the jerky beating of her own heart. she felt frightened and nervous, but resolute. mrs. spencer glanced down the list, murmuring the names aloud and nodding approval at each. but when she came to the last name, she did not utter it. she cast a black glance at rachel, and a spark leaped up in the depths of the pale eyes. on her face were anger, amazement, incredulity, the last predominating. the final name on the list of wedding guests was the name of david spencer. david spencer lived alone in a little cottage down at the cove. he was a combination of sailor and fisherman. he was also isabella spencer's husband and rachel's father. "rachel spencer, have you taken leave of your senses? what do you mean by such nonsense as this?" "i simply mean that i am going to invite my father to my wedding," answered rachel quietly. "not in my house," cried mrs. spencer, her lips as white as if her fiery tone had scathed them. rachel leaned forward, folded her large, capable hands deliberately on the table, and gazed unflinchingly into her mother's bitter face. her fright and nervousness were gone. now that the conflict was actually on she found herself rather enjoying it. she wondered a little at herself, and thought that she must be wicked. she was not given to self-analysis, or she might have concluded that it was the sudden assertion of her own personality, so long dominated by her mother's, which she was finding so agreeable. "then there will be no wedding, mother," she said. "frank and i will simply go to the manse, be married, and go home. if i cannot invite my father to see me married, no one else shall be invited." her lips narrowed tightly. for the first time in her life isabella spencer saw a reflection of herself looking back at her from her daughter's face--a strange, indefinable resemblance that was more of soul and spirit than of flesh and blood. in spite of her anger her heart thrilled to it. as never before, she realized that this girl was her own and her husband's child, a living bond between them wherein their conflicting natures mingled and were reconciled. she realized too, that rachel, so long sweetly meek and obedient, meant to have her own way in this case--and would have it. "i must say that i can't see why you are so set on having your father see you married," she said with a bitter sneer. "he has never remembered that he is your father. he cares nothing about you--never did care." rachel took no notice of this taunt. it had no power to hurt her, its venom being neutralized by a secret knowledge of her own in which her mother had no share. "either i shall invite my father to my wedding, or i shall not have a wedding," she repeated steadily, adopting her mother's own effective tactics of repetition undistracted by argument. "invite him then," snapped mrs. spencer, with the ungraceful anger of a woman, long accustomed to having her own way, compelled for once to yield. "it'll be like chips in porridge anyhow--neither good nor harm. he won't come." rachel made no response. now that the battle was over, and the victory won, she found herself tremulously on the verge of tears. she rose quickly and went upstairs to her own room, a dim little place shadowed by the white birches growing thickly outside--a virginal room, where everything bespoke the maiden. she lay down on the blue and white patchwork quilt on her bed, and cried softly and bitterly. her heart, at this crisis in her life, yearned for her father, who was almost a stranger to her. she knew that her mother had probably spoken the truth when she said that he would not come. rachel felt that her marriage vows would be lacking in some indefinable sacredness if her father were not by to hear them spoken. twenty-five years before this, david spencer and isabella chiswick had been married. spiteful people said there could be no doubt that isabella had married david for love, since he had neither lands nor money to tempt her into a match of bargain and sale. david was a handsome fellow, with the blood of a seafaring race in his veins. he had been a sailor, like his father and grandfather before him; but, when he married isabella, she induced him to give up the sea and settle down with her on a snug farm her father had left her. isabella liked farming, and loved her fertile acres and opulent orchards. she abhorred the sea and all that pertained to it, less from any dread of its dangers than from an inbred conviction that sailors were "low" in the social scale--a species of necessary vagabonds. in her eyes there was a taint of disgrace in such a calling. david must be transformed into a respectable, home-abiding tiller of broad lands. for five years all went well enough. if, at times, david's longing for the sea troubled him, he stifled it, and listened not to its luring voice. he and isabella were very happy; the only drawback to their happiness lay in the regretted fact that they were childless. then, in the sixth year, came a crisis and a change. captain barrett, an old crony of david's, wanted him to go with him on a voyage as mate. at the suggestion all david's long-repressed craving for the wide blue wastes of the ocean, and the wind whistling through the spars with the salt foam in its breath, broke forth with a passion all the more intense for that very repression. he must go on that voyage with james barrett--he must! that over, he would be contented again; but go he must. his soul struggled within him like a fettered thing. isabella opposed the scheme vehemently and unwisely, with mordant sarcasm and unjust reproaches. the latent obstinacy of david's character came to the support of his longing--a longing which isabella, with five generations of land-loving ancestry behind her, could not understand at all. he was determined to go, and he told isabella so. "i'm sick of plowing and milking cows," he said hotly. "you mean that you are sick of a respectable life," sneered isabella. "perhaps," said david, with a contemptuous shrug of his shoulders. "anyway, i'm going." "if you go on this voyage, david spencer, you need never come back here," said isabella resolutely. david had gone; he did not believe that she meant it. isabella believed that he did not care whether she meant it or not. david spencer left behind him a woman, calm outwardly, inwardly a seething volcano of anger, wounded pride, and thwarted will. he found precisely the same woman when he came home, tanned, joyous, tamed for a while of his _wanderlust_, ready, with something of real affection, to go back to the farm fields and the stock-yard. isabella met him at the door, smileless, cold-eyed, set-lipped. "what do you want here?" she said, in the tone she was accustomed to use to tramps and syrian peddlers. "want!" david's surprise left him at a loss for words. "want! why, i--i--want my wife. i've come home." "this is not your home. i'm no wife of yours. you made your choice when you went away," isabella had replied. then she had gone in, shut the door, and locked it in his face. david had stood there for a few minutes like a man stunned. then he had turned and walked away up the lane under the birches. he said nothing--then or at any other time. from that day no reference to his wife or her concerns ever crossed his lips. he went directly to the harbor, and shipped with captain barrett for another voyage. when he came back from that in a month's time, he bought a small house and had it hauled to the "cove," a lonely inlet from which no other human habitation was visible. between his sea voyages he lived there the life of a recluse; fishing and playing his violin were his only employments. he went nowhere and encouraged no visitors. isabella spencer also had adopted the tactics of silence. when the scandalized chiswicks, aunt jane at their head, tried to patch up the matter with argument and entreaty, isabella met them stonily, seeming not to hear what they said, and making no response. she worsted them totally. as aunt jane said in disgust, "what can you do with a woman who won't even talk?" five months after david spencer had been turned from his wife's door, rachel was born. perhaps, if david had come to them then, with due penitence and humility, isabella's heart, softened by the pain and joy of her long and ardently desired motherhood might have cast out the rankling venom of resentment that had poisoned it and taken him back into it. but david had not come; he gave no sign of knowing or caring that his once longed-for child had been born. when isabella was able to be about again, her pale face was harder than ever; and, had there been about her any one discerning enough to notice it, there was a subtle change in her bearing and manner. a certain nervous expectancy, a fluttering restlessness was gone. isabella had ceased to hope secretly that her husband would yet come back. she had in her secret soul thought he would; and she had meant to forgive him when she had humbled him sufficiently, and when he had abased himself as she considered he should. but now she knew that he did not mean to sue for her forgiveness; and the hate that sprang out of her old love was a rank and speedy and persistent growth. rachel, from her earliest recollection, had been vaguely conscious of a difference between her own life and the lives of her playmates. for a long time it puzzled her childish brain. finally, she reasoned it out that the difference consisted in the fact that they had fathers and she, rachel spencer, had none--not even in the graveyard, as carrie bell and lilian boulter had. why was this? rachel went straight to her mother, put one little dimpled hand on isabella spencer's knee, looked up with great searching blue eyes, and said gravely, "mother, why haven't i got a father like the other little girls?" isabella spencer laid aside her work, took the seven year old child on her lap, and told her the whole story in a few direct and bitter words that imprinted themselves indelibly on rachel's remembrance. she understood clearly and hopelessly that she could never have a father--that, in this respect, she must always be unlike other people. "your father cares nothing for you," said isabella spencer in conclusion. "he never did care. you must never speak of him to anybody again." rachel slipped silently from her mother's knee and ran out to the springtime garden with a full heart. there she cried passionately over her mother's last words. it seemed to her a terrible thing that her father should not love her, and a cruel thing that she must never talk of him. oddly enough, rachel's sympathies were all with her father, in as far as she could understand the old quarrel. she did not dream of disobeying her mother and she did not disobey her. never again did the child speak of her father; but isabella had not forbidden her to think of him, and thenceforth rachel thought of him constantly--so constantly that, in some strange way, he seemed to become an unguessed-of part of her inner life--the unseen, ever-present companion in all her experiences. she was an imaginative child, and in fancy she made the acquaintance of her father. she had never seen him, but he was more real to her than most of the people she had seen. he played and talked with her as her mother never did; he walked with her in the orchard and field and garden; he sat by her pillow in the twilight; to him she whispered secrets she told to none other. once her mother asked her impatiently why she talked so much to herself. "i am not talking to myself. i am talking to a very dear friend of mine," rachel answered gravely. "silly child," laughed her mother, half tolerantly, half disapprovingly. two years later something wonderful had happened to rachel. one summer afternoon she had gone to the harbor with several of her little playmates. such a jaunt was a rare treat to the child, for isabella spencer seldom allowed her to go from home with anybody but herself. and isabella was not an entertaining companion. rachel never particularly enjoyed an outing with her mother. the children wandered far along the shore; at last they came to a place that rachel had never seen before. it was a shallow cove where the waters purred on the yellow sands. beyond it, the sea was laughing and flashing and preening and alluring, like a beautiful, coquettish woman. outside, the wind was boisterous and rollicking; here, it was reverent and gentle. a white boat was hauled up on the skids, and there was a queer little house close down to the sands, like a big shell tossed up by the waves. rachel looked on it all with secret delight; she, too, loved the lonely places of sea and shore, as her father had done. she wanted to linger awhile in this dear spot and revel in it. "i'm tired, girls," she announced. "i'm going to stay here and rest for a spell. i don't want to go to gull point. you go on yourselves; i'll wait for you here." "all alone?" asked carrie bell, wonderingly. "i'm not so afraid of being alone as some people are," said rachel, with dignity. the other girls went on, leaving rachel sitting on the skids, in the shadow of the big white boat. she sat there for a time dreaming happily, with her blue eyes on the far, pearly horizon, and her golden head leaning against the boat. suddenly she heard a step behind her. when she turned her head a man was standing beside her, looking down at her with big, merry, blue eyes. rachel was quite sure that she had never seen him before; yet those eyes seemed to her to have a strangely familiar look. she liked him. she felt no shyness nor timidity, such as usually afflicted her in the presence of strangers. he was a tall, stout man, dressed in a rough fishing suit, and wearing an oilskin cap on his head. his hair was very thick and curly and fair; his cheeks were tanned and red; his teeth, when he smiled, were very even and white. rachel thought he must be quite old, because there was a good deal of gray mixed with his fair hair. "are you watching for the mermaids?" he said. rachel nodded gravely. from any one else she would have scrupulously hidden such a thought. "yes, i am," she said. "mother says there is no such thing as a mermaid, but i like to think there is. have you ever seen one?" the big man sat down on a bleached log of driftwood and smiled at her. "no, i'm sorry to say that i haven't. but i have seen many other very wonderful things. i might tell you about some of them, if you would come over here and sit by me." rachel went unhesitatingly. when she reached him he pulled her down on his knee, and she liked it. "what a nice little craft you are," he said. "do you suppose, now, that you could give me a kiss?" as a rule, rachel hated kissing. she could seldom be prevailed upon to kiss even her uncles--who knew it and liked to tease her for kisses until they aggravated her so terribly that she told them she couldn't bear men. but now she promptly put her arms about this strange man's neck and gave him a hearty smack. "i like you," she said frankly. she felt his arms tighten suddenly about her. the blue eyes looking into hers grew misty and very tender. then, all at once, rachel knew who he was. he was her father. she did not say anything, but she laid her curly head down on his shoulder and felt a great happiness, as of one who had come into some longed-for haven. if david spencer realized that she understood he said nothing. instead, he began to tell her fascinating stories of far lands he had visited, and strange things he had seen. rachel listened entranced, as if she were hearkening to a fairy tale. yes, he was just as she had dreamed him. she had always been sure he could tell beautiful stories. "come up to the house and i'll show you some pretty things," he said finally. then followed a wonderful hour. the little low-ceilinged room, with its square window, into which he took her, was filled with the flotsam and jetsam of his roving life--things beautiful and odd and strange beyond all telling. the things that pleased rachel most were two huge shells on the chimney piece--pale pink shells with big crimson and purple spots. "oh, i didn't know there could be such pretty things in the world," she exclaimed. "if you would like," began the big man; then he paused for a moment. "i'll show you something prettier still." rachel felt vaguely that he meant to say something else when he began; but she forgot to wonder what it was when she saw what he brought out of a little corner cupboard. it was a teapot of some fine, glistening purple ware, coiled over by golden dragons with gilded claws and scales. the lid looked like a beautiful golden flower and the handle was a coil of a dragon's tail. rachel sat and looked at it rapt-eyed. "that's the only thing of any value i have in the world--now," he said. rachel knew there was something very sad in his eyes and voice. she longed to kiss him again and comfort him. but suddenly he began to laugh, and then he rummaged out some goodies for her to eat, sweetmeats more delicious than she had ever imagined. while she nibbled them he took down an old violin and played music that made her want to dance and sing. rachel was perfectly happy. she wished she might stay forever in that low, dim room with all its treasures. "i see your little friends coming around the point," he said, finally. "i suppose you must go. put the rest of the goodies in your pocket." he took her up in his arms and held her tightly against his breast for a single moment. she felt him kissing her hair. "there, run along, little girl. good-by," he said gently. "why don't you ask me to come and see you again?" cried rachel, half in tears. "i'm coming anyhow." "if you can come, come," he said. "if you don't come, i shall know it is because you can't--and that is much to know. i'm very, very, very glad, little woman, that you have come once." rachel was sitting demurely on the skids when her companions came back. they had not seen her leaving the house, and she said not a word to them of her experiences. she only smiled mysteriously when they asked her if she had been lonesome. that night, for the first time, she mentioned her father's name in her prayers. she never forgot to do so afterwards. she always said, "bless mother--and father," with an instinctive pause between the two names--a pause which indicated new realization of the tragedy which had sundered them. and the tone in which she said "father" was softer and more tender than the one which voiced "mother." rachel never visited the cove again. isabella spencer discovered that the children had been there, and, although she knew nothing of rachel's interview with her father, she told the child that she must never again go to that part of the shore. rachel shed many a bitter tear in secret over this command; but she obeyed it. thenceforth there had been no communication between her and her father, save the unworded messages of soul to soul across whatever may divide them. david spencer's invitation to his daughter's wedding was sent with the others, and the remaining days of rachel's maidenhood slipped away in a whirl of preparation and excitement in which her mother reveled, but which was distasteful to the girl. the wedding day came at last, breaking softly and fairly over the great sea in a sheen of silver and pearl and rose, a september day, as mild and beautiful as june. the ceremony was to be performed at eight o'clock in the evening. at seven rachel stood in her room, fully dressed and alone. she had no bridesmaid, and she had asked her cousins to leave her to herself in this last solemn hour of girlhood. she looked very fair and sweet in the sunset-light that showered through the birches. her wedding gown was a fine, sheer organdie, simply and daintily made. in the loose waves of her bright hair she wore her bridegroom's flowers, roses as white as a virgin's dream. she was very happy; but her happiness was faintly threaded with the sorrow inseparable from all change. presently her mother came in, carrying a small basket. "here is something for you, rachel. one of the boys from the harbor brought it up. he was bound to give it into your own hands--said that was his orders. i just took it and sent him to the right-about--told him i'd give it to you at once, and that that was all that was necessary." she spoke coldly. she knew quite well who had sent the basket, and she resented it; but her resentment was not quite strong enough to overcome her curiosity. she stood silently by while rachel unpacked the basket. rachel's hands trembled as she took off the cover. two huge pink-spotted shells came first. how well she remembered them! beneath them, carefully wrapped up in a square of foreign-looking, strangely scented silk, was the dragon teapot. she held it in her hands and gazed at it with tears gathering thickly in her eyes. "your father sent that," said isabella spencer with an odd sound in her voice. "i remember it well. it was among the things i packed up and sent after him. his father had brought it home from china fifty years ago, and he prized it beyond anything. they used to say it was worth a lot of money." "mother, please leave me alone for a little while," said rachel, imploringly. she had caught sight of a little note at the bottom of the basket, and she felt that she could not read it under her mother's eyes. mrs. spencer went out with unaccustomed acquiescence, and rachel went quickly to the window, where she read her letter by the fading gleams of twilight. it was very brief, and the writing was that of a man who holds a pen but seldom. "my dear little girl," it ran, "i'm sorry i can't go to your wedding. it was like you to ask me--for i know it was your doing. i wish i could see you married, but i can't go to the house i was turned out of. i hope you will be very happy. i am sending you the shells and teapot you liked so much. do you remember that day we had such a good time? i would liked to have seen you again before you were married, but it can't be. "your loving father, "david spencer." rachel resolutely blinked away the tears that filled her eyes. a fierce desire for her father sprang up in her heart--an insistent hunger that would not be denied. she must see her father; she must have his blessing on her new life. a sudden determination took possession of her whole being--a determination to sweep aside all conventionalities and objections as if they had not been. it was now almost dark. the guests would not be coming for half an hour yet. it was only fifteen minutes' walk over the hill to the cove. hastily rachel shrouded herself in her new raincoat, and drew a dark, protecting hood over her gay head. she opened the door and slipped noiselessly downstairs. mrs. spencer and her assistants were all busy in the back part of the house. in a moment rachel was out in the dewy garden. she would go straight over the fields. nobody would see her. it was quite dark when she reached the cove. in the crystal cup of the sky over her the stars were blinking. flying flakes of foam were scurrying over the sand like elfin things. a soft little wind was crooning about the eaves of the little gray house where david spencer was sitting, alone in the twilight, his violin on his knee. he had been trying to play, but could not. his heart yearned after his daughter--yes, and after a long-estranged bride of his youth. his love of the sea was sated forever; his love for wife and child still cried for its own under all his old anger and stubbornness. the door opened suddenly and the very rachel of whom he was dreaming came suddenly in, flinging off her wraps and standing forth in her young beauty and bridal adornments, a splendid creature, almost lighting up the gloom with her radiance. "father," she cried, brokenly, and her father's eager arms closed around her. back in the house she had left, the guests were coming to the wedding. there were jests and laughter and friendly greeting. the bridegroom came, too, a slim, dark-eyed lad who tiptoed bashfully upstairs to the spare room, from which he presently emerged to confront mrs. spencer on the landing. "i want to see rachel before we go down," he said, blushing. mrs. spencer deposited a wedding present of linen on the table which was already laden with gifts, opening the door of rachel's room, and called her. there was no reply; the room was dark and still. in sudden alarm, isabella spencer snatched the lamp from the hall table and held it up. the little white room was empty. no blushing, white-clad bride tenanted it. but david spencer's letter was lying on the stand. she caught it up and read it. "rachel is gone," she gasped. a flash of intuition had revealed to her where and why the girl had gone. "gone!" echoed frank, his face blanching. his pallid dismay recalled mrs. spencer to herself. she gave a bitter, ugly little laugh. "oh, you needn't look so scared, frank. she hasn't run away from you. hush; come in here--shut the door. nobody must know of this. nice gossip it would make! that little fool has gone to the cove to see her--her father. i know she has. it's just like what she would do. he sent her those presents--look--and this letter. read it. she has gone to coax him to come and see her married. she was crazy about it. and the minister is here and it is half-past seven. she'll ruin her dress and shoes in the dust and dew. and what if some one has seen her! was there ever such a little fool?" frank's presence of mind had returned to him. he knew all about rachel and her father. she had told him everything. "i'll go after her," he said gently. "get me my hat and coat. i'll slip down the back stairs and over to the cove." "you must get out of the pantry window, then," said mrs. spencer firmly, mingling comedy and tragedy after her characteristic fashion. "the kitchen is full of women. i won't have this known and talked about if it can possibly be helped." the bridegroom, wise beyond his years in the knowledge that it was well to yield to women in little things, crawled obediently out of the pantry window and darted through the birch wood. mrs. spencer had stood quakingly on guard until he had disappeared. so rachel had gone to her father! like had broken the fetters of years and fled to like. "it isn't much use fighting against nature, i guess," she thought grimly. "i'm beat. he must have thought something of her, after all, when he sent her that teapot and letter. and what does he mean about the 'day they had such a good time'? well, it just means that she's been to see him before, sometime, i suppose, and kept me in ignorance of it all." mrs. spencer shut down the pantry window with a vicious thud. "if only she'll come quietly back with frank in time to prevent gossip i'll forgive her," she said, as she turned to the kitchen. rachel was sitting on her father's knee, with both her white arms around his neck, when frank came in. she sprang up, her face flushed and appealing, her eyes bright and dewy with tears. frank thought he had never seen her look so lovely. "oh, frank, is it very late? oh, are you angry?" she exclaimed timidly. "no, no, dear. of course i'm not angry. but don't you think you'd better come back now? it's nearly eight and everybody is waiting." "i've been trying to coax father to come up and see me married," said rachel. "help me, frank." "you'd better come, sir," said frank, heartily, "i'd like it as much as rachel would." david spencer shook his head stubbornly. "no, i can't go to that house. i was locked out of it. never mind me. i've had my happiness in this half hour with my little girl. i'd like to see her married, but it isn't to be." "yes, it is to be--it shall be," said rachel resolutely. "you shall see me married. frank, i'm going to be married here in my father's house! that is the right place for a girl to be married. go back and tell the guests so, and bring them all down." frank looked rather dismayed. david spencer said deprecatingly: "little girl, don't you think it would be--" "i'm going to have my own way in this," said rachel, with a sort of tender finality. "go, frank. i'll obey you all my life after, but you must do this for me. try to understand," she added beseechingly. "oh, i understand," frank reassured her. "besides, i think you are right. but i was thinking of your mother. she won't come." "then you tell her that if she doesn't come i shan't be married at all," said rachel. she was betraying unsuspected ability to manage people. she knew that ultimatum would urge frank to his best endeavors. frank, much to mrs. spencer's dismay, marched boldly in at the front door upon his return. she pounced on him and whisked him out of sight into the supper room. "where's rachel? what made you come that way? everybody saw you!" "it makes no difference. they will all have to know, anyway. rachel says she is going to be married from her father's house, or not at all. i've come back to tell you so." isabella's face turned crimson. "rachel has gone crazy. i wash my hands of this affair. do as you please. take the guests--the supper, too, if you can carry it." "we'll all come back here for supper," said frank, ignoring the sarcasm. "come, mrs. spencer, let's make the best of it." "do you suppose that _i_ am going to david spencer's house?" said isabella spencer violently. "oh you must come, mrs. spencer," cried poor frank desperately. he began to fear that he would lose his bride past all finding in this maze of triple stubbornness. "rachel says she won't be married at all if you don't go, too. think what a talk it will make. you know she will keep her word." isabella spencer knew it. amid all the conflict of anger and revolt in her soul was a strong desire not to make a worse scandal than must of necessity be made. the desire subdued and tamed her, as nothing else could have done. "i will go, since i have to," she said icily. "what can't be cured must be endured. go and tell them." five minutes later the sixty wedding guests were all walking over the fields to the cove, with the minister and the bridegroom in the front of the procession. they were too amazed even to talk about the strange happening. isabella spencer walked behind, fiercely alone. they all crowded into the little room of the house at the cove, and a solemn hush fell over it, broken only by the purr of the sea-wind around it and the croon of the waves on the shore. david spencer gave his daughter away; but, when the ceremony was concluded, isabella was the first to take the girl in her arms. she clasped her and kissed her, with tears streaming down her pale face, all her nature melted in a mother's tenderness. "rachel! rachel! my child, i hope and pray that you may be happy," she said brokenly. in the surge of the suddenly merry crowd of well-wishers around the bride and groom, isabella was pushed back into a shadowy corner behind a heap of sails and ropes. looking up, she found herself crushed against david spencer. for the first time in twenty years the eyes of husband and wife met. a strange thrill shot to isabella's heart; she felt herself trembling. "isabella." it was david's voice in her ear--a voice full of tenderness and pleading--the voice of the young wooer of her girlhood--"is it too late to ask you to forgive me? i've been a stubborn fool--but there hasn't been an hour in all these years that i haven't thought about you and our baby and longed for you." isabella spencer had hated this man; yet her hate had been but a parasite growth on a nobler stem, with no abiding roots of its own. it withered under his words, and lo, there was the old love, fair and strong and beautiful as ever. "oh--david--i--was--all--to--blame," she murmured brokenly. further words were lost on her husband's lips. when the hubbub of handshaking and congratulating had subsided, isabella spencer stepped out before the company. she looked almost girlish and bridal herself, with her flushed cheeks and bright eyes. "let's go back now and have supper, and be sensible," she said crisply. "rachel, your father is coming, too. he is coming to stay,"--with a defiant glance around the circle. "come, everybody." they went back with laughter and raillery over the quiet autumn fields, faintly silvered now by the moon that was rising over the hills. the young bride and groom lagged behind; they were very happy, but they were not so happy, after all, as the old bride and groom who walked swiftly in front. isabella's hand was in her husband's and sometimes she could not see the moonlit hills for a mist of glorified tears. "david," she whispered, as he helped her over the fence, "how can you ever forgive me?" "there's nothing to forgive," he said. "we're only just married. who ever heard of a bridegroom talking of forgiveness? everything is beginning over new for us, my girl." iv. jane's baby miss rosetta ellis, with her front hair in curl-papers, and her back hair bound with a checked apron, was out in her breezy side yard under the firs, shaking her parlor rugs, when mr. nathan patterson drove in. miss rosetta had seen him coming down the long red hill, but she had not supposed he would be calling at that time of the morning. so she had not run. miss rosetta always ran if anybody called and her front hair was in curl-papers; and, though the errand of the said caller might be life or death, he or she had to wait until miss rosetta had taken her hair out. everybody in avonlea knew this, because everybody in avonlea knew everything about everybody else. but mr. patterson had wheeled into the lane so quickly and unexpectedly that miss rosetta had had no time to run; so, twitching off the checked apron, she stood her ground as calmly as might be under the disagreeable consciousness of curl-papers. "good morning, miss ellis," said mr. patterson, so somberly that miss rosetta instantly felt that he was the bearer of bad news. usually mr. patterson's face was as broad and beaming as a harvest moon. now his expression was very melancholy and his voice positively sepulchral. "good morning," returned miss rosetta, crisply and cheerfully. she, at any rate, would not go into eclipse until she knew the reason therefor. "it is a fine day." "a very fine day," assented mr. patterson, solemnly. "i have just come from the wheeler place, miss ellis, and i regret to say--" "charlotte is sick!" cried miss rosetta, rapidly. "charlotte has got another spell with her heart! i knew it! i've been expecting to hear it! any woman that drives about the country as much as she does is liable to heart disease at any moment. _i_ never go outside of my gate but i meet her gadding off somewhere. goodness knows who looks after her place. i shouldn't like to trust as much to a hired man as she does. well, it is very kind of you, mr. patterson, to put yourself out to the extent of calling to tell me that charlotte is sick, but i don't really see why you should take so much trouble--i really don't. it doesn't matter to me whether charlotte is sick or whether she isn't. you know that perfectly well, mr. patterson, if anybody does. when charlotte went and got married, on the sly, to that good-for-nothing jacob wheeler--" "mrs. wheeler is quite well," interrupted mr. patterson desperately. "quite well. nothing at all the matter with her, in fact. i only--" "then what do you mean by coming here and telling me she wasn't, and frightening me half to death?" demanded miss rosetta, indignantly. "my own heart isn't very strong--it runs in our family--and my doctor warned me to avoid all shocks and excitement. i don't want to be excited, mr. patterson. i won't be excited, not even if charlotte has another spell. it's perfectly useless for you to try to excite me, mr. patterson." "bless the woman, i'm not trying to excite anybody!" declared mr. patterson in exasperation. "i merely called to tell you--" "to tell me what?" said miss rosetta. "how much longer do you mean to keep me in suspense, mr. patterson. no doubt you have abundance of spare time, but--i--have not." "--that your sister, mrs. wheeler, has had a letter from a cousin of yours, and she's in charlottetown. mrs. roberts, i think her name is--" "jane roberts," broke in miss rosetta. "jane ellis she was, before she was married. what was she writing to charlotte about? not that i want to know, of course. i'm not interested in charlotte's correspondence, goodness knows. but if jane had anything in particular to write about she should have written to me. i am the oldest. charlotte had no business to get a letter from jane roberts without consulting me. it's just like her underhanded ways. she got married the same way. never said a word to me about it, but just sneaked off with that unprincipled jacob wheeler--" "mrs. roberts is very ill. i understand," persisted mr. patterson, nobly resolved to do what he had come to do, "dying, in fact, and--" "jane ill! jane dying!" exclaimed miss rosetta. "why, she was the healthiest girl i ever knew! but then i've never seen her, nor heard from her, since she got married fifteen years ago. i dare say her husband was a brute and neglected her, and she's pined away by slow degrees. i've no faith in husbands. look at charlotte! everybody knows how jacob wheeler used her. to be sure, she deserved it, but--" "mrs. roberts' husband is dead," said mr. patterson. "died about two months ago, i understand, and she has a little baby six months old, and she thought perhaps mrs. wheeler would take it for old times' sake--" "did charlotte ask you to call and tell me this?" demanded miss rosetta eagerly. "no; she just told me what was in the letter. she didn't mention you; but i thought, perhaps, you ought to be told--" "i knew it," said miss rosetta in a tone of bitter assurance. "i could have told you so. charlotte wouldn't even let me know that jane was ill. charlotte would be afraid i would want to get the baby, seeing that jane and i were such intimate friends long ago. and who has a better right to it than me, i should like to know? ain't i the oldest? and haven't i had experience in bringing up babies? charlotte needn't think she is going to run the affairs of our family just because she happened to get married. jacob wheeler--" "i must be going," said mr. patterson, gathering up his reins thankfully. "i am much obliged to you for coming to tell me about jane," said miss rosetta, "even though you have wasted a lot of precious time getting it out. if it hadn't been for you i suppose i should never have known it at all. as it is, i shall start for town just as soon as i can get ready." "you'll have to hurry if you want to get ahead of mrs. wheeler," advised mr. patterson. "she's packing her trunk and going on the morning train." "i'll pack a valise and go on the afternoon train," retorted miss rosetta triumphantly. "i'll show charlotte she isn't running the ellis affairs. she married out of them into the wheelers. she can attend to them. jacob wheeler was the most--" but mr. patterson had driven away. he felt that he had done his duty in the face of fearful odds, and he did not want to hear anything more about jacob wheeler. rosetta ellis and charlotte wheeler had not exchanged a word for ten years. before that time they had been devoted to each other, living together in the little ellis cottage on the white sands road, as they had done ever since their parents' death. the trouble began when jacob wheeler had commenced to pay attention to charlotte, the younger and prettier of two women who had both ceased to be either very young or very pretty. rosetta had been bitterly opposed to the match from the first. she vowed she had no use for jacob wheeler. there were not lacking malicious people to hint that this was because the aforesaid jacob wheeler had selected the wrong sister upon whom to bestow his affections. be that as it might, miss rosetta certainly continued to render the course of jacob wheeler's true love exceedingly rough and tumultuous. the end of it was that charlotte had gone quietly away one morning and married jacob wheeler without miss rosetta's knowing anything about it. miss rosetta had never forgiven her for it, and charlotte had never forgiven the things rosetta had said to her when she and jacob returned to the ellis cottage. since then the sisters had been avowed and open foes, the only difference being that miss rosetta aired her grievances publicly, in season and out of season, while charlotte was never heard to mention rosetta's name. even the death of jacob wheeler, five years after the marriage, had not healed the breach. miss rosetta took out her curl-papers, packed her valise, and caught the late afternoon train for charlottetown, as she had threatened. all the way there she sat rigidly upright in her seat and held imaginary dialogues with charlotte in her mind, running something like this on her part:-"no, charlotte wheeler, you are not going to have jane's baby, and you're very much mistaken if you think so. oh, all right--we'll see! you don't know anything about babies, even if you are married. i do. didn't i take william ellis's baby, when his wife died? tell me that, charlotte wheeler! and didn't the little thing thrive with me, and grow strong and healthy? yes, even you have to admit that it did, charlotte wheeler. and yet you have the presumption to think that you ought to have jane's baby! yes, it is presumption, charlotte wheeler. and when william ellis got married again, and took the baby, didn't the child cling to me and cry as if i was its real mother? you know it did, charlotte wheeler. i'm going to get and keep jane's baby in spite of you, charlotte wheeler, and i'd like to see you try to prevent me--you that went and got married and never so much as let your own sister know of it! if i had got married in such a fashion, charlotte wheeler, i'd be ashamed to look anybody in the face for the rest of my natural life!" miss rosetta was so interested in thus laying down the law to charlotte, and in planning out the future life of jane's baby, that she didn't find the journey to charlottetown so long or tedious as might have been expected, considering her haste. she soon found her way to the house where her cousin lived. there, to her dismay and real sorrow, she learned that mrs. roberts had died at four o'clock that afternoon. "she seemed dreadful anxious to live until she heard from some of her folks out in avonlea," said the woman who gave miss rosetta the information. "she had written to them about her little girl. she was my sister-in-law, and she lived with me ever since her husband died. i've done my best for her; but i've a big family of my own and i can't see how i'm to keep the child. poor jane looked and longed for some one to come from avonlea, but she couldn't hold out. a patient, suffering creature she was!" "i'm her cousin," said miss rosetta, wiping her eyes, "and i have come for the baby. i'll take it home with me after the funeral; and, if you please, mrs. gordon, let me see it right away, so it can get accustomed to me. poor jane! i wish i could have got here in time to see her, she and i were such friends long ago. we were far more intimate and confidential than ever her and charlotte was. charlotte knows that, too!" the vim with which miss rosetta snapped this out rather amazed mrs. gordon, who couldn't understand it at all. but she took miss rosetta upstairs to the room where the baby was sleeping. "oh, the little darling," cried miss rosetta, all her old maidishness and oddity falling away from her like a garment, and all her innate and denied motherhood shining out in her face like a transforming illumination. "oh, the sweet, dear, pretty little thing!" the baby was a darling--a six-months' old beauty with little golden ringlets curling and glistening all over its tiny head. as miss rosetta hung over it, it opened its eyes and then held out its tiny hands to her with a gurgle of confidence. "oh, you sweetest!" said miss rosetta rapturously, gathering it up in her arms. "you belong to me, darling--never, never, to that under-handed charlotte! what is its name, mrs. gordon?" "it wasn't named," said mrs. gordon. "guess you'll have to name it yourself, miss ellis." "camilla jane," said miss rosetta without a moment's hesitation. "jane after its mother, of course; and i have always thought camilla the prettiest name in the world. charlotte would be sure to give it some perfectly heathenish name. i wouldn't put it past her calling the poor innocent mehitable." miss rosetta decided to stay in charlottetown until after the funeral. that night she lay with the baby on her arm, listening with joy to its soft little breathing. she did not sleep or wish to sleep. her waking fancies were more alluring than any visions of dreamland. moreover, she gave a spice to them by occasionally snapping some vicious sentences out loud at charlotte. miss rosetta fully expected charlotte along on the following morning and girded herself for the fray; but no charlotte appeared. night came; no charlotte. another morning and no charlotte. miss rosetta was hopelessly puzzled. what had happened? dear, dear, had charlotte taken a bad heart spell, on hearing that she, rosetta, had stolen a march on her to charlottetown? it was quite likely. you never knew what to expect of a woman who had married jacob wheeler! the truth was, that the very evening miss rosetta had left avonlea mrs. jacob wheeler's hired man had broken his leg and had had to be conveyed to his distant home on a feather bed in an express wagon. mrs. wheeler could not leave home until she had obtained another hired man. consequently, it was the evening after the funeral when mrs. wheeler whisked up the steps of the gordon house and met miss rosetta coming out with a big white bundle in her arms. the eyes of the two women met defiantly. miss rosetta's face wore an air of triumph, chastened by a remembrance of the funeral that afternoon. mrs. wheeler's face, except for eyes, was as expressionless as it usually was. unlike the tall, fair, fat miss rosetta, mrs. wheeler was small and dark and thin, with an eager, careworn face. "how is jane?" she said abruptly, breaking the silence of ten years in saying it. "jane is dead and buried, poor thing," said miss rosetta calmly. "i am taking her baby, little camilla jane, home with me." "the baby belongs to me," cried mrs. wheeler passionately. "jane wrote to me about her. jane meant that i should have her. i've come for her." "you'll go back without her then," said miss rosetta, serene in the possession that is nine points of the law. "the child is mine, and she is going to stay mine. you can make up your mind to that, charlotte wheeler. a woman who eloped to get married isn't fit to be trusted with a baby, anyhow. jacob wheeler--" but mrs. wheeler had rushed past into the house. miss rosetta composedly stepped into the cab and drove to the station. she fairly bridled with triumph; and underneath the triumph ran a queer undercurrent of satisfaction over the fact that charlotte had spoken to her at last. miss rosetta would not look at this satisfaction, or give it a name, but it was there. miss rosetta arrived safely back in avonlea with camilla jane and within ten hours everybody in the settlement knew the whole story, and every woman who could stand on her feet had been up to the ellis cottage to see the baby. mrs. wheeler arrived home twenty-four hours later, and silently betook herself to her farm. when her avonlea neighbors sympathized with her in her disappointment, she said nothing, but looked all the more darkly determined. also, a week later, mr. william j. blair, the carmody storekeeper, had an odd tale to tell. mrs. wheeler had come to the store and bought a lot of fine flannel and muslin and valenciennes. now, what in the name of time, did mrs. wheeler want with such stuff? mr. william j. blair couldn't make head or tail of it, and it worried him. mr. blair was so accustomed to know what everybody bought anything for that such a mystery quite upset him. miss rosetta had exulted in the possession of little camilla jane for a month, and had been so happy that she had almost given up inveighing against charlotte. her conversations, instead of tending always to jacob wheeler, now ran camilla janeward; and this, folks thought, was an improvement. one afternoon, miss rosetta, leaving camilla jane snugly sleeping in her cradle in the kitchen, had slipped down to the bottom of the garden to pick her currants. the house was hidden from her sight by the copse of cherry trees, but she had left the kitchen window open, so that she could hear the baby if it awakened and cried. miss rosetta sang happily as she picked her currants. for the first time since charlotte had married jacob wheeler miss rosetta felt really happy--so happy that there was no room in her heart for bitterness. in fancy she looked forward to the coming years, and saw camilla jane growing up into girlhood, fair and lovable. "she'll be a beauty," reflected miss rosetta complacently. "jane was a handsome girl. she shall always be dressed as nice as i can manage it, and i'll get her an organ, and have her take painting and music lessons. parties, too! i'll give her a real coming-out party when she's eighteen and the very prettiest dress that's to be had. dear me, i can hardly wait for her to grow up, though she's sweet enough now to make one wish she could stay a baby forever." when miss rosetta returned to the kitchen, her eyes fell on an empty cradle. camilla jane was gone! miss rosetta promptly screamed. she understood at a glance what had happened. six months' old babies do not get out of their cradles and disappear through closed doors without any assistance. "charlotte has been here," gasped miss rosetta. "charlotte has stolen camilla jane! i might have expected it. i might have known when i heard that story about her buying muslin and flannel. it's just like charlotte to do such an underhand trick. but i'll go after her! i'll show her! she'll find out she has got rosetta ellis to deal with and no wheeler!" like a frantic creature and wholly forgetting that her hair was in curl-papers, miss rosetta hurried up the hill and down the shore road to the wheeler farm--a place she had never visited in her life before. the wind was off-shore and only broke the bay's surface into long silvery ripples, and sent sheeny shadows flying out across it from every point and headland, like transparent wings. the little gray house, so close to the purring waves that in storms their spray splashed over its very doorstep, seemed deserted. miss rosetta pounded lustily on the front door. this producing no result, she marched around to the back door and knocked. no answer. miss rosetta tried the door. it was locked. "guilty conscience," sniffed miss rosetta. "well, i shall stay here until i see that perfidious charlotte, if i have to camp in the yard all night." miss rosetta was quite capable of doing this, but she was spared the necessity; walking boldly up to the kitchen window, and peering through it, she felt her heart swell with anger as she beheld charlotte sitting calmly by the table with camilla jane on her knee. beside her was a befrilled and bemuslined cradle, and on a chair lay the garments in which miss rosetta had dressed the baby. it was clad in an entirely new outfit, and seemed quite at home with its new possessor. it was laughing and cooing, and making little dabs at her with its dimpled hands. "charlotte wheeler," cried miss rosetta, rapping sharply on the window-pane. "i've come for that child! bring her out to me at once--at once, i say! how dare you come to my house and steal a baby? you're no better than a common burglar. give me camilla jane, i say!" charlotte came over to the window with the baby in her arms and triumph glittering in her eyes. "there is no such child as camilla jane here," she said. "this is barbara jane. she belongs to me." with that mrs. wheeler pulled down the shade. miss rosetta had to go home. there was nothing else for her to do. on her way she met mr. patterson and told him in full the story of her wrongs. it was all over avonlea by night, and created quite a sensation. avonlea had not had such a toothsome bit of gossip for a long time. mrs. wheeler exulted in the possession of barbara jane for six weeks, during which miss rosetta broke her heart with loneliness and longing, and meditated futile plots for the recovery of the baby. it was hopeless to think of stealing it back or she would have tried to. the hired man at the wheeler place reported that mrs. wheeler never left it night or day for a single moment. she even carried it with her when she went to milk the cows. "but my turn will come," said miss rosetta grimly. "camilla jane is mine, and if she was called barbara for a century it wouldn't alter that fact! barbara, indeed! why not have called her methusaleh and have done with it?" one afternoon in october, when miss rosetta was picking her apples and thinking drearily about lost camilla jane, a woman came running breathlessly down the hill and into the yard. miss rosetta gave an exclamation of amazement and dropped her basket of apples. of all incredible things! the woman was charlotte--charlotte who had never set foot on the grounds of the ellis cottage since her marriage ten years ago, charlotte, bare-headed, wild-eyed, distraught, wringing her hands and sobbing. miss rosetta flew to meet her. "you've scalded camilla jane to death!" she exclaimed. "i always knew you would--always expected it!" "oh, for heaven's sake, come quick, rosetta!" gasped charlotte. "barbara jane is in convulsions and i don't know what to do. the hired man has gone for the doctor. you were the nearest, so i came to you. jenny white was there when they came on, so i left her and ran. oh, rosetta, come, come, if you have a spark of humanity in you! you know what to do for convulsions--you saved the ellis baby when it had them. oh, come and save barbara jane!" "you mean camilla jane, i presume?" said miss rosetta firmly, in spite of her agitation. for a second charlotte wheeler hesitated. then she said passionately: "yes, yes, camilla jane--any name you like! only come." miss rosetta went, and not a moment too soon, either. the doctor lived eight miles away and the baby was very bad. the two women and jenny white worked over her for hours. it was not until dark, when the baby was sleeping soundly and the doctor had gone, after telling miss rosetta that she had saved the child's life, that a realization of the situation came home to them. "well," said miss rosetta, dropping into an armchair with a long sigh of weariness, "i guess you'll admit now, charlotte wheeler, that you are hardly a fit person to have charge of a baby, even if you had to go and steal it from me. i should think your conscience would reproach you--that is, if any woman who would marry jacob wheeler in such an underhanded fashion has a--" "i--i wanted the baby," sobbed charlotte, tremulously. "i was so lonely here. i didn't think it was any harm to take her, because jane gave her to me in her letter. but you have saved her life, rosetta, and you--you can have her back, although it will break my heart to give her up. but, oh, rosetta, won't you let me come and see her sometimes? i love her so i can't bear to give her up entirely." "charlotte," said miss rosetta firmly, "the most sensible thing for you to do is just to come back with the baby. you are worried to death trying to run this farm with the debt jacob wheeler left on it for you. sell it, and come home with me. and we'll both have the baby then." "oh, rosetta, i'd love to," faltered charlotte. "i've--i've wanted to be good friends with you again so much. but i thought you were so hard and bitter you'd never make up." "maybe i've talked too much," conceded miss rosetta, "but you ought to know me well enough to know i didn't mean a word of it. it was your never saying anything, no matter what i said, that riled me up so bad. let bygones be bygones, and come home, charlotte." "i will," said charlotte resolutely, wiping away her tears. "i'm sick of living here and putting up with hired men. i'll be real glad to go home, rosetta, and that's the truth. i've had a hard enough time. i s'pose you'll say i deserved it; but i was fond of jacob, and--" "of course, of course. why shouldn't you be?" said miss rosetta briskly. "i'm sure jacob wheeler was a good enough soul, if he was a little slack-twisted. i'd like to hear anybody say a word against him in my presence. look at that blessed child, charlotte. isn't she the sweetest thing? i'm desperate glad you are coming back home, charlotte. i've never been able to put up a decent mess of mustard pickles since you went away, and you were always such a hand with them! we'll be real snug and cozy again--you and me and little camilla barbara jane." v. the dream-child a man's heart--aye, and a woman's, too--should be light in the spring. the spirit of resurrection is abroad, calling the life of the world out of its wintry grave, knocking with radiant fingers at the gates of its tomb. it stirs in human hearts, and makes them glad with the old primal gladness they felt in childhood. it quickens human souls, and brings them, if so they will, so close to god that they may clasp hands with him. it is a time of wonder and renewed life, and a great outward and inward rapture, as of a young angel softly clapping his hands for creation's joy. at least, so it should be; and so it always had been with me until the spring when the dream-child first came into our lives. that year i hated the spring--i, who had always loved it so. as boy i had loved it, and as man. all the happiness that had ever been mine, and it was much, had come to blossom in the springtime. it was in the spring that josephine and i had first loved each other, or, at least, had first come into the full knowledge that we loved. i think that we must have loved each other all our lives, and that each succeeding spring was a word in the revelation of that love, not to be understood until, in the fullness of time, the whole sentence was written out in that most beautiful of all beautiful springs. how beautiful it was! and how beautiful she was! i suppose every lover thinks that of his lass; otherwise he is a poor sort of lover. but it was not only my eyes of love that made my dear lovely. she was slim and lithe as a young, white-stemmed birch tree; her hair was like a soft, dusky cloud; and her eyes were as blue as avonlea harbor on a fair twilight, when all the sky is abloom over it. she had dark lashes, and a little red mouth that quivered when she was very sad or very happy, or when she loved very much--quivered like a crimson rose too rudely shaken by the wind. at such times what was a man to do save kiss it? the next spring we were married, and i brought her home to my gray old homestead on the gray old harbor shore. a lonely place for a young bride, said avonlea people. nay, it was not so. she was happy here, even in my absences. she loved the great, restless harbor and the vast, misty sea beyond; she loved the tides, keeping their world-old tryst with the shore, and the gulls, and the croon of the waves, and the call of the winds in the fir woods at noon and even; she loved the moonrises and the sunsets, and the clear, calm nights when the stars seemed to have fallen into the water and to be a little dizzy from such a fall. she loved these things, even as i did. no, she was never lonely here then. the third spring came, and our boy was born. we thought we had been happy before; now we knew that we had only dreamed a pleasant dream of happiness, and had awakened to this exquisite reality. we thought we had loved each other before; now, as i looked into my wife's pale face, blanched with its baptism of pain, and met the uplifted gaze of her blue eyes, aglow with the holy passion of motherhood, i knew we had only imagined what love might be. the imagination had been sweet, as the thought of the rose is sweet before the bud is open; but as the rose to the thought, so was love to the imagination of it. "all my thoughts are poetry since baby came," my wife said once, rapturously. our boy lived for twenty months. he was a sturdy, toddling rogue, so full of life and laughter and mischief that, when he died, one day, after the illness of an hour, it seemed a most absurd thing that he should be dead--a thing i could have laughed at, until belief forced itself into my soul like a burning, searing iron. i think i grieved over my little son's death as deeply and sincerely as ever man did, or could. but the heart of the father is not as the heart of the mother. time brought no healing to josephine; she fretted and pined; her cheeks lost their pretty oval, and her red mouth grew pale and drooping. i hoped that spring might work its miracle upon her. when the buds swelled, and the old earth grew green in the sun, and the gulls came back to the gray harbor, whose very grayness grew golden and mellow, i thought i should see her smile again. but, when the spring came, came the dream-child, and the fear that was to be my companion, at bed and board, from sunsetting to sunsetting. one night i awakened from sleep, realizing in the moment of awakening that i was alone. i listened to hear whether my wife were moving about the house. i heard nothing but the little splash of waves on the shore below and the low moan of the distant ocean. i rose and searched the house. she was not in it. i did not know where to seek her; but, at a venture, i started along the shore. it was pale, fainting moonlight. the harbor looked like a phantom harbor, and the night was as still and cold and calm as the face of a dead man. at last i saw my wife coming to me along the shore. when i saw her, i knew what i had feared and how great my fear had been. as she drew near, i saw that she had been crying; her face was stained with tears, and her dark hair hung loose over her shoulders in little, glossy ringlets like a child's. she seemed to be very tired, and at intervals she wrung her small hands together. she showed no surprise when she met me, but only held out her hands to me as if glad to see me. "i followed him--but i could not overtake him," she said with a sob. "i did my best--i hurried so; but he was always a little way ahead. and then i lost him--and so i came back. but i did my best--indeed i did. and oh, i am so tired!" "josie, dearest, what do you mean, and where have you been?" i said, drawing her close to me. "why did you go out so--alone in the night?" she looked at me wonderingly. "how could i help it, david? he called me. i had to go." "who called you?" "the child," she answered in a whisper. "our child, david--our pretty boy. i awakened in the darkness and heard him calling to me down on the shore. such a sad, little wailing cry, david, as if he were cold and lonely and wanted his mother. i hurried out to him, but i could not find him. i could only hear the call, and i followed it on and on, far down the shore. oh, i tried so hard to overtake it, but i could not. once i saw a little white hand beckoning to me far ahead in the moonlight. but still i could not go fast enough. and then the cry ceased, and i was there all alone on that terrible, cold, gray shore. i was so tired and i came home. but i wish i could have found him. perhaps he does not know that i tried to. perhaps he thinks his mother never listened to his call. oh, i would not have him think that." "you have had a bad dream, dear," i said. i tried to say it naturally; but it is hard for a man to speak naturally when he feels a mortal dread striking into his very vitals with its deadly chill. "it was no dream," she answered reproachfully. "i tell you i heard him calling me--me, his mother. what could i do but go to him? you cannot understand--you are only his father. it was not you who gave him birth. it was not you who paid the price of his dear life in pain. he would not call to you--he wanted his mother." i got her back to the house and to her bed, whither she went obediently enough, and soon fell into the sleep of exhaustion. but there was no more sleep for me that night. i kept a grim vigil with dread. when i had married josephine, one of those officious relatives that are apt to buzz about a man's marriage told me that her grandmother had been insane all the latter part of her life. she had grieved over the death of a favorite child until she lost her mind, and, as the first indication of it, she had sought by nights a white dream-child which always called her, so she said, and led her afar with a little, pale, beckoning hand. i had smiled at the story then. what had that grim old bygone to do with springtime and love and josephine? but it came back to me now, hand in hand with my fear. was this fate coming on my dear wife? it was too horrible for belief. she was so young, so fair, so sweet, this girl-wife of mine. it had been only a bad dream, with a frightened, bewildered waking. so i tried to comfort myself. when she awakened in the morning she did not speak of what had happened and i did not dare to. she seemed more cheerful that day than she had been, and went about her household duties briskly and skillfully. my fear lifted. i was sure now that she had only dreamed. and i was confirmed in my hopeful belief when two nights had passed away uneventfully. then, on the third night, the dream-child called to her again. i wakened from a troubled doze to find her dressing herself with feverish haste. "he is calling me," she cried. "oh, don't you hear him? can't you hear him? listen--listen--the little, lonely cry! yes, yes, my precious, mother is coming. wait for me. mother is coming to her pretty boy!" i caught her hand and let her lead me where she would. hand in hand we followed the dream-child down the harbor shore in that ghostly, clouded moonlight. ever, she said, the little cry sounded before her. she entreated the dream-child to wait for her; she cried and implored and uttered tender mother-talk. but, at last, she ceased to hear the cry; and then, weeping, wearied, she let me lead her home again. what a horror brooded over that spring--that so beautiful spring! it was a time of wonder and marvel; of the soft touch of silver rain on greening fields; of the incredible delicacy of young leaves; of blossom on the land and blossom in the sunset. the whole world bloomed in a flush and tremor of maiden loveliness, instinct with all the evasive, fleeting charm of spring and girlhood and young morning. and almost every night of this wonderful time the dream-child called his mother, and we roved the gray shore in quest of him. in the day she was herself; but, when the night fell, she was restless and uneasy until she heard the call. then follow it she would, even through storm and darkness. it was then, she said, that the cry sounded loudest and nearest, as if her pretty boy were frightened by the tempest. what wild, terrible rovings we had, she straining forward, eager to overtake the dream-child; i, sick at heart, following, guiding, protecting, as best i could; then afterwards leading her gently home, heart-broken because she could not reach the child. i bore my burden in secret, determining that gossip should not busy itself with my wife's condition so long as i could keep it from becoming known. we had no near relatives--none with any right to share any trouble--and whoso accepteth human love must bind it to his soul with pain. i thought, however, that i should have medical advice, and i took our old doctor into my confidence. he looked grave when he heard my story. i did not like his expression nor his few guarded remarks. he said he thought human aid would avail little; she might come all right in time; humor her, as far as possible, watch over her, protect her. he needed not to tell me that. the spring went out and summer came in--and the horror deepened and darkened. i knew that suspicions were being whispered from lip to lip. we had been seen on our nightly quests. men and women began to look at us pityingly when we went abroad. one day, on a dull, drowsy afternoon, the dream-child called. i knew then that the end was near; the end had been near in the old grandmother's case sixty years before when the dream-child called in the day. the doctor looked graver than ever when i told him, and said that the time had come when i must have help in my task. i could not watch by day and night. unless i had assistance i would break down. i did not think that i should. love is stronger than that. and on one thing i was determined--they should never take my wife from me. no restraint sterner than a husband's loving hand should ever be put upon her, my pretty, piteous darling. i never spoke of the dream-child to her. the doctor advised against it. it would, he said, only serve to deepen the delusion. when he hinted at an asylum i gave him a look that would have been a fierce word for another man. he never spoke of it again. one night in august there was a dull, murky sunset after a dead, breathless day of heat, with not a wind stirring. the sea was not blue as a sea should be, but pink--all pink--a ghastly, staring, painted pink. i lingered on the harbor shore below the house until dark. the evening bells were ringing faintly and mournfully in a church across the harbor. behind me, in the kitchen, i heard my wife singing. sometimes now her spirits were fitfully high, and then she would sing the old songs of her girlhood. but even in her singing was something strange, as if a wailing, unearthly cry rang through it. nothing about her was sadder than that strange singing. when i went back to the house the rain was beginning to fall; but there was no wind or sound in the air--only that dismal stillness, as if the world were holding its breath in expectation of a calamity. josie was standing by the window, looking out and listening. i tried to induce her to go to bed, but she only shook her head. "i might fall asleep and not hear him when he called," she said. "i am always afraid to sleep now, for fear he should call and his mother fail to hear him." knowing it was of no use to entreat, i sat down by the table and tried to read. three hours passed on. when the clock struck midnight she started up, with the wild light in her sunken blue eyes. "he is calling," she cried, "calling out there in the storm. yes, yes, sweet, i am coming!" she opened the door and fled down the path to the shore. i snatched a lantern from the wall, lighted it, and followed. it was the blackest night i was ever out in, dark with the very darkness of death. the rain fell thickly and heavily. i overtook josie, caught her hand, and stumbled along in her wake, for she went with the speed and recklessness of a distraught woman. we moved in the little flitting circle of light shed by the lantern. all around us and above us was a horrible, voiceless darkness, held, as it were, at bay by the friendly light. "if i could only overtake him once," moaned josie. "if i could just kiss him once, and hold him close against my aching heart. this pain, that never leaves me, would leave me than. oh, my pretty boy, wait for mother! i am coming to you. listen, david; he cries--he cries so pitifully; listen! can't you hear it?" i did hear it! clear and distinct, out of the deadly still darkness before us, came a faint, wailing cry. what was it? was i, too, going mad, or was there something out there--something that cried and moaned--longing for human love, yet ever retreating from human footsteps? i am not a superstitious man; but my nerve had been shaken by my long trial, and i was weaker than i thought. terror took possession of me--terror unnameable. i trembled in every limb; clammy perspiration oozed from my forehead; i was possessed by a wild impulse to turn and flee--anywhere, away from that unearthly cry. but josephine's cold hand gripped mine firmly, and led me on. that strange cry still rang in my ears. but it did not recede; it sounded clearer and stronger; it was a wail; but a loud, insistent wail; it was nearer--nearer; it was in the darkness just beyond us. then we came to it; a little dory had been beached on the pebbles and left there by the receding tide. there was a child in it--a boy, of perhaps two years old, who crouched in the bottom of the dory in water to his waist, his big, blue eyes wild and wide with terror, his face white and tear-stained. he wailed again when he saw us, and held out his little hands. my horror fell away from me like a discarded garment. this child was living. how he had come there, whence and why, i did not know and, in my state of mind, did not question. it was no cry of parted spirit i had heard--that was enough for me. "oh, the poor darling!" cried my wife. she stooped over the dory and lifted the baby in her arms. his long, fair curls fell on her shoulder; she laid her face against his and wrapped her shawl around him. "let me carry him, dear," i said. "he is very wet, and too heavy for you." "no, no, i must carry him. my arms have been so empty--they are full now. oh, david, the pain at my heart has gone. he has come to me to take the place of my own. god has sent him to me out of the sea. he is wet and cold and tired. hush, sweet one, we will go home." silently i followed her home. the wind was rising, coming in sudden, angry gusts; the storm was at hand, but we reached shelter before it broke. just as i shut our door behind us it smote the house with the roar of a baffled beast. i thanked god that we were not out in it, following the dream-child. "you are very wet, josie," i said. "go and put on dry clothes at once." "the child must be looked to first," she said firmly. "see how chilled and exhausted he is, the pretty dear. light a fire quickly, david, while i get dry things for him." i let her have her way. she brought out the clothes our own child had worn and dressed the waif in them, rubbing his chilled limbs, brushing his wet hair, laughing over him, mothering him. she seemed like her old self. for my own part, i was bewildered. all the questions i had not asked before came crowding to my mind how. whose child was this? whence had he come? what was the meaning of it all? he was a pretty baby, fair and plump and rosy. when he was dried and fed, he fell asleep in josie's arms. she hung over him in a passion of delight. it was with difficulty i persuaded her to leave him long enough to change her wet clothes. she never asked whose he might be or from where he might have come. he had been sent to her from the sea; the dream-child had led her to him; that was what she believed, and i dared not throw any doubt on that belief. she slept that night with the baby on her arm, and in her sleep her face was the face of a girl in her youth, untroubled and unworn. i expected that the morrow would bring some one seeking the baby. i had come to the conclusion that he must belong to the "cove" across the harbor, where the fishing hamlet was; and all day, while josie laughed and played with him, i waited and listened for the footsteps of those who would come seeking him. but they did not come. day after day passed, and still they did not come. i was in a maze of perplexity. what should i do? i shrank from the thought of the boy being taken away from us. since we had found him the dream-child had never called. my wife seemed to have turned back from the dark borderland, where her feet had strayed to walk again with me in our own homely paths. day and night she was her old, bright self, happy and serene in the new motherhood that had come to her. the only thing strange in her was her calm acceptance of the event. she never wondered who or whose the child might be--never seemed to fear that he would be taken from her; and she gave him our dream-child's name. at last, when a full week had passed, i went, in my bewilderment, to our old doctor. "a most extraordinary thing," he said thoughtfully. "the child, as you say, must belong to the spruce cove people. yet it is an almost unbelievable thing that there has been no search or inquiry after him. probably there is some simple explanation of the mystery, however. i advise you to go over to the cove and inquire. when you find the parents or guardians of the child, ask them to allow you to keep it for a time. it may prove your wife's salvation. i have known such cases. evidently on that night the crisis of her mental disorder was reached. a little thing might have sufficed to turn her feet either way--back to reason and sanity, or into deeper darkness. it is my belief that the former has occurred, and that, if she is left in undisturbed possession of this child for a time, she will recover completely." i drove around the harbor that day with a lighter heart than i had hoped ever to possess again. when i reached spruce cove the first person i met was old abel blair. i asked him if any child were missing from the cove or along shore. he looked at me in surprise, shook his head, and said he had not heard of any. i told him as much of the tale as was necessary, leaving him to think that my wife and i had found the dory and its small passenger during an ordinary walk along the shore. "a green dory!" he exclaimed. "ben forbes' old green dory has been missing for a week, but it was so rotten and leaky he didn't bother looking for it. but this child, sir--it beats me. what might he be like?" i described the child as closely as possible. "that fits little harry martin to a hair," said old abel, perplexedly, "but, sir, it can't be. or, if it is, there's been foul work somewhere. james martin's wife died last winter, sir, and he died the next month. they left a baby and not much else. there weren't nobody to take the child but jim's half-sister, maggie fleming. she lived here at the cove, and, i'm sorry to say, sir, she hadn't too good a name. she didn't want to be bothered with the baby, and folks say she neglected him scandalous. well, last spring she begun talking of going away to the states. she said a friend of hers had got her a good place in boston, and she was going to go and take little harry. we supposed it was all right. last saturday she went, sir. she was going to walk to the station, and the last seen of her she was trudging along the road, carrying the baby. it hasn't been thought of since. but, sir, d'ye suppose she set that innocent child adrift in that old leaky dory to send him to his death? i knew maggie was no better than she should be, but i can't believe she was as bad as that." "you must come over with me and see if you can identify the child," i said. "if he is harry martin i shall keep him. my wife has been very lonely since our baby died, and she has taken a fancy to this little chap." when we reached my home old abel recognized the child as harry martin. he is with us still. his baby hands led my dear wife back to health and happiness. other children have come to us, she loves them all dearly; but the boy who bears her dead son's name is to her--aye, and to me--as dear as if she had given him birth. he came from the sea, and at his coming the ghostly dream-child fled, nevermore to lure my wife away from me with its exciting cry. therefore i look upon him and love him as my first-born. vi. the brother who failed the monroe family were holding a christmas reunion at the old prince edward island homestead at white sands. it was the first time they had all been together under one roof since the death of their mother, thirty years before. the idea of this christmas reunion had originated with edith monroe the preceding spring, during her tedious convalescence from a bad attack of pneumonia among strangers in an american city, where she had not been able to fill her concert engagements, and had more spare time in which to feel the tug of old ties and the homesick longing for her own people than she had had for years. as a result, when she recovered, she wrote to her second brother, james monroe, who lived on the homestead; and the consequence was this gathering of the monroes under the old roof-tree. ralph monroe for once laid aside the cares of his railroads, and the deceitfulness of his millions, in toronto and took the long-promised, long-deferred trip to the homeland. malcolm monroe journeyed from the far western university of which he was president. edith came, flushed with the triumph of her latest and most successful concert tour. mrs. woodburn, who had been margaret monroe, came from the nova scotia town where she lived a busy, happy life as the wife of a rising young lawyer. james, prosperous and hearty, greeted them warmly at the old homestead whose fertile acres had well repaid his skillful management. they were a merry party, casting aside their cares and years, and harking back to joyous boyhood and girlhood once more. james had a family of rosy lads and lasses; margaret brought her two blue-eyed little girls; ralph's dark, clever-looking son accompanied him, and malcolm brought his, a young man with a resolute face, in which there was less of boyishness than in his father's, and the eyes of a keen, perhaps a hard bargainer. the two cousins were the same age to a day, and it was a family joke among the monroes that the stork must have mixed the babies, since ralph's son was like malcolm in face and brain, while malcolm's boy was a second edition of his uncle ralph. to crown all, aunt isabel came, too--a talkative, clever, shrewd old lady, as young at eighty-five as she had been at thirty, thinking the monroe stock the best in the world, and beamingly proud of her nephews and nieces, who had gone out from this humble, little farm to destinies of such brilliance and influence in the world beyond. i have forgotten robert. robert monroe was apt to be forgotten. although he was the oldest of the family, white sands people, in naming over the various members of the monroe family, would add, "and robert," in a tone of surprise over the remembrance of his existence. he lived on a poor, sandy little farm down by the shore, but he had come up to james' place on the evening when the guests arrived; they had all greeted him warmly and joyously, and then did not think about him again in their laughter and conversation. robert sat back in a corner and listened with a smile, but he never spoke. afterwards he had slipped noiselessly away and gone home, and nobody noticed his going. they were all gayly busy recalling what had happened in the old times and telling what had happened in the new. edith recounted the successes of her concert tours; malcolm expatiated proudly on his plans for developing his beloved college; ralph described the country through which his new railroad ran, and the difficulties he had had to overcome in connection with it. james, aside, discussed his orchard and his crops with margaret, who had not been long enough away from the farm to lose touch with its interests. aunt isabel knitted and smiled complacently on all, talking now with one, now with the other, secretly quite proud of herself that she, an old woman of eighty-five, who had seldom been out of white sands in her life, could discuss high finance with ralph, and higher education with malcolm, and hold her own with james in an argument on drainage. the white sands school teacher, an arch-eyed, red-mouthed bit a girl--a bell from avonlea--who boarded with the james monroes, amused herself with the boys. all were enjoying themselves hugely, so it is not to be wondered at that they did not miss robert, who had gone home early because his old housekeeper was nervous if left alone at night. he came again the next afternoon. from james, in the barnyard, he learned that malcolm and ralph had driven to the harbor, that margaret and mrs. james had gone to call on friends in avonlea, and that edith was walking somewhere in the woods on the hill. there was nobody in the house except aunt isabel and the teacher. "you'd better wait and stay the evening," said james, indifferently. "they'll all be back soon." robert went across the yard and sat down on the rustic bench in the angle of the front porch. it was a fine december evening, as mild as autumn; there had been no snow, and the long fields, sloping down from the homestead, were brown and mellow. a weird, dreamy stillness had fallen upon the purple earth, the windless woods, the rain of the valleys, the sere meadows. nature seemed to have folded satisfied hands to rest, knowing that her long, wintry slumber was coming upon her. out to sea, a dull, red sunset faded out into somber clouds, and the ceaseless voice of many waters came up from the tawny shore. robert rested his chin on his hand and looked across the vales and hills, where the feathery gray of leafless hardwoods was mingled with the sturdy, unfailing green of the conebearers. he was a tall, bent man, with thin, gray hair, a lined face, and deeply-set, gentle brown eyes--the eyes of one who, looking through pain, sees rapture beyond. he felt very happy. he loved his family clannishly, and he was rejoiced that they were all again near to him. he was proud of their success and fame. he was glad that james had prospered so well of late years. there was no canker of envy or discontent in his soul. he heard absently indistinct voices at the open hall window above the porch, where aunt isabel was talking to kathleen bell. presently aunt isabel moved nearer to the window, and her words came down to robert with startling clearness. "yes, i can assure you, miss bell, that i'm real proud of my nephews and nieces. they're a smart family. they've almost all done well, and they hadn't any of them much to begin with. ralph had absolutely nothing and to-day he is a millionaire. their father met with so many losses, what with his ill-health and the bank failing, that he couldn't help them any. but they've all succeeded, except poor robert--and i must admit that he's a total failure." "oh, no, no," said the little teacher deprecatingly. "a total failure!" aunt isabel repeated her words emphatically. she was not going to be contradicted by anybody, least of all a bell from avonlea. "he has been a failure since the time he was born. he is the first monroe to disgrace the old stock that way. i'm sure his brothers and sisters must be dreadfully ashamed of him. he has lived sixty years and he hasn't done a thing worth while. he can't even make his farm pay. if he's kept out of debt it's as much as he's ever managed to do." "some men can't even do that," murmured the little school teacher. she was really so much in awe of this imperious, clever old aunt isabel that it was positive heroism on her part to venture even this faint protest. "more is expected of a monroe," said aunt isabel majestically. "robert monroe is a failure, and that is the only name for him." robert monroe stood up below the window in a dizzy, uncertain fashion. aunt isabel had been speaking of him! he, robert, was a failure, a disgrace to his blood, of whom his nearest and dearest were ashamed! yes, it was true; he had never realized it before; he had known that he could never win power or accumulate riches, but he had not thought that mattered much. now, through aunt isabel's scornful eyes, he saw himself as the world saw him--as his brothers and sisters must see him. there lay the sting. what the world thought of him did not matter; but that his own should think him a failure and disgrace was agony. he moaned as he started to walk across the yard, only anxious to hide his pain and shame away from all human sight, and in his eyes was the look of a gentle animal which had been stricken by a cruel and unexpected blow. edith monroe, who, unaware of robert's proximity, had been standing on the other side of the porch, saw that look, as he hurried past her, unseeing. a moment before her dark eyes had been flashing with anger at aunt isabel's words; now the anger was drowned in a sudden rush of tears. she took a quick step after robert, but checked the impulse. not then--and not by her alone--could that deadly hurt be healed. nay, more, robert must never suspect that she knew of any hurt. she stood and watched him through her tears as he went away across the low-lying shore fields to hide his broken heart under his own humble roof. she yearned to hurry after him and comfort him, but she knew that comfort was not what robert needed now. justice, and justice only, could pluck out the sting, which otherwise must rankle to the death. ralph and malcolm were driving into the yard. edith went over to them. "boys," she said resolutely, "i want to have a talk with you." the christmas dinner at the old homestead was a merry one. mrs. james spread a feast that was fit for the halls of lucullus. laughter, jest, and repartee flew from lip to lip. nobody appeared to notice that robert ate little, said nothing, and sat with his form shrinking in his shabby "best" suit, his gray head bent even lower than usual, as if desirous of avoiding all observation. when the others spoke to him he answered deprecatingly, and shrank still further into himself. finally all had eaten all they could, and the remainder of the plum pudding was carried out. robert gave a low sigh of relief. it was almost over. soon he would be able to escape and hide himself and his shame away from the mirthful eyes of these men and women who had earned the right to laugh at the world in which their success gave them power and influence. he--he--only--was a failure. he wondered impatiently why mrs. james did not rise. mrs. james merely leaned comfortably back in her chair, with the righteous expression of one who has done her duty by her fellow creatures' palates, and looked at malcolm. malcolm rose in his place. silence fell on the company; everybody looked suddenly alert and expectant, except robert. he still sat with bowed head, wrapped in his own bitterness. "i have been told that i must lead off," said malcolm, "because i am supposed to possess the gift of gab. but, if i do, i am not going to use it for any rhetorical effect to-day. simple, earnest words must express the deepest feelings of the heart in doing justice to its own. brothers and sisters, we meet to-day under our own roof-tree, surrounded by the benedictions of the past years. perhaps invisible guests are here--the spirits of those who founded this home and whose work on earth has long been finished. it is not amiss to hope that this is so and our family circle made indeed complete. to each one of us who are here in visible bodily presence some measure of success has fallen; but only one of us has been supremely successful in the only things that really count--the things that count for eternity as well as time--sympathy and unselfishness and self-sacrifice. "i shall tell you my own story for the benefit of those who have not heard it. when i was a lad of sixteen i started to work out my own education. some of you will remember that old mr. blair of avonlea offered me a place in his store for the summer, at wages which would go far towards paying my expenses at the country academy the next winter. i went to work, eager and hopeful. all summer i tried to do my faithful best for my employer. in september the blow fell. a sum of money was missing from mr. blair's till. i was suspected and discharged in disgrace. all my neighbors believed me guilty; even some of my own family looked upon me with suspicion--nor could i blame them, for the circumstantial evidence was strongly against me." ralph and james looked ashamed; edith and margaret, who had not been born at the time referred to, lifted their faces innocently. robert did not move or glance up. he hardly seemed to be listening. "i was crushed in an agony of shame and despair," continued malcolm. "i believed my career was ruined. i was bent on casting all my ambitions behind me, and going west to some place where nobody knew me or my disgrace. but there was one person who believed in my innocence, who said to me, 'you shall not give up--you shall not behave as if you were guilty. you are innocent, and in time your innocence will be proved. meanwhile show yourself a man. you have nearly enough to pay your way next winter at the academy. i have a little i can give to help you out. don't give in--never give in when you have done no wrong.' "i listened and took his advice. i went to the academy. my story was there as soon as i was, and i found myself sneered at and shunned. many a time i would have given up in despair, had it not been for the encouragement of my counselor. he furnished the backbone for me. i was determined that his belief in me should be justified. i studied hard and came out at the head of my class. then there seemed to be no chance of my earning any more money that summer. but a farmer at newbridge, who cared nothing about the character of his help, if he could get the work out of them, offered to hire me. the prospect was distasteful but, urged by the man who believed in me, i took the place and endured the hardships. another winter of lonely work passed at the academy. i won the farrell scholarship the last year it was offered, and that meant an arts course for me. i went to redmond college. my story was not openly known there, but something of it got abroad, enough to taint my life there also with its suspicion. but the year i graduated, mr. blair's nephew, who, as you know, was the real culprit, confessed his guilt, and i was cleared before the world. since then my career has been what is called a brilliant one. but"--malcolm turned and laid his hand on robert's thin shoulder--"all of my success i owe to my brother robert. it is his success--not mine--and here to-day, since we have agreed to say what is too often left to be said over a coffin lid, i thank him for all he did for me, and tell him that there is nothing i am more proud of and thankful for than such a brother." robert had looked up at last, amazed, bewildered, incredulous. his face crimsoned as malcolm sat down. but now ralph was getting up. "i am no orator as malcolm is," he quoted gayly, "but i've got a story to tell, too, which only one of you knows. forty years ago, when i started in life as a business man, money wasn't so plentiful with me as it may be to-day. and i needed it badly. a chance came my way to make a pile of it. it wasn't a clean chance. it was a dirty chance. it looked square on the surface; but, underneath, it meant trickery and roguery. i hadn't enough perception to see that, though--i was fool enough to think it was all right. i told robert what i meant to do. and robert saw clear through the outward sham to the real, hideous thing underneath. he showed me what it meant and he gave me a preachment about a few monroe traditions of truth and honor. i saw what i had been about to do as he saw it--as all good men and true must see it. and i vowed then and there that i'd never go into anything that i wasn't sure was fair and square and clean through and through. i've kept that vow. i am a rich man, and not a dollar of my money is 'tainted' money. but i didn't make it. robert really made every cent of my money. if it hadn't been for him i'd have been a poor man to-day, or behind prison bars, as are the other men who went into that deal when i backed out. i've got a son here. i hope he'll be as clever as his uncle malcolm; but i hope, still more earnestly, that he'll be as good and honorable a man as his uncle robert." by this time robert's head was bent again, and his face buried in his hands. "my turn next," said james. "i haven't much to say--only this. after mother died i took typhoid fever. here i was with no one to wait on me. robert came and nursed me. he was the most faithful, tender, gentle nurse ever a man had. the doctor said robert saved my life. i don't suppose any of the rest of us here can say we have saved a life." edith wiped away her tears and sprang up impulsively. "years ago," she said, "there was a poor, ambitious girl who had a voice. she wanted a musical education and her only apparent chance of obtaining it was to get a teacher's certificate and earn money enough to have her voice trained. she studied hard, but her brains, in mathematics at least, weren't as good as her voice, and the time was short. she failed. she was lost in disappointment and despair, for that was the last year in which it was possible to obtain a teacher's certificate without attending queen's academy, and she could not afford that. then her oldest brother came to her and told her he could spare enough money to send her to the conservatory of music in halifax for a year. he made her take it. she never knew till long afterwards that he had sold the beautiful horse which he loved like a human creature, to get the money. she went to the halifax conservatory. she won a musical scholarship. she has had a happy life and a successful career. and she owes it all to her brother robert--" but edith could go no further. her voice failed her and she sat down in tears. margaret did not try to stand up. "i was only five when my mother died," she sobbed. "robert was both father and mother to me. never had child or girl so wise and loving a guardian as he was to me. i have never forgotten the lessons he taught me. whatever there is of good in my life or character i owe to him. i was often headstrong and willful, but he never lost patience with me. i owe everything to robert." suddenly the little teacher rose with wet eyes and crimson cheeks. "i have something to say, too," she said resolutely. "you have spoken for yourselves. i speak for the people of white sands. there is a man in this settlement whom everybody loves. i shall tell you some of the things he has done." "last fall, in an october storm, the harbor lighthouse flew a flag of distress. only one man was brave enough to face the danger of sailing to the lighthouse to find out what the trouble was. that was robert monroe. he found the keeper alone with a broken leg; and he sailed back and made--yes, made the unwilling and terrified doctor go with him to the lighthouse. i saw him when he told the doctor he must go; and i tell you that no man living could have set his will against robert monroe's at that moment. "four years ago old sarah cooper was to be taken to the poorhouse. she was broken-hearted. one man took the poor, bed-ridden, fretful old creature into his home, paid for medical attendance, and waited on her himself, when his housekeeper couldn't endure her tantrums and temper. sarah cooper died two years afterwards, and her latest breath was a benediction on robert monroe--the best man god ever made. "eight years ago jack blewitt wanted a place. nobody would hire him, because his father was in the penitentiary, and some people thought jack ought to be there, too. robert monroe hired him--and helped him, and kept him straight, and got him started right--and jack blewitt is a hard-working, respected young man to-day, with every prospect of a useful and honorable life. there is hardly a man, woman, or child in white sands who doesn't owe something to robert monroe!" as kathleen bell sat down, malcolm sprang up and held out his hands. "every one of us stand up and sing auld lang syne," he cried. everybody stood up and joined hands, but one did not sing. robert monroe stood erect, with a great radiance on his face and in his eyes. his reproach had been taken away; he was crowned among his kindred with the beauty and blessing of sacred yesterdays. when the singing ceased malcolm's stern-faced son reached over and shook robert's hands. "uncle rob," he said heartily, "i hope that when i'm sixty i'll be as successful a man as you." "i guess," said aunt isabel, aside to the little school teacher, as she wiped the tears from her keen old eyes, "that there's a kind of failure that's the best success." vii. the return of hester just at dusk, that evening, i had gone upstairs and put on my muslin gown. i had been busy all day attending to the strawberry preserving--for mary sloane could not be trusted with that--and i was a little tired, and thought it was hardly worth while to change my dress, especially since there was nobody to see or care, since hester was gone. mary sloane did not count. but i did it because hester would have cared if she had been here. she always liked to see me neat and dainty. so, although i was tired and sick at heart, i put on my pale blue muslin and dressed my hair. at first i did my hair up in a way i had always liked; but had seldom worn, because hester had disapproved of it. it became me; but i suddenly felt as if it were disloyal to her, so i took the puffs down again and arranged my hair in the plain, old-fashioned way she had liked. my hair, though it had a good many gray threads in it, was thick and long and brown still; but that did not matter--nothing mattered since hester was dead and i had sent hugh blair away for the second time. the newbridge people all wondered why i had not put on mourning for hester. i did not tell them it was because hester had asked me not to. hester had never approved of mourning; she said that if the heart did not mourn crape would not mend matters; and if it did there was no need of the external trappings of woe. she told me calmly, the night before she died, to go on wearing my pretty dresses just as i had always worn them, and to make no difference in my outward life because of her going. "i know there will be a difference in your inward life," she said wistfully. and oh, there was! but sometimes i wondered uneasily, feeling almost conscience-stricken, whether it were wholly because hester had left me--whether it were not partly because, for a second time, i had shut the door of my heart in the face of love at her bidding. when i had dressed i went downstairs to the front door, and sat on the sandstone steps under the arch of the virginia creeper. i was all alone, for mary sloane had gone to avonlea. it was a beautiful night; the full moon was just rising over the wooded hills, and her light fell through the poplars into the garden before me. through an open corner on the western side i saw the sky all silvery blue in the afterlight. the garden was very beautiful just then, for it was the time of the roses, and ours were all out--so many of them--great pink, and red, and white, and yellow roses. hester had loved roses and could never have enough of them. her favorite bush was growing by the steps, all gloried over with blossoms--white, with pale pink hearts. i gathered a cluster and pinned it loosely on my breast. but my eyes filled as i did so--i felt so very, very desolate. i was all alone, and it was bitter. the roses, much as i loved them, could not give me sufficient companionship. i wanted the clasp of a human hand, and the love-light in human eyes. and then i fell to thinking of hugh, though i tried not to. i had always lived alone with hester. i did not remember our parents, who had died in my babyhood. hester was fifteen years older than i, and she had always seemed more like a mother than a sister. she had been very good to me and had never denied me anything i wanted, save the one thing that mattered. i was twenty-five before i ever had a lover. this was not, i think, because i was more unattractive than other women. the merediths had always been the "big" family of newbridge. the rest of the people looked up to us, because we were the granddaughters of old squire meredith. the newbridge young men would have thought it no use to try to woo a meredith. i had not a great deal of family pride, as perhaps i should be ashamed to confess. i found our exalted position very lonely, and cared more for the simple joys of friendship and companionship which other girls had. but hester possessed it in a double measure; she never allowed me to associate on a level of equality with the young people of newbridge. we must be very nice and kind and affable to them--_noblesse oblige_, as it were--but we must never forget that we were merediths. when i was twenty-five, hugh blair came to newbridge, having bought a farm near the village. he was a stranger, from lower carmody, and so was not imbued with any preconceptions of meredith superiority. in his eyes i was just a girl like others--a girl to be wooed and won by any man of clean life and honest heart. i met him at a little sunday-school picnic over at avonlea, which i attended because of my class. i thought him very handsome and manly. he talked to me a great deal, and at last he drove me home. the next sunday evening he walked up from church with me. hester was away, or, of course, this would never have happened. she had gone for a month's visit to distant friends. in that month i lived a lifetime. hugh blair courted me as the other girls in newbridge were courted. he took me out driving and came to see me in the evenings, which we spent for the most part in the garden. i did not like the stately gloom and formality of our old meredith parlor, and hugh never seemed to feel at ease there. his broad shoulders and hearty laughter were oddly out of place among our faded, old-maidish furnishings. mary sloane was very much pleased at hugh's visit. she had always resented the fact that i had never had a "beau," seeming to think it reflected some slight or disparagement upon me. she did all she could to encourage him. but when hester returned and found out about hugh she was very angry--and grieved, which hurt me far more. she told me that i had forgotten myself and that hugh's visits must cease. i had never been afraid of hester before, but i was afraid of her then. i yielded. perhaps it was very weak of me, but then i was always weak. i think that was why hugh's strength had appealed so to me. i needed love and protection. hester, strong and self-sufficient, had never felt such a need. she could not understand. oh, how contemptuous she was. i told hugh timidly that hester did not approve of our friendship and that it must end. he took it quietly enough, and went away. i thought he did not care much, and the thought selfishly made my own heartache worse. i was very unhappy for a long time, but i tried not to let hester see it, and i don't think she did. she was not very discerning in some things. after a time i got over it; that is, the heartache ceased to ache all the time. but things were never quite the same again. life always seemed rather dreary and empty, in spite of hester and my roses and my sunday-school. i supposed that hugh blair would find him a wife elsewhere, but he did not. the years went by and we never met, although i saw him often at church. at such times hester always watched me very closely, but there was no need of her to do so. hugh made no attempt to meet me, or speak with me, and i would not have permitted it if he had. but my heart always yearned after him. i was selfishly glad he had not married, because if he had i could not have thought and dreamed of him--it would have been wrong. perhaps, as it was, it was foolish; but it seemed to me that i must have something, if only foolish dreams, to fill my life. at first there was only pain in the thought of him, but afterwards a faint, misty little pleasure crept in, like a mirage from a land of lost delight. ten years slipped away thus. and then hester died. her illness was sudden and short; but, before she died, she asked me to promise that i would never marry hugh blair. she had not mentioned his name for years. i thought she had forgotten all about him. "oh, dear sister, is there any need of such a promise?" i asked, weeping. "hugh blair does not want to marry me now. he never will again." "he has never married--he has not forgotten you," she said fiercely. "i could not rest in my grave if i thought you would disgrace your family by marrying beneath you. promise me, margaret." i promised. i would have promised anything in my power to make her dying pillow easier. besides, what did it matter? i was sure that hugh would never think of me again. she smiled when she heard me, and pressed my hand. "good little sister--that is right. you were always a good girl, margaret--good and obedient, though a little sentimental and foolish in some ways. you are like our mother--she was always weak and loving. i took after the merediths." she did, indeed. even in her coffin her dark, handsome features preserved their expression of pride and determination. somehow, that last look of her dead face remained in my memory, blotting out the real affection and gentleness which her living face had almost always shown me. this distressed me, but i could not help it. i wished to think of her as kind and loving, but i could remember only the pride and coldness with which she had crushed out my new-born happiness. yet i felt no anger or resentment towards her for what she had done. i knew she had meant it for the best--my best. it was only that she was mistaken. and then, a month after she had died, hugh blair came to me and asked me to be his wife. he said he had always loved me, and could never love any other woman. all my old love for him reawakened. i wanted to say yes--to feel his strong arms about me, and the warmth of his love enfolding and guarding me. in my weakness i yearned for his strength. but there was my promise to hester--that promise give by her deathbed. i could not break it, and i told him so. it was the hardest thing i had ever done. he did not go away quietly this time. he pleaded and reasoned and reproached. every word of his hurt me like a knife-thrust. but i could not break my promise to the dead. if hester had been living i would have braved her wrath and her estrangement and gone to him. but she was dead and i could not do it. finally he went away in grief and anger. that was three weeks ago--and now i sat alone in the moonlit rose-garden and wept for him. but after a time my tears dried and a very strange feeling came over me. i felt calm and happy, as if some wonderful love and tenderness were very near me. and now comes the strange part of my story--the part which will not, i suppose, be believed. if it were not for one thing i think i should hardly believe it myself. i should feel tempted to think i had dreamed it. but because of that one thing i know it was real. the night was very calm and still. not a breath of wind stirred. the moonshine was the brightest i had ever seen. in the middle of the garden, where the shadow of the poplars did not fall, it was almost as bright as day. one could have read fine print. there was still a little rose glow in the west, and over the airy boughs of the tall poplars one or two large, bright stars were shining. the air was sweet with a hush of dreams, and the world was so lovely that i held my breath over its beauty. then, all at once, down at the far end of the garden, i saw a woman walking. i thought at first that it must be mary sloane; but, as she crossed a moonlit path, i saw it was not our old servant's stout, homely figure. this woman was tall and erect. although no suspicion of the truth came to me, something about her reminded me of hester. even so had hester liked to wander about the garden in the twilight. i had seen her thus a thousand times. i wondered who the woman could be. some neighbor, of course. but what a strange way for her to come! she walked up the garden slowly in the poplar shade. now and then she stooped, as if to caress a flower, but she plucked none. half way up she out in to the moonlight and walked across the plot of grass in the center of the garden. my heart gave a great throb and i stood up. she was quite near to me now--and i saw that it was hester. i can hardly say just what my feelings were at this moment. i know that i was not surprised. i was frightened and yet i was not frightened. something in me shrank back in a sickening terror; but _i_, the real i, was not frightened. i knew that this was my sister, and that there could be no reason why i should be frightened of her, because she loved me still, as she had always done. further than this i was not conscious of any coherent thought, either of wonder or attempt at reasoning. hester paused when she came to within a few steps of me. in the moonlight i saw her face quite plainly. it wore an expression i had never before seen on it--a humble, wistful, tender look. often in life hester had looked lovingly, even tenderly, upon me; but always, as it were, through a mask of pride and sternness. this was gone now, and i felt nearer to her than ever before. i knew suddenly that she understood me. and then the half-conscious awe and terror some part of me had felt vanished, and i only realized that hester was here, and that there was no terrible gulf of change between us. hester beckoned to me and said, "come." i stood up and followed her out of the garden. we walked side by side down our lane, under the willows and out to the road, which lay long and still in that bright, calm moonshine. i felt as if i were in a dream, moving at the bidding of a will not my own, which i could not have disputed even if i had wished to do so. but i did not wish it; i had only the feeling of a strange, boundless content. we went down the road between the growths of young fir that bordered it. i smelled their balsam as we passed, and noticed how clearly and darkly their pointed tops came out against the sky. i heard the tread of my own feet on little twigs and plants in our way, and the trail of my dress over the grass; but hester moved noiselessly. then we went through the avenue--that stretch of road under the apple trees that anne shirley, over at avonlea, calls "the white way of delight." it was almost dark here; and yet i could see hester's face just as plainly as if the moon were shining on it; and whenever i looked at her she was always looking at me with that strangely gentle smile on her lips. just as we passed out of the avenue, james trent overtook us, driving. it seems to me that our feelings at a given moment are seldom what we would expect them to be. i simply felt annoyed that james trent, the most notorious gossip in newbridge, should have seen me walking with hester. in a flash i anticipated all the annoyance of it; he would talk of the matter far and wide. but james trent merely nodded and called out, "howdy, miss margaret. taking a moonlight stroll by yourself? lovely night, ain't it?" just then his horse suddenly swerved, as if startled, and broke into a gallop. they whirled around the curve of the road in an instant. i felt relieved, but puzzled. james trent had not seen hester. down over the hill was hugh blair's place. when we came to it, hester turned in at the gate. then, for the first time, i understood why she had come back, and a blinding flash of joy broke over my soul. i stopped and looked at her. her deep eyes gazed into mine, but she did not speak. we went on. hugh's house lay before us in the moonlight, grown over by a tangle of vines. his garden was on our right, a quaint spot, full of old-fashioned flowers growing in a sort of disorderly sweetness. i trod on a bed of mint, and the spice of it floated up to me like the incense of some strange, sacred, solemn ceremonial. i felt unspeakably happy and blessed. when we came to the door hester said, "knock, margaret." i rapped gently. in a moment, hugh opened it. then that happened by which, in after days, i was to know that this strange thing was no dream or fancy of mine. hugh looked not at me, but past me. "hester!" he exclaimed, with human fear and horror in his voice. he leaned against the door-post, the big, strong fellow, trembling from head to foot. "i have learned," said hester, "that nothing matters in all god's universe, except love. there is no pride where i have been, and no false ideals." hugh and i looked into each other's eyes, wondering, and then we knew that we were alone. viii. the little brown book of miss emily the first summer mr. irving and miss lavendar--diana and i could never call her anything else, even after she was married--were at echo lodge after their marriage, both diana and i spent a great deal of time with them. we became acquainted with many of the grafton people whom we had not known before, and among others, the family of mr. mack leith. we often went up to the leiths in the evening to play croquet. millie and margaret leith were very nice girls, and the boys were nice, too. indeed, we liked every one in the family, except poor old miss emily leith. we tried hard enough to like her, because she seemed to like diana and me very much, and always wanted to sit with us and talk to us, when we would much rather have been somewhere else. we often felt a good deal of impatience at these times, but i am very glad to think now that we never showed it. in a way, we felt sorry for miss emily. she was mr. leith's old-maid sister and she was not of much importance in the household. but, though we felt sorry for her, we couldn't like her. she really was fussy and meddlesome; she liked to poke a finger into every one's pie, and she was not at all tactful. then, too, she had a sarcastic tongue, and seemed to feel bitter towards all the young folks and their love affairs. diana and i thought this was because she had never had a lover of her own. somehow, it seemed impossible to think of lovers in connection with miss emily. she was short and stout and pudgy, with a face so round and fat and red that it seemed quite featureless; and her hair was scanty and gray. she walked with a waddle, just like mrs. rachel lynde, and she was always rather short of breath. it was hard to believe miss emily had ever been young; yet old mr. murray, who lived next door to the leiths, not only expected us to believe it, but assured us that she had been very pretty. "that, at least, is impossible," said diana to me. and then, one day, miss emily died. i'm afraid no one was very sorry. it seems to me a most dreadful thing to go out of the world and leave not one person behind to be sorry because you have gone. miss emily was dead and buried before diana and i heard of it at all. the first i knew of it was when i came home from orchard slope one day and found a queer, shabby little black horsehair trunk, all studded with brass nails, on the floor of my room at green gables. marilla told me that jack leith had brought it over, and said that it had belonged to miss emily and that, when she was dying, she asked them to send it to me. "but what is in it? and what am i to do with it?" i asked in bewilderment. "there was nothing said about what you were to do with it. jack said they didn't know what was in it, and hadn't looked into it, seeing that it was your property. it seems a rather queer proceeding--but you're always getting mixed up in queer proceedings, anne. as for what is in it, the easiest way to find out, i reckon, is to open it and see. the key is tied to it. jack said miss emily said she wanted you to have it because she loved you and saw her lost youth in you. i guess she was a bit delirious at the last and wandered a good deal. she said she wanted you 'to understand her.'" i ran over to orchard slope and asked diana to come over and examine the trunk with me. i hadn't received any instructions about keeping its contents secret and i knew miss emily wouldn't mind diana knowing about them, whatever they were. it was a cool, gray afternoon and we got back to green gables just as the rain was beginning to fall. when we went up to my room the wind was rising and whistling through the boughs of the big old snow queen outside of my window. diana was excited, and, i really believe, a little bit frightened. we opened the old trunk. it was very small, and there was nothing in it but a big cardboard box. the box was tied up and the knots sealed with wax. we lifted it out and untied it. i touched diana's fingers as we did it, and both of us exclaimed at once, "how cold your hand is!" in the box was a quaint, pretty, old-fashioned gown, not at all faded, made of blue muslin, with a little darker blue flower in it. under it we found a sash, a yellowed feather fan, and an envelope full of withered flowers. at the bottom of the box was a little brown book. it was small and thin, like a girl's exercise book, with leaves that had once been blue and pink, but were now quite faded, and stained in places. on the fly leaf was written, in a very delicate hand, "emily margaret leith," and the same writing covered the first few pages of the book. the rest were not written on at all. we sat there on the floor, diana and i, and read the little book together, while the rain thudded against the window panes. june 19, 18- i came to-day to spend a while with aunt margaret in charlottetown. it is so pretty here, where she lives--and ever so much nicer than on the farm at home. i have no cows to milk here or pigs to feed. aunt margaret has given me such a lovely blue muslin dress, and i am to have it made to wear at a garden party out at brighton next week. i never had a muslin dress before--nothing but ugly prints and dark woolens. i wish we were rich, like aunt margaret. aunt margaret laughed when i said this, and declared she would give all her wealth for my youth and beauty and light-heartedness. i am only eighteen and i know i am very merry but i wonder if i am really pretty. it seems to me that i am when i look in aunt margaret's beautiful mirrors. they make me look very different from the old cracked one in my room at home which always twisted my face and turned me green. but aunt margaret spoiled her compliment by telling me i look exactly as she did at my age. if i thought i'd ever look as aunt margaret does now, i don't know what i'd do. she is so fat and red. june 29. last week i went to the garden party and i met a young man called paul osborne. he is a young artist from montreal who is boarding over at heppoch. he is the handsomest man i have ever seen--very tall and slender, with dreamy, dark eyes and a pale, clever face. i have not been able to keep from thinking about him ever since, and to-day he came over here and asked if he could paint me. i felt very much flattered and so pleased when aunt margaret gave him permission. he says he wants to paint me as "spring," standing under the poplars where a fine rain of sunshine falls through. i am to wear my blue muslin gown and a wreath of flowers on my hair. he says i have such beautiful hair. he has never seen any of such a real pale gold. somehow it seems even prettier than ever to me since he praised it. i had a letter from home to-day. ma says the blue hen stole her nest and came off with fourteen chickens, and that pa has sold the little spotted calf. somehow those things don't interest me like they once did. july 9. the picture is coming on very well, mr. osborne says. i know he is making me look far too pretty in it, although he persists in saying he can't do me justice. he is going to send it to some great exhibition when finished, but he says he will make a little water-color copy for me. he comes every day to paint and we talk a great deal and he reads me lovely things out of his books. i don't understand them all, but i try to, and he explains them so nicely and is so patient with my stupidity. and he says any one with my eyes and hair and coloring does not need to be clever. he says i have the sweetest, merriest laugh in the world. but i will not write down all the compliments he has paid me. i dare say he does not mean them at all. in the evening we stroll among the spruces or sit on the bench under the acacia tree. sometimes we don't talk at all, but i never find the time long. indeed, the minutes just seem to fly--and then the moon will come up, round and red, over the harbor and mr. osborne will sigh and say he supposes it is time for him to go. july 24. i am so happy. i am frightened at my happiness. oh, i didn't think life could ever be so beautiful for me as it is! paul loves me! he told me so to-night as we walked by the harbor and watched the sunset, and he asked me to be his wife. i have cared for him ever since i met him, but i am afraid i am not clever and well-educated enough for a wife for paul. because, of course, i'm only an ignorant little country girl and have lived all my life on a farm. why, my hands are quite rough yet from the work i've done. but paul just laughed when i said so, and took my hands and kissed them. then he looked into my eyes and laughed again, because i couldn't hide from him how much i loved him. we are to be married next spring and paul says he will take me to europe. that will be very nice, but nothing matters so long as i am with him. paul's people are very wealthy and his mother and sisters are very fashionable. i am frightened of them, but i did not tell paul so because i think it would hurt him and oh, i wouldn't do that for the world. there is nothing i wouldn't suffer if it would do him any good. i never thought any one could feel so. i used to think if i loved anybody i would want him to do everything for me and wait on me as if i were a princess. but that is not the way at all. love makes you very humble and you want to do everything yourself for the one you love. august 10. paul went home to-day. oh, it is so terrible! i don't know how i can bear to live even for a little while without him. but this is silly of me, because i know he has to go and he will write often and come to me often. but, still, it is so lonesome. i didn't cry when he left me because i wanted him to remember me smiling in the way he liked best, but i have been crying ever since and i can't stop, no matter how hard i try. we have had such a beautiful fortnight. every day seemed dearer and happier than the last, and now it is ended and i feel as if it could never be the same again. oh, i am very foolish--but i love him so dearly and if i were to lose his love i know i would die. august 17. i think my heart is dead. but no, it can't be, for it aches too much. paul's mother came here to see me to-day. she was not angry or disagreeable. i wouldn't have been so frightened of her if she had been. as it was, i felt that i couldn't say a word. she is very beautiful and stately and wonderful, with a low, cold voice and proud, dark eyes. her face is like paul's but without the loveableness of his. she talked to me for a long time and she said terrible things--terrible, because i knew they were all true. i seemed to see everything through her eyes. she said that paul was infatuated with my youth and beauty but that it would not last and what else had i to give him? she said paul must marry a woman of his own class, who could do honor to his fame and position. she said that he was very talented and had a great career before him, but that if he married me it would ruin his life. i saw it all, just as she explained it out, and i told her at last that i would not marry paul, and she might tell him so. but she smiled and said i must tell him myself, because he would not believe any one else. i could have begged her to spare me that, but i knew it would be of no use. i do not think she has any pity or mercy for any one. besides, what she said was quite true. when she thanked me for being so reasonable i told her i was not doing it to please her, but for paul's sake, because i would not spoil his life, and that i would always hate her. she smiled again and went away. oh, how can i bear it? i did not know any one could suffer like this! august 18. i have done it. i wrote to paul to-day. i knew i must tell him by letter, because i could never make him believe it face to face. i was afraid i could not even do it by letter. i suppose a clever woman easily could, but i am so stupid. i wrote a great many letters and tore them up, because i felt sure they wouldn't convince paul. at last i got one that i thought would do. i knew i must make it seem as if i were very frivolous and heartless, or he would never believe. i spelled some words wrong and put in some mistakes of grammar on purpose. i told him i had just been flirting with him, and that i had another fellow at home i liked better. i said fellow because i knew it would disgust him. i said that it was only because he was rich that i was tempted to marry him. i thought my heart would break while i was writing those dreadful falsehoods. but it was for his sake, because i must not spoil his life. his mother told me i would be a millstone around his neck. i love paul so much that i would do anything rather than be that. it would be easy to die for him, but i don't see how i can go on living. i think my letter will convince paul. i suppose it convinced paul, because there was no further entry in the little brown book. when we had finished it the tears were running down both our faces. "oh, poor, dear miss emily," sobbed diana. "i'm so sorry i ever thought her funny and meddlesome." "she was good and strong and brave," i said. "i could never have been as unselfish as she was." i thought of whittier's lines, "the outward, wayward life we see the hidden springs we may not know." at the back of the little brown book we found a faded water-color sketch of a young girl--such a slim, pretty little thing, with big blue eyes and lovely, long, rippling golden hair. paul osborne's name was written in faded ink across the corner. we put everything back in the box. then we sat for a long time by my window in silence and thought of many things, until the rainy twilight came down and blotted out the world. ix. sara's way the warm june sunshine was coming down through the trees, white with the virginal bloom of apple-blossoms, and through the shining panes, making a tremulous mosaic upon mrs. eben andrews' spotless kitchen floor. through the open door, a wind, fragrant from long wanderings over orchards and clover meadows, drifted in, and, from the window, mrs. eben and her guest could look down over a long, misty valley sloping to a sparkling sea. mrs. jonas andrews was spending the afternoon with her sister-in-law. she was a big, sonsy woman, with full-blown peony cheeks and large, dreamy, brown eyes. when she had been a slim, pink-and-white girl those eyes had been very romantic. now they were so out of keeping with the rest of her appearance as to be ludicrous. mrs. eben, sitting at the other end of the small tea-table that was drawn up against the window, was a thin little woman, with a very sharp nose and light, faded blue eyes. she looked like a woman whose opinions were always very decided and warranted to wear. "how does sara like teaching at newbridge?" asked mrs. jonas, helping herself a second time to mrs. eben's matchless black fruit cake, and thereby bestowing a subtle compliment which mrs. eben did not fail to appreciate. "well, i guess she likes it pretty well--better than down at white sands, anyway," answered mrs. eben. "yes, i may say it suits her. of course it's a long walk there and back. i think it would have been wiser for her to keep on boarding at morrison's, as she did all winter, but sara is bound to be home all she can. and i must say the walk seems to agree with her." "i was down to see jonas' aunt at newbridge last night," said mrs. jonas, "and she said she'd heard that sara had made up her mind to take lige baxter at last, and that they were to be married in the fall. she asked me if it was true. i said i didn't know, but i hoped to mercy it was. now, is it, louisa?" "not a word of it," said mrs. eben sorrowfully. "sara hasn't any more notion of taking lige than ever she had. i'm sure it's not my fault. i've talked and argued till i'm tired. i declare to you, amelia, i am terribly disappointed. i'd set my heart on sara's marrying lige--and now to think she won't!" "she is a very foolish girl," said mrs. jonas, judicially. "if lige baxter isn't good enough for her, who is?" "and he's so well off," said mrs. eben, "and does such a good business, and is well spoken of by every one. and that lovely new house of his at newbridge, with bay windows and hardwood floors! i've dreamed and dreamed of seeing sara there as mistress." "maybe you'll see her there yet," said mrs. jonas, who always took a hopeful view of everything, even of sara's contrariness. but she felt discouraged, too. well, she had done her best. if lige baxter's broth was spoiled it was not for lack of cooks. every andrews in avonlea had been trying for two years to bring about a match between him and sara, and mrs. jonas had borne her part valiantly. mrs. eben's despondent reply was cut short by the appearance of sara herself. the girl stood for a moment in the doorway and looked with a faintly amused air at her aunts. she knew quite well that they had been discussing her, for mrs. jonas, who carried her conscience in her face, looked guilty, and mrs. eben had not been able wholly to banish her aggrieved expression. sara put away her books, kissed mrs. jonas' rosy cheek, and sat down at the table. mrs. eben brought her some fresh tea, some hot rolls, and a little jelly-pot of the apricot preserves sara liked, and she cut some more fruit cake for her in moist plummy slices. she might be out of patience with sara's "contrariness," but she spoiled and petted her for all that, for the girl was the very core of her childless heart. sara andrews was not, strictly speaking, pretty; but there was that about her which made people look at her twice. she was very dark, with a rich, dusky sort of darkness, her deep eyes were velvety brown, and her lips and cheeks were crimson. she ate her rolls and preserves with a healthy appetite, sharpened by her long walk from newbridge, and told amusing little stories of her day's work that made the two older women shake with laughter, and exchange shy glances of pride over her cleverness. when tea was over she poured the remaining contents of the cream jug into a saucer. "i must feed my pussy," she said as she left the room. "that girl beats me," said mrs. eben with a sigh of perplexity. "you know that black cat we've had for two years? eben and i have always made a lot of him, but sara seemed to have a dislike to him. never a peaceful nap under the stove could he have when sara was home--out he must go. well, a little spell ago he got his leg broke accidentally and we thought he'd have to be killed. but sara wouldn't hear of it. she got splints and set his leg just as knacky, and bandaged it up, and she has tended him like a sick baby ever since. he's just about well now, and he lives in clover, that cat does. it's just her way. there's them sick chickens she's been doctoring for a week, giving them pills and things! "and she thinks more of that wretched-looking calf that got poisoned with paris green than of all the other stock on the place." as the summer wore away, mrs. eben tried to reconcile herself to the destruction of her air castles. but she scolded sara considerably. "sara, why don't you like lige? i'm sure he is a model young man." "i don't like model young men," answered sara impatiently. "and i really think i hate lige baxter. he has always been held up to me as such a paragon. i'm tired of hearing about all his perfections. i know them all off by heart. he doesn't drink, he doesn't smoke, he doesn't steal, he doesn't tell fibs, he never loses his temper, he doesn't swear, and he goes to church regularly. such a faultless creature as that would certainly get on my nerves. no, no, you'll have to pick out another mistress for your new house at the bridge, aunt louisa." when the apple trees, that had been pink and white in june, were russet and bronze in october, mrs. eben had a quilting. the quilt was of the "rising star" pattern, which was considered in avonlea to be very handsome. mrs. eben had intended it for part of sara's "setting out," and, while she sewed the red-and-white diamonds together, she had regaled her fancy by imagining she saw it spread out on the spare-room bed of the house at newbridge, with herself laying her bonnet and shawl on it when she went to see sara. those bright visions had faded with the apple blossoms, and mrs. eben hardly had the heart to finish the quilt at all. the quilting came off on saturday afternoon, when sara could be home from school. all mrs. eben's particular friends were ranged around the quilt, and tongues and fingers flew. sara flitted about, helping her aunt with the supper preparations. she was in the room, getting the custard dishes out of the cupboard, when mrs. george pye arrived. mrs. george had a genius for being late. she was later than usual to-day, and she looked excited. every woman around the "rising star" felt that mrs. george had some news worth listening to, and there was an expectant silence while she pulled out her chair and settled herself at the quilt. she was a tall, thin woman with a long pale face and liquid green eyes. as she looked around the circle she had the air of a cat daintily licking its chops over some titbit. "i suppose," she said, "that you have heard the news?" she knew perfectly well that they had not. every other woman at the frame stopped quilting. mrs. eben came to the door with a pan of puffy, smoking-hot soda biscuits in her hand. sara stopped counting the custard dishes, and turned her ripely-colored face over her shoulder. even the black cat, at her feet, ceased preening his fur. mrs. george felt that the undivided attention of her audience was hers. "baxter brothers have failed," she said, her green eyes shooting out flashes of light. "failed disgracefully!" she paused for a moment; but, since her hearers were as yet speechless from surprise, she went on. "george came home from newbridge, just before i left, with the news. you could have knocked me down with a feather. i should have thought that firm was as steady as the rock of gibraltar! but they're ruined--absolutely ruined. louisa, dear, can you find me a good needle?" "louisa, dear," had set her biscuits down with a sharp thud, reckless of results. a sharp, metallic tinkle sounded at the closet where sara had struck the edge of her tray against a shelf. the sound seemed to loosen the paralyzed tongues, and everybody began talking and exclaiming at once. clear and shrill above the confusion rose mrs. george pye's voice. "yes, indeed, you may well say so. it is disgraceful. and to think how everybody trusted them! george will lose considerable by the crash, and so will a good many folks. everything will have to go--peter baxter's farm and lige's grand new house. mrs. peter won't carry her head so high after this, i'll be bound. george saw lige at the bridge, and he said he looked dreadful cut up and ashamed." "who, or what's to blame for the failure?" asked mrs. rachel lynde sharply. she did not like mrs. george pye. "there are a dozen different stories on the go," was the reply. "as far as george could make out, peter baxter has been speculating with other folks' money, and this is the result. everybody always suspected that peter was crooked; but you'd have thought that lige would have kept him straight. he had always such a reputation for saintliness." "i don't suppose lige knew anything about it," said mrs. rachel indignantly. "well, he'd ought to, then. if he isn't a knave he's a fool," said mrs. harmon andrews, who had formerly been among his warmest partisans. "he should have kept watch on peter and found out how the business was being run. well, sara, you were the level-headest of us all--i'll admit that now. a nice mess it would be if you were married or engaged to lige, and him left without a cent--even if he can clear his character!" "there is a good deal of talk about peter, and swindling, and a lawsuit," said mrs. george pye, quilting industriously. "most of the newbridge folks think it's all peter's fault, and that lige isn't to blame. but you can't tell. i dare say lige is as deep in the mire as peter. he was always a little too good to be wholesome, _i_ thought." there was a clink of glass at the cupboard, as sara set the tray down. she came forward and stood behind mrs. rachel lynde's chair, resting her shapely hands on that lady's broad shoulders. her face was very pale, but her flashing eyes sought and faced defiantly mrs. george pye's cat-like orbs. her voice quivered with passion and contempt. "you'll all have a fling at lige baxter, now that he's down. you couldn't say enough in his praise, once. i'll not stand by and hear it hinted that lige baxter is a swindler. you all know perfectly well that lige is as honest as the day, if he is so unfortunate as to have an unprincipled brother. you, mrs. pye, know it better than any one, yet you come here and run him down the minute he's in trouble. if there's another word said here against lige baxter i'll leave the room and the house till you're gone, every one of you." she flashed a glance around the quilt that cowed the gossips. even mrs. george pye's eyes flickered and waned and quailed. nothing more was said until sara had picked up her glasses and marched from the room. even then they dared not speak above a whisper. mrs. pye, alone, smarting from the snub, ventured to ejaculate, "pity save us!" as sara slammed the door. for the next fortnight gossip and rumor held high carnival in avonlea and newbridge, and mrs. eben grew to dread the sight of a visitor. "they're bound to talk about the baxter failure and criticize lige," she deplored to mrs. jonas. "and it riles sara up so terrible. she used to declare that she hated lige, and now she won't listen to a word against him. not that i say any, myself. i'm sorry for him, and i believe he's done his best. but i can't stop other people from talking." one evening harmon andrews came in with a fresh budget of news. "the baxter business is pretty near wound up at last," he said, as he lighted his pipe. "peter has got his lawsuits settled and has hushed up the talk about swindling, somehow. trust him for slipping out of a scrape clean and clever. he don't seem to worry any, but lige looks like a walking skeleton. some folks pity him, but i say he should have kept the run of things better and not have trusted everything to peter. i hear he's going out west in the spring, to take up land in alberta and try his hand at farming. best thing he can do, i guess. folks hereabouts have had enough of the baxter breed. newbridge will be well rid of them." sara, who had been sitting in the dark corner by the stove, suddenly stood up, letting the black cat slip from her lap to the floor. mrs. eben glanced at her apprehensively, for she was afraid the girl was going to break out in a tirade against the complacent harmon. but sara only walked fiercely out of the kitchen, with a sound as if she were struggling for breath. in the hall she snatched a scarf from the wall, flung open the front door, and rushed down the lane in the chill, pure air of the autumn twilight. her heart was throbbing with the pity she always felt for bruised and baited creatures. on and on she went heedlessly, intent only on walking away her pain, over gray, brooding fields and winding slopes, and along the skirts of ruinous, dusky pine woods, curtained with fine spun purple gloom. her dress brushed against the brittle grasses and sere ferns, and the moist night wind, loosed from wild places far away, blew her hair about her face. at last she came to a little rustic gate, leading into a shadowy wood-lane. the gate was bound with willow withes, and, as sara fumbled vainly at them with her chilled hands, a man's firm step came up behind her, and lige baxter's hand closed over her's. "oh, lige!" she said, with something like a sob. he opened the gate and drew her through. she left her hand in his, as they walked through the lane where lissome boughs of young saplings flicked against their heads, and the air was wildly sweet with the woodsy odors. "it's a long while since i've seen you, lige," sara said at last. lige looked wistfully down at her through the gloom. "yes, it seems very long to me, sara. but i didn't think you'd care to see me, after what you said last spring. and you know things have been going against me. people have said hard things. i've been unfortunate, sara, and may be too easy-going, but i've been honest. don't believe folks if they tell you i wasn't." "indeed, i never did--not for a minute!" fired sara. "i'm glad of that. i'm going away, later on. i felt bad enough when you refused to marry me, sara; but it's well that you didn't. i'm man enough to be thankful my troubles don't fall on you." sara stopped and turned to him. beyond them the lane opened into a field and a clear lake of crocus sky cast a dim light into the shadow where they stood. above it was a new moon, like a gleaming silver scimitar. sara saw it was over her left shoulder, and she saw lige's face above her, tender and troubled. "lige," she said softly, "do you love me still?" "you know i do," said lige sadly. that was all sara wanted. with a quick movement she nestled into his arms, and laid her warm, tear-wet cheek against his cold one. when the amazing rumor that sara was going to marry lige baxter, and go out west with him, circulated through the andrews clan, hands were lifted and heads were shaken. mrs. jonas puffed and panted up the hill to learn if it were true. she found mrs. eben stitching for dear life on an "irish chain" quilt, while sara was sewing the diamonds on another "rising star" with a martyr-like expression on her face. sara hated patchwork above everything else, but mrs. eben was mistress up to a certain point. "you'll have to make that quilt, sara andrews. if you're going to live out on those prairies, you'll need piles of quilts, and you shall have them if i sew my fingers to the bone. but you'll have to help make them." and sara had to. when mrs. jonas came, mrs. eben sent sara off to the post-office to get her out of the way. "i suppose it's true, this time?" said mrs. jonas. "yes, indeed," said mrs. eben briskly. "sara is set on it. there is no use trying to move her--you know that--so i've just concluded to make the best of it. i'm no turn-coat. lige baxter is lige baxter still, neither more nor less. i've always said he's a fine young man, and i say so still. after all, he and sara won't be any poorer than eben and i were when we started out." mrs. jonas heaved a sigh of relief. "i'm real glad you take that view of it, louisa. i'm not displeased, either, although mrs. harmon would take my head off if she heard me say so. i always liked lige. but i must say i'm amazed, too, after the way sara used to rail at him." "well, we might have expected it," said mrs. eben sagely. "it was always sara's way. when any creature got sick or unfortunate she seemed to take it right into her heart. so you may say lige baxter's failure was a success after all." x. the son of his mother thyra carewe was waiting for chester to come home. she sat by the west window of the kitchen, looking out into the gathering of the shadows with the expectant immovability that characterized her. she never twitched or fidgeted. into whatever she did she put the whole force of her nature. if it was sitting still, she sat still. "a stone image would be twitchedly beside thyra," said mrs. cynthia white, her neighbor across the lane. "it gets on my nerves, the way she sits at that window sometimes, with no more motion than a statue and her great eyes burning down the lane. when i read the commandment, 'thou shalt have no other gods before me,' i declare i always think of thyra. she worships that son of hers far ahead of her creator. she'll be punished for it yet." mrs. white was watching thyra now, knitting furiously, as she watched, in order to lose no time. thyra's hands were folded idly in her lap. she had not moved a muscle since she sat down. mrs. white complained it gave her the weeps. "it doesn't seem natural to see a woman sit so still," she said. "sometimes the thought comes to me, 'what if she's had a stroke, like her old uncle horatio, and is sitting there stone dead!'" the evening was cold and autumnal. there was a fiery red spot out at sea, where the sun had set, and, above it, over a chill, clear, saffron sky, were reefs of purple-black clouds. the river, below the carewe homestead, was livid. beyond it, the sea was dark and brooding. it was an evening to make most people shiver and forebode an early winter; but thyra loved it, as she loved all stern, harshly beautiful things. she would not light a lamp because it would blot out the savage grandeur of sea and sky. it was better to wait in the darkness until chester came home. he was late to-night. she thought he had been detained over-time at the harbor, but she was not anxious. he would come straight home to her as soon as his business was completed--of that she felt sure. her thoughts went out along the bleak harbor road to meet him. she could see him plainly, coming with his free stride through the sandy hollows and over the windy hills, in the harsh, cold light of that forbidding sunset, strong and handsome in his comely youth, with her own deeply cleft chin and his father's dark gray, straightforward eyes. no other woman in avonlea had a son like hers--her only one. in his brief absences she yearned after him with a maternal passion that had in it something of physical pain, so intense was it. she thought of cynthia white, knitting across the road, with contemptuous pity. that woman had no son--nothing but pale-faced girls. thyra had never wanted a daughter, but she pitied and despised all sonless women. chester's dog whined suddenly and piercingly on the doorstep outside. he was tired of the cold stone and wanted his warm corner behind the stove. thyra smiled grimly when she heard him. she had no intention of letting him in. she said she had always disliked dogs, but the truth, although she would not glance at it, was that she hated the animal because chester loved him. she could not share his love with even a dumb brute. she loved no living creature in the world but her son, and fiercely demanded a like concentrated affection from him. hence it pleased her to hear his dog whine. it was now quite dark; the stars had begun to shine out over the shorn harvest fields, and chester had not come. across the lane cynthia white had pulled down her blind, in despair of out-watching thyra, and had lighted a lamp. lively shadows of little girl-shapes passed and repassed on the pale oblong of light. they made thyra conscious of her exceeding loneliness. she had just decided that she would walk down the lane and wait for chester on the bridge, when a thunderous knock came at the east kitchen door. she recognized august vorst's knock and lighted a lamp in no great haste, for she did not like him. he was a gossip and thyra hated gossip, in man or woman. but august was privileged. she carried the lamp in her hand, when she went to the door, and its upward-striking light gave her face a ghastly appearance. she did not mean to ask august in, but he pushed past her cheerfully, not waiting to be invited. he was a midget of a man, lame of foot and hunched of back, with a white, boyish face, despite his middle age and deep-set, malicious black eyes. he pulled a crumpled newspaper from his pocket and handed it to thyra. he was the unofficial mail-carrier of avonlea. most of the people gave him a trifle for bringing their letters and papers from the office. he earned small sums in various other ways, and so contrived to keep the life in his stunted body. there was always venom in august's gossip. it was said that he made more mischief in avonlea in a day than was made otherwise in a year, but people tolerated him by reason of his infirmity. to be sure, it was the tolerance they gave to inferior creatures, and august felt this. perhaps it accounted for a good deal of his malignity. he hated most those who were kindest to him, and, of these, thyra carewe above all. he hated chester, too, as he hated strong, shapely creatures. his time had come at last to wound them both, and his exultation shone through his crooked body and pinched features like an illuminating lamp. thyra perceived it and vaguely felt something antagonistic in it. she pointed to the rocking-chair, as she might have pointed out a mat to a dog. august crawled into it and smiled. he was going to make her writhe presently, this woman who looked down upon him as some venomous creeping thing she disdained to crush with her foot. "did you see anything of chester on the road?" asked thyra, giving august the very opening he desired. "he went to the harbor after tea to see joe raymond about the loan of his boat, but it's the time he should be back. i can't think what keeps the boy." "just what keeps most men--leaving out creatures like me--at some time or other in their lives. a girl--a pretty girl, thyra. it pleases me to look at her. even a hunchback can use his eyes, eh? oh, she's a rare one!" "what is the man talking about?" said thyra wonderingly. "damaris garland, to be sure. chester's down at tom blair's now, talking to her--and looking more than his tongue says, too, of that you may be sure. well, well, we were all young once, thyra--all young once, even crooked little august vorst. eh, now?" "what do you mean?" said thyra. she had sat down in a chair before him, with her hands folded in her lap. her face, always pale, had not changed; but her lips were curiously white. august vorst saw this and it pleased him. also, her eyes were worth looking at, if you liked to hurt people--and that was the only pleasure august took in life. he would drink this delightful cup of revenge for her long years of disdainful kindness--ah, he would drink it slowly to prolong its sweetness. sip by sip--he rubbed his long, thin, white hands together--sip by sip, tasting each mouthful. "eh, now? you know well enough, thyra." "i know nothing of what you would be at, august vorst. you speak of my son and damaris--was that the name?--damaris garland as if they were something to each other. i ask you what you mean by it?" "tut, tut, thyra, nothing very terrible. there's no need to look like that about it. young men will be young men to the end of time, and there's no harm in chester's liking to look at a lass, eh, now? or in talking to her either? the little baggage, with the red lips of her! she and chester will make a pretty pair. he's not so ill-looking for a man, thyra." "i am not a very patient woman, august," said thyra coldly. "i have asked you what you mean, and i want a straight answer. is chester down at tom blair's while i have been sitting here, alone, waiting for him?" august nodded. he saw that it would not be wise to trifle longer with thyra. "that he is. i was there before i came here. he and damaris were sitting in a corner by themselves, and very well-satisfied they seemed to be with each other. tut, tut, thyra, don't take the news so. i thought you knew. it's no secret that chester has been going after damaris ever since she came here. but what then? you can't tie him to your apron strings forever, woman. he'll be finding a mate for himself, as he should. seeing that he's straight and well-shaped, no doubt damaris will look with favor on him. old martha blair declares the girl loves him better than her eyes." thyra made a sound like a strangled moan in the middle of august's speech. she heard the rest of it immovably. when it came to an end she stood and looked down upon him in a way that silenced him. "you've told the news you came to tell, and gloated over it, and now get you gone," she said slowly. "now, thyra," he began, but she interrupted him threateningly. "get you gone, i say! and you need not bring my mail here any longer. i want no more of your misshapen body and lying tongue!" august went, but at the door he turned for a parting stab. "my tongue is not a lying one, mrs. carewe. i've told you the truth, as all avonlea knows it. chester is mad about damaris garland. it's no wonder i thought you knew what all the settlement can see. but you're such a jealous, odd body, i suppose the boy hid it from you for fear you'd go into a tantrum. as for me, i'll not forget that you've turned me from your door because i chanced to bring you news you'd no fancy for." thyra did not answer him. when the door closed behind him she locked it and blew out the light. then she threw herself face downward on the sofa and burst into wild tears. her very soul ached. she wept as tempestuously and unreasoningly as youth weeps, although she was not young. it seemed as if she was afraid to stop weeping lest she should go mad thinking. but, after a time, tears failed her, and she began bitterly to go over, word by word, what august vorst had said. that her son should ever cast eyes of love on any girl was something thyra had never thought about. she would not believe it possible that he should love any one but herself, who loved him so much. and now the possibility invaded her mind as subtly and coldly and remorselessly as a sea-fog stealing landward. chester had been born to her at an age when most women are letting their children slip from them into the world, with some natural tears and heartaches, but content to let them go, after enjoying their sweetest years. thyra's late-come motherhood was all the more intense and passionate because of its very lateness. she had been very ill when her son was born, and had lain helpless for long weeks, during which other women had tended her baby for her. she had never been able to forgive them for this. her husband had died before chester was a year old. she had laid their son in his dying arms and received him back again with a last benediction. to thyra that moment had something of a sacrament in it. it was as if the child had been doubly given to her, with a right to him solely that nothing could take away or transcend. marrying! she had never thought of it in connection with him. he did not come of a marrying race. his father had been sixty when he had married her, thyra lincoln, likewise well on in life. few of the lincolns or carewes had married young, many not at all. and, to her, chester was her baby still. he belonged solely to her. and now another woman had dared to look upon him with eyes of love. damaris garland! thyra now remembered seeing her. she was a new-comer in avonlea, having come to live with her uncle and aunt after the death of her mother. thyra had met her on the bridge one day a month previously. yes, a man might think she was pretty--a low-browed girl, with a wave of reddish-gold hair, and crimson lips blossoming out against the strange, milk-whiteness of her skin. her eyes, too--thyra recalled them--hazel in tint, deep, and laughter-brimmed. the girl had gone past her with a smile that brought out many dimples. there was a certain insolent quality in her beauty, as if it flaunted itself somewhat too defiantly in the beholder's eye. thyra had turned and looked after the lithe, young creature, wondering who she might be. and to-night, while she, his mother, waited for him in darkness and loneliness, he was down at blair's, talking to this girl! he loved her; and it was past doubt that she loved him. the thought was more bitter than death to thyra. that she should dare! her anger was all against the girl. she had laid a snare to get chester and he, like a fool, was entangled in it, thinking, man-fashion, only of her great eyes and red lips. thyra thought savagely of damaris' beauty. "she shall not have him," she said, with slow emphasis. "i will never give him up to any other woman, and, least of all, to her. she would leave me no place in his heart at all--me, his mother, who almost died to give him life. he belongs to me! let her look for the son of some other woman--some woman who has many sons. she shall not have my only one!" she got up, wrapped a shawl about her head, and went out into the darkly golden evening. the clouds had cleared away, and the moon was shining. the air was chill, with a bell-like clearness. the alders by the river rustled eerily as she walked by them and out upon the bridge. here she paced up and down, peering with troubled eyes along the road beyond, or leaning over the rail, looking at the sparkling silver ribbon of moonlight that garlanded the waters. late travelers passed her, and wondered at her presence and mien. carl white saw her, and told his wife about her when he got home. "striding to and fro over the bridge like mad! at first i thought it was old, crazy may blair. what do you suppose she was doing down there at this hour of the night?" "watching for ches, no doubt," said cynthia. "he ain't home yet. likely he's snug at blairs'. i do wonder if thyra suspicions that he goes after damaris. i've never dared to hint it to her. she'd be as liable to fly at me, tooth and claw, as not." "well, she picks out a precious queer night for moon-gazing," said carl, who was a jolly soul and took life as he found it. "it's bitter cold--there'll be a hard frost. it's a pity she can't get it grained into her that the boy is grown up and must have his fling like the other lads. she'll go out of her mind yet, like her old grandmother lincoln, if she doesn't ease up. i've a notion to go down to the bridge and reason a bit with her." "indeed, and you'll do no such thing!" cried cynthia. "thyra carewe is best left alone, if she is in a tantrum. she's like no other woman in avonlea--or out of it. i'd as soon meddle with a tiger as her, if she's rampaging about chester. i don't envy damaris garland her life if she goes in there. thyra'd sooner strangle her than not, i guess." "you women are all terrible hard on thyra," said carl, good-naturedly. he had been in love with thyra, himself, long ago, and he still liked her in a friendly fashion. he always stood up for her when the avonlea women ran her down. he felt troubled about her all night, recalling her as she paced the bridge. he wished he had gone back, in spite of cynthia. when chester came home he met his mother on the bridge. in the faint, yet penetrating, moonlight they looked curiously alike, but chester had the milder face. he was very handsome. even in the seething of her pain and jealousy thyra yearned over his beauty. she would have liked to put up her hands and caress his face, but her voice was very hard when she asked him where he had been so late. "i called in at tom blair's on my way home from the harbor," he answered, trying to walk on. but she held him back by his arm. "did you go there to see damaris?" she demanded fiercely. chester was uncomfortable. much as he loved his mother, he felt, and always had felt, an awe of her and an impatient dislike of her dramatic ways of speaking and acting. he reflected, resentfully, that no other young man in avonlea, who had been paying a friendly call, would be met by his mother at midnight and held up in such tragic fashion to account for himself. he tried vainly to loosen her hold upon his arm, but he understood quite well that he must give her an answer. being strictly straight-forward by nature and upbringing, he told the truth, albeit with more anger in his tone than he had ever shown to his mother before. "yes," he said shortly. thyra released his arm, and struck her hands together with a sharp cry. there was a savage note in it. she could have slain damaris garland at that moment. "don't go on so, mother," said chester, impatiently. "come in out of the cold. it isn't fit for you to be here. who has been tampering with you? what if i did go to see damaris?" "oh--oh--oh!" cried thyra. "i was waiting for you--alone--and you were thinking only of her! chester, answer me--do you love her?" the blood rolled rapidly over the boy's face. he muttered something and tried to pass on, but she caught him again. he forced himself to speak gently. "what if i do, mother? it wouldn't be such a dreadful thing, would it?" "and me? and me?" cried thyra. "what am i to you, then?" "you are my mother. i wouldn't love you any the less because i cared for another, too." "i won't have you love another," she cried. "i want all your love--all! what's that baby-face to you, compared to your mother? i have the best right to you. i won't give you up." chester realized that there was no arguing with such a mood. he walked on, resolved to set the matter aside until she might be more reasonable. but thyra would not have it so. she followed on after him, under the alders that crowded over the lane. "promise me that you'll not go there again," she entreated. "promise me that you'll give her up." "i can't promise such a thing," he cried angrily. his anger hurt her worse than a blow, but she did not flinch. "you're not engaged to her?" she cried out. "now, mother, be quiet. all the settlement will hear you. why do you object to damaris? you don't know how sweet she is. when you know her--" "i will never know her!" cried thyra furiously. "and she shall not have you! she shall not, chester!" he made no answer. she suddenly broke into tears and loud sobs. touched with remorse, he stopped and put his arms about her. "mother, mother, don't! i can't bear to see you cry so. but, indeed, you are unreasonable. didn't you ever think the time would come when i would want to marry, like other men?" "no, no! and i will not have it--i cannot bear it, chester. you must promise not to go to see her again. i won't go into the house this night until you do. i'll stay out here in the bitter cold until you promise to put her out of your thoughts." "that's beyond my power, mother. oh, mother, you're making it hard for me. come in, come in! you're shivering with cold now. you'll be sick." "not a step will i stir till you promise. say you won't go to see that girl any more, and there's nothing i won't do for you. but if you put her before me, i'll not go in--i never will go in." with most women this would have been an empty threat; but it was not so with thyra, and chester knew it. he knew she would keep her word. and he feared more than that. in this frenzy of hers what might she not do? she came of a strange breed, as had been said disapprovingly when luke carewe married her. there was a strain of insanity in the lincolns. a lincoln woman had drowned herself once. chester thought of the river, and grew sick with fright. for a moment even his passion for damaris weakened before the older tie. "mother, calm yourself. oh, surely there's no need of all this! let us wait until to-morrow, and talk it over then. i'll hear all you have to say. come in, dear." thyra loosened her arms from about him, and stepped back into a moon-lit space. looking at him tragically, she extended her arms and spoke slowly and solemnly. "chester, choose between us. if you choose her, i shall go from you to-night, and you will never see me again!" "mother!" "choose!" she reiterated, fiercely. he felt her long ascendancy. its influence was not to be shaken off in a moment. in all his life he had never disobeyed her. besides, with it all, he loved her more deeply and understandingly than most sons love their mothers. he realized that, since she would have it so, his choice was already made--or, rather that he had no choice. "have your way," he said sullenly. she ran to him and caught him to her heart. in the reaction of her feeling she was half laughing, half crying. all was well again--all would be well; she never doubted this, for she knew he would keep his ungracious promise sacredly. "oh, my son, my son," she murmured, "you'd have sent me to my death if you had chosen otherwise. but now you are mine again!" she did not heed that he was sullen--that he resented her unjustice with all her own intensity. she did not heed his silence as they went into the house together. strangely enough, she slept well and soundly that night. not until many days had passed did she understand that, though chester might keep his promise in the letter, it was beyond his power to keep it in the spirit. she had taken him from damaris garland; but she had not won him back to herself. he could never be wholly her son again. there was a barrier between them which not all her passionate love could break down. chester was gravely kind to her, for it was not in his nature to remain sullen long, or visit his own unhappiness upon another's head; besides, he understood her exacting affection, even in its injustice, and it has been well-said that to understand is to forgive. but he avoided her, and she knew it. the flame of her anger burned bitterly towards damaris. "he thinks of her all the time," she moaned to herself. "he'll come to hate me yet, i fear, because it's i who made him give her up. but i'd rather even that than share him with another woman. oh, my son, my son!" she knew that damaris was suffering, too. the girl's wan face told that when she met her. but this pleased thyra. it eased the ache in her bitter heart to know that pain was gnawing at damaris' also. chester was absent from home very often now. he spent much of his spare time at the harbor, consorting with joe raymond and others of that ilk, who were but sorry associates for him, avonlea people thought. in late november he and joe started for a trip down the coast in the latter's boat. thyra protested against it, but chester laughed at her alarm. thyra saw him go with a heart sick from fear. she hated the sea, and was afraid of it at any time; but, most of all, in this treacherous month, with its sudden, wild gales. chester had been fond of the sea from boyhood. she had always tried to stifle this fondness and break off his associations with the harbor fishermen, who liked to lure the high-spirited boy out with them on fishing expeditions. but her power over him was gone now. after chester's departure she was restless and miserable, wandering from window to window to scan the dour, unsmiling sky. carl white, dropping in to pay a call, was alarmed when he heard that chester had gone with joe, and had not tact enough to conceal his alarm from thyra. "'t isn't safe this time of year," he said. "folks expect no better from that reckless, harum-scarum joe raymond. he'll drown himself some day, there's nothing surer. this mad freak of starting off down the shore in november is just of a piece with his usual performances. but you shouldn't have let chester go, thyra." "i couldn't prevent him. say what i could, he would go. he laughed when i spoke of danger. oh, he's changed from what he was! i know who has wrought the change, and i hate her for it!" carl shrugged his fat shoulders. he knew quite well that thyra was at the bottom of the sudden coldness between chester carewe and damaris garland, about which avonlea gossip was busying itself. he pitied thyra, too. she had aged rapidly the past month. "you're too hard on chester, thyra. he's out of leading-strings now, or should be. you must just let me take an old friend's privilege, and tell you that you're taking the wrong way with him. you're too jealous and exacting, thyra." "you don't know anything about it. you have never had a son," said thyra, cruelly enough, for she knew that carl's sonlessness was a rankling thorn in his mind. "you don't know what it is to pour out your love on one human being, and have it flung back in your face!" carl could not cope with thyra's moods. he had never understood her, even in his youth. now he went home, still shrugging his shoulders, and thinking that it was a good thing thyra had not looked on him with favor in the old days. cynthia was much easier to get along with. more than thyra looked anxiously to sea and sky that night in avonlea. damaris garland listened to the smothered roar of the atlantic in the murky northeast with a prescience of coming disaster. friendly longshoremen shook their heads and said that ches and joe would better have kept to good, dry land. "it's sorry work joking with a november gale," said abel blair. he was an old man and, in his life, had seen some sad things along the shore. thyra could not sleep that night. when the gale came shrieking up the river, and struck the house, she got out of bed and dressed herself. the wind screamed like a ravening beast at her window. all night she wandered to and fro in the house, going from room to room, now wringing her hands with loud outcries, now praying below her breath with white lips, now listening in dumb misery to the fury of the storm. the wind raged all the next day; but spent itself in the following night, and the second morning was calm and fair. the eastern sky was a great arc of crystal, smitten through with auroral crimsonings. thyra, looking from her kitchen window, saw a group of men on the bridge. they were talking to carl white, with looks and gestures directed towards the carewe house. she went out and down to them. none of these who saw her white, rigid face that day ever forgot the sight. "you have news for me," she said. they looked at each other, each man mutely imploring his neighbor to speak. "you need not fear to tell me," said thyra calmly. "i know what you have come to say. my son is drowned." "we don't know that, mrs. carewe," said abel blair quickly. "we haven't got the worst to tell you--there's hope yet. but joe raymond's boat was found last night, stranded bottom up, on the blue point sand shore, forty miles down the coast." "don't look like that, thyra," said carl white pityingly. "they may have escaped--they may have been picked up." thyra looked at him with dull eyes. "you know they have not. not one of you has any hope. i have no son. the sea has taken him from me--my bonny baby!" she turned and went back to her desolate home. none dared to follow her. carl white went home and sent his wife over to her. cynthia found thyra sitting in her accustomed chair. her hands lay, palms upward, on her lap. her eyes were dry and burning. she met cynthia's compassionate look with a fearful smile. "long ago, cynthia white," she said slowly, "you were vexed with me one day, and you told me that god would punish me yet, because i made an idol of my son, and set it up in his place. do you remember? your word was a true one. god saw that i loved chester too much, and he meant to take him from me. i thwarted one way when i made him give up damaris. but one can't fight against the almighty. it was decreed that i must lose him--if not in one way, then in another. he has been taken from me utterly. i shall not even have his grave to tend, cynthia." "as near to a mad woman as anything you ever saw, with her awful eyes," cynthia told carl, afterwards. but she did not say so there. although she was a shallow, commonplace soul, she had her share of womanly sympathy, and her own life had not been free from suffering. it taught her the right thing to do now. she sat down by the stricken creature and put her arms about her, while she gathered the cold hands in her own warm clasp. the tears filled her big, blue eyes and her voice trembled as she said: "thyra, i'm sorry for you. i--i--lost a child once--my little first-born. and chester was a dear, good lad." for a moment thyra strained her small, tense body away from cynthia's embrace. then she shuddered and cried out. the tears came, and she wept her agony out on the other woman's breast. as the ill news spread, other avonlea women kept dropping in all through the day to condole with thyra. many of them came in real sympathy, but some out of mere curiosity to see how she took it. thyra knew this, but she did not resent it, as she would once have done. she listened very quietly to all the halting efforts at consolation, and the little platitudes with which they strove to cover the nakedness of bereavement. when darkness came cynthia said she must go home, but would send one of her girls over for the night. "you won't feel like staying alone," she said. thyra looked up steadily. "no. but i want you to send for damaris garland." "damaris garland!" cynthia repeated the name as if disbelieving her own ears. there was never any knowing what whim thyra might take, but cynthia had not expected this. "yes. tell her i want her--tell her she must come. she must hate me bitterly; but i am punished enough to satisfy even her hate. tell her to come to me for chester's sake." cynthia did as she was bid, she sent her daughter, jeanette, for damaris. then she waited. no matter what duties were calling for her at home she must see the interview between thyra and damaris. her curiosity would be the last thing to fail cynthia white. she had done very well all day; but it would be asking too much of her to expect that she would consider the meeting of these two women sacred from her eyes. she half believed that damaris would refuse to come. but damaris came. jeanette brought her in amid the fiery glow of a november sunset. thyra stood up, and for a moment they looked at each other. the insolence of damaris' beauty was gone. her eyes were dull and heavy with weeping, her lips were pale, and her face had lost its laughter and dimples. only her hair, escaping from the shawl she had cast around it, gushed forth in warm splendor in the sunset light, and framed her wan face like the aureole of a madonna. thyra looked upon her with a shock of remorse. this was not the radiant creature she had met on the bridge that summer afternoon. this--this--was her work. she held out her arms. "oh, damaris, forgive me. we both loved him--that must be a bond between us for life." damaris came forward and threw her arms about the older woman, lifting her face. as their lips met even cynthia white realized that she had no business there. she vented the irritation of her embarrassment on the innocent jeanette. "come away," she whispered crossly. "can't you see we're not wanted here?" she drew jeanette out, leaving thyra rocking damaris in her arms, and crooning over her like a mother over her child. when december had grown old damaris was still with thyra. it was understood that she was to remain there for the winter, at least. thyra could not bear her to be out of her sight. they talked constantly about chester; thyra confessed all her anger and hatred. damaris had forgiven her; but thyra could never forgive herself. she was greatly changed, and had grown very gentle and tender. she even sent for august vorst and begged him to pardon her for the way she had spoken to him. winter came late that year, and the season was a very open one. there was no snow on the ground and, a month after joe raymond's boat had been cast up on the blue point sand shore, thyra, wandering about in her garden, found some pansies blooming under their tangled leaves. she was picking them for damaris when she heard a buggy rumble over the bridge and drive up the white lane, hidden from her sight by the alders and firs. a few minutes later carl and cynthia came hastily across their yard under the huge balm-of-gileads. carl's face was flushed, and his big body quivered with excitement. cynthia ran behind him, with tears rolling down her face. thyra felt herself growing sick with fear. had anything happened to damaris? a glimpse of the girl, sewing by an upper window of the house, reassured her. "oh, thyra, thyra!" gasped cynthia. "can you stand some good news, thyra?" asked carl, in a trembling voice. "very, very good news!" thyra looked wildly from one to the other. "there's but one thing you would dare to call good news to me," she cried. "is it about--about--" "chester! yes, it's about chester! thyra, he is alive--he's safe--he and joe, both of them, thank god! cynthia, catch her!" "no, i am not going to faint," said thyra, steadying herself by cynthia's shoulder. "my son alive! how did you hear? how did it happen? where has he been?" "i heard it down at the harbor, thyra. mike mccready's vessel, the _nora lee_, was just in from the magdalens. ches and joe got capsized the night of the storm, but they hung on to their boat somehow, and at daybreak they were picked up by the _nora lee_, bound for quebec. but she was damaged by the storm and blown clear out of her course. had to put into the magdalens for repairs, and has been there ever since. the cable to the islands was out of order, and no vessels call there this time of year for mails. if it hadn't been an extra open season the _nora lee_ wouldn't have got away, but would have had to stay there till spring. you never saw such rejoicing as there was this morning at the harbor, when the _nora lee_ came in, flying flags at the mast head." "and chester--where is he?" demanded thyra. carl and cynthia looked at each other. "well, thyra," said the latter, "the fact is, he's over there in our yard this blessed minute. carl brought him home from the harbor, but i wouldn't let him come over until we had prepared you for it. he's waiting for you there." thyra made a quick step in the direction of the gate. then she turned, with a little of the glow dying out of her face. "no, there's one has a better right to go to him first. i can atone to him--thank god, i can atone to him!" she went into the house and called damaris. as the girl came down the stairs thyra held out her hands with a wonderful light of joy and renunciation on her face. "damaris," she said, "chester has come back to us--the sea has given him back to us. he is over at carl white's house. go to him, my daughter, and bring him to me!" xi. the education of betty when sara currie married jack churchill i was broken-hearted...or believed myself to be so, which, in a boy of twenty-two, amounts to pretty much the same thing. not that i took the world into my confidence; that was never the douglas way, and i held myself in honor bound to live up to the family traditions. i thought, then, that nobody but sara knew; but i dare say, now, that jack knew it also, for i don't think sara could have helped telling him. if he did know, however, he did not let me see that he did, and never insulted me by any implied sympathy; on the contrary, he asked me to be his best man. jack was always a thoroughbred. i was best man. jack and i had always been bosom friends, and, although i had lost my sweetheart, i did not intend to lose my friend into the bargain. sara had made a wise choice, for jack was twice the man i was; he had had to work for his living, which perhaps accounts for it. so i danced at sara's wedding as if my heart were as light as my heels; but, after she and jack had settled down at glenby i closed the maples and went abroad...being, as i have hinted, one of those unfortunate mortals who need consult nothing but their own whims in the matter of time and money. i stayed away for ten years, during which the maples was given over to moths and rust, while i enjoyed life elsewhere. i did enjoy it hugely, but always under protest, for i felt that a broken-hearted man ought not to enjoy himself as i did. it jarred on my sense of fitness, and i tried to moderate my zest, and think more of the past than i did. it was no use; the present insisted on being intrusive and pleasant; as for the future...well, there was no future. then jack churchill, poor fellow, died. a year after his death, i went home and again asked sara to marry me, as in duty bound. sara again declined, alleging that her heart was buried in jack's grave, or words to that effect. i found that it did not much matter...of course, at thirty-two one does not take these things to heart as at twenty-two. i had enough to occupy me in getting the maples into working order, and beginning to educate betty. betty was sara's ten year-old daughter, and she had been thoroughly spoiled. that is to say, she had been allowed her own way in everything and, having inherited her father's outdoor tastes, had simply run wild. she was a thorough tomboy, a thin, scrawny little thing with a trace of sara's beauty. betty took after her father's dark, tall race and, on the occasion of my first introduction to her, seemed to be all legs and neck. there were points about her, though, which i considered promising. she had fine, almond-shaped, hazel eyes, the smallest and most shapely hands and feet i ever saw, and two enormous braids of thick, nut-brown hair. for jack's sake i decided to bring his daughter up properly. sara couldn't do it, and didn't try. i saw that, if somebody didn't take betty in hand, wisely and firmly, she would certainly be ruined. there seemed to be nobody except myself at all interested in the matter, so i determined to see what an old bachelor could do as regards bringing up a girl in the way she should go. i might have been her father; as it was, her father had been my best friend. who had a better right to watch over his daughter? i determined to be a father to betty, and do all for her that the most devoted parent could do. it was, self-evidently, my duty. i told sara i was going to take betty in hand. sara sighed one of the plaintive little sighs which i had once thought so charming, but now, to my surprise, found faintly irritating, and said that she would be very much obliged if i would. "i feel that i am not able to cope with the problem of betty's education, stephen," she admitted, "betty is a strange child...all churchill. her poor father indulged her in everything, and she has a will of her own, i assure you. i have really no control over her, whatever. she does as she pleases, and is ruining her complexion by running and galloping out of doors the whole time. not that she had much complexion to start with. the churchills never had, you know."...sara cast a complacent glance at her delicately tinted reflection in the mirror.... "i tried to make betty wear a sunbonnet this summer, but i might as well have talked to the wind." a vision of betty in a sunbonnet presented itself to my mind, and afforded me so much amusement that i was grateful to sara for having furnished it. i rewarded her with a compliment. "it is to be regretted that betty has not inherited her mother's charming color," i said, "but we must do the best we can for her under her limitations. she may have improved vastly by the time she has grown up. and, at least, we must make a lady of her; she is a most alarming tomboy at present, but there is good material to work upon...there must be, in the churchill and currie blend. but even the best material may be spoiled by unwise handling. i think i can promise you that i will not spoil it. i feel that betty is my vocation; and i shall set myself up as a rival of wordsworth's 'nature,' of whose methods i have always had a decided distrust, in spite of his insidious verses." sara did not understand me in the least; but, then, she did not pretend to. "i confide betty's education entirely to you, stephen," she said, with another plaintive sigh. "i feel sure i could not put it into better hands. you have always been a person who could be thoroughly depended on." well, that was something by way of reward for a life-long devotion. i felt that i was satisfied with my position as unofficial advisor-in-chief to sara and self-appointed guardian of betty. i also felt that, for the furtherance of the cause i had taken to heart, it was a good thing that sara had again refused to marry me. i had a sixth sense which informed me that a staid old family friend might succeed with betty where a stepfather would have signally failed. betty's loyalty to her father's memory was passionate, and vehement; she would view his supplanter with resentment and distrust; but his old familiar comrade was a person to be taken to her heart. fortunately for the success of my enterprise, betty liked me. she told me this with the same engaging candor she would have used in informing me that she hated me, if she had happened to take a bias in that direction, saying frankly: "you are one of the very nicest old folks i know, stephen. yes, you are a ripping good fellow!" this made my task a comparatively easy one; i sometimes shudder to think what it might have been if betty had not thought i was a "ripping good fellow." i should have stuck to it, because that is my way; but betty would have made my life a misery to me. she had startling capacities for tormenting people when she chose to exert them; i certainly should not have liked to be numbered among betty's foes. i rode over to glenby the next morning after my paternal interview with sara, intending to have a frank talk with betty and lay the foundations of a good understanding on both sides. betty was a sharp child, with a disconcerting knack of seeing straight through grindstones; she would certainly perceive and probably resent any underhanded management. i thought it best to tell her plainly that i was going to look after her. when, however, i encountered betty, tearing madly down the beech avenue with a couple of dogs, her loosened hair streaming behind her like a banner of independence, and had lifted her, hatless and breathless, up before me on my mare, i found that sara had saved me the trouble of an explanation. "mother says you are going to take charge of my education, stephen," said betty, as soon as she could speak. "i'm glad, because i think that, for an old person, you have a good deal of sense. i suppose my education has to be seen to, some time or other, and i'd rather you'd do it than anybody else i know." "thank you, betty," i said gravely. "i hope i shall deserve your good opinion of my sense. i shall expect you to do as i tell you, and be guided by my advice in everything." "yes, i will," said betty, "because i'm sure you won't tell me to do anything i'd really hate to do. you won't shut me up in a room and make me sew, will you? because i won't do it." i assured her i would not. "nor send me to a boarding-school," pursued betty. "mother's always threatening to send me to one. i suppose she would have done it before this, only she knew i'd run away. you won't send me to a boarding-school, will you, stephen? because i won't go." "no," i said obligingly. "i won't. i should never dream of cooping a wild little thing, like you, up in a boarding-school. you'd fret your heart out like a caged skylark." "i know you and i are going to get along together splendidly, stephen," said betty, rubbing her brown cheek chummily against my shoulder. "you are so good at understanding. very few people are. even dad darling didn't understand. he let me do just as i wanted to, just because i wanted to, not because he really understood that i couldn't be tame and play with dolls. i hate dolls! real live babies are jolly; but dogs and horses are ever so much nicer than dolls." "but you must have lessons, betty. i shall select your teachers and superintend your studies, and i shall expect you to do me credit along that line, as well as along all others." "i'll try, honest and true, stephen," declared betty. and she kept her word. at first i looked upon betty's education as a duty; in a very short time it had become a pleasure...the deepest and most abiding interest of my life. as i had premised, betty was good material, and responded to my training with gratifying plasticity. day by day, week by week, month by month, her character and temperament unfolded naturally under my watchful eye. it was like beholding the gradual development of some rare flower in one's garden. a little checking and pruning here, a careful training of shoot and tendril there, and, lo, the reward of grace and symmetry! betty grew up as i would have wished jack churchill's girl to grow--spirited and proud, with the fine spirit and gracious pride of pure womanhood, loyal and loving, with the loyalty and love of a frank and unspoiled nature; true to her heart's core, hating falsehood and sham--as crystal-clear a mirror of maidenhood as ever man looked into and saw himself reflected back in such a halo as made him ashamed of not being more worthy of it. betty was kind enough to say that i had taught her everything she knew. but what had she not taught me? if there were a debt between us, it was on my side. sara was fairly well satisfied. it was not my fault that betty was not better looking, she said. i had certainly done everything for her mind and character that could be done. sara's manner implied that these unimportant details did not count for much, balanced against the lack of a pink-and-white skin and dimpled elbows; but she was generous enough not to blame me. "when betty is twenty-five," i said patiently--i had grown used to speaking patiently to sara--"she will be a magnificent woman--far handsomer than you ever were, sara, in your pinkest and whitest prime. where are your eyes, my dear lady, that you can't see the promise of loveliness in betty?" "betty is seventeen, and she is as lanky and brown as ever she was," sighed sara. "when i was seventeen i was the belle of the county and had had five proposals. i don't believe the thought of a lover has ever entered betty's head." "i hope not," i said shortly. somehow, i did not like the suggestion. "betty is a child yet. for pity's sake, sara, don't go putting nonsensical ideas into her head." "i'm afraid i can't," mourned sara, as if it were something to be regretted. "you have filled it too full of books and things like that. i've every confidence in your judgment, stephen--and really you've done wonders with betty. but don't you think you've made her rather too clever? men don't like women who are too clever. her poor father, now--he always said that a woman who liked books better than beaux was an unnatural creature." i didn't believe jack had ever said anything so foolish. sara imagined things. but i resented the aspersion of blue-stockingness cast on betty. "when the time comes for betty to be interested in beaux," i said severely, "she will probably give them all due attention. just at present her head is a great deal better filled with books than with silly premature fancies and sentimentalities. i'm a critical old fellow--but i'm satisfied with betty, sara--perfectly satisfied." sara sighed. "oh, i dare say she is all right, stephen. and i'm really grateful to you. i'm sure i could have done nothing at all with her. it's not your fault, of course,--but i can't help wishing she were a little more like other girls." i galloped away from glenby in a rage. what a blessing sara had not married me in my absurd youth! she would have driven me wild with her sighs and her obtuseness and her everlasting pink-and-whiteness. but there--there--there--gently! she was a sweet, good-hearted little woman; she had made jack happy; and she had contrived, heaven only knew how, to bring a rare creature like betty into the world. for that, much might be forgiven her. by the time i reached the maples and had flung myself down in an old, kinky, comfortable chair in my library i had forgiven her and was even paying her the compliment of thinking seriously over what she had said. was betty really unlike other girls? that is to say, unlike them in any respect wherein she should resemble them? i did not wish this; although i was a crusty old bachelor i approved of girls, holding them the sweetest things the good god has made. i wanted betty to have her full complement of girlhood in all its best and highest manifestation. was there anything lacking? i observed betty very closely during the next week or so, riding over to glenby every day and riding back at night, meditating upon my observations. eventually i concluded to do what i had never thought myself in the least likely to do. i would send betty to a boarding-school for a year. it was necessary that she should learn how to live with other girls. i went over to glenby the next day and found betty under the beeches on the lawn, just back from a canter. she was sitting on the dappled mare i had given her on her last birthday, and was laughing at the antics of her rejoicing dogs around her. i looked at her with much pleasure; it gladdened me to see how much, nay, how totally a child she still was, despite her churchill height. her hair, under her velvet cap, still hung over her shoulders in the same thick plaits; her face had the firm leanness of early youth, but its curves were very fine and delicate. the brown skin, that worried sara so, was flushed through with dusky color from her gallop; her long, dark eyes were filled with the beautiful unconsciousness of childhood. more than all, the soul in her was still the soul of a child. i found myself wishing that it could always remain so. but i knew it could not; the woman must blossom out some day; it was my duty to see that the flower fulfilled the promise of the bud. when i told betty that she must go away to a school for a year, she shrugged, frowned and consented. betty had learned that she must consent to what i decreed, even when my decrees were opposed to her likings, as she had once fondly believed they never would be. but betty had acquired confidence in me to the beautiful extent of acquiescing in everything i commanded. "i'll go, of course, since you wish it, stephen," she said. "but why do you want me to go? you must have a reason--you always have a reason for anything you do. what is it?" "that is for you to find out, betty," i said. "by the time you come back you will have discovered it, i think. if not, it will not have proved itself a good reason and shall be forgotten." when betty went away i bade her good-by without burdening her with any useless words of advice. "write to me every week, and remember that you are betty churchill," i said. betty was standing on the steps above, among her dogs. she came down a step and put her arms about my neck. "i'll remember that you are my friend and that i must live up to you," she said. "good-by, stephen." she kissed me two or three times--good, hearty smacks! did i not say she was still a child?--and stood waving her hand to me as i rode away. i looked back at the end of the avenue and saw her standing there, short-skirted and hatless, fronting the lowering sun with those fearless eyes of hers. so i looked my last on the child betty. that was a lonely year. my occupation was gone and i began to fear that i had outlived my usefulness. life seemed flat, stale, and unprofitable. betty's weekly letters were all that lent it any savor. they were spicy and piquant enough. betty was discovered to have unsuspected talents in the epistolary line. at first she was dolefully homesick, and begged me to let her come home. when i refused--it was amazingly hard to refuse--she sulked through three letters, then cheered up and began to enjoy herself. but it was nearly the end of the year when she wrote: "i've found out why you sent me here, stephen--and i'm glad you did." i had to be away from home on unavoidable business the day betty returned to glenby. but the next afternoon i went over. i found betty out and sara in. the latter was beaming. betty was so much improved, she declared delightedly. i would hardly know "the dear child." this alarmed me terribly. what on earth had they done to betty? i found that she had gone up to the pineland for a walk, and thither i betook myself speedily. when i saw her coming down a long, golden-brown alley i stepped behind a tree to watch her--i wished to see her, myself unseen. as she drew near i gazed at her with pride, and admiration and amazement--and, under it all, a strange, dreadful, heart-sinking, which i could not understand and which i had never in all my life experienced before--no, not even when sara had refused me. betty was a woman! not by virtue of the simple white dress that clung to her tall, slender figure, revealing lines of exquisite grace and litheness; not by virtue of the glossy masses of dark brown hair heaped high on her head and held there in wonderful shining coils; not by virtue of added softness of curve and daintiness of outline; not because of all these, but because of the dream and wonder and seeking in her eyes. she was a woman, looking, all unconscious of her quest, for love. the understanding of the change in her came home to me with a shock that must have left me, i think, something white about the lips. i was glad. she was what i had wished her to become. but i wanted the child betty back; this womanly betty seemed far away from me. i stepped out into the path and she saw me, with a brightening of her whole face. she did not rush forward and fling herself into my arms as she would have done a year ago; but she came towards me swiftly, holding out her hand. i had thought her slightly pale when i had first seen her; but now i concluded i had been mistaken, for there was a wonderful sunrise of color in her face. i took her hand--there were no kisses this time. "welcome home, betty," i said. "oh, stephen, it is so good to be back," she breathed, her eyes shining. she did not say it was good to see me again, as i had hoped she would do. indeed, after the first minute of greeting, she seemed a trifle cool and distant. we walked for an hour in the pine wood and talked. betty was brilliant, witty, self-possessed, altogether charming. i thought her perfect and yet my heart ached. what a glorious young thing she was, in that splendid youth of hers! what a prize for some lucky man--confound the obtrusive thought! no doubt we should soon be overrun at glenby with lovers. i should stumble over some forlorn youth at every step! well, what of it? betty would marry, of course. it would be my duty to see that she got a good husband, worthy of her as men go. i thought i preferred the old duty of superintending her studies. but there, it was all the same thing--merely a post-graduate course in applied knowledge. when she began to learn life's greatest lesson of love, i, the tried and true old family friend and mentor, must be on hand to see that the teacher was what i would have him be, even as i had formerly selected her instructor in french and botany. then, and not until then, would betty's education be complete. i rode home very soberly. when i reached the maples i did what i had not done for years...looked critically at myself in the mirror. the realization that i had grown older came home to me with a new and unpleasant force. there were marked lines on my lean face, and silver glints in the dark hair over my temples. when betty was ten she had thought me "an old person." now, at eighteen, she probably thought me a veritable ancient of days. pshaw, what did it matter? and yet...i thought of her as i had seen her, standing under the pines, and something cold and painful laid its hand on my heart. my premonitions as to lovers proved correct. glenby was soon infested with them. heaven knows where they all came from. i had not supposed there was a quarter as many young men in the whole county; but there they were. sara was in the seventh heaven of delight. was not betty at last a belle? as for the proposals...well, betty never counted her scalps in public; but every once in a while a visiting youth dropped out and was seen no more at glenby. one could guess what that meant. betty apparently enjoyed all this. i grieve to say that she was a bit of a coquette. i tried to cure her of this serious defect, but for once i found that i had undertaken something i could not accomplish. in vain i lectured, betty only laughed; in vain i gravely rebuked, betty only flirted more vivaciously than before. men might come and men might go, but betty went on forever. i endured this sort of thing for a year and then i decided that it was time to interfere seriously. i must find a husband for betty...my fatherly duty would not be fulfilled until i had...nor, indeed, my duty to society. she was not a safe person to have running at large. none of the men who haunted glenby was good enough for her. i decided that my nephew, frank, would do very well. he was a capital young fellow, handsome, clean-souled, and whole-hearted. from a worldly point of view he was what sara would have termed an excellent match; he had money, social standing and a rising reputation as a clever young lawyer. yes, he should have betty, confound him! they had never met. i set the wheels going at once. the sooner all the fuss was over the better. i hated fuss and there was bound to be a good deal of it. but i went about the business like an accomplished matchmaker. i invited frank to visit the maples and, before he came, i talked much...but not too much...of him to betty, mingling judicious praise and still more judicious blame together. women never like a paragon. betty heard me with more gravity than she usually accorded to my dissertations on young men. she even condescended to ask several questions about him. this i thought a good sign. to frank i had said not a word about betty; when he came to the maples i took him over to glenby and, coming upon betty wandering about among the beeches in the sunset, i introduced him without any warning. he would have been more than mortal if he had not fallen in love with her upon the spot. it was not in the heart of man to resist her...that dainty, alluring bit of womanhood. she was all in white, with flowers in her hair, and, for a moment, i could have murdered frank or any other man who dared to commit the sacrilege of loving her. then i pulled myself together and left them alone. i might have gone in and talked to sara...two old folks gently reviewing their youth while the young folks courted outside...but i did not. i prowled about the pine wood, and tried to forget how blithe and handsome that curly-headed boy, frank, was, and what a flash had sprung into his eyes when he had seen betty. well, what of it? was not that what i had brought him there for? and was i not pleased at the success of my scheme? certainly i was! delighted! next day frank went to glenby without even making the poor pretense of asking me to accompany him. i spent the time of his absence overseeing the construction of a new greenhouse i was having built. i was conscientious in my supervision; but i felt no interest in it. the place was intended for roses, and roses made me think of the pale yellow ones betty had worn at her breast one evening the week before, when, all lovers being unaccountably absent, we had wandered together under the pines and talked as in the old days before her young womanhood and my gray hairs had risen up to divide us. she had dropped a rose on the brown floor, and i had sneaked back, after i had left her the house, to get it, before i went home. i had it now in my pocket-book. confound it, mightn't a future uncle cherish a family affection for his prospective niece? frank's wooing seemed to prosper. the other young sparks, who had haunted glenby, faded away after his advent. betty treated him with most encouraging sweetness; sara smiled on him; i stood in the background, like a benevolent god of the machine, and flattered myself that i pulled the strings. at the end of a month something went wrong. frank came home from glenby one day in the dumps, and moped for two whole days. i rode down myself on the third. i had not gone much to glenby that month; but, if there were trouble bettyward, it was my duty to make smooth the rough places. as usual, i found betty in the pineland. i thought she looked rather pale and dull...fretting about frank no doubt. she brightened up when she saw me, evidently expecting that i had come to straighten matters out; but she pretended to be haughty and indifferent. "i am glad you haven't forgotten us altogether, stephen," she said coolly. "you haven't been down for a week." "i'm flattered that you noticed it," i said, sitting down on a fallen tree and looking up at her as she stood, tall and lithe, against an old pine, with her eyes averted. "i shouldn't have supposed you'd want an old fogy like myself poking about and spoiling the idyllic moments of love's young dream." "why do you always speak of yourself as old?" said betty, crossly, ignoring my reference to frank. "because i am old, my dear. witness these gray hairs." i pushed up my hat to show them the more recklessly. betty barely glanced at them. "you have just enough to give you a distinguished look," she said, "and you are only forty. a man is in his prime at forty. he never has any sense until he is forty--and sometimes he doesn't seem to have any even then," she concluded impertinently. my heart beat. did betty suspect? was that last sentence meant to inform me that she was aware of my secret folly, and laughed at it? "i came over to see what has gone wrong between you and frank," i said gravely. betty bit her lips. "nothing," she said. "betty," i said reproachfully, "i brought you up...or endeavored to bring you up...to speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. don't tell me i have failed. i'll give you another chance. have you quarreled with frank?" "no," said the maddening betty, "he quarreled with me. he went away in a temper and i do not care if he never comes back!" i shook my head. "this won't do, betty. as your old family friend i still claim the right to scold you until you have a husband to do the scolding. you mustn't torment frank. he is too fine a fellow. you must marry him, betty." "must i?" said betty, a dusky red flaming out on her cheek. she turned her eyes on me in a most disconcerting fashion. "do you wish me to marry frank, stephen?" betty had a wretched habit of emphasizing pronouns in a fashion calculated to rattle anybody. "yes, i do wish it, because i think it will be best for you," i replied, without looking at her. "you must marry some time, betty, and frank is the only man i know to whom i could trust you. as your guardian, i have an interest in seeing you well and wisely settled for life. you have always taken my advice and obeyed my wishes; and you've always found my way the best, in the long run, haven't you, betty? you won't prove rebellious now, i'm sure. you know quite well that i am advising you for your own good. frank is a splendid young fellow, who loves you with all his heart. marry him, betty. mind, i don't command. i have no right to do that, and you are too old to be ordered about, if i had. but i wish and advise it. isn't that enough, betty?" i had been looking away from her all the time i was talking, gazing determinedly down a sunlit vista of pines. every word i said seemed to tear my heart, and come from my lips stained with life-blood. yes, betty should marry frank! but, good god, what would become of me! betty left her station under the pine tree, and walked around me until she got right in front of my face. i couldn't help looking at her, for if i moved my eyes she moved too. there was nothing meek or submissive about her; her head was held high, her eyes were blazing, and her cheeks were crimson. but her words were meek enough. "i will marry frank if you wish it, stephen," she said. "you are my friend. i have never crossed your wishes, and, as you say, i have never regretted being guided by them. i will do exactly as you wish in this case also, i promise you that. but, in so solemn a question, i must be very certain what you do wish. there must be no doubt in my mind or heart. look me squarely in the eyes, stephen--as you haven't done once to-day, no, nor once since i came home from school--and, so looking, tell me that you wish me to marry frank douglas and i will do it! do you, stephen?" i had to look her in the eyes, since nothing else would do her; and, as i did so, all the might of manhood in me rose up in hot revolt against the lie i would have told her. that unfaltering, impelling gaze of hers drew the truth from my lips in spite of myself. "no, i don't wish you to marry frank douglas, a thousand times no!" i said passionately. "i don't wish you to marry any man on earth but myself. i love you--i love you, betty. you are dearer to me than life--dearer to me than my own happiness. it was your happiness i thought of--and so i asked you to marry frank because i believed he would make you a happy woman. that is all!" betty's defiance went from her like a flame blown out. she turned away and drooped her proud head. "it could not have made me a happy woman to marry one man, loving another," she said, in a whisper. i got up and went over to her. "betty, whom do you love?" i asked, also in a whisper. "you," she murmured meekly--oh, so meekly, my proud little girl! "betty," i said brokenly, "i'm old--too old for you--i'm more than twenty years your senior--i'm--" "oh!" betty wheeled around on me and stamped her foot. "don't mention your age to me again. i don't care if you're as old as methuselah. but i'm not going to coax you to marry me, sir! if you won't, i'll never marry anybody--i'll live and die an old maid. you can please yourself, of course!" she turned away, half-laughing, half-crying; but i caught her in my arms and crushed her sweet lips against mine. "betty, i'm the happiest man in the world--and i was the most miserable when i came here." "you deserved to be," said betty cruelly. "i'm glad you were. any man as stupid as you deserves to be unhappy. what do you think i felt like, loving you with all my heart, and seeing you simply throwing me at another man's head. why, i've always loved you, stephen; but i didn't know it until i went to that detestable school. then i found out--and i thought that was why you had sent me. but, when i came home, you almost broke my heart. that was why i flirted so with all those poor, nice boys--i wanted to hurt you but i never thought i succeeded. you just went on being fatherly. then, when you brought frank here, i almost gave up hope; and i tried to make up my mind to marry him; i should have done it if you had insisted. but i had to have one more try for happiness first. i had just one little hope to inspire me with sufficient boldness. i saw you, that night, when you came back here and picked up my rose! i had come back, myself, to be alone and unhappy." "it is the most wonderful thing that ever happened--that you should love me," i said. "it's not--i couldn't help it," said betty, nestling her brown head on my shoulder. "you taught me everything else, stephen, so nobody but you could teach me how to love. you've made a thorough thing of educating me." "when will you marry me, betty?" i asked. "as soon as i can fully forgive you for trying to make me marry somebody else," said betty. it was rather hard lines on frank, when you come to think of it. but, such is the selfishness of human nature that we didn't think much about frank. the young fellow behaved like the douglas he was. went a little white about the lips when i told him, wished me all happiness, and went quietly away, "gentleman unafraid." he has since married and is, i understand, very happy. not as happy as i am, of course; that is impossible, because there is only one betty in the world, and she is my wife. xii. in her selfless mood the raw wind of an early may evening was puffing in and out the curtains of the room where naomi holland lay dying. the air was moist and chill, but the sick woman would not have the window closed. "i can't get my breath if you shut everything up so tight," she said. "whatever comes, i ain't going to be smothered to death, car'line holland." outside of the window grew a cherry tree, powdered with moist buds with the promise of blossoms she would not live to see. between its boughs she saw a crystal cup of sky over hills that were growing dim and purple. the outside air was full of sweet, wholesome springtime sounds that drifted in fitfully. there were voices and whistles in the barnyard, and now and then faint laughter. a bird alighted for a moment on a cherry bough, and twittered restlessly. naomi knew that white mists were hovering in the silent hollows, that the maple at the gate wore a misty blossom red, and that violet stars were shining bluely on the brooklands. the room was a small, plain one. the floor was bare, save for a couple of braided rugs, the plaster discolored, the walls dingy and glaring. there had never been much beauty in naomi holland's environment, and, now that she was dying, there was even less. at the open window a boy of about ten years was leaning out over the sill and whistling. he was tall for his age, and beautiful--the hair a rich auburn with a glistening curl in it, skin very white and warm-tinted, eyes small and of a greenish blue, with dilated pupils and long lashes. he had a weak chin, and a full, sullen mouth. the bed was in the corner farthest from the window; on it the sick woman, in spite of the pain that was her portion continually, was lying as quiet and motionless as she had done ever since she had lain down upon it for the last time. naomi holland never complained; when the agony was at its worst, she shut her teeth more firmly over her bloodless lip, and her great black eyes glared at the blank wall before in a way that gave her attendants what they called "the creeps," but no word or moan escaped her. between the paroxysms she kept up her keen interest in the life that went on about her. nothing escaped her sharp, alert eyes and ears. this evening she lay spent on the crumpled pillows; she had had a bad spell in the afternoon and it had left her very weak. in the dim light her extremely long face looked corpse-like already. her black hair lay in a heavy braid over the pillow and down the counterpane. it was all that was left of her beauty, and she took a fierce joy in it. those long, glistening, sinuous tresses must be combed and braided every day, no matter what came. a girl of fourteen was curled up on a chair at the head of the bed, with her head resting on the pillow. the boy at the window was her half-brother; but, between christopher holland and eunice carr, not the slightest resemblance existed. presently the sibilant silence was broken by a low, half-strangled sob. the sick woman, who had been watching a white evening star through the cherry boughs, turned impatiently at the sound. "i wish you'd get over that, eunice," she said sharply. "i don't want any one crying over me until i'm dead; and then you'll have plenty else to do, most likely. if it wasn't for christopher i wouldn't be anyways unwilling to die. when one has had such a life as i've had, there isn't much in death to be afraid of. only, a body would like to go right off, and not die by inches, like this. 'tain't fair!" she snapped out the last sentence as if addressing some unseen, tyrannical presence; her voice, at least, had not weakened, but was as clear and incisive as ever. the boy at the window stopped whistling, and the girl silently wiped her eyes on her faded gingham apron. naomi drew her own hair over her lips, and kissed it. "you'll never have hair like that, eunice," she said. "it does seem most too pretty to bury, doesn't it? mind you see that it is fixed nice when i'm laid out. comb it right up on my head and braid it there." a sound, such as might be wrung from a suffering animal, came from the girl, but at the same moment the door opened and a woman entered. "chris," she said sharply, "you get right off for the cows, you lazy little scamp! you knew right well you had to go for them, and here you've been idling, and me looking high and low for you. make haste now; it's ridiculous late." the boy pulled in his head and scowled at his aunt, but he dared not disobey, and went out slowly with a sulky mutter. his aunt subdued a movement, that might have developed into a sound box on his ears, with a rather frightened glance at the bed. naomi holland was spent and dying, but her temper was still a thing to hold in dread, and her sister-in-law did not choose to rouse it by slapping christopher. to her and her co-nurse the spasms of rage, which the sick woman sometimes had, seemed to partake of the nature of devil possession. the last one, only three days before, had been provoked by christopher's complaint of some real or fancied ill-treatment from his aunt, and the latter had no mind to bring on another. she went over to the bed, and straightened the clothes. "sarah and i are going out to milk, naomi, eunice will stay with you. she can run for us if you feel another spell coming on." naomi holland looked up at her sister-in-law with something like malicious enjoyment. "i ain't going to have any more spells, car'line anne. i'm going to die to-night. but you needn't hurry milking for that, at all. i'll take my time." she liked to see the alarm that came over the other woman's face. it was richly worth while to scare caroline holland like that. "are you feeling worse, naomi?" asked the latter shakily. "if you are i'll send for charles to go for the doctor." "no, you won't. what good can the doctor do me? i don't want either his or charles' permission to die. you can go and milk at your ease. i won't die till you're done--i won't deprive you of the pleasure of seeing me." mrs. holland shut her lips and went out of the room with a martyr-like expression. in some ways naomi holland was not an exacting patient, but she took her satisfaction out in the biting, malicious speeches she never failed to make. even on her death-bed her hostility to her sister-in-law had to find vent. outside, at the steps, sarah spencer was waiting, with the milk pails over her arm. sarah spencer had no fixed abiding place, but was always to be found where there was illness. her experience, and an utter lack of nerves, made her a good nurse. she was a tall, homely woman with iron gray hair and a lined face. beside her, the trim little caroline anne, with her light step and round, apple-red face, looked almost girlish. the two women walked to the barnyard, discussing naomi in undertones as they went. the house they had left behind grew very still. in naomi holland's room the shadows were gathering. eunice timidly bent over her mother. "ma, do you want the light lit?" "no, i'm watching that star just below the big cherry bough. i'll see it set behind the hill. i've seen it there, off and on, for twelve years, and now i'm taking a good-by look at it. i want you to keep still, too. i've got a few things to think over, and i don't want to be disturbed." the girl lifted herself about noiselessly and locked her hands over the bed-post. then she laid her face down on them, biting at them silently until the marks of her teeth showed white against their red roughness. naomi holland did not notice her. she was looking steadfastly at the great, pearl-like sparkle in the faint-hued sky. when it finally disappeared from her vision she struck her long, thin hands together twice, and a terrible expression came over her face for a moment. but, when she spoke, her voice was quite calm. "you can light the candle now, eunice. put it up on the shelf here, where it won't shine in my eyes. and then sit down on the foot of the bed where i can see you. i've got something to say to you." eunice obeyed her noiselessly. as the pallid light shot up, it revealed the child plainly. she was thin and ill-formed--one shoulder being slightly higher than the other. she was dark, like her mother, but her features were irregular, and her hair fell in straggling, dim locks about her face. her eyes were a dark brown, and over one was the slanting red scar of a birth mark. naomi holland looked at her with the contempt she had never made any pretense of concealing. the girl was bone of her bone and flesh of her flesh, but she had never loved her; all the mother love in her had been lavished on her son. when eunice had placed the candle on the shelf and drawn down the ugly blue paper blinds, shutting out the strips of violet sky where a score of glimmering points were now visible, she sat down on the foot of the bed, facing her mother. "the door is shut, is it, eunice?" eunice nodded. "because i don't want car'line or any one else peeking and harking to what i've got to say. she's out milking now, and i must make the most of the chance. eunice, i'm going to die, and..." "ma!" "there now, no taking on! you knew it had to come sometime soon. i haven't the strength to talk much, so i want you just to be quiet and listen. i ain't feeling any pain now, so i can think and talk pretty clear. are you listening, eunice?" "yes, ma." "mind you are. it's about christopher. it hasn't been out of my mind since i laid down here. i've fought for a year to live, on his account, and it ain't any use. i must just die and leave him, and i don't know what he'll do. it's dreadful to think of." she paused, and struck her shrunken hand sharply against the table. "if he was bigger and could look out for himself it wouldn't be so bad. but he is only a little fellow, and car'line hates him. you'll both have to live with her until you're grown up. she'll put on him and abuse him. he's like his father in some ways; he's got a temper and he is stubborn. he'll never get on with car'line. now, eunice, i'm going to get you to promise to take my place with christopher when i'm dead, as far as you can. you've got to; it's your duty. but i want you to promise." "i will, ma," whispered the girl solemnly. "you haven't much force--you never had. if you was smart, you could do a lot for him. but you'll have to do your best. i want you to promise me faithfully that you'll stand by him and protect him--that you won't let people impose on him; that you'll never desert him as long as he needs you, no matter what comes. eunice, promise me this!" in her excitement the sick woman raised herself up in the bed, and clutched the girl's thin arm. her eyes were blazing and two scarlet spots glowed in her thin cheeks. eunice's face was white and tense. she clasped her hands as one in prayer. "mother, i promise it!" naomi relaxed her grip on the girl's arm and sank back exhausted on the pillow. a death-like look came over her face as the excitement faded. "my mind is easier now. but if i could only have lived another year or two! and i hate car'line--hate her! eunice, don't you ever let her abuse my boy! if she did, or if you neglected him, i'd come back from my grave to you! as for the property, things will be pretty straight. i've seen to that. there'll be no squabbling and doing christopher out of his rights. he's to have the farm as soon as he's old enough to work it, and he's to provide for you. and, eunice, remember what you've promised!" outside, in the thickly gathering dusk, caroline holland and sarah spencer were at the dairy, straining the milk into creamers, for which christopher was sullenly pumping water. the house was far from the road, up to which a long red lane led; across the field was the old holland homestead where caroline lived; her unmarried sister-in-law, electa holland, kept house for her while she waited on naomi. it was her night to go home and sleep, but naomi's words haunted her, although she believed they were born of pure "cantankerousness." "you'd better go in and look at her, sarah," she said, as she rinsed out the pails. "if you think i'd better stay here to-night, i will. if the woman was like anybody else a body would know what to do; but, if she thought she could scare us by saying she was going to die, she'd say it." when sarah went in, the sick room was very quiet. in her opinion, naomi was no worse than usual, and she told caroline so; but the latter felt vaguely uneasy and concluded to stay. naomi was as cool and defiant as customary. she made them bring christopher in to say good-night and had him lifted up on the bed to kiss her. then she held him back and looked at him admiringly--at the bright curls and rosy cheeks and round, firm limbs. the boy was uncomfortable under her gaze and squirmed hastily down. her eyes followed him greedily, as he went out. when the door closed behind him, she groaned. sarah spencer was startled. she had never heard naomi holland groan since she had come to wait on her. "are you feeling any worse, naomi? is the pain coming back?" "no. go and tell car'line to give christopher some of that grape jelly on his bread before he goes to bed. she'll find it in the cupboard under the stairs." presently the house grew very still. caroline had dropped asleep on the sitting-room lounge, across the hall. sarah spencer nodded over her knitting by the table in the sick room. she had told eunice to go to bed, but the child refused. she still sat huddled up on the foot of the bed, watching her mother's face intently. naomi appeared to sleep. the candle burned long, and the wick was crowned by a little cap of fiery red that seemed to watch eunice like some impish goblin. the wavering light cast grotesque shadows of sarah spencer's head on the wall. the thin curtains at the window wavered to and fro, as if shaken by ghostly hands. at midnight naomi holland opened her eyes. the child she had never loved was the only one to go with her to the brink of the unseen. "eunice--remember!" it was the faintest whisper. the soul, passing over the threshold of another life, strained back to its only earthly tie. a quiver passed over the long, pallid face. a horrible scream rang through the silent house. sarah spencer sprang out of her doze in consternation, and gazed blankly at the shrieking child. caroline came hurrying in with distended eyes. on the bed naomi holland lay dead. in the room where she had died naomi holland lay in her coffin. it was dim and hushed; but, in the rest of the house, the preparations for the funeral were being hurried on. through it all eunice moved, calm and silent. since her one wild spasm of screaming by her mother's death-bed she had shed no tear, given no sign of grief. perhaps, as her mother had said, she had no time. there was christopher to be looked after. the boy's grief was stormy and uncontrolled. he had cried until he was utterly exhausted. it was eunice who soothed him, coaxed him to eat, kept him constantly by her. at night she took him to her own room and watched over him while he slept. when the funeral was over the household furniture was packed away or sold. the house was locked up and the farm rented. there was nowhere for the children to go, save to their uncle's. caroline holland did not want them, but, having to take them, she grimly made up her mind to do what she considered her duty by them. she had five children of her own and between them and christopher a standing feud had existed from the time he could walk. she had never liked naomi. few people did. benjamin holland had not married until late in life, and his wife had declared war on his family at sight. she was a stranger in avonlea,--a widow, with a three year-old child. she made few friends, as some people always asserted that she was not in her right mind. within a year of her second marriage christopher was born, and from the hour of his birth his mother had worshiped him blindly. he was her only solace. for him she toiled and pinched and saved. benjamin holland had not been "fore-handed" when she married him; but, when he died, six years after his marriage, he was a well-to-do man. naomi made no pretense of mourning for him. it was an open secret that they had quarreled like the proverbial cat and dog. charles holland and his wife had naturally sided with benjamin, and naomi fought her battles single-handed. after her husband's death, she managed to farm alone, and made it pay. when the mysterious malady which was to end her life first seized on her she fought against it with all the strength and stubbornness of her strong and stubborn nature. her will won for her an added year of life, and then she had to yield. she tasted all the bitterness of death the day on which she lay down on her bed, and saw her enemy come in to rule her house. but caroline holland was not a bad or unkind woman. true, she did not love naomi or her children; but the woman was dying and must be looked after for the sake of common humanity. caroline thought she had done well by her sister-in-law. when the red clay was heaped over naomi's grave in the avonlea burying ground, caroline took eunice and christopher home with her. christopher did not want to go; it was eunice who reconciled him. he clung to her with an exacting affection born of loneliness and grief. in the days that followed caroline holland was obliged to confess to herself that there would have been no doing anything with christopher had it not been for eunice. the boy was sullen and obstinate, but his sister had an unfailing influence over him. in charles holland's household no one was allowed to eat the bread of idleness. his own children were all girls, and christopher came in handy as a chore boy. he was made to work--perhaps too hard. but eunice helped him, and did half his work for him when nobody knew. when he quarreled with his cousins, she took his part; whenever possible she took on herself the blame and punishment of his misdeeds. electa holland was charles' unmarried sister. she had kept house for benjamin until he married; then naomi had bundled her out. electa had never forgiven her for it. her hatred passed on to naomi's children. in a hundred petty ways she revenged herself on them. for herself, eunice bore it patiently; but it was a different matter when it touched christopher. once electa boxed christopher's ears. eunice, who was knitting by the table, stood up. a resemblance to her mother, never before visible, came out in her face like a brand. she lifted her hand and slapped electa's cheek deliberately twice, leaving a dull red mark where she struck. "if you ever strike my brother again," she said, slowly and vindictively, "i will slap your face every time you do. you have no right to touch him." "my patience, what a fury!" said electa. "naomi holland'll never be dead as long as you're alive!" she told charles of the affair and eunice was severely punished. but electa never interfered with christopher again. all the discordant elements in the holland household could not prevent the children from growing up. it was a consummation which the harrassed caroline devoutly wished. when christopher holland was seventeen he was a man grown--a big, strapping fellow. his childish beauty had coarsened, but he was thought handsome by many. he took charge of his mother's farm then, and the brother and sister began their new life together in the long-unoccupied house. there were few regrets on either side when they left charles holland's roof. in her secret heart eunice felt an unspeakable relief. christopher had been "hard to manage," as his uncle said, in the last year. he was getting into the habit of keeping late hours and doubtful company. this always provoked an explosion of wrath from charles holland, and the conflicts between him and his nephew were frequent and bitter. for four years after their return home eunice had a hard and anxious life. christopher was idle and dissipated. most people regarded him as a worthless fellow, and his uncle washed his hands of him utterly. only eunice never failed him; she never reproached or railed; she worked like a slave to keep things together. eventually her patience prevailed. christopher, to a great extent, reformed and worked harder. he was never unkind to eunice, even in his rages. it was not in him to appreciate or return her devotion; but his tolerant acceptance of it was her solace. when eunice was twenty-eight, edward bell wanted to marry her. he was a plain, middle-aged widower with four children; but, as caroline did not fail to remind her, eunice herself was not for every market, and the former did her best to make the match. she might have succeeded had it not been for christopher. when he, in spite of caroline's skillful management, got an inkling of what was going on, he flew into a true holland rage. if eunice married and left him--he would sell the farm and go to the devil by way of the klondike. he could not, and would not, do without her. no arrangement suggested by caroline availed to pacify him, and, in the end, eunice refused to marry edward bell. she could not leave christopher, she said simply, and in this she stood rock-firm. caroline could not budge her an inch. "you're a fool, eunice," she said, when she was obliged to give up in despair. "it's not likely you'll ever have another chance. as for chris, in a year or two he'll be marrying himself, and where will you be then? you'll find your nose nicely out of joint when he brings a wife in here." the shaft went home. eunice's lips turned white. but she said, faintly, "the house is big enough for us both, if he does." caroline sniffed. "maybe so. you'll find out. however, there's no use talking. you're as set as your mother was, and nothing would ever budge her an inch. i only hope you won't be sorry for it." when three more years had passed christopher began to court victoria pye. the affair went on for some time before either eunice or the hollands go wind of it. when they did there was an explosion. between the hollands and the pyes, root and branch, existed a feud that dated back for three generations. that the original cause of the quarrel was totally forgotten did not matter; it was matter of family pride that a holland should have no dealings with a pye. when christopher flew so openly in the face of this cherished hatred, there could be nothing less than consternation. charles holland broke through his determination to have nothing to do with christopher, to remonstrate. caroline went to eunice in as much of a splutter as if christopher had been her own brother. eunice did not care a row of pins for the holland-pye feud. victoria was to her what any other girl, upon whom christopher cast eyes of love, would have been--a supplanter. for the first time in her life she was torn with passionate jealousy; existence became a nightmare to her. urged on by caroline, and her own pain, she ventured to remonstrate with christopher, also. she had expected a burst of rage, but he was surprisingly good-natured. he seemed even amused. "what have you got against victoria?" he asked, tolerantly. eunice had no answer ready. it was true that nothing could be said against the girl. she felt helpless and baffled. christopher laughed at her silence. "i guess you're a little jealous," he said. "you must have expected i would get married some time. this house is big enough for us all. you'd better look at the matter sensibly, eunice. don't let charles and caroline put nonsense into your head. a man must marry to please himself." christopher was out late that night. eunice waited up for him, as she always did. it was a chilly spring evening, reminding her of the night her mother had died. the kitchen was in spotless order, and she sat down on a stiff-backed chair by the window to wait for her brother. she did not want a light. the moonlight fell in with faint illumination. outside, the wind was blowing over a bed of new-sprung mint in the garden, and was suggestively fragrant. it was a very old-fashioned garden, full of perennials naomi holland had planted long ago. eunice always kept it primly neat. she had been working in it that day, and felt tired. she was all alone in the house and the loneliness filled her with a faint dread. she had tried all that day to reconcile herself to christopher's marriage, and had partially succeeded. she told herself that she could still watch over him and care for his comfort. she would even try to love victoria; after all, it might be pleasant to have another woman in the house. so, sitting there, she fed her hungry soul with these husks of comfort. when she heard christopher's step she moved about quickly to get a light. he frowned when he saw her; he had always resented her sitting up for him. he sat down by the stove and took off his boots, while eunice got a lunch for him. after he had eaten it in silence he made no move to go to bed. a chill, premonitory fear crept over eunice. it did not surprise her at all when christopher finally said, abruptly, "eunice, i've a notion to get married this spring." eunice clasped her hands together under the table. it was what she had been expecting. she said so, in a monotonous voice. "we must make some arrangement for--for you, eunice," christopher went on, in a hurried, hesitant way, keeping his eyes riveted doggedly on his plate. "victoria doesn't exactly like--well, she thinks it's better for young married folks to begin life by themselves, and i guess she's about right. you wouldn't find it comfortable, anyhow, having to step back to second place after being mistress here so long." eunice tried to speak, but only an indistinct murmur came from her bloodless lips. the sound made christopher look up. something in her face irritated him. he pushed back his chair impatiently. "now, eunice, don't go taking on. it won't be any use. look at this business in a sensible way. i'm fond of you, and all that, but a man is bound to consider his wife first. i'll provide for you comfortably." "do you mean to say that your wife is going to turn me out?" eunice gasped, rather than spoke, the words. christopher drew his reddish brows together. "i just mean that victoria says she won't marry me if she has to live with you. she's afraid of you. i told her you wouldn't interfere with her, but she wasn't satisfied. it's your own fault, eunice. you've always been so queer and close that people think you're an awful crank. victoria's young and lively, and you and she wouldn't get on at all. there isn't any question of turning you out. i'll build a little house for you somewhere, and you'll be a great deal better off there than you would be here. so don't make a fuss." eunice did not look as if she were going to make a fuss. she sat as if turned to stone, her hands lying palm upward in her lap. christopher got up, hugely relieved that the dreaded explanation was over. "guess i'll go to bed. you'd better have gone long ago. it's all nonsense, this waiting up for me." when he had gone eunice drew a long, sobbing breath and looked about her like a dazed soul. all the sorrow of her life was as nothing to the desolation that assailed her now. she rose and, with uncertain footsteps, passed out through the hall and into the room where her mother died. she had always kept it locked and undisturbed; it was arranged just as naomi holland had left it. eunice tottered to the bed and sat down on it. she recalled the promise she had made to her mother in that very room. was the power to keep it to be wrested from her? was she to be driven from her home and parted from the only creature she had on earth to love? and would christopher allow it, after all her sacrifices for him? aye, that he would! he cared more for that black-eyed, waxen-faced girl at the old pye place than for his own kin. eunice put her hands over her dry, burning eyes and groaned aloud. caroline holland had her hour of triumph over eunice when she heard it all. to one of her nature there was no pleasure so sweet as that of saying, "i told you so." having said it, however, she offered eunice a home. electa holland was dead, and eunice might fill her place very acceptably, if she would. "you can't go off and live by yourself," caroline told her. "it's all nonsense to talk of such a thing. we will give you a home, if christopher is going to turn you out. you were always a fool, eunice, to pet and pamper him as you've done. this is the thanks you get for it--turned out like a dog for his fine wife's whim! i only wish your mother was alive!" it was probably the first time caroline had ever wished this. she had flown at christopher like a fury about the matter, and had been rudely insulted for her pains. christopher had told her to mind her own business. when caroline cooled down she made some arrangements with him, to all of which eunice listlessly assented. she did not care what became of her. when christopher holland brought victoria as mistress to the house where his mother had toiled, and suffered, and ruled with her rod of iron, eunice was gone. in charles holland's household she took electa's place--an unpaid upper servant. charles and caroline were kind enough to her, and there was plenty to do. for five years her dull, colorless life went on, during which time she never crossed the threshold of the house where victoria holland ruled with a sway as absolute as naomi's had been. caroline's curiosity led her, after her first anger had cooled, to make occasional calls, the observations of which she faithfully reported to eunice. the latter never betrayed any interest in them, save once. this was when caroline came home full of the news that victoria had had the room where naomi died opened up, and showily furnished as a parlor. then eunice's sallow face crimsoned, and her eyes flashed, over the desecration. but no word of comment or complaint ever crossed her lips. she knew, as every one else knew, that the glamor soon went from christopher holland's married life. the marriage proved an unhappy one. not unnaturally, although unjustly, eunice blamed victoria for this, and hated her more than ever for it. christopher seldom came to charles' house. possibly he felt ashamed. he had grown into a morose, silent man, at home and abroad. it was said he had gone back to his old drinking habits. one fall victoria holland went to town to visit her married sister. she took their only child with her. in her absence christopher kept house for himself. it was a fall long remembered in avonlea. with the dropping of the leaves, and the shortening of the dreary days, the shadow of a fear fell over the land. charles holland brought the fateful news home one night. "there's smallpox in charlottetown--five or six cases. came in one of the vessels. there was a concert, and a sailor from one of the ships was there, and took sick the next day." this was alarming enough. charlottetown was not so very far away and considerable traffic went on between it and the north shore districts. when caroline recounted the concert story to christopher the next morning his ruddy face turned quite pale. he opened his lips as if to speak, then closed them again. they were sitting in the kitchen; caroline had run over to return some tea she had borrowed, and, incidentally, to see what she could of victoria's housekeeping in her absence. her eyes had been busy while her tongue ran on, so she did not notice the man's pallor and silence. "how long does it take for smallpox to develop after one has been exposed to it?" he asked abruptly, when caroline rose to go. "ten to fourteen days, i calc'late," was her answer. "i must see about having the girls vaccinated right off. it'll likely spread. when do you expect victoria home?" "when she's ready to come, whenever that will be," was the gruff response. a week later caroline said to eunice, "whatever's got christopher? he hasn't been out anywhere for ages--just hangs round home the whole time. it's something new for him. i s'pose the place is so quiet, now madam victoria's away, that he can find some rest for his soul. i believe i'll run over after milking and see how he's getting on. you might as well come, too, eunice." eunice shook her head. she had all her mother's obstinacy, and darken victoria's door she would not. she went on patiently darning socks, sitting at the west window, which was her favorite position--perhaps because she could look from it across the sloping field and past the crescent curve of maple grove to her lost home. after milking, caroline threw a shawl over her head and ran across the field. the house looked lonely and deserted. as she fumbled at the latch of the gate the kitchen door opened, and christopher holland appeared on the threshold. "don't come any farther," he called. caroline fell back in blank astonishment. was this some more of victoria's work? "i ain't an agent for the smallpox," she called back viciously. christopher did not heed her. "will you go home and ask uncle if he'll go, or send for doctor spencer? he's the smallpox doctor. i'm sick." caroline felt a thrill of dismay and fear. she faltered a few steps backward. "sick? what's the matter with you?" "i was in charlottetown that night, and went to the concert. that sailor sat right beside me. i thought at the time he looked sick. it was just twelve days ago. i've felt bad all day yesterday and to-day. send for the doctor. don't come near the house, or let any one else come near." he went in and shut the door. caroline stood for a few moments in an almost ludicrous panic. then she turned and ran, as if for her life, across the field. eunice saw her coming and met her at the door. "mercy on us!" gasped caroline. "christopher's sick and he thinks he's got the smallpox. where's charles?" eunice tottered back against the door. her hand went up to her side in a way that had been getting very common with her of late. even in the midst of her excitement caroline noticed it. "eunice, what makes you do that every time anything startles you?" she asked sharply. "is it anything about your heart?" "i don't--know. a little pain--it's gone now. did you say that christopher has--the smallpox?" "well, he says so himself, and it's more than likely, considering the circumstances. i declare, i never got such a turn in my life. it's a dreadful thing. i must find charles at once--there'll be a hundred things to do." eunice hardly heard her. her mind was centered upon one idea. christopher was ill--alone--she must go to him. it did not matter what his disease was. when caroline came in from her breathless expedition to the barn, she found eunice standing by the table, with her hat and shawl on, tying up a parcel. "eunice! where on earth are you going?" "over home," said eunice. "if christopher is going to be ill he must be nursed, and i'm the one to do it. he ought to be seen to right away." "eunice carr! have you gone clean out of your senses? it's the smallpox--the smallpox! if he's got it he'll have to be taken to the smallpox hospital in town. you shan't stir a step to go to that house!" "i will." eunice faced her excited aunt quietly. the odd resemblance to her mother, which only came out in moments of great tension, was plainly visible. "he shan't go to the hospital--they never get proper attention there. you needn't try to stop me. it won't put you or your family in any danger." caroline fell helplessly into a chair. she felt that it would be of no use to argue with a woman so determined. she wished charles was there. but charles had already gone, post-haste, for the doctor. with a firm step, eunice went across the field foot-path she had not trodden for so long. she felt no fear--rather a sort of elation. christopher needed her once more; the interloper who had come between them was not there. as she walked through the frosty twilight she thought of the promise made to naomi holland, years ago. christopher saw her coming and waved her back. "don't come any nearer, eunice. didn't caroline tell you? i'm taking smallpox." eunice did not pause. she went boldly through the yard and up the porch steps. he retreated before her and held the door. "eunice, you're crazy, girl! go home, before it's too late." eunice pushed open the door resolutely and went in. "it's too late now. i'm here, and i mean to stay and nurse you, if it's the smallpox you've got. maybe it's not. just now, when a person has a finger-ache, he thinks it's smallpox. anyhow, whatever it is, you ought to be in bed and looked after. you'll catch cold. let me get a light and have a look at you." christopher had sunk into a chair. his natural selfishness reasserted itself, and he made no further effort to dissuade eunice. she got a lamp and set it on the table by him, while she scrutinized his face closely. "you look feverish. what do you feel like? when did you take sick?" "yesterday afternoon. i have chills and hot spells and pains in my back. eunice, do you think it's really smallpox? and will i die?" he caught her hands, and looked imploringly up at her, as a child might have done. eunice felt a wave of love and tenderness sweep warmly over her starved heart. "don't worry. lots of people recover from smallpox if they're properly nursed, and you'll be that, for i'll see to it. charles has gone for the doctor, and we'll know when he comes. you must go straight to bed." she took off her hat and shawl, and hung them up. she felt as much at home as if she had never been away. she had got back to her kingdom, and there was none to dispute it with her. when dr. spencer and old giles blewett, who had had smallpox in his youth, came, two hours later, they found eunice in serene charge. the house was in order and reeking of disinfectants. victoria's fine furniture and fixings were being bundled out of the parlor. there was no bedroom downstairs, and, if christopher was going to be ill, he must be installed there. the doctor looked grave. "i don't like it," he said, "but i'm not quite sure yet. if it is smallpox the eruption will probably be out by morning. i must admit he has most of the symptoms. will you have him taken to the hospital?" "no," said eunice, decisively. "i'll nurse him myself. i'm not afraid and i'm well and strong." "very well. you've been vaccinated lately?" "yes." "well, nothing more can be done at present. you may as well lie down for a while and save your strength." but eunice could not do that. there was too much to attend to. she went out to the hall and threw up the window. down below, at a safe distance, charles holland was waiting. the cold wind blew up to eunice the odor of the disinfectants with which he had steeped himself. "what does the doctor say?" he shouted. "he thinks it's the smallpox. have you sent word to victoria?" "yes, jim blewett drove into town and told her. she'll stay with her sister till it is over. of course it's the best thing for her to do. she's terribly frightened." eunice's lip curled contemptuously. to her, a wife who could desert her husband, no matter what disease he had, was an incomprehensible creature. but it was better so; she would have christopher all to herself. the night was long and wearisome, but the morning came all too soon for the dread certainty it brought. the doctor pronounced the case smallpox. eunice had hoped against hope, but now, knowing the worst, she was very calm and resolute. by noon the fateful yellow flag was flying over the house, and all arrangements had been made. caroline was to do the necessary cooking, and charles was to bring the food and leave it in the yard. old giles blewett was to come every day and attend to the stock, as well as help eunice with the sick man; and the long, hard fight with death began. it was a hard fight, indeed. christopher holland, in the clutches of the loathsome disease, was an object from which his nearest and dearest might have been pardoned for shrinking. but eunice never faltered; she never left her post. sometimes she dozed in a chair by the bed, but she never lay down. her endurance was something wonderful, her patience and tenderness almost superhuman. to and fro she went, in noiseless ministry, as the long, dreadful days wore away, with a quiet smile on her lips, and in her dark, sorrowful eyes the rapt look of a pictured saint in some dim cathedral niche. for her there was no world outside the bare room where lay the repulsive object she loved. one day the doctor looked very grave. he had grown well-hardened to pitiful scenes in his life-time; but he shrunk from telling eunice that her brother could not live. he had never seen such devotion as hers. it seemed brutal to tell her that it had been in vain. but eunice had seen it for herself. she took it very calmly, the doctor thought. and she had her reward at last--such as it was. she thought it amply sufficient. one night christopher holland opened his swollen eyes as she bent over him. they were alone in the old house. it was raining outside, and the drops rattled noisily on the panes. christopher smiled at his sister with parched lips, and put out a feeble hand toward her. "eunice," he said faintly, "you've been the best sister ever a man had. i haven't treated you right; but you've stood by me to the last. tell victoria--tell her--to be good to you--" his voice died away into an inarticulate murmur. eunice carr was alone with her dead. they buried christopher holland in haste and privacy the next day. the doctor disinfected the house, and eunice was to stay there alone until it might be safe to make other arrangements. she had not shed a tear; the doctor thought she was a rather odd person, but he had a great admiration for her. he told her she was the best nurse he had ever seen. to eunice, praise or blame mattered nothing. something in her life had snapped--some vital interest had departed. she wondered how she could live through the dreary, coming years. late that night she went into the room where her mother and brother had died. the window was open and the cold, pure air was grateful to her after the drug-laden atmosphere she had breathed so long. she knelt down by the stripped bed. "mother," she said aloud, "i have kept my promise." when she tried to rise, long after, she staggered and fell across the bed, with her hand pressed on her heart. old giles blewett found her there in the morning. there was a smile on her face. xiii. the conscience case of david bell eben bell came in with an armful of wood and banged it cheerfully down in the box behind the glowing waterloo stove, which was coloring the heart of the little kitchen's gloom with tremulous, rose-red whirls of light. "there, sis, that's the last chore on my list. bob's milking. nothing more for me to do but put on my white collar for meeting. avonlea is more than lively since the evangelist came, ain't it, though!" mollie bell nodded. she was curling her hair before the tiny mirror that hung on the whitewashed wall and distorted her round, pink-and-white face into a grotesque caricature. "wonder who'll stand up to-night," said eben reflectively, sitting down on the edge of the wood-box. "there ain't many sinners left in avonlea--only a few hardened chaps like myself." "you shouldn't talk like that," said mollie rebukingly. "what if father heard you?" "father wouldn't hear me if i shouted it in his ear," returned eben. "he goes around, these days, like a man in a dream and a mighty bad dream at that. father has always been a good man. what's the matter with him?" "i don't know," said mollie, dropping her voice. "mother is dreadfully worried over him. and everybody is talking, eb. it just makes me squirm. flora jane fletcher asked me last night why father never testified, and him one of the elders. she said the minister was perplexed about it. i felt my face getting red." "why didn't you tell her it was no business of hers?" said eben angrily. "old flora jane had better mind her own business." "but all the folks are talking about it, eb. and mother is fretting her heart out over it. father has never acted like himself since these meetings began. he just goes there night after night, and sits like a mummy, with his head down. and almost everybody else in avonlea has testified." "oh, no, there's lots haven't," said eben. "matthew cuthbert never has, nor uncle elisha, nor any of the whites." "but everybody knows they don't believe in getting up and testifying, so nobody wonders when they don't. besides," mollie laughed--"matthew could never get a word out in public, if he did believe in it. he'd be too shy. but," she added with a sigh, "it isn't that way with father. he believes in testimony, so people wonder why he doesn't get up. why, even old josiah sloane gets up every night." "with his whiskers sticking out every which way, and his hair ditto," interjected the graceless eben. "when the minister calls for testimonials and all the folks look at our pew, i feel ready to sink through the floor for shame," sighed mollie. "if father would get up just once!" miriam bell entered the kitchen. she was ready for the meeting, to which major spencer was to take her. she was a tall, pale girl, with a serious face, and dark, thoughtful eyes, totally unlike mollie. she had "come under conviction" during the meetings, and had stood up for prayer and testimony several times. the evangelist thought her very spiritual. she heard mollie's concluding sentence and spoke reprovingly. "you shouldn't criticize your father, mollie. it isn't for you to judge him." eben had hastily slipped out. he was afraid miriam would begin talking religion to him if he stayed. he had with difficulty escaped from an exhortation by robert in the cow-stable. there was no peace in avonlea for the unregenerate, he reflected. robert and miriam had both "come out," and mollie was hovering on the brink. "dad and i are the black sheep of the family," he said, with a laugh, for which he at once felt guilty. eben had been brought up with a strict reverence for all religious matters. on the surface he might sometimes laugh at them, but the deeps troubled him whenever he did so. indoors, miriam touched her younger sister's shoulder and looked at her affectionately. "won't you decide to-night, mollie?" she asked, in a voice tremulous with emotion. mollie crimsoned and turned her face away uncomfortably. she did not know what answer to make, and was glad that a jingle of bells outside saved her the necessity of replying. "there's your beau, miriam," she said, as she darted into the sitting room. soon after, eben brought the family pung and his chubby red mare to the door for mollie. he had not as yet attained to the dignity of a cutter of his own. that was for his elder brother, robert, who presently came out in his new fur coat and drove dashingly away with bells and glitter. "thinks he's the people," remarked eben, with a fraternal grin. the rich winter twilight was purpling over the white world as they drove down the lane under the over-arching wild cherry trees that glittered with gemmy hoar-frost. the snow creaked and crisped under the runners. a shrill wind was keening in the leafless dogwoods. over the trees the sky was a dome of silver, with a lucent star or two on the slope of the west. earth-stars gleamed warmly out here and there, where homesteads were tucked snugly away in their orchards or groves of birch. "the church will be jammed to-night," said eben. "it's so fine that folks will come from near and far. guess it'll be exciting." "if only father would testify!" sighed mollie, from the bottom of the pung, where she was snuggled amid furs and straw. "miriam can say what she likes, but i do feel as if we were all disgraced. it sends a creep all over me to hear mr. bentley say, 'now, isn't there one more to say a word for jesus?' and look right over at father." eben flicked his mare with his whip, and she broke into a trot. the silence was filled with a faint, fairy-like melody from afar down the road where a pungful of young folks from white sands were singing hymns on their way to meeting. "look here, mollie," said eben awkwardly at last, "are you going to stand up for prayers to-night?" "i--i can't as long as father acts this way," answered mollie, in a choked voice. "i--i want to, eb, and mirry and bob want me to, but i can't. i do hope that the evangelist won't come and talk to me special to-night. i always feels as if i was being pulled two different ways, when he does." back in the kitchen at home mrs. bell was waiting for her husband to bring the horse to the door. she was a slight, dark-eyed little woman, with thin, vivid-red cheeks. from out of the swathings in which she had wrapped her bonnet, her face gleamed sad and troubled. now and then she sighed heavily. the cat came to her from under the stove, languidly stretching himself, and yawning until all the red cavern of his mouth and throat was revealed. at the moment he had an uncanny resemblance to elder joseph blewett of white sands--roaring joe, the irreverent boys called him--when he grew excited and shouted. mrs. bell saw it--and then reproached herself for the sacrilege. "but it's no wonder i've wicked thoughts," she said, wearily. "i'm that worried i ain't rightly myself. if he would only tell me what the trouble is, maybe i could help him. at any rate, i'd know. it hurts me so to see him going about, day after day, with his head hanging and that look on his face, as if he had something fearful on his conscience--him that never harmed a living soul. and then the way he groans and mutters in his sleep! he has always lived a just, upright life. he hasn't no right to go on like this, disgracing his family." mrs. bell's angry sob was cut short by the sleigh at the door. her husband poked in his busy, iron-gray head and said, "now, mother." he helped her into the sleigh, tucked the rugs warmly around her, and put a hot brick at her feet. his solicitude hurt her. it was all for her material comfort. it did not matter to him what mental agony she might suffer over his strange attitude. for the first time in their married life mary bell felt resentment against her husband. they drove along in silence, past the snow-powdered hedges of spruce, and under the arches of the forest roadways. they were late, and a great stillness was over all the land. david bell never spoke. all his usual cheerful talkativeness had disappeared since the revival meetings had begun in avonlea. from the first he had gone about as a man over whom some strange doom is impending, seemingly oblivious to all that might be said or thought of him in his own family or in the church. mary bell thought she would go out of her mind if her husband continued to act in this way. her reflections were bitter and rebellious as they sped along through the glittering night of the winter's prime. "i don't get one bit of good out of the meetings," she thought resentfully. "there ain't any peace or joy for me, not even in testifying myself, when david sits there like a stick or stone. if he'd been opposed to the revivalist coming here, like old uncle jerry, or if he didn't believe in public testimony, i wouldn't mind. i'd understand. but, as it is, i feel dreadful humiliated." revival meetings had never been held in avonlea before. "uncle" jerry macpherson, who was the supreme local authority in church matters, taking precedence of even the minister, had been uncompromisingly opposed to them. he was a stern, deeply religious scotchman, with a horror of the emotional form of religion. as long as uncle jerry's spare, ascetic form and deeply-graved square-jawed face filled his accustomed corner by the northwest window of avonlea church no revivalist might venture therein, although the majority of the congregation, including the minister, would have welcomed one warmly. but now uncle jerry was sleeping peacefully under the tangled grasses and white snows of the burying ground, and, if dead people ever do turn in their graves, uncle jerry might well have turned in his when the revivalist came to avonlea church, and there followed the emotional services, public testimonies, and religious excitement which the old man's sturdy soul had always abhorred. avonlea was a good field for an evangelist. the rev. geoffrey mountain, who came to assist the avonlea minister in revivifying the dry bones thereof, knew this and reveled in the knowledge. it was not often that such a virgin parish could be found nowadays, with scores of impressionable, unspoiled souls on which fervid oratory could play skillfully, as a master on a mighty organ, until every note in them thrilled to life and utterance. the rev. geoffrey mountain was a good man; of the earth, earthy, to be sure, but with an unquestionable sincerity of belief and purpose which went far to counterbalance the sensationalism of some of his methods. he was large and handsome, with a marvelously sweet and winning voice--a voice that could melt into irresistible tenderness, or swell into sonorous appeal and condemnation, or ring like a trumpet calling to battle. his frequent grammatical errors, and lapses into vulgarity, counted for nothing against its charm, and the most commonplace words in the world would have borrowed much of the power of real oratory from its magic. he knew its value and used it effectively--perhaps even ostentatiously. geoffrey mountain's religion and methods, like the man himself, were showy, but, of their kind, sincere, and, though the good he accomplished might not be unmixed, it was a quantity to be reckoned with. so the rev. geoffrey mountain came to avonlea, conquering and to conquer. night after night the church was crowded with eager listeners, who hung breathlessly on his words and wept and thrilled and exulted as he willed. into many young souls his appeals and warnings burned their way, and each night they rose for prayer in response to his invitation. older christians, too, took on a new lease of intensity, and even the unregenerate and the scoffers found a certain fascination in the meetings. threading through it all, for old and young, converted and unconverted, was an unacknowledged feeling for religious dissipation. avonlea was a quiet place,--and the revival meetings were lively. when david and mary bell reached the church the services had begun, and they heard the refrain of a hallelujah hymn as they were crossing harmon andrews' field. david bell left his wife at the platform and drove to the horse-shed. mrs. bell unwound the scarf from her bonnet and shook the frost crystals from it. in the porch flora jane fletcher and her sister, mrs. harmon andrews, were talking in low whispers. presently flora jane put out her lank, cashmere-gloved hand and plucked mrs. bell's shawl. "mary, is the elder going to testify to-night?" she asked, in a shrill whisper. mrs. bell winced. she would have given much to be able to answer "yes," but she had to say stiffly, "i don't know." flora jane lifted her chin. "well, mrs. bell, i only asked because every one thinks it is strange he doesn't--and an elder, of all people. it looks as if he didn't think himself a christian, you know. of course, we all know better, but it looks that way. if i was you, i'd tell him folks was talking about it. mr. bentley says it is hindering the full success of the meetings." mrs. bell turned on her tormentor in swift anger. she might resent her husband's strange behavior herself, but nobody else should dare to criticize him to her. "i don't think you need to worry yourself about the elder, flora jane," she said bitingly. "maybe 'tisn't the best christians that do the most talking about it always. i guess, as far as living up to his profession goes, the elder will compare pretty favorably with levi boulter, who gets up and testifies every night, and cheats the very eye-teeth out of people in the daytime." levi boulter was a middle-aged widower, with a large family, who was supposed to have cast a matrimonial eye flora janeward. the use of his name was an effective thrust on mrs. bell's part, and silenced flora jane. too angry for speech she seized her sister's arm and hurried her into church. but her victory could not remove from mary bell's soul the sting implanted there by flora jane's words. when her husband came up to the platform she put her hand on his snowy arm appealingly. "oh, david, won't you get up to-night? i do feel so dreadful bad--folks are talking so--i just feel humiliated." david bell hung his head like a shamed schoolboy. "i can't, mary," he said huskily. "'tain't no use to pester me." "you don't care for my feelings," said his wife bitterly. "and mollie won't come out because you're acting so. you're keeping her back from salvation. and you're hindering the success of the revival--mr. bentley says so." david bell groaned. this sign of suffering wrung his wife's heart. with quick contrition she whispered, "there, never mind, david. i oughtn't to have spoken to you so. you know your duty best. let's go in." "wait." his voice was imploring. "mary, is it true that mollie won't come out because of me? am i standing in my child's light?" "i--don't--know. i guess not. mollie's just a foolish young girl yet. never mind--come in." he followed her dejectedly in, and up the aisle to their pew in the center of the church. the building was warm and crowded. the pastor was reading the bible lesson for the evening. in the choir, behind him, david bell saw mollie's girlish face, tinged with a troubled seriousness. his own wind-ruddy face and bushy gray eyebrows worked convulsively with his inward throes. a sigh that was almost a groan burst from him. "i'll have to do it," he said to himself in agony. when several more hymns had been sung, and late arrivals began to pack the aisles, the evangelist arose. his style for the evening was the tender, the pleading, the solemn. he modulated his tones to marvelous sweetness, and sent them thrillingly over the breathless pews, entangling the hearts and souls of his listeners in a mesh of subtle emotion. many of the women began to cry softly. fervent amens broke from some of the members. when the evangelist sat down, after a closing appeal which, in its way, was a masterpiece, an audible sigh of relieved tension passed like a wave over the audience. after prayer the pastor made the usual request that, if any of those present wished to come out on the side of christ, they would signify the wish by rising for a moment in their places. after a brief interval, a pale boy under the gallery rose, followed by an old man at the top of the church. a frightened, sweet-faced child of twelve got tremblingly upon her feet, and a dramatic thrill passed over the congregation when her mother suddenly stood up beside her. the evangelist's "thank god" was hearty and insistent. david bell looked almost imploringly at mollie; but she kept her seat, with downcast eyes. over in the big square "stone pew" he saw eben bending forward, with his elbows on his knees, gazing frowningly at the floor. "i'm a stumbling block to them both," he thought bitterly. a hymn was sung and prayer offered for those under conviction. then testimonies were called for. the evangelist asked for them in tones which made it seem a personal request to every one in that building. many testimonies followed, each infused with the personality of the giver. most of them were brief and stereotyped. finally a pause ensued. the evangelist swept the pews with his kindling eyes and exclaimed, appealingly, "has every christian in this church to-night spoken a word for his master?" there were many who had not testified, but every eye in the building followed the pastor's accusing glance to the bell pew. mollie crimsoned with shame. mrs. bell cowered visibly. although everybody looked thus at david bell, nobody now expected him to testify. when he rose to his feet, a murmur of surprise passed over the audience, followed by a silence so complete as to be terrible. to david bell it seemed to possess the awe of final judgment. twice he opened his lips, and tried vainly to speak. the third time he succeeded; but his voice sounded strangely in his own ears. he gripped the back of the pew before him with his knotty hands, and fixed his eyes unseeingly on the christian endeavor pledge that hung over the heads of the choir. "brethren and sisters," he said hoarsely, "before i can say a word of christian testimony here to-night i've got something to confess. it's been lying hard and heavy on my conscience ever since these meetings begun. as long as i kept silence about it i couldn't get up and bear witness for christ. many of you have expected me to do it. maybe i've been a stumbling block to some of you. this season of revival has brought no blessing to me because of my sin, which i repented of, but tried to conceal. there has been a spiritual darkness over me. "friends and neighbors, i have always been held by you as an honest man. it was the shame of having you know i was not which has kept me back from open confession and testimony. just afore these meetings commenced i come home from town one night and found that somebody had passed a counterfeit ten-dollar bill on me. then satan entered into me and possessed me. when mrs. rachel lynde come next day, collecting for foreign missions, i give her that ten dollar bill. she never knowed the difference, and sent it away with the rest. but i knew i'd done a mean and sinful thing. i couldn't drive it out of my thoughts. a few days afterwards i went down to mrs. rachel's and give her ten good dollars for the fund. i told her i had come to the conclusion i ought to give more than ten dollars, out of my abundance, to the lord. that was a lie. mrs. lynde thought i was a generous man, and i felt ashamed to look her in the face. but i'd done what i could to right the wrong, and i thought it would be all right. but it wasn't. i've never known a minute's peace of mind or conscience since. i tried to cheat the lord, and then tried to patch it up by doing something that redounded to my worldly credit. when these meetings begun, and everybody expected me to testify, i couldn't do it. it would have seemed like blasphemy. and i couldn't endure the thought of telling what i'd done, either. i argued it all out a thousand times that i hadn't done any real harm after all, but it was no use. i've been so wrapped up in my own brooding and misery that i didn't realize i was inflicting suffering on those dear to me by my conduct, and, maybe, holding some of them back from the paths of salvation. but my eyes have been opened to this to-night, and the lord has given me strength to confess my sin and glorify his holy name." the broken tones ceased, and david bell sat down, wiping the great drops of perspiration from his brow. to a man of his training, and cast of thought, no ordeal could be more terrible than that through which he had just passed. but underneath the turmoil of his emotion he felt a great calm and peace, threaded with the exultation of a hard-won spiritual victory. over the church was a solemn hush. the evangelist's "amen" was not spoken with his usual unctuous fervor, but very gently and reverently. in spite of his coarse fiber, he could appreciate the nobility behind such a confession as this, and the deeps of stern suffering it sounded. before the last prayer the pastor paused and looked around. "is there yet one," he asked gently, "who wishes to be especially remembered in our concluding prayer?" for a moment nobody moved. then mollie bell stood up in the choir seat, and, down by the stove, eben, his flushed, boyish face held high, rose sturdily to his feet in the midst of his companions. "thank god," whispered mary bell. "amen," said her husband huskily. "let us pray," said mr. bentley. xiv. only a common fellow on my dearie's wedding morning i wakened early and went to her room. long and long ago she had made me promise that i would be the one to wake her on the morning of her wedding day. "you were the first to take me in your arms when i came into the world, aunt rachel," she had said, "and i want you to be the first to greet me on that wonderful day." but that was long ago, and now my heart foreboded that there would be no need of wakening her. and there was not. she was lying there awake, very quiet, with her hand under her cheek, and her big blue eyes fixed on the window, through which a pale, dull light was creeping in--a joyless light it was, and enough to make a body shiver. i felt more like weeping than rejoicing, and my heart took to aching when i saw her there so white and patient, more like a girl who was waiting for a winding-sheet than for a bridal veil. but she smiled brave-like, when i sat down on her bed and took her hand. "you look as if you haven't slept all night, dearie," i said. "i didn't--not a great deal," she answered me. "but the night didn't seem long; no, it seemed too short. i was thinking of a great many things. what time is it, aunt rachel?" "five o'clock." "then in six hours more--" she suddenly sat up in her bed, her great, thick rope of brown hair falling over her white shoulders, and flung her arms about me, and burst into tears on my old breast. i petted and soothed her, and said not a word; and, after a while, she stopped crying; but she still sat with her head so that i couldn't see her face. "we didn't think it would be like this once, did we, aunt rachel?" she said, very softly. "it shouldn't be like this, now," i said. i had to say it. i never could hide the thought of that marriage, and i couldn't pretend to. it was all her stepmother's doings--right well i knew that. my dearie would never have taken mark foster else. "don't let us talk of that," she said, soft and beseeching, just the same way she used to speak when she was a baby-child and wanted to coax me into something. "let us talk about the old days--and him." "i don't see much use in talking of him, when you're going to marry mark foster to-day," i said. but she put her hand on my mouth. "it's for the last time, aunt rachel. after to-day i can never talk of him, or even think of him. it's four years since he went away. do you remember how he looked, aunt rachel?" "i mind well enough, i reckon," i said, kind of curt-like. and i did. owen blair hadn't a face a body could forget--that long face of his with its clean color and its eyes made to look love into a woman's. when i thought of mark foster's sallow skin and lank jaws i felt sick-like. not that mark was ugly--he was just a common-looking fellow. "he was so handsome, wasn't he, aunt rachel?" my dearie went on, in that patient voice of hers. "so tall and strong and handsome. i wish we hadn't parted in anger. it was so foolish of us to quarrel. but it would have been all right if he had lived to come back. i know it would have been all right. i know he didn't carry any bitterness against me to his death. i thought once, aunt rachel, that i would go through life true to him, and then, over on the other side, i'd meet him just as before, all his and his only. but it isn't to be." "thanks to your stepma's wheedling and mark foster's scheming," said i. "no, mark didn't scheme," she said patiently. "don't be unjust to mark, aunt rachel. he has been very good and kind." "he's as stupid as an owlet and as stubborn as solomon's mule," i said, for i would say it. "he's just a common fellow, and yet he thinks he's good enough for my beauty." "don't talk about mark," she pleaded again. "i mean to be a good, faithful wife to him. but i'm my own woman yet--yet--for just a few more sweet hours, and i want to give them to him. the last hours of my maidenhood--they must belong to him." so she talked of him, me sitting there and holding her, with her lovely hair hanging down over my arm, and my heart aching so for her that it hurt bitter. she didn't feel as bad as i did, because she'd made up her mind what to do and was resigned. she was going to marry mark foster, but her heart was in france, in that grave nobody knew of, where the huns had buried owen blair--if they had buried him at all. and she went over all they had been to each other, since they were mites of babies, going to school together and meaning, even then, to be married when they grew up; and the first words of love he'd said to her, and what she'd dreamed and hoped for. the only thing she didn't bring up was the time he thrashed mark foster for bringing her apples. she never mentioned mark's name; it was all owen--owen--and how he looked, and what might have been, if he hadn't gone off to the awful war and got shot. and there was me, holding her and listening to it all, and her stepma sleeping sound and triumphant in the next room. when she had talked it all out she lay down on her pillow again. i got up and went downstairs to light the fire. i felt terrible old and tired. my feet seemed to drag, and the tears kept coming to my eyes, though i tried to keep them away, for well i knew it was a bad omen to be weeping on a wedding day. before long isabella clark came down; bright and pleased-looking enough, she was. i'd never liked isabella, from the day phillippa's father brought her here; and i liked her less than ever this morning. she was one of your sly, deep women, always smiling smooth, and scheming underneath it. i'll say it for her, though, she had been good to phillippa; but it was her doings that my dearie was to marry mark foster that day. "up betimes, rachel," she said, smiling and speaking me fair, as she always did, and hating me in her heart, as i well knew. "that is right, for we'll have plenty to do to-day. a wedding makes lots of work." "not this sort of a wedding," i said, sour-like. "i don't call it a wedding when two people get married and sneak off as if they were ashamed of it--as well they might be in this case." "it was phillippa's own wish that all should be very quiet," said isabella, as smooth as cream. "you know i'd have given her a big wedding, if she'd wanted it." "oh, it's better quiet," i said. "the fewer to see phillippa marry a man like mark foster the better." "mark foster is a good man, rachel." "no good man would be content to buy a girl as he's bought phillippa," i said, determined to give it in to her. "he's a common fellow, not fit for my dearie to wipe her feet on. it's well that her mother didn't live to see this day; but this day would never have come, if she'd lived." "i dare say phillippa's mother would have remembered that mark foster is very well off, quite as readily as worse people," said isabella, a little spitefully. i liked her better when she was spiteful than when she was smooth. i didn't feel so scared of her then. the marriage was to be at eleven o'clock, and, at nine, i went up to help phillippa dress. she was no fussy bride, caring much what she looked like. if owen had been the bridegroom it would have been different. nothing would have pleased her then; but now it was only just "that will do very well, aunt rachel," without even glancing at it. still, nothing could prevent her from looking lovely when she was dressed. my dearie would have been a beauty in a beggarmaid's rags. in her white dress and veil she was as fair as a queen. and she was as good as she was pretty. it was the right sort of goodness, too, with just enough spice of original sin in it to keep it from spoiling by reason of over-sweetness. then she sent me out. "i want to be alone my last hour," she said. "kiss me, aunt rachel--mother rachel." when i'd gone down, crying like the old fool i was, i heard a rap at the door. my first thought was to go out and send isabella to it, for i supposed it was mark foster, come ahead of time, and small stomach i had for seeing him. i fall trembling, even yet, when i think, "what if i had sent isabella to that door?" but go i did, and opened it, defiant-like, kind of hoping it was mark foster to see the tears on my face. i opened it--and staggered back like i'd got a blow. "owen! lord ha' mercy on us! owen!" i said, just like that, going cold all over, for it's the truth that i thought it was his spirit come back to forbid that unholy marriage. but he sprang right in, and caught my wrinkled old hands in a grasp that was of flesh and blood. "aunt rachel, i'm not too late?" he said, savage-like. "tell me i'm in time." i looked up at him, standing over me there, tall and handsome, no change in him except he was so brown and had a little white scar on his forehead; and, though i couldn't understand at all, being all bewildered-like, i felt a great deep thankfulness. "no, you're not too late," i said. "thank god," said he, under his breath. and then he pulled me into the parlor and shut the door. "they told me at the station that phillippa was to be married to mark foster to-day. i couldn't believe it, but i came here as fast as horse-flesh could bring me. aunt rachel, it can't be true! she can't care for mark foster, even if she had forgotten me!" "it's true enough that she is to marry mark," i said, half-laughing, half-crying, "but she doesn't care for him. every beat of her heart is for you. it's all her stepma's doings. mark has got a mortgage on the place, and he told isabella clark that, if phillippa would marry him, he'd burn the mortgage, and, if she wouldn't, he'd foreclose. phillippa is sacrificing herself to save her stepma for her dead father's sake. it's all your fault," i cried, getting over my bewilderment. "we thought you were dead. why didn't you come home when you were alive? why didn't you write?" "i did write, after i got out of the hospital, several times," he said, "and never a word in answer, aunt rachel. what was i to think when phillippa wouldn't answer my letters?" "she never got one," i cried. "she wept her sweet eyes out over you. somebody must have got those letters." and i knew then, and i know now, though never a shadow of proof have i, that isabella clark had got them--and kept them. that woman would stick at nothing. "well, we'll sift that matter some other time," said owen impatiently. "there are other things to think of now. i must see phillippa." "i'll manage it for you," i said eagerly; but, just as i spoke, the door opened and isabella and mark came in. never shall i forget the look on isabella's face. i almost felt sorry for her. she turned sickly yellow and her eyes went wild; they were looking at the downfall of all her schemes and hopes. i didn't look at mark foster, at first, and, when i did, there wasn't anything to see. his face was just as sallow and wooden as ever; he looked undersized and common beside owen. nobody'd ever have picked him out for a bridegroom. owen spoke first. "i want to see phillippa," he said, as if it were but yesterday that he had gone away. all isabella's smoothness and policy had dropped away from her, and the real woman stood there, plotting and unscrupulous, as i'd always know her. "you can't see her," she said desperate-like. "she doesn't want to see you. you went and left her and never wrote, and she knew you weren't worth fretting over, and she has learned to care for a better man." "i did write and i think you know that better than most folks," said owen, trying hard to speak quiet. "as for the rest, i'm not going to discuss it with you. when i hear from phillippa's own lips that she cares for another man i'll believe it--and not before." "you'll never hear it from her lips," said i. isabella gave me a venomous look. "you'll not see phillippa until she is a better man's wife," she said stubbornly, "and i order you to leave my house, owen blair!" "no!" it was mark foster who spoke. he hadn't said a word; but he came forward now, and stood before owen. such a difference as there was between them! but he looked owen right in the face, quiet-like, and owen glared back in fury. "will it satisfy you, owen, if phillippa comes down here and chooses between us?" "yes, it will," said owen. mark foster turned to me. "go and bring her down," said he. isabella, judging phillippa by herself, gave a little moan of despair, and owen, blinded by love and hope, thought his cause was won. but i knew my dearie too well to be glad, and mark foster did, too, and i hated him for it. i went up to my dearie's room, all pale and shaking. when i went in she came to meet me, like a girl going to meet death. "is--it--time?" she said, with her hands locked tight together. i said not a word, hoping that the unlooked-for sight of owen would break down her resolution. i just held out my hand to her, and led her downstairs. she clung to me and her hands were as cold as snow. when i opened the parlor door i stood back, and pushed her in before me. she just cried, "owen!" and shook so that i put my arms about her to steady her. owen made a step towards her, his face and eyes all aflame with his love and longing, but mark barred his way. "wait till she has made her choice," he said, and then he turned to phillippa. i couldn't see my dearie's face, but i could see mark's, and there wasn't a spark of feeling in it. behind it was isabella's, all pinched and gray. "phillippa," said mark, "owen blair has come back. he says he has never forgotten you, and that he wrote to you several times. i have told him that you have promised me, but i leave you freedom of choice. which of us will you marry, phillippa?" my dearie stood straight up and the trembling left her. she stepped back, and i could see her face, white as the dead, but calm and resolved. "i have promised to marry you, mark, and i will keep my word," she said. the color came back to isabella clark's face; but mark's did not change. "phillippa," said owen, and the pain in his voice made my old heart ache bitterer than ever, "have you ceased to love me?" my dearie would have been more than human, if she could have resisted the pleading in his tone. she said no word, but just looked at him for a moment. we all saw the look; her whole soul, full of love for owen, showed out in it. then she turned and stood by mark. owen never said a word. he went as white as death, and started for the door. but again mark foster put himself in the way. "wait," he said. "she has made her choice, as i knew she would; but i have yet to make mine. and i choose to marry no woman whose love belongs to another living man. phillippa, i thought owen blair was dead, and i believed that, when you were my wife, i could win your love. but i love you too well to make you miserable. go to the man you love--you are free!" "and what is to become of me?" wailed isabella. "oh, you!--i had forgotten about you," said mark, kind of weary-like. he took a paper from his pocket, and dropped it in the grate. "there is the mortgage. that is all you care about, i think. good-morning." he went out. he was only a common fellow, but, somehow, just then he looked every inch the gentleman. i would have gone after him and said something but--the look on his face--no, it was no time for my foolish old words! phillippa was crying, with her head on owen's shoulder. isabella clark waited to see the mortgage burned up, and then she came to me in the hall, all smooth and smiling again. "really, it's all very romantic, isn't it? i suppose it's better as it is, all things considered. mark behaved splendidly, didn't he? not many men would have done as he did." for once in my life i agreed with isabella. but i felt like having a good cry over it all--and i had it. i was glad for my dearie's sake and owen's; but mark foster had paid the price of their joy, and i knew it had beggared him of happiness for life. xv. tannis of the flats few people in avonlea could understand why elinor blair had never married. she had been one of the most beautiful girls in our part of the island and, as a woman of fifty, she was still very attractive. in her youth she had had ever so many beaux, as we of our generation well remembered; but, after her return from visiting her brother tom in the canadian northwest, more than twenty-five years ago, she had seemed to withdraw within herself, keeping all men at a safe, though friendly, distance. she had been a gay, laughing girl when she went west; she came back quiet and serious, with a shadowed look in her eyes which time could not quite succeed in blotting out. elinor had never talked much about her visit, except to describe the scenery and the life, which in that day was rough indeed. not even to me, who had grown up next door to her and who had always seemed more a sister than a friend, did she speak of other than the merest commonplaces. but when tom blair made a flying trip back home, some ten years later, there were one or two of us to whom he related the story of jerome carey,--a story revealing only too well the reason for elinor's sad eyes and utter indifference to masculine attentions. i can recall almost his exact words and the inflections of his voice, and i remember, too, that it seemed to me a far cry from the tranquil, pleasant scene before us, on that lovely summer day, to the elemental life of the flats. the flats was a forlorn little trading station fifteen miles up the river from prince albert, with a scanty population of half-breeds and three white men. when jerome carey was sent to take charge of the telegraph office there, he cursed his fate in the picturesque language permissible in the far northwest. not that carey was a profane man, even as men go in the west. he was an english gentleman, and he kept both his life and his vocabulary pretty clean. but--the flats! outside of the ragged cluster of log shacks, which comprised the settlement, there was always a shifting fringe of teepees where the indians, who drifted down from the reservation, camped with their dogs and squaws and papooses. there are standpoints from which indians are interesting, but they cannot be said to offer congenial social attractions. for three weeks after carey went to the flats he was lonelier than he had ever imagined it possible to be, even in the great lone land. if it had not been for teaching paul dumont the telegraphic code, carey believed he would have been driven to suicide in self-defense. the telegraphic importance of the flats consisted in the fact that it was the starting point of three telegraph lines to remote trading posts up north. not many messages came therefrom, but the few that did come generally amounted to something worth while. days and even weeks would pass without a single one being clicked to the flats. carey was debarred from talking over the wires to the prince albert man for the reason that they were on officially bad terms. he blamed the latter for his transfer to the flats. carey slept in a loft over the office, and got his meals at joe esquint's, across the "street." joe esquint's wife was a good cook, as cooks go among the breeds, and carey soon became a great pet of hers. carey had a habit of becoming a pet with women. he had the "way" that has to be born in a man and can never be acquired. besides, he was as handsome as clean-cut features, deep-set, dark-blue eyes, fair curls and six feet of muscle could make him. mrs. joe esquint thought that his mustache was the most wonderfully beautiful thing, in its line, that she had ever seen. fortunately, mrs. joe was so old and fat and ugly that even the malicious and inveterate gossip of skulking breeds and indians, squatting over teepee fires, could not hint at anything questionable in the relations between her and carey. but it was a different matter with tannis dumont. tannis came home from the academy at prince albert early in july, when carey had been at the flats a month and had exhausted all the few novelties of his position. paul dumont had already become so expert at the code that his mistakes no longer afforded carey any fun, and the latter was getting desperate. he had serious intentions of throwing up the business altogether, and betaking himself to an alberta ranch, where at least one would have the excitement of roping horses. when he saw tannis dumont he thought he would hang on awhile longer, anyway. tannis was the daughter of old auguste dumont, who kept the one small store at the flats, lived in the one frame house that the place boasted, and was reputed to be worth an amount of money which, in half-breed eyes, was a colossal fortune. old auguste was black and ugly and notoriously bad-tempered. but tannis was a beauty. tannis' great-grandmother had been a cree squaw who married a french trapper. the son of this union became in due time the father of auguste dumont. auguste married a woman whose mother was a french half-breed and whose father was a pure-bred highland scotchman. the result of this atrocious mixture was its justification--tannis of the flats--who looked as if all the blood of all the howards might be running in her veins. but, after all, the dominant current in those same veins was from the race of plain and prairie. the practiced eye detected it in the slender stateliness of carriage, in the graceful, yet voluptuous, curves of the lithe body, in the smallness and delicacy of hand and foot, in the purple sheen on straight-falling masses of blue-black hair, and, more than all else, in the long, dark eye, full and soft, yet alight with a slumbering fire. france, too, was responsible for somewhat in tannis. it gave her a light step in place of the stealthy half-breed shuffle, it arched her red upper lip into a more tremulous bow, it lent a note of laughter to her voice and a sprightlier wit to her tongue. as for her red-headed scotch grandfather, he had bequeathed her a somewhat whiter skin and ruddier bloom than is usually found in the breeds. old auguste was mightily proud of tannis. he sent her to school for four years in prince albert, bound that his girl should have the best. a high school course and considerable mingling in the social life of the town--for old auguste was a man to be conciliated by astute politicians, since he controlled some two or three hundred half-breed votes--sent tannis home to the flats with a very thin, but very deceptive, veneer of culture and civilization overlying the primitive passions and ideas of her nature. carey saw only the beauty and the veneer. he made the mistake of thinking that tannis was what she seemed to be--a fairly well-educated, up-to-date young woman with whom a friendly flirtation was just what it was with white womankind--the pleasant amusement of an hour or season. it was a mistake--a very big mistake. tannis understood something of piano playing, something less of grammar and latin, and something less still of social prevarications. but she understood absolutely nothing of flirtation. you can never get an indian to see the sense of platonics. carey found the flats quite tolerable after the homecoming of tannis. he soon fell into the habit of dropping into the dumont house to spend the evening, talking with tannis in the parlor--which apartment was amazingly well done for a place like the flats--tannis had not studied prince albert parlors four years for nothing--or playing violin and piano duets with her. when music and conversation palled, they went for long gallops over the prairies together. tannis rode to perfection, and managed her bad-tempered brute of a pony with a skill and grace that made carey applaud her. she was glorious on horseback. sometimes he grew tired of the prairies and then he and tannis paddled themselves over the river in nitchie joe's dug-out, and landed on the old trail that struck straight into the wooded belt of the saskatchewan valley, leading north to trading posts on the frontier of civilization. there they rambled under huge pines, hoary with the age of centuries, and carey talked to tannis about england and quoted poetry to her. tannis liked poetry; she had studied it at school, and understood it fairly well. but once she told carey that she thought it a long, round-about way of saying what you could say just as well in about a dozen plain words. carey laughed. he liked to evoke those little speeches of hers. they sounded very clever, dropping from such arched, ripely-tinted lips. if you had told carey that he was playing with fire he would have laughed at you. in the first place he was not in the slightest degree in love with tannis--he merely admired and liked her. in the second place, it never occurred to him that tannis might be in love with him. why, he had never attempted any love-making with her! and, above all, he was obsessed with that aforesaid fatal idea that tannis was like the women he had associated with all his life, in reality as well as in appearance. he did not know enough of the racial characteristics to understand. but, if carey thought his relationship with tannis was that of friendship merely, he was the only one at the flats who did think so. all the half-breeds and quarter-breeds and any-fractional breeds there believed that he meant to marry tannis. there would have been nothing surprising to them in that. they did not know that carey's second cousin was a baronet, and they would not have understood that it need make any difference, if they had. they thought that rich old auguste's heiress, who had been to school for four years in prince albert, was a catch for anybody. old auguste himself shrugged his shoulders over it and was well-pleased enough. an englishman was a prize by way of a husband for a half-breed girl, even if he were only a telegraph operator. young paul dumont worshipped carey, and the half-scotch mother, who might have understood, was dead. in all the flats there were but two people who disapproved of the match they thought an assured thing. one of these was the little priest, father gabriel. he liked tannis, and he liked carey; but he shook his head dubiously when he heard the gossip of the shacks and teepees. religions might mingle, but the different bloods--ah, it was not the right thing! tannis was a good girl, and a beautiful one; but she was no fit mate for the fair, thorough-bred englishman. father gabriel wished fervently that jerome carey might soon be transferred elsewhere. he even went to prince albert and did a little wire-pulling on his own account, but nothing came of it. he was on the wrong side of politics. the other malcontent was lazarre mã©rimã©e, a lazy, besotted french half-breed, who was, after his fashion, in love with tannis. he could never have got her, and he knew it--old auguste and young paul would have incontinently riddled him with bullets had he ventured near the house as a suitor,--but he hated carey none the less, and watched for a chance to do him an ill-turn. there is no worse enemy in all the world than a half-breed. your true indian is bad enough, but his diluted descendant is ten times worse. as for tannis, she loved carey with all her heart, and that was all there was about it. if elinor blair had never gone to prince albert there is no knowing what might have happened, after all. carey, so powerful in propinquity, might even have ended by learning to love tannis and marrying her, to his own worldly undoing. but elinor did go to prince albert, and her going ended all things for tannis of the flats. carey met her one evening in september, when he had ridden into town to attend a dance, leaving paul dumont in charge of the telegraph office. elinor had just arrived in prince albert on a visit to tom, to which she had been looking forward during the five years since he had married and moved out west from avonlea. as i have already said, she was very beautiful at that time, and carey fell in love with her at the first moment of their meeting. during the next three weeks he went to town nine times and called at the dumonts' only once. there were no more rides and walks with tannis. this was not intentional neglect on his part. he had simply forgotten all about her. the breeds surmised a lover's quarrel, but tannis understood. there was another woman back there in town. it would be quite impossible to put on paper any adequate idea of her emotions at this stage. one night, she followed carey when he went to prince albert, riding out of earshot, behind him on her plains pony, but keeping him in sight. lazarre, in a fit of jealousy, had followed tannis, spying on her until she started back to the flats. after that he watched both carey and tannis incessantly, and months later had told tom all he had learned through his low sneaking. tannis trailed carey to the blair house, on the bluffs above the town, and saw him tie his horse at the gate and enter. she, too, tied her pony to a poplar, lower down, and then crept stealthily through the willows at the side of the house until she was close to the windows. through one of them she could see carey and elinor. the half-breed girl crouched down in the shadow and glared at her rival. she saw the pretty, fair-tinted face, the fluffy coronal of golden hair, the blue, laughing eyes of the woman whom jerome carey loved, and she realized very plainly that there was nothing left to hope for. she, tannis of the flats, could never compete with that other. it was well to know so much, at least. after a time, she crept softly away, loosed her pony, and lashed him mercilessly with her whip through the streets of the town and out the long, dusty river trail. a man turned and looked after her as she tore past a brightly lighted store on water street. "that was tannis of the flats," he said to a companion. "she was in town last winter, going to school--a beauty and a bit of the devil, like all those breed girls. what in thunder is she riding like that for?" one day, a fortnight later, carey went over the river alone for a ramble up the northern trail, and an undisturbed dream of elinor. when he came back tannis was standing at the canoe landing, under a pine tree, in a rain of finely sifted sunlight. she was waiting for him and she said, without any preface: "mr. carey, why do you never come to see me, now?" carey flushed like any girl. her tone and look made him feel very uncomfortable. he remembered, self-reproachfully, that he must have seemed very neglectful, and he stammered something about having been busy. "not very busy," said tannis, with her terrible directness. "it is not that. it is because you are going to prince albert to see a white woman!" even in his embarrassment carey noted that this was the first time he had ever heard tannis use the expression, "a white woman," or any other that would indicate her sense of a difference between herself and the dominant race. he understood, at the same moment, that this girl was not to be trifled with--that she would have the truth out of him, first or last. but he felt indescribably foolish. "i suppose so," he answered lamely. "and what about me?" asked tannis. when you come to think of it, this was an embarrassing question, especially for carey, who had believed that tannis understood the game, and played it for its own sake, as he did. "i don't understand you, tannis," he said hurriedly. "you have made me love you," said tannis. the words sound flat enough on paper. they did not sound flat to tom, as repeated by lazarre, and they sounded anything but flat to carey, hurled at him as they were by a woman trembling with all the passions of her savage ancestry. tannis had justified her criticism of poetry. she had said her half-dozen words, instinct with all the despair and pain and wild appeal that all the poetry in the world had ever expressed. they made carey feel like a scoundrel. all at once he realized how impossible it would be to explain matters to tannis, and that he would make a still bigger fool of himself, if he tried. "i am very sorry," he stammered, like a whipped schoolboy. "it is no matter," interrupted tannis violently. "what difference does it make about me--a half-breed girl? we breed girls are only born to amuse the white men. that is so--is it not? then, when they are tired of us, they push us aside and go back to their own kind. oh, it is very well. but i will not forget--my father and brother will not forget. they will make you sorry to some purpose!" she turned, and stalked away to her canoe. he waited under the pines until she crossed the river; then he, too, went miserably home. what a mess he had contrived to make of things! poor tannis! how handsome she had looked in her fury--and how much like a squaw! the racial marks always come out plainly under the stress of emotion, as tom noted later. her threat did not disturb him. if young paul and old auguste made things unpleasant for him, he thought himself more than a match for them. it was the thought of the suffering he had brought upon tannis that worried him. he had not, to be sure, been a villain; but he had been a fool, and that is almost as bad, under some circumstances. the dumonts, however, did not trouble him. after all, tannis' four years in prince albert had not been altogether wasted. she knew that white girls did not mix their male relatives up in a vendetta when a man ceased calling on them--and she had nothing else to complain of that could be put in words. after some reflection she concluded to hold her tongue. she even laughed when old auguste asked her what was up between her and her fellow, and said she had grown tired of him. old auguste shrugged his shoulders resignedly. it was just as well, maybe. those english sons-in-law sometimes gave themselves too many airs. so carey rode often to town and tannis bided her time, and plotted futile schemes of revenge, and lazarre mã©rimã©e scowled and got drunk--and life went on at the flats as usual, until the last week in october, when a big wind and rainstorm swept over the northland. it was a bad night. the wires were down between the flats and prince albert and all communication with the outside world was cut off. over at joe esquint's the breeds were having a carouse in honor of joe's birthday. paul dumont had gone over, and carey was alone in the office, smoking lazily and dreaming of elinor. suddenly, above the plash of rain and whistle of wind, he heard outcries in the street. running to the door he was met by mrs. joe esquint, who grasped him breathlessly. "meestair carey--come quick! lazarre, he kill paul--they fight!" carey, with a smothered oath, rushed across the street. he had been afraid of something of the sort, and had advised paul not to go, for those half-breed carouses almost always ended in a free fight. he burst into the kitchen at joe esquint's, to find a circle of mute spectators ranged around the room and paul and lazarre in a clinch in the center. carey was relieved to find it was only an affair of fists. he promptly hurled himself at the combatants and dragged paul away, while mrs. joe esquint--joe himself being dead-drunk in a corner--flung her fat arms about lazarre and held him back. "stop this," said carey sternly. "let me get at him," foamed paul. "he insulted my sister. he said that you--let me get at him!" he could not writhe free from carey's iron grip. lazarre, with a snarl like a wolf, sent mrs. joe spinning, and rushed at paul. carey struck out as best he could, and lazarre went reeling back against the table. it went over with a crash and the light went out! mrs. joe's shrieks might have brought the roof down. in the confusion that ensued, two pistol shots rang out sharply. there was a cry, a groan, a fall--then a rush for the door. when mrs. joe esquint's sister-in-law, marie, dashed in with another lamp, mrs. joe was still shrieking, paul dumont was leaning sickly against the wall with a dangling arm, and carey lay face downward on the floor, with blood trickling from under him. marie esquint was a woman of nerve. she told mrs. joe to shut up, and she turned carey over. he was conscious, but seemed dazed and could not help himself. marie put a coat under his head, told paul to lie down on the bench, ordered mrs. joe to get a bed ready, and went for the doctor. it happened that there was a doctor at the flats that night--a prince albert man who had been up at the reservation, fixing up some sick indians, and had been stormstaid at old auguste's on his way back. marie soon returned with the doctor, old auguste, and tannis. carey was carried in and laid on mrs. esquint's bed. the doctor made a brief examination, while mrs. joe sat on the floor and howled at the top of her lungs. then he shook his head. "shot in the back," he said briefly. "how long?" asked carey, understanding. "perhaps till morning," answered the doctor. mrs. joe gave a louder howl than ever at this, and tannis came and stood by the bed. the doctor, knowing that he could do nothing for carey, hurried into the kitchen to attend to paul, who had a badly shattered arm, and marie went with him. carey looked stupidly at tannis. "send for her," he said. tannis smiled cruelly. "there is no way. the wires are down, and there is no man at the flats who will go to town to-night," she answered. "my god, i must see her before i die," burst out carey pleadingly. "where is father gabriel? he will go." "the priest went to town last night and has not come back," said tannis. carey groaned and shut his eyes. if father gabriel was away, there was indeed no one to go. old auguste and the doctor could not leave paul and he knew well that no breed of them all at the flats would turn out on such a night, even if they were not, one and all, mortally scared of being mixed up in the law and justice that would be sure to follow the affair. he must die without seeing elinor. tannis looked inscrutably down on the pale face on mrs. joe esquint's dirty pillows. her immobile features gave no sign of the conflict raging within her. after a short space she turned and went out, shutting the door softly on the wounded man and mrs. joe, whose howls had now simmered down to whines. in the next room, paul was crying out with pain as the doctor worked on his arm, but tannis did not go to him. instead, she slipped out and hurried down the stormy street to old auguste's stable. five minutes later she was galloping down the black, wind-lashed river trail, on her way to town, to bring elinor blair to her lover's deathbed. i hold that no woman ever did anything more unselfish than this deed of tannis! for the sake of love she put under her feet the jealousy and hatred that had clamored at her heart. she held, not only revenge, but the dearer joy of watching by carey to the last, in the hollow of her hand, and she cast both away that the man she loved might draw his dying breath somewhat easier. in a white woman the deed would have been merely commendable. in tannis of the flats, with her ancestry and tradition, it was lofty self-sacrifice. it was eight o'clock when tannis left the flats; it was ten when she drew bridle before the house on the bluff. elinor was regaling tom and his wife with avonlea gossip when the maid came to the door. "pleas'm, there's a breed girl out on the verandah and she's asking for miss blair." elinor went out wonderingly, followed by tom. tannis, whip in hand, stood by the open door, with the stormy night behind her, and the warm ruby light of the hall lamp showering over her white face and the long rope of drenched hair that fell from her bare head. she looked wild enough. "jerome carey was shot in a quarrel at joe esquint's to-night," she said. "he is dying--he wants you--i have come for you." elinor gave a little cry, and steadied herself on tom's shoulder. tom said he knew he made some exclamation of horror. he had never approved of carey's attentions to elinor, but such news was enough to shock anybody. he was determined, however, that elinor should not go out in such a night and to such a scene, and told tannis so in no uncertain terms. "i came through the storm," said tannis, contemptuously. "cannot she do as much for him as i can?" the good, old island blood in elinor's veins showed to some purpose. "yes," she answered firmly. "no, tom, don't object--i must go. get my horse--and your own." ten minutes later three riders galloped down the bluff road and took the river trail. fortunately the wind was at their backs and the worst of the storm was over. still, it was a wild, black ride enough. tom rode, cursing softly under his breath. he did not like the whole thing--carey done to death in some low half-breed shack, this handsome, sullen girl coming as his messenger, this nightmare ride, through wind and rain. it all savored too much of melodrama, even for the northland, where people still did things in a primitive way. he heartily wished elinor had never left avonlea. it was past twelve when they reached the flats. tannis was the only one who seemed to be able to think coherently. it was she who told tom where to take the horses and then led elinor to the room where carey was dying. the doctor was sitting by the bedside and mrs. joe was curled up in a corner, sniffling to herself. tannis took her by the shoulder and turned her, none too gently, out of the room. the doctor, understanding, left at once. as tannis shut the door she saw elinor sink on her knees by the bed, and carey's trembling hand go out to her head. tannis sat down on the floor outside of the door and wrapped herself up in a shawl marie esquint had dropped. in that attitude she looked exactly like a squaw, and all comers and goers, even old auguste, who was hunting for her, thought she was one, and left her undisturbed. she watched there until dawn came whitely up over the prairies and jerome carey died. she knew when it happened by elinor's cry. tannis sprang up and rushed in. she was too late for even a parting look. the girl took carey's hand in hers, and turned to the weeping elinor with a cold dignity. "now go," she said. "you had him in life to the very last. he is mine now." "there must be some arrangements made," faltered elinor. "my father and brother will make all arrangements, as you call them," said tannis steadily. "he had no near relatives in the world--none at all in canada--he told me so. you may send out a protestant minister from town, if you like; but he will be buried here at the flats and his grave will be mine--all mine! go!" and elinor, reluctant, sorrowful, yet swayed by a will and an emotion stronger than her own, went slowly out, leaving tannis of the flats alone with her dead. page images generously made available by early canadiana online (http://www.canadiana.org/cihm/) note: images of the original pages are available through early canadiana online. see http://www.canadiana.org/eco/itemrecord/16900?id=897df8542fb3366c the mermaid "lady, i fain would tell how evermore thy soul i know not from thy body, nor thee from myself, neither our love from god." a love tale by l. dougall author of beggars all, what necessity knows, etc. new york d. appleton and company 1895 copyright, 1895, by d. appleton and company. contents. book i. chapter page i.--the bent twig 1 ii.--the sad-eyed child 4 iii.--lost in the sea 11 iv.--a quiet life 19 v.--seen through blear eyes 24 vi.--"from hour to hour we ripe----" 34 vii.--"a sea change" 41 viii.--belief in the impossible 49 ix.--the sea-maid's music 56 x.--towed by the beard 65 xi.--years of discretion 71 book ii. i.--the hand that beckoned 75 ii.--the isles of st. magdalen 85 iii.--between the surf and the sand 90 iv.--where the devil lived 101 v.--devilry 109 vi.--the sea-maid 118 vii.--the grave lady 122 viii.--how they lived on the cloud 126 ix.--the sick and the dead 136 x.--a light-giving word 141 xi.--the lady's husband 149 xii.--the maiden invented 155 xiii.--white birds; white snow; white thoughts 166 xiv.--the marriage scene 173 book iii. i.--how we hunted the seals 183 ii.--once more the vision 188 iii.--"love, i speak to thy face" 193 iv.--hope born of spring 201 v.--to the higher court 208 vi.--"the night is dark" 216 vii.--the wild waves whist 227 viii.--"god's in his heaven" 236 ix.--"god's puppets, best and worst" 249 x.--"death shrive thy soul!" 254 xi.--the riddle of life 263 xii.--to call a spirit from the vasty deep 271 xiii.--the evening and the morning 283 the mermaid. _book i._ chapter i. the bent twig. caius simpson was the only son of a farmer who lived on the north-west coast of prince edward's island. the farmer was very well-to-do, for he was a hard-working man, and his land produced richly. the father was a man of good understanding, and the son had been born with brains; there were traditions of education in the family, hence the name caius; it was no plan of the elder man that his son should also be a farmer. the boy was first sent to learn in what was called an "academy," a school in the largest town of the island. caius loved his books, and became a youthful scholar. in the summer he did light work on the farm; the work was of a quiet, monotonous sort, for his parents were no friends to frivolity or excitement. caius was strictly brought up. the method of his training was that which relies for strength of character chiefly upon the absence of temptation. the father was under the impression that he could, without any laborious effort and consideration, draw a line between good and evil, and keep his son on one side of it. he was not austere--but his view of righteousness was derived from puritan tradition. a boy, if kindly treated, usually begins early to approve the only teaching of which he has experience. as a youth, caius heartily endorsed his father's views, and felt superior to all who were more lax. he had been born into that religious school which teaches that a man should think for himself on every question, provided that he arrives at a foregone conclusion. caius, at the age of eighteen, had already done much reasoning on certain subjects, and proved his work by observing that his conclusions tallied with set models. as a result, he was, if not a reasonable being, a reasoning and a moral one. we have ceased to draw a distinction between nature and the forces of education. it is a great problem why nature sets so many young people in the world who are apparently unfitted for the battle of life, and certainly have no power to excel in any direction. the subjective religion which caius had been taught had nourished within him great store of noble sentiment and high desire, but it had deprived him of that rounded knowledge of actual life which alone, it would appear, teaches how to guide these forces into the more useful channels. then as to capacity, he had the fine sensibilities of a poet, the facile introspection of the philosophical cast of mind, without the mental power to write good verse or to be a philosopher. he had, at least in youth, the conscience of a saint without the courage and endurance which appear necessary to heroism. in mockery the quality of ambition was bestowed upon him but not the requisites for success. nature has been working for millions of years to produce just such characters as caius simpson, and, character being rather too costly a production to throw away, no doubt she has a precise use for every one of them. it is not the province of art to solve problems, but to depict them. it is enough for the purpose of telling his story that a man has been endowed with capacity to suffer and rejoice. chapter ii. the sad-eyed child. one evening in early summer caius went a-fishing. he started to walk several miles to an inlet where at high tide the sea-trout came within reach of the line. the country road was of red clay, and, turning from the more thickly-settled district, caius followed it through a wide wood of budding trees and out where it skirted the top of low red cliffs, against which the sea was lapping. then his way led him across a farm. so far he had been walking indolently, happy enough, but here the shadow of the pain of the world fell upon him. this farm was a lonesome place close to the sea; there was no appearance of prosperity about it. caius knew that the farmer, day by name, was a churl, and was said to keep his family on short rations of happiness. as caius turned off the public road he was not thinking specially of the bleak appearance of the particular piece of farmland he was crossing, or of the reputation of the family who lived upon the increase of its acres; but his attention was soon drawn to three children swinging on a gate which hung loosely in the log fence not far from the house. the eldest was an awkward-looking girl about twelve years of age; the second was a little boy; the youngest was a round-limbed, blond baby of two or three summers. the three stood upon the lowest bar of the gate, clinging to the upper spars. the eldest leaned her elbows on the top and looked over; the baby embraced the middle bar and looked through. they had set the rickety gate swinging petulantly, and it latched and unlatched itself with the sort of sound that the swaying of some dreary wind would give it. the children seemed to swing there, not because they were happy, but because they were miserable. as caius came with light step up the lane, fishing gear over his shoulder, the children looked at him disconsolately, and when he approached the gate the eldest stepped down and pulled it open for him. "anything the matter?" he asked, stopping his quick tread, and turning when he had passed through. the big girl did not answer, but she let go the gate, and when it jerked forward the baby fell. she did not fall far, nor was she hurt; but as caius picked her up and patted her cotton clothes to shake the dust out of them, it seemed to him that he had never seen so sad a look in a baby's eyes. large, dark, dewy eyes they were, circled around with curly lashes, and they looked up at him out of a wistful little face that was framed by a wreath of yellow hair. caius lifted the child, kissed her, put her down, and went on his way. he only gave his action half a thought at the time, but all his life afterwards he was sorry that he had let the baby go out of his arms again, and thankful that he had given her that one kiss. his path now lay close by the house and on to the sea-cliff behind. the house stood in front of him--four bare wooden walls, brown painted, and without veranda or ornament; its barns, large and ugly, were close beside it. beyond, some stunted firs grew in a dip of the cliff, but on the level ground the farmer had felled every tree. the homestead itself was ugly; but the land was green, and the sea lay broad and blue, its breast swelling to the evening sun. the air blew sweet over field and cliff, add the music of the incoming tide was heard below the pine-fringed bank. caius, however, was not in the receptive mind which appreciates outward things. his attention was not thoroughly aroused from himself till the sound of harsh voices struck his ear. between the farmhouse and the barns, on a place worn bare by the feet of men and animals, the farmer and his wife stood in hot dispute. the woman, tall, gaunt, and ill-dressed, spoke fast, passion and misery in all her attitude and in every tone and gesture. the man, chunky in figure and churlish in demeanour, held a horsewhip in his hand, answering his wife back word for word in language both profane and violent. it did not occur to caius that the whip was in his hand otherwise than by accident. the men in that part of the world were not in the habit of beating their wives, but no sooner did he see the quarrel than his wrath rose hot against the man. the woman being the weaker, he took for granted that she was entirely in the right. he faltered in his walk, and, hesitating, stood to look. his path was too far off for him to hear the words that were poured forth in such torrents of passion. the boy's strong sentiment prompted him to run and collar the man; his judgment made him doubt whether it was a good thing to interfere between man and wife; a certain latent cowardice in his heart made him afraid to venture nearer. the sum of his emotions caused him to stop, go on a few paces, and stop to look and listen again, his heart full of concern. in this way he was drawing further away, when he saw the farmer step nearer his wife and menace her with the whip; in an instant more he had struck her, and caius had run about twenty feet forward to interfere, and halted again, because he was afraid to approach so angry and powerful a man. caius saw the woman clearly now, and how she received this attack. she stood quite still at her full stature, ceasing to speak or to gesticulate, folded her arms and looked at her husband. the look in her hard, dark face, the pose of her gaunt figure, said more clearly than any passionate words, "hold, if you value your life! you have gone too far; you have heaped up punishment enough for yourself already." the husband understood this language, vaguely, it might be, but still he understood enough to make him draw back, still growling and menacing with the whip. caius was too young to understand what the woman expressed; he only knew strength and weakness as physical things; his mind was surging with pity for the woman and revenge against the man; yet even he gathered the knowledge that for the time the quarrel was over, that interference was now needless. he walked on, looking back as he went to see the farmer go away to his stables and the wife stalk past him up toward the byre that was nearest the sea. as caius moved on, the only relief his mind could find at first was to exercise his imagination in picturing how he could avenge the poor woman. in fancy he saw himself holding day by the throat, throwing him down, belabouring him with words and blows, meting out punishment more than adequate. all that he actually did, however, was to hold on his way to the place of his fishing. the path had led him to the edge of the cliff. here he paused, looking over the bank to see if he could get down and continue his walk along the shore, but the soft sandy bluff here jutted so that he could not even see at what level the tide lay. after spending some minutes in scrambling half-way down and returning because he could descend no further, he struck backwards some paces behind the farm buildings, supposing the descent to be easier where bushes grew in the shallow chine. in the top of the cliff there was a little dip, which formed an excellent place for an outside cellar or root-house for such farm stores as must be buried deep beneath the snow against the frost of winter. the rough door of such a cellar appeared in the side of this small declivity, and as caius came round the back of the byre in sight of it, he was surprised to see the farmer's wife holding the latch of its door in her hand and looking vacantly into the dark interior. she looked up and answered the young man's greeting with apathetic manner, apparently quite indifferent to the scene she had just passed through. caius, his mind still in the rush of indignation on her behalf, stopped at the sight of her, wondering what he could do or say to express the wild pity that surged within him. but the woman said, "the tide's late to-night," exactly as she might have remarked with dry civility that it was fine weather. "yes," said caius, "i suppose it will be." she was looking into the cellar, not towards the edge of the bank. "with a decent strong tide," she remarked, "you can hear the waves in this cave." whereupon she walked slowly past him back toward her house. caius took the precaution to step after her round the end of the byre, just to see that her husband was not lying in wait for her there. there was no one to be seen but the children at a distance, still swinging on the gate, and a labourer who was driving some cows from the field. caius slipped down on to the red shore, and found himself in a wide semicircular bay, near the point which ended it on this side. he crept round the bay inwards for half a mile, till he came to the mouth of the creek to which he was bound. all the long spring evening he sat angling for the speckled sea-trout, until the dusk fell and the blue water turned gray, and he could no longer see the ruddy colour of the rock on which he sat. all the long spring evening the trout rose to his fly one by one, and were landed in his basket easily enough, and soft-throated frogs piped to him from ponds in the fields behind, and the smell of budding verdure from the land mingled with the breeze from the sea. but caius was not happy; he was brooding over the misery suggested by what he had just seen, breathing his mind after its unusual rush of emotion, and indulging its indignant melancholy. it did not occur to him to wonder much why the object of his pity had made that quick errand to the cellar in the chine, or why she had taken interest in the height of the tide. he supposed her to be inwardly distracted by her misery. she had the reputation of being a strange woman. chapter iii. lost in the sea. there was no moon that night. when the darkness began to gather swiftly, caius swung his basket of fish and his tackle over his shoulder and tramped homeward. his preference was to go round by the road and avoid the day farm; then he thought it might be his duty to go that way, because it might chance that the woman needed protection as he passed. it is much easier to give such protection in intention than in deed; but, as it happened, the deed was not required. the farmstead was perfectly still as he went by it again. he went on half a mile, passing only such friendly persons as it was natural he should meet on the public road. they were few. caius walked listening to the sea lapping below the low cliff near which the road ran, and watching the bats that often circled in the dark-blue dusk overhead. thus going on, he gradually recognised a little group walking in front of him. it was the woman, mrs. day, and her three children. holding a child by either hand, she tramped steadily forward. something in the way she walked, in the way the children walked--a dull, mechanical action in their steps--perplexed caius. he stepped up beside them with a word of neighbourly greeting. the woman did not answer for some moments; when she did, although her words were ordinary, her voice seemed to caius to come from out some far distance whither her mind had wandered. "going to call on someone, i suppose, mrs. day?" said he, inwardly anxious. "yes," she replied; "we're going to see a friend--the children and me." again it seemed that there was some long distance between her and the young man who heard her. "come along and see my mother," he urged, with solicitude. "she always has a prime welcome for visitors, mother has." the words were hearty, but they excited no heartiness of response. "we've another place to go to to-night," she said. "there'll be a welcome for us, i reckon." she would neither speak to him any more nor keep up with his pace upon the road. he slackened speed, but she still shrank back, walking slower. he found himself getting in advance, so he left her. a hundred yards more he went on, and looked back to see her climbing the log fence into the strip of common beside the sea. his deliberation of mind was instantly gone. something was wrong now. he cast himself over the low log fence just where he was, and hastened back along the edge of the cliff, impelled by unformulated fear. it was dark, the dark grayness of a moonless night. the cliff here was not more than twenty feet above the high tide, which surged and swept deep at its base. the grass upon the top was short; young fir-trees stood here and there. all this caius saw. the woman he could not see at first. then, in a minute, he did see her--standing on the edge of the bank, her form outlined against what light there was in sea and sky. he saw her swing something from her. the thing she threw, whatever it was, was whirled outwards, and then fell into the sea. with a splash, it sank. the young man's mind stood still with horror. the knowledge came to him as he heard the splash that it was the little child she had flung away. he threw off his basket and coat. another moment, and he would have jumped from the bank; but before he had jumped he heard the elder girl groaning as if in desperate fear, and saw that mother and daughter were grappled together, their figures swaying backwards and forwards in convulsive struggle. he did not doubt that the mother was trying to drown this child also. another low wild groan from the girl, and caius flung himself upon them both. his strength released the girl, who drew away a few paces; but the woman struggled terribly to get to her again. both the girl and little boy stood stupidly within reach. "run--run--to the road, and call for help!" gasped caius to the children, but they only stood still. he was himself shouting with all his strength, and holding the desperate woman upon the ground, where he had thrown her. every moment he was watching the dark water, where he thought he saw a little heap of light clothes rise and sink again further off. "run with your brother out of the way, so that i can leave her," he called to the girl. he tried with a frantic gesture to frighten them into getting out of the mother's reach. he continued to shout for aid as he held down the woman, who with the strength of insanity was struggling to get hold of the children. a man's voice gave answering shout. caius saw someone climbing the fence. he left the woman and jumped into the sea. down under the cold black water he groped about. he was not an expert swimmer and diver. he had never been under water so long before, but so strong had been his impulse to reach the child that he went a good way on the bottom in the direction in which he had thought he saw the little body floating. then he knew that he came up empty-handed and was swimming on the dark surface, hearing confused cries and imprecations from the shore. he wanted to dive and seek again for the child below, but he did not know how to do this without a place to leap from. he let himself sink, but he was out of breath. he gasped and inhaled the water, and then, for dear life's sake, he swam to keep his head above it. the water had cooled his excitement; a feeling of utter helplessness and misery came over him. so strong was his pity for the little sad-eyed child that he was almost willing to die in seeking her; but all hope of finding was forsaking him. he still swam in the direction in which he thought the child drifted as she rose and sank. it did not occur to him to be surprised that she had drifted so far until he realized that he was out of hearing of the sounds from the shore. his own swimming, he well knew, could never have taken him so far and fast. there was a little sandy island lying about three hundred yards out. at first he hoped to strike the shallows near it quickly, but found that the current of the now receding tide was racing down the channel between the island and the shore, out to the open sea. that little body was, no doubt, being sucked outward in this rush of water--out to the wide water where he could not find her. he told himself this when he found at what a pace he was going, and knew that his best chance of ever returning was to swim back again. so he gave up seeking the little girl, and turned and swam as best he could against the current, and recognised slowly that he was making no headway, but by using all his strength could only hold his present place abreast of the outer point of the island, and a good way from it. the water was bitterly cold; it chilled him. he was far too much occupied in fighting the current to think properly, but certain flashes of intelligence came across his mind concerning the death he might be going to die. his first clear thoughts were about a black object that was coming near on the surface of the water. then a shout reached him, and a stronger swimmer than he pulled him to the island. "now, in the devil's name, caius simpson!" the deliverer was the man who had come over the fence, and he shook himself as he spoke. his words were an interrogation relating to all that had passed. he was a young man, about the same age as caius; the latter knew him well. "the child, jim!" shivered caius hoarsely. "she threw it into the water!" "in there?" asked jim, pointing to the flowing darkness from which they had just scrambled. he shook his head as he spoke. "there's a sort of a set the water's got round this here place----" he shook his head again; he sat half dressed on the edge of the grass, peering into the tide, a dark figure surrounded by darkness. it seemed to caius even then, just pulled out as he was from a sea too strong for him, that there was something horribly bad and common in that they two sat there taking breath, and did not plunge again into the water to try, at least, to find the body of the child who a few minutes before had lived and breathed so sweetly. yet they did not move. "did someone else come to hold her?" caius asked this in a hasty whisper. they both spoke as if there was some need for haste. "noa. i tied her round with your fish-cord. if yo'd have done that, yo' might have got the babby the same way i got yo'." the heart of caius sank. if only he had done this! jim hogan was not a companion for whom he had any respect; he looked upon him as a person of low taste and doubtful morals, but in this jim had shown himself superior. "i guess we'd better go and look after them," said jim. he waded in a few paces. "come along," he said. as they waded round to the inner side of the island, caius slowly took off some of his wet clothes and tied them round his neck. then they swam back across the channel at its narrowest. while the water was rushing past their faces, caius was conscious of nothing but the animal desire to be on the dry, warm shore again; but when they touched the bottom and climbed the bank once more to the place where he had seen the child cast away, he forgot all his fight with the sea, and thought only with horror of the murder done--or was there yet hope that by a miracle the child might be found somewhere alive? it is hope always that causes panic. caius was panic-stricken. the woman lay, bound hand and foot, upon the grass. "if i couldn't ha' tied her," said jim patronizingly, "i'd a quietened her by a knock on the head, and gone after the young un, if i'd been yo'." the other children had wandered away. they were not to be seen. jim knelt down in a business-like way to untie the woman, who seemed now to be as much stunned by circumstances as if she had been knocked as just suggested. a minute more, and caius found himself running like one mad in the direction of home. he cared nothing about the mother or the elder children, or about his own half-dressed condition. the one thought that excited him was a hope that the sea might have somewhere cast the child on the shore before she was quite dead. running like a savage under the budding trees of the wood and across his father's fields, he leaped out of the darkness into the heat and brightness of his mother's kitchen. gay rugs lay on the yellow painted floor; the stove glistened with polish at its every corner. the lamp shone brightly, and in its light caius stood breathless, wet, half naked. the picture of his father looking up from the newspaper, of his mother standing before him in alarmed surprise, seemed photographed in pain upon his brain for minutes before he could find utterance. the smell of an abundant supper his mother had set out for him choked him. when he had at last spoken--told of the blow farmer day had struck, of his wife's deed, and commanded that all the men that could be collected should turn out to seek for the child--he was astonished at finding sobs in the tones of his words. he became oblivious for the moment of his parents, and leaned his face against the wooden wall of the room in a convulsion of nervous feeling that was weeping without tears. it did not in the least surprise his parents that he should cry--he was only a child in their eyes. while the father bestirred himself to get a cart and lanterns and men, the mother soothed her son, or, rather, she addressed to him such kindly attentions as she supposed were soothing to him. she did not know that her attention to his physical comfort hardly entered his consciousness. caius went out again that night with those who went to examine the spot, and test the current, and search the dark shores. he went again, with a party of neighbours, to the same place, in the first faint pink flush of dawn, to seek up and down the sands and rocks left bare by the tide. they did not find the body of the child. chapter iv. a quiet life. in the night, while the men were seeking the murdered child, there were kindly women who went to the house of the farmer day to tend his wife. the elder children had been found asleep in a field, where, after wandering a little while, they had succumbed to the influence of some drug, which had evidently been given them by the mother to facilitate her evil design. she herself, poor woman, had grown calm again, her frenzy leaving her to a duller phase of madness. that she was mad no one doubted. how long she might have been walking in the misleading paths of wild fancy, whether her insane vagaries had been the cause or the result of her husband's churlishness, no one knew. the husband was a taciturn man, and appeared to sulk under the scrutiny of the neighbourhood. the more charitable ascribed his demeanour to sorrow. the punishment his wife had meted out for the blow he struck her had, without doubt, been severe. as for caius simpson, his mind was sore concerning the little girl. it was as if his nature, in one part of it, had received a bruise that did not heal. the child had pleased his fancy. all the sentiment in him centred round the memory of the little girl, and idealized her loveliness. the first warm weather of the year, the exquisite but fugitive beauties of the spring, lent emphasis to his mood, and because his home was not a soil congenial to the growth of any but the more ordinary sentiments, he began at this time to seek in natural solitudes a more fitting environment for his musings. more than once, in the days that immediately followed, he sought by daylight the spot where, in the darkness, he had seen the child thrown into the sea. it soon occurred to him to make an epitaph for her, and carve it in the cliff over which she was thrown. in the noon-day hours in which his father rested, he worked at this task, and grew to feel at home in the place and its surroundings. the earth in this place, as in others, showed red, the colour of red jasper, wherever its face was not covered by green grass or blue water. just here, where the mother had sought out a precipice under which the tide lay deep, there was a natural water-wall of red sandstone, rubbed and corrugated by the waves. this wall of rock extended but a little way, and ended in a sharp jutting point. the little island that stood out toward the open sea had sands of red gold; level it was and covered with green bushes, its sandy beach surrounding it like a ring. on the other side of the jutting point a bluff of red clay and crumbling rock continued round a wide bay. where the rim of the blue water lay thin on this beach there showed a purple band, shading upward into the dark jasper red of damp earth in the lower cliff. the upper part of the cliff was very dry, and the earth was pink, a bright earthen pink. this ribbon of shaded reds lay all along the shore. the land above it was level and green. at the other horn of the bay a small town stood; its white houses, seen through the trembling lens of evaporating water, glistened with almost pearly brightness between the blue spaces of sky and water. all the scene was drenched in sunlight in those spring days. the town, montrose by name, was fifteen miles away, counting miles by the shore. the place where caius was busy was unfrequented, for the land near was not fertile, and a wooded tract intervened between it and the better farms of the neighbourhood. the home of the lost child and one other poor dwelling were the nearest houses, but they were not very near. caius did not attempt to carve his inscription on the mutable sandstone. it was quite possible to obtain a slab of hard building-stone and material for cement, and after carting them himself rather secretly to the place, he gradually hewed a deep recess for the tablet and cemented it there, its face slanting upward to the blue sky for greater safety. he knew even then that the soft rock would not hold it many years, but it gave him a poetic pleasure to contemplate the ravages of time as he worked, and to think that the dimpled child with the sunny hair and the sad, beautiful eyes had only gone before, that his tablet would some time be washed away by the same devouring sea, and that in the sea of time he, too, would sink before many years and be forgotten. the short elegy he wrote was a bad mixture of ancient and modern thought as to substance, figures, and literary form, for the boy had just been dipping into classics at school, while he was by habit of mind a puritan. his composition was one at which pagan god and christian angel must have smiled had they viewed it; but perhaps they would have wept too, for it was the outcome of a heart very young and very earnest, wholly untaught in that wisdom which counsels to evade the pains and suck the pleasures of circumstance. there were only two people who discovered what caius was about, and came to look on while his work was yet unfinished. one was an old man who lived in the one poor cottage not far away and did light work for day the farmer. his name was morrison--neddy morrison he was called. he came more than once, creeping carefully near the edge of the cliff with infirm step, and talking about the lost child, whom he also had loved, about the fearful visitation of the mother's madness, and, with caius, condemning unsparingly the brutality, known and supposed, of the now bereaved father. it was a consolation to them both that morrison could state that this youngest child was the only member of his family for whom day had ever shown affection. the other visitor caius had was jim hogan. he was a rough youth; he had a very high, rounded forehead, so high that he would have almost seemed bald if the hair, when it did at last begin, had not been exceedingly thick, standing in a short red brush round his head. with the exception of this peculiar forehead, jim was an ordinary freckled, healthy young man. he saw no sense at all in what caius was doing. when he came he sat himself down on the edge of the cliff, swung his heels, and jeered unfeignedly. when the work was finished it became noised that the tablet was to be seen. the neighbours wondered not a little, and flocked to gaze and admire. caius himself had never told of its existence; he would have rather no one had seen it; still, he was not insensible to the local fame thus acquired. his father, it was true, had not much opinion of his feat, but his mother, as mothers will, treasured all the admiring remarks of the neighbours. all the women loved caius from that day forth, as being wondrously warm-hearted. such sort of literary folk as the community could boast dubbed him "the canadian burns," chiefly, it seemed, because he had been seen to help his father at the ploughing. in due course the wife of the farmer day was tried for murder, and pronounced insane. she had before been removed to an asylum: she now remained there. chapter v. seen through blear eyes. it was foreseen by the elder simpson that his son would be a great man. he looked forth over the world and decided on the kind of greatness. the wide, busy world would not have known itself as seen in the mind of this gray-haired countryman. the elder simpson had never set foot off the edge of his native island. his father before him had tilled the same fertile acres, looked out upon the same level landscape--red and green, when it was not white with snow. neither of them had felt any desire to see beyond the brink of that horizon; but ambition, quiet and sturdy, had been in their hearts. the result of it was the bit of money in the bank, the prosperous farm, and the firm intention of the present farmer that his son should cut a figure in the world. this stern man, as he trudged about at his labour, looked upon the activities of city life with that same inward eye with which the maiden looks forth upon her future; and as she, with nicety of preference, selects the sort of lover she will have, so he selected the sort of greatness which should befall his son. the stuff of this vision was, as must always be, of such sort as had entered his mind in the course of his limited experience. his grandfather had been an englishman, and it was known that one of the sons had been a notable physician in the city of london: caius must become a notable physician. his newspaper told him of honours taken at the university of montreal by young men of the medical school; therefore, caius was to study and take honours. it was nothing to him that his neighbours did not send their sons so far afield; he came of educated stock himself. the future of caius was prearranged, and caius did not gainsay the arrangement. that autumn the lad went away from home to a city which is, without doubt, a very beautiful city, and joined the ranks of students in a medical school which for size and thorough work is not to be despised. he was not slow to drink in the new ideas which a first introduction to modern science, and a new view of the relations of most things, brought to his mind. in the first years caius came home for his summer vacations, and helped his father upon the farm. the old man had money, but he had no habit of spending it, and expenditure, like economy, is a practice to be acquired. when caius came the third time for the long summer holiday, something happened. he did not now often walk in the direction of the day farm; there was no necessity to take him there, only sentiment. he was by this time ashamed of the emblazonment of his poetic effort upon the cliff. he was not ashamed of the sentiment which had prompted it, but he was ashamed of its exhibition. he still thought tenderly of the little child that was lost, and once in a long while he visited the place where his tablet was, as he would have visited a grave. one summer evening he sauntered through the wood and down the road by the sea on this errand. before going to the shore, he stopped at the cottage where the old labourer, morrison, lived. there was something to gossip about, for day's wife had been sent from the asylum as cured, and her husband had been permitted to take her home again on condition that no young or weak person should remain in the house with her. he had sent his two remaining children to be brought up by a relative in the west. people said he could get more work out of his wife than out of the children, and, furthermore, it saved his having to pay for her board elsewhere. the woman had been at home almost a twelvemonth, and caius had some natural interest in questioning morrison as to her welfare and general demeanour. the strange gaunt creature had for his imagination very much the fascination that a ghost would have had. we care to hear all about a ghost, however trivial the details may be, but we desire no personal contact. caius had no wish to meet this woman, for whom he felt repulsion, but he would have been interested to hear neddy morrison describe her least action, for neddy was almost the only person who had constant access to her house. morrison, however, had very little to tell about mrs. day. she had come home, and was living very much as she had lived before. the absence of her children did not appear to make great difference in her dreary life. the old labourer could not say that her husband treated her kindly or unkindly. he was not willing to affirm that she was glad to be out of the asylum, or that she was sorry. to the old man's imagination mrs. day was not an interesting object; his interest had always been centred upon the children. it was of them he talked chiefly now, telling of letters that their father had received from them, and of the art by which he, morrison, had sometimes contrived to make the taciturn day show him their contents. the interest of passive benevolence which the young medical student gave to morrison's account of these children, who had grown quite beyond the age when children are pretty and interesting, would soon have been exhausted had the account been long; but it happened that the old man had a more startling communication to make, which cut short his gossip about his master's family. he had been standing so far at the door of his little wooden house. his old wife was moving at her household work within. caius stood outside. the house was a little back from the road in an open space; near it was a pile of firewood, a saw-horse and chopping-block, with their accompanying carpet of chips, and such pots, kettles, and household utensils as mrs. morrison preferred to keep out of doors. when old morrison came to the more exciting part of his gossip, he poked caius in the breast, and indicated by a backward movement of his elbow that the old wife's presence hampered his talk. then he came out with an artfully simulated interest in the weather, and, nudging caius at intervals, apparently to enforce silence on a topic concerning which the young man as yet knew nothing, he wended his way with him along a path through a thicket of young fir-trees which bordered the road. the two men were going towards that part of the shore to which caius was bound. they reached the place where the child had been drowned before the communication was made, and stood together, like a picture of the personification of age and youth, upon the top of the grassy cliff. "you'll not believe me," said the old man, with excitement obviously growing within him, "but i tell you, young sir, i've sat jist here behind those near bushes like, and watched the creatur for an hour at a time." "what was it you watched?" asked caius, superior to the other's excitement. "i tell you, it was a girl in the sea; and more than that--she was half a fish." the mind of caius was now entirely scornful. "you don't believe me," said the old man, nudging him again. but caius was polite. "well, now"--good-humouredly--"what did you see?" "i'll tell you jist what i saw." (the old man's excitement was growing.) "you understand that from the top here you can see across the bay, and across to the island and out to sea; but you can't see the shore under the rocky point where it turns round the farm there into the bay, and you can't see the other shore of the island for the bushes on it." "in other words, you can see everything that's before your eyes, but you can't see round a corner." the old man had some perception that caius was humorous. "you believe me that far," he said, with a weak, excited cackle of a laugh. "well, don't go for to repeat what i'm going to tell you further, for i'll not have my old woman frightened, and i'll not have jim hogan and the fellows he gets round him belabouring the thing with stones." "heaven forbid!" a gleam of amusement flitted through the mind of caius at the thought of the sidelight this threw on jim's character. for jim was not incapable of casting stones at even so rare a curiosity as a mermaid. "now," said the old man, and he laughed again his weak, wheezy laugh, "if _you_ told _me_, i'd not believe it; but i saw it as sure as i stand here, and if this was my dying hour, sir, i'd say the same. the first time it was one morning that i got up very early--i don't jist remember the reason, but it was before sun-up, and i was walking along here, and the tide was out, and between me and the island i saw what i thought was a person swimming in the water, and i thought to myself, 'it's queer, for there's no one about these parts that has a liking for the water.' but when i was younger, at pictou once, i saw the fine folks ducking themselves in flannel sarks, at what they called a 'bathing-place,' so the first thing i thought of was that it was something like that. and then i stood here, jist about where you are now, and the woman in the water she saw me--" "now, how do you know it was a woman?" asked caius. "well, i didn't know for certain that day anything, for she was a good way off, near the island, and she no sooner saw me than she turned and made tracks for the back of the island where i couldn't see her. but i tell you this, young sir, no woman or man either ever swam as she swam. have you seen a trout in a quiet pool wag its tail and go right ahead--_how_, you didn't know; you only knew that 'twasn't in the one place and 'twas in t'other?" caius nodded. "well," asked the old man with triumph in his voice, as one who capped an argument, "did you ever see man or woman swim like that?" "no," caius admitted, "i never did--especially as to the wagging of the tail." "but she _hadn't_ a tail!" put in the old man eagerly, "for i saw her the second day--that i'm coming to. she was more like a seal or walrus." "but what became of her the first day?" asked caius, with scientific exactitude. "why, the end of her the first day was that she went behind the island. can you see behind the island? no." the old man giggled again at his own logical way of putting things. "well, no more could i see her; and home i went, and i said nothink to nobody, for i wasn't going to have them say i was doting." "yet it would be classical to dote upon a mermaid," caius murmured. the sight of the dim-eyed, decrepit old man before him gave exquisite humour to the idea. morrison had already launched forth upon the story of the second day. "well, as i was telling you, i was that curious that next morning at daybreak i comes here and squats behind those bushes, and a dreadful fright i was in for fear my old woman would come and look for me and see me squatting there." his old frame shook for a moment with the laugh he gave to emphasize the situation, and he poked caius with his finger. "and i looked and i looked out on the gray water till i had the cramps." here he poked caius again. "but i tell you, young sir, when i saw her a-coming round from behind the bank, where i couldn't see jist where she had come from, like as if she had come across the bay round this point here, i thought no more of the cramps, but i jist sat on my heels, looking with one eye to see that my old woman didn't come, and i watched that 'ere thing, and it came as near as i could throw a stone, and i tell you it was a girl with long hair, and it had scales, and an ugly brown body, and swum about like a fish, jist moving, without making a motion, from place to place for near an hour; and then it went back round the head again, and i got up, and i was that stiff all day i could hardly do my work. i was too old to do much at that game, but i went again next morning, and once again i saw her; but she was far out, and then i never saw her again. now, what do you think of that?" "i think"--after a moment's reflection--"that it's a very remarkable story." "but you don't believe it," said the old man, with an air of excited certainty. "i am certain of one thing; you couldn't have made it up." "it's true, sir," said the old man. "as sure as i am standing here, as sure as the tide goes in and out, as sure as i'll be a-dying before long, what i tell you is true; but if i was you, i'd have more sense than to believe it." he laughed again, and pressed caius' arm with the back of his hard, knotted hand. "that's how it is about sense and truth, young sir--it's often like that." this one gleam of philosophy came from the poor, commonplace mind as a beautiful flash may come from a rough flint struck upon the roadside. caius pondered upon it afterwards, for he never saw neddy morrison again. he did not happen to pass that place again that summer, and during the winter the old man died. caius thought at one time and another about this tale of the girl who was half a fish. he thought many things; the one thing he never happened to think was that it was true. it was clear to him that the old man supposed he had seen the object he described, but it puzzled him to understand how eyes, even though so dim with age, could have mistaken any sea-creature for the mermaid he described; for the man had lived his life by the sea, and even the unusual sight of a lonely white porpoise hugging the shore, or of seal or small whale, or even a much rarer sea-animal, would not have been at all likely to deceive him. it would certainly have been very easy for any person in mischief or malice to have played the hoax, but no locality in the wide world would have seemed more unlikely to be the scene of such a game; for who performs theatricals to amuse the lonely shore, or the ebbing tide, or the sea-birds that poise in the air or pounce upon the fish when the sea is gray at dawn? and certainly the deception of the old man could not have been the object of the play, for it was but by chance that he saw it, and it could matter to no one what he saw or thought or felt, for he was one of the most insignificant of earth's sons. then caius would think of that curious gleam of deeper insight the poor old mind had displayed in the attempt to express, blunderingly as it might be, the fact that truth exceeds our understanding, and yet that we are bound to walk by the light of understanding. he came, upon the whole, to the conclusion that some latent faculty of imagination, working in the old man's mind, combining with the picturesque objects so familiar to his eyes, had produced in him belief in this curious vision. it was one of those things that seem to have no reason for coming to pass, no sufficient cause and no result, for caius never heard that morrison had related the tale to anyone but himself, nor was there any report in the village that anyone else had seen an unusual object in the sea. chapter vi. "from hour to hour we ripe----" the elder simpson gradually learned to expend more money upon his son; it was not that the latter was a spendthrift or that he took to any evil courses--he simply became a gentleman and had uses for money of which his father could not, unaided, have conceived. caius was too virtuous to desire to spend his father's hardly-gathered stores unnecessarily; therefore, the last years of his college life in montreal he did not come home in summer, but found occupation in that city by which to make a small income for himself. in those two years he learned much of medical and surgical lore--this was of course, for he was a student by nature; but other things that he learned were, upon the whole, more noteworthy in the development of his character. he became fastidious as to the fit of his coat and as to the work of the laundress upon his shirt-fronts. he learned to sit in easy attitude by gauzily-dressed damsels under sparkling gaslight, and to curl his fair moustache between his now white fingers as he talked to them, and yet to moderate the extent of the attention that he paid to each, not wishing that it should be in excess of that which was due. he learned to value himself as he was valued--as a rising man, one who would do well not to throw himself away in marriage. he had a moustache first, and at last he had a beard. he was a sober young man: as his father's teaching had been strict, so he was now strict in his rule over himself. he frequented religious services, going about listening to popular preachers of all sorts, and critically commenting upon their sermons to his friends. he was really a very religious and well-intentioned man, all of which stood in his favour with the more sober portion of society whose favour he courted. as his talents and industry gained him grace in the eyes of the dons of his college, so his good life and good understanding made him friends among the more worthy of his companions. he was conceited and self-righteous, but not obviously so. when his college had conferred upon him the degree of doctor of medicine, he felt that he had climbed only on the lower rungs of the ladder of knowledge. it was his father, not himself, who had chosen his profession, and now that he had received the right to practise medicine he experienced no desire to practise it; learning he loved truly, but not that he might turn it into golden fees, and not that by it he might assuage the sorrows of others; he loved it partly for its own sake, perhaps chiefly so; but there was in his heart a long-enduring ambition, which formed itself definitely into a desire for higher culture, and hoped more indefinitely for future fame. caius resolved to go abroad and study at the medical schools of the old world. his professors applauded his resolve; his friends encouraged him in it. it was to explain to his father the necessity for this course of action, and wheedle the old man into approval and consent, that the young doctor went home in the spring of the same year which gave him his degree. caius had other sentiments in going home besides those which underlay the motive which we have assigned. if as he travelled he at all regarded the finery of all that he had acquired, it was that he might by it delight the parents who loved him with such pride. though not a fop, his hand trembled on the last morning of his journey when he fastened a necktie of the colour his mother loved best. he took an earlier train than he could have been expected to take, and drove at furious rate between the station and his home, in order that he might creep in by the side door and greet his parents before they had thought of coming to meet him. he had also taken no breakfast, that he might eat the more of the manifold dainties which his mother had in readiness. for three or four days he feasted hilariously upon these dainties until he was ill. he also practised all the airs and graces of dandyism that he could think of, because he knew that the old folks, with ill-judging taste, admired them. when he had explained to them how great a man he should be when he had been abroad, and how economical his life would be in a foreign city, they had no greater desire than that he should go abroad, and there wax as great as might be possible. one thing that consoled the mother in the heroism of her ambition was that it was his plan first to spend the long tranquil summer by her side. another was that, because her son had set his whole affection upon learning, it appeared he had no immediate intention of fixing his love upon any more material maid. in her timid jealousy she loved to come across this topic with him, not worldly-wise enough to know that the answers which reassured her did not display the noblest side of his heart. "and there wasn't a girl among them all that you fancied, my lad?" with spotless apron round her portly form she was serving the morning rasher while caius and his father sat at meat. "i wouldn't say that, mother: i fancied them all." caius spoke with generous condescension towards the fair. "ay," said the father shrewdly, "there's safety in numbers." "but there wasn't one was particular, caius?" continued the dame with gleeful insinuation, because she was assured that the answer was to be negative. "a likely lad like you should marry; it's part of his duty." caius was dense enough not to see her true sentiment. the particular smile that, in the classification of his facial expressions, belonged to the subject of love and marriage, played upon his lips while he explained that when a man got up in the world he could make a better marriage than he could when comparatively poor and unknown. her woman's instinct assured her that the expression and the words arose from a heart ignorant of the quality of love, and she regarded nothing else. the breakfast-room in which they sat had no feature that could render it attractive to caius. although it was warm weather, the windows were closely shut and never opened; such was the habit of the family, and even his influence had not strength to break through a regulation which to his parents appeared so wise and safe. the meadows outside were brimful of flowers, but no flower found its way into this orderly room. the furniture had that desolate sort of gaudiness which one sees in the wares of cheap shops. cleanliness and godliness were the most conspicuous virtues exhibited, for the room was spotless, and the map of palestine and a large bible were prominent objects. the father and mother were in the habit of eating in the kitchen when alone, and to the son's taste that room, decorated with shining utensils, with its door open to earth and sky, was infinitely more picturesque and cheery; but the mother had a stronger will than her son, and she had ordained that his rise in the world should be marked by his eating in the dining-room, where meals were served whenever they had company. caius observed also, with a pain to which his heart was sensitive, that at these meals she treated him to her company manners also, asking him in a clear, firm voice if he "chose bread" or if he would "choose a little meat," an expression common in the country as an elegant manner of pressing food upon visitors. it was not that he felt himself unworthy of this mark of esteem, but that the bad taste and the bad english grated upon his nerves. she was a strong, comely woman, this housemother, portly in person and large of face, with plentiful gray hair brushed smooth; from the face the colour had faded, but the look of health and strong purpose remained. the father, on the other hand, tended to leanness; his large frame was beginning to be obviously bowed by toil; his hair and beard were somewhat long, and had a way of twisting themselves as though blown by the wind. when the light of the summer morning shone through the panes of clean glass upon this family at breakfast, it was obvious that the son was physically somewhat degenerate. athletics had not then come into fashion; caius was less in stature than might have been expected from such parents; and now, after his years of town life, he had an appearance of being limp in sinew, nor was there the same strong will and alert shrewdness written upon his features. he was a handsome fellow, clear-eyed and intelligent, finer far, in the estimation of his parents, than themselves; but that which rounded out the lines of his figure was rather a tendency to plumpness than the development of muscle, and the intelligence of his face suggested rather the power to think than the power to utilize his thought. after the first glad days of the home-coming, the lack of education and taste, and the habits that this lack engendered, jarred more and more upon caius. he loved his parents too well to betray his just distress at the narrow round of thought and feeling in which their minds revolved--the dogmatism of ignorance on all points, whether of social custom or of the sublime reaches of theology; but this distress became magnified into irritation, partly because of this secrecy, partly because his mind, wearied by study, had not its most wholesome balance. jim hogan at this time made overtures of renewed friendship to caius. jim was the same as of old--athletic, quick-witted, large and strong, with his freckled face still innocent of hair; the red brush stood up over his unnaturally high forehead in such fashion as to suggest to the imaginative eye that wreath of flame that in some old pictures is displayed round the heads of villains in the infernal regions. jim was now the acknowledged leader of the young men of that part who were not above certain low and mischievous practices to which caius did not dream of condescending. caius repulsed the offer of friendship extended to him. the households with which his parents were friendly made great merrymakings over his return. dancing was forbidden, but games in which maidens might be caught and kissed were not. caius was not diverted; he had not the good-nature to be in sympathy with the sort of hilarity which was exacted from him. chapter vii. "a sea change." in the procession of the swift-winged hours there is for every man one and another which is big with fate, in that they bring him peculiar opportunity to lose his life, and by that means find it. such an hour came now to caius. the losing and finding of life is accomplished in many ways: the first proffer of this kind which time makes to us is commonly a draught of the wine of joy, and happy is he who loses the remembrance of self therein. the hour which was so fateful for caius came flying with the light winds of august, which breathed over the sunny harvest fields and under the deep dark shade of woods of fir and beech, waving the gray moss that hung from trunk and branch, tossing the emerald ferns that grew in the moss at the roots, and out again into light to catch the silver down of thistles that grew by the red roadside and rustle their purple bloom; then on the cliff, just touching the blue sea with the slightest ripple, and losing themselves where sky and ocean met in indistinguishable azure fold. through the woods walked caius, and onward to the shore. neddy morrison was dead. the little child who was lost in the sea was almost forgotten. caius, thinking upon these things, thought also upon the transient nature of all things, but he did not think profoundly or long. in his earlier youth he had been a good deal given to meditation, a habit which is frequently a mere sign of mental fallowness; now that his mind was wearied with the accumulation of a little learning, it knew what work meant, and did not work except when compelled. caius walked upon the red road bordered by fir hedges and weeds, amongst which blue and yellow asters were beginning to blow, and the ashen seeds of the flame-flower were seen, for its flame was blown out. caius was walking for the sake of walking and in pure idleness, but when he came near farmer day's land he had no thought of passing it without pausing to rest his eyes for a time upon the familiar details of that part of the shore. he scrambled down the face of the cliff, for it was as yet some hours before the tide would be full. a glance showed him that the stone of baby day's tablet yet held firm, cemented in the niche of the soft rock. a glance was enough for an object for which he had little respect, and he sat down with his back to it on one of the smaller rocks of the beach. this was the only place on the shore where the sandstone was hard enough to retain the form of rock, and the rock ended in the small, sharp headland which, when he was down at the water's level, hid the neighbouring bay entirely from his sight. the incoming tide had no swift, unexpected current as the outgoing water had. there was not much movement in the little channel upon which caius was keeping watch. the summer afternoon was all aglow upon shore and sea. he had sat quite still for a good while, when, near the sunny island, just at the point where he had been pulled ashore on the adventurous night when he risked his life for the child, he suddenly observed what appeared to be a curious animal in the water. there was a glistening as of a scaly, brownish body, which lay near the surface of the waves. was it a porpoise that had ventured so near? was it a dog swimming? no, he knew well that neither the one nor the other had any such habit as this lazy basking in sunny shallows. then the head that was lying backwards on the water turned towards him, and he saw a human face--surely, surely it was human!--and a snow-white arm was lifted out of the water as if to play awhile in the warm air. the eyes of the wonderful thing were turned toward him, and it seemed to chance to see him now for the first time, for there was a sudden movement, no jerk or splash, but a fish-like dart toward the open sea. then came another turn of the head, as if to make sure that he was indeed the man that he seemed, and then the sea-maid went under the surface, and the ripples that she left behind subsided slowly, expanding and fading, as ripples in calm waters do. caius stood up, watching the empty surface of the sea. if some compelling fate had said to him, "there shalt thou stand and gaze," he could not have stood more absolutely still, nor gazed more intently. the spell lasted long: some three or four minutes he stood, watching the place with almost unwinking eyes, like one turned to stone, and within him his mind was searching, searching, to find out, if he might, what thing this could possibly be. he did not suppose that she would come back. neddy morrison had implied that the condition of her appearing was that she should not know that she was seen. it was three years since the old man had seen the same apparition; how much might three years stand for in the life of a mermaid? then, when such questioning seemed most futile, and the spell that held caius was loosing its hold, there was a rippling of the calm surface that gave him a wild, half-fearful hope. as gently as it had disappeared the head rose again, not lying backward now, but, with pretty turn of the white neck, holding itself erect. an instant she was still, and then the perfect arm which he had seen before was again raised in the air, and this time it beckoned to him. once, twice, thrice he saw the imperative beck of the little hand; then it rested again upon the rippled surface, and the sea-maid waited, as though secure of his obedience. the man's startled ideas began to right themselves. was it possible that any woman could be bathing from the island, and have the audacity to ask him to share her sport? he tarried so long that the nymph, or whatever it might be, came nearer. some twelve feet or so of the water she swiftly glided through, as it seemed, without twist or turn of her body or effort; then paused; then came forward again, until she had rounded the island at its nearest point, and half-way between it and his shore she stopped, and looked at him steadily with a face that seemed to caius singularly womanly and sweet. again she lifted a white hand and beckoned him to come across the space of water that remained. caius stood doubtful upon his rock. after a minute he set his feet more firmly upon it, and crossed his arms to indicate that he had no intention of swimming the narrow sea in answer to the beckoning hand. yet his whole mind was thrown into confusion with the strangeness of it. he thought he heard a woman's laughter come across to him with the lapping waves, and his face flushed with the indignity this offered. the mermaid left her distance, and by a series of short darts came nearer still, till she stopped again about the width of a broad highroad from the discomforted man. he knew now that it must be truly a mermaid, for no creature but a fish could thus glide along the surface of the water, and certainly the sleek, damp little head that lay so comfortably on the ripple was the head of a laughing child or playful girl. a crown of green seaweed was on the dripping curls; the arms playing idly upon the surface were round, dimpled, and exquisitely white. the dark brownish body he could hardly now see; it was foreshortened to his sight, down slanting deep under the disturbed surface. if it had not been for the indisputable evidence of his senses that this lovely sea thing swam, not with arms or feet, but with some snake-like motion, he might still have tried to persuade himself that some playful girl, strange to the ways of the neighbourhood, was disporting herself at her bath. it was of no avail that his reason told him that he did not, could not, believe that such a creature as a mermaid could exist. the big dark eyes of the girlish face opened wide and looked at him, the dimpled mouth smiled, and the little white hand came out from the water and beckoned to him again. he was suffering from no delirium; he had not lost his wits. he stamped his foot to make sure that the rock was beneath him; he turned about on it to rest his eyes from the water sparkles, and to recall all sober, serious thought by gazing at the stable shore. his eye stayed on the epitaph of the lost child. he remembered soberly all that he knew about this dead child, and then a sudden flash of perception seemed to come to him. this sweet water-nymph, on whom for the moment he had turned his back, must be the baby's soul grown to a woman in the water. he turned again, eager not to lose a moment of the maiden's presence, half fearful that she had vanished, but she was there yet, lying still as before. of course, it was impossible that she should be the sea-wraith of the lost child; but, then, it was wholly impossible that she should be, and there she was, smiling at him, and caius saw in the dark eyes a likeness to the long-remembered eyes of the child, and thought he still read there human wistfulness and sadness, in spite of the wet dimples and light laughter that bespoke the soulless life of the sea-creature. caius stooped on the rock, putting his hand near the water as he might have done had he been calling to a kitten or a baby. "come, my pretty one, come," he called softly in soothing tones. the eyes of the water-nymph blinked at him through wet-fringed lids. "come near; i will not hurt you," urged caius, helpless to do aught but offer blandishment. he patted the rock gently, as if to make it by that means more inviting. "come, love, come," he coaxed. he was used to speak in the same terms of endearment to a colt of which he was fond; but when a look of undoubted derision came over the face of the sea-maiden, he felt suddenly guilty at having spoken thus to a woman. he stood erect again, and his face burned. the sea-girl's face had dimpled all over with fun. colts and other animals cannot laugh at us, else we might not be so peaceful in our assumption that they never criticise. caius before this had always supposed himself happy in his little efforts to please children and animals; now he knew himself to be a blundering idiot, and so far from feeling vexed with the laughing face in the water, he wondered that any other creature had ever permitted his clumsy caresses. having failed once, he now knew not what to do, but stood uncertain, devouring the beauty of the sprite in the water as greedily as he might with eyes that were not audacious, for in truth he had begun to feel very shy. "what is your name?" he asked, throwing his voice across the water. the pretty creature raised a hand and pointed at some object behind him. caius, turning, knew it to be the epitaph. yes, that was what his own intelligence had told him was the only explanation. explanation? his reason revolted at the word. there was no explanation of an impossibility. yet that the mermaid was the lost child he had now little doubt, except that he wholly doubted the evidence of his senses, and that there was a mermaid. he nodded to her that he understood her meaning about the name, and she gave him a little wave of her hand as if to say good-bye, and began to recede slowly, gliding backward, only her head seen above the disturbed water. "don't go," called caius, much urgency in his words. but the slow receding motion continued, and no answer came but another gentle wave of the hand. the hand of caius stole involuntarily to his lips, and he wafted a kiss across the water. then suddenly it seemed to him that the cliff had eyes, and that it might be told of him at home and abroad that he was making love to a phantom, and had lost his wits. the sea-child only tossed her head a little higher out of the water, and again he saw, or fancied he saw, mirth dancing in her eyes. she beckoned to him and turned, moving away; then looked back and beckoned, and darted forward again; and, doing this again and again, she made straight for the open sea. caius cursed himself that he had not the courage to jump in and swim after her at any cost. but then he could not swim so fast--certainly not in his clothes. "there was something so wonderfully human about her face," he mused to himself. his mind suggested, as was its wont, too many reasonable objections to the prompt, headlong course which alone would have availed anything. while he stood in breathless uncertainty, the beckoning hand became lost in the blur of sparkling ripples; the head, lower now, looked in the water at a distance as like the muzzle of a seal or dog as like a human head. by chance, as it seemed, a point of the island came between him and the receding creature, and caius found himself alone. chapter viii. belief in the impossible. caius clambered up the cliff and over the fence to the highroad. a man with a cartload of corn was coming past. caius looked at him and his horse, and at the familiar stretch of road. it was a relief so to look. on a small green hillock by the roadside thistles grew thickly; they were in flower and seed at once, and in the sunshine the white down, purple flowers, and silver-green leaves glistened--a little picture, perfect in itself, of graceful lines and exquisite colour, having for its background the hedge of stunted fir that bordered the other side of the road. caius feasted his eyes for a minute and then turned homeward, walking for awhile beside the cart and talking to the carter, just to be sure that there was nothing wild or strange about himself to attract the man's attention. the cart raised no dust in the red clay of the road; the monotonous creak of its wheels and the dull conversation of its owner were delightful to caius because they were so real and commonplace. caius felt very guilty. he could not excuse himself to himself for the fact that he had not only seen so wild a vision but now felt the greatest reluctance to make known his strange adventure to anyone. he could not precisely determine why this reluctance was guilty on his part, but he had a feeling that, although a sensible man could not be much blamed for seeing a mermaid if he did see one, such a man would rouse the neighbourhood, and take no rest till the phenomenon was investigated; or, if that proved impossible, till the subject was at least thoroughly ventilated. the ideal man who acted thus would no doubt be jeered at, but, secure in his own integrity, he could easily support the jeers. caius would willingly have changed places with this model hero, but he could not bring himself to act the part. even the reason of this unwillingness he could not at once lay his hand upon, but he felt about his mind far it, and knew that it circled round and round the memory of the sea-maid's face. that fresh oval face, surrounded with wet curls, crowned with its fantastic wreath of glistening weed--it was not alone because of its fresh girlish prettiness that he could not endure to make it the talk of the country, but because, strange as it seemed to him to admit it, the face was to him like the window of a lovely soul. it was true that she had laughed and played; it was true that she was, or pretended to be, half a fish; but, for all that, he would as soon have held up to derision his mother, he would as soon have derided all that he held to be most worthy in woman and all that he held to be beautiful and sacred in ideal, as have done despite to the face that looked at him out of the waves that afternoon. his memory held this face before him, held it lovingly, reverently, and his lips shut firmly over the tale of wonder he might have told. at the gate of one of the fields a girl stood waiting for him. it was his cousin mabel, and when he saw her he knew that she must have come to pay them a visit, and he knew too that she must have come because he was at home. he was not attached to his cousin, who was an ordinary young person, but hitherto he had always rather enjoyed her society, because he knew that it was her private ambition to marry him. he did not attribute affection to mabel, only ambition; but that had pleased his vanity. to-day he felt exceedingly sorry that she had come. mabel held the gate shut so that he could not pass. "where have you been?" asked she, pretending sternness. "just along by the shore." he noticed as he said it that mabel's frock had a dragged look about the waist, and that the seams were noticeable because of its tightness. he remembered that her frocks had this appearance frequently, and he wished they were not so ill-made. "i shan't let you in," cried mabel sportively, "till you tell me exactly what you've been doing for this age." "i have not been serving my age much," he said, with some weariness in his tone. "what?" said mabel. "you asked me what i had been doing for this age," said he. it was miserably stupid to explain. when caius and mabel had sauntered up through the warm fields to the house, his mother met them in the front parlour with a fresh cap on. her cap, and her presence in that room, denoted that mabel was company. she immediately began to make sly remarks concerning mabel's coming to them while caius was at home, about her going to meet him, and their homeward walk together. the mother was comparatively at ease about mabel; she had little idea that caius would ever make love to her, so she could enjoy her good-natured slyness to the full. what hurt caius was that she did enjoy it, that it was just her natural way never to see two young people of opposite sex together without immediately thinking of the subject of marriage, and sooner or later betraying her thought. heretofore he had been so accustomed to this cast of mind that, when it had tickled neither his sense of humour nor his vanity, he had been indifferent to it. to-night he knew it was vulgar; but he had no contempt for it, because it was his mother who was betraying vulgarity. he felt sorry that she should be like that--that all the men and women with whom she was associated were like that. he felt sorry for mabel, because she enjoyed it, and consequently more tenderhearted towards her than he had ever felt before. he had not, however, a great many thoughts to give to this sorrow, for he was thinking continually of the bright apparition of the afternoon. when he went to his room to get ready for tea he fell into a muse, looking over the fields and woods to the distant glimpse of blue water he could see from his window. when he came down to the evening meal, he found himself wondering foolishly upon what food the child lost in the sea had fed while she grew so rapidly to a woman's stature. the present meal was such as fell to the daily lot of that household. in homely blue delft cups a dozen or more eggs were ranged beside high stacks of buttered toast, rich and yellow. the butter, the jugs of yellow cream, the huge platter heaped with wild raspberries--as each of these met his eye he was wondering if the sea-maid ever ate such food, or if her diet was more delicate. "am i going mad?" he thought to himself. the suspicion was depressing. three hours after, caius sough his father as the old man was making his nightly tour of the barns and stables. by way of easing his own sense of responsibility he had decided to tell his father what he had seen, and his telling was much like such confession of sins as many people make, soothing their consciences by an effort that does not adequately reveal the guilt to the listener. caius came up just as his father was locking the stable door. "look here, father; wait a minute. i have something to say. i saw a very curious thing down at the shore to-day, but i don't want you to tell mother, or mabel, or the men." the old man stood gravely expectant. the summer twilight just revealed the outline of his thin figure and ragged hair and beard. "it was in the water swimming about, making darts here and there like a big trout. its body was brown, and it looked as if it had horny balls round its neck; and its head, you know, was like a human being's." "i never heard tell of a fish like that, caius. was it a porpoise?" "well, i suppose i know what a porpoise is like." "about how large was it?" said the elder man, abandoning the porpoise theory. "i should think about five or six feet long." "as long as that? did it look as if it could do any harm?" "no; i should think it was harmless; but, father, i tell you its head looked like a person's head." "was it a shark with a man stuck in its throat?" "n--n--no." not liking to deny this ingenious suggestion too promptly, he feigned to consider it. "it wasn't a dead man's head; it was like a live woman's head." "i never heard of sharks coming near shore here, any way," added the old man. "what distance was it off--half a mile?" "it came between me and the little island off which we lost baby day. it lay half-way between the island and the shore." the old man was not one to waste words. he did not remark that in that case caius must have seen the creature clearly, for it went without saying. "pity you hadn't my gun," he said. caius inwardly shuddered, but because he wished to confide as far as he might, he said outwardly: "i shouldn't have liked to shoot at it; its face looked so awfully human, you know." "yes," assented the elder, who had a merciful heart "it's wonderful what a look an animal has in its eyes sometimes." he was slowly shuffling round to the next door with his keys. "well, i'm sure, my lad, i don't know what it could ha' been, unless 'twas some sort of a porpoise." "we should be quite certain to know if there was any woman paying a visit hereabout, shouldn't we? a woman couldn't possibly swim across the bay." "woman!" the old man turned upon him sternly. "i thought you said it was a fish." "i said she _swam_ like a fish. she might have been a woman dressed in a fish-skin, perhaps; but there isn't any woman here that could possibly be acting like that--and old morrison told me the same thing was about the shore the summer before he died." his father still looked at him sharply. "well, the question is, whether the thing you saw was a woman or a fish, for you must have seen it pretty clear, and they aren't alike, as far as i know." caius receded from the glow of confidence. "it lay pretty much under the water, and wasn't still long at a time." the old man looked relieved, and in his relief began to joke. "i was thinking you must have lost your wits, and thought you'd seen a mermaid," he chuckled. "i'd think it was a mermaid in a minute"--boldly--"if there were such things." caius felt relieved when he had said this, but the old man had no very distinct idea in his mind attached to the mythical word, so he let go the thought easily. "was it a dog swimming?" "no," said caius, "it wasn't a dog." "well, i give it up. next time you see it, you'd better come and fetch the gun, and then you can take it to the musee up at your college, and have it stuffed and put in a case, with a ticket to say you presented it. that's all the use strange fish are that i know of." when caius reflected on this conversation, he knew that he had been a hypocrite. chapter ix. the sea-maid's music. at dawn caius was upon the shore again, but he saw nothing but a red sunrise and a gray sea, merging into the blue and green and gold of the ordinary day. he got back to breakfast without the fact of his matutinal walk being known to the family. he managed also in the afternoon to loiter for half an hour on the same bit of shore at the same hour as the day before without anyone being the wiser, but he saw no mermaid. he fully intended to spend to-morrow by the sea, but he had made this effort to appear to skip to-day to avoid awaking curiosity. he had a horse and buggy; that afternoon he was friendly, and made many calls. wherever he went he directed the conversation into such channels as would make it certain that he would hear if anyone else had seen the mermaid, or had seen the face of a strange woman by sea or land. of one or two female visitors to the neighbourhood within a radius of twenty miles he did hear, but when he came to investigate each case, he found that the visit was known to everyone, and the status, lineage and habits of the visitors all of the same humdrum sort. he decided in his own mind that ten miles was the utmost length that a woman could possibly swim, but he talked boldly of great swimming feats he had seen in his college life, and opined that a good swimmer might even cross the bay from montrose or from the little port of stanhope in the other direction; and when he saw the incredulity of his listeners, he knew that no one had accomplished either journey, for the water was overlooked by a hundred houses at either place, and many a small vessel ploughed the waves. when he went to sleep that night caius was sure that the vision of the mermaid was all his own, shared only by old morrison, who lay in his grave. it was perhaps this partnership with the dead that gave the matter its most incredible and unreal aspect. three years before this lady of the sea had frequented this spot; none but the dead man and himself had been permitted to see her. "well, when all's said and done," said caius to himself, rolling upon a sleepless bed, "it's a very extraordinary thing." next morning he hired a boat, the nearest that was to be had; he got it a mile and a half further up the shore. it was a clumsy thing, but he rowed it past the mouth of the creek where he used to fish, all along the water front of day's farm, past the little point that was the beginning of the rocky part of the shore, and then he drew the boat up upon the little island. he hid it perfectly among the grass and weeds. over all the limited surface, among the pine shrubs and flowering weeds, he searched to see if hiding-place for the nymph could be found. two colts were pastured on the isle. he found no cave or hut. when he had finished his search, he sat and waited and watched till the sun set over the sea; but to-day there was no smiling face rearing itself from the blue water, no little hand beckoning him away. "what a fool i was not to go where she beckoned!" mused caius. "where? anywhere into the heart of the ocean, out of this dull, sordid life into the land of dreams." for it must all have been a dream--a sweet, fantastic dream, imposed upon his senses by some influence, outward or inward; but it seemed to him that at the hour when he seemed to see the maid it might have been given him to enter the world of dreams, and go on in some existence which was a truer reality than the one in which he now was. in a deliberate way he thought that perhaps, if the truth were known, he, dr. caius simpson, was going a little mad; but as he sat by the softly lapping sea he did not regret this madness: what he did regret was that he must go home and--talk to mabel. he rowed his boat back with feelings of blank disappointment. he could not give another day to idleness upon the shore. it was impossible that such an important person as himself could spend long afternoons and evenings thus without everyone's knowledge. he had a feeling, too, born, as many calculations are, of pure surmise, that he would have seen the mermaid again that afternoon, when he had made such elaborate arrangements to meet her, if fate had destined them to meet again at all. no; he must give her up. he must forget the hallucination that had worked so madly on his brain. nevertheless, he did not deny himself the pleasure of walking very frequently to the spot, and this often, in the early hours before breakfast, a time which he could dispose of as he would without comment. as he walked the beach in the beauty of the early day, he realized that some new region of life had been opened to him, that he was feeling his way into new mysteries of beatified thought and feeling. a week passed; he was again upon the shore opposite the island at the sunrise hour. he sat on the rock which seemed like a home to his restless spirit, so associated it was with the first thoughts of those new visions of beauty which were becoming dear to him. he heard a soft splashing sound in the water, and, looking about him, suddenly saw the sea-child's face lifted out of the water not more than four or five yards from him. all around her was a golden cloud of sand; it seemed to have been stirred up by her startled movement on seeing him. for a moment she was still, resting thus close, and he could see distinctly that around her white shoulders there was a coil of what seemed like glistening rounded scales. he could not decide whether the brightness in her eye was that of laughing ease or of startled excitement. then she turned and darted away from him, and having put about forty feet between them, she turned and looked back with easy defiance. his eyes, fascinated by what was to him an awful thing, were trying to penetrate the sparkling water and see the outlines of the form whose clumsy skin seemed to hang in horrid folds, stretching its monstrous bulk under the waves. his vision was broken by the sparkling splash which the maiden deliberately made with her hands, as if divining his curiosity and defying it. he felt the more sure that his senses did not play him false because the arrangement of the human and fishy substance of the apparition did not tally with any preconceived ideas he had of mermaids. caius felt no loathing of the horrid form that seemed to be part of her. he knew, as he had never known before, how much of coarseness there was in himself. his hands and feet, as he looked down at them, seemed clumsy, his ideas clumsy and gross to correspond. he knew enough to know that he might, by the practice of exercises, have made his muscles and brain the expression of his will, instead of the inert mass of flesh that they now seemed to him to be. he might--yes, he might, if he had his years to live over again, have made himself noble and strong; as it was, he was mutely conscious of being a thing to be justly derided by the laughing eyes that looked up at him from the water, a man to be justly shunned and avoided by the being of the white arms and dimpled face. and he sat upon the rock looking, looking. it seemed useless to rise or speak or smile; he remembered the mirth that his former efforts had caused, and he was dumb and still. perhaps the sea-child found this treatment more uninteresting than that attention he had lavished on her on the former occasion; perhaps she had not so long to tarry. as he still watched her she turned again, and made her way swift and straight toward the rocky point. caius ran, following, upon the shore, but after a minute he perceived that she could disappear round the point before, either by swimming or wading, he could get near her. he could not make his way around the point by the shore; his best means of keeping her in sight was to climb the cliff, from which the whole bay on the other side would be visible. like a man running a race for life, he leaped back to a place where it was possible to climb, and, once on the top, made his way by main force through a growth of low bushes until he could overlook the bay. but, lo! when he came there no creature was visible in the sunny sea beneath or on the shelving red bank which lay all plain to his view. far and wide he scanned the ocean, and long he stood and watched. he walked, searching for anyone upon the bank, till he came to day's barns, and by that time he was convinced that the sea-maid had either vanished into thin air or sunk down and remained beneath the surface of the sea. the farm to which he had come was certainly the last place in which he would have thought to look for news of the sportive sea-creature; and yet, because it stood alone there in that part of the earth, he tarried now to put some question to the owner, just as we look mechanically for a lost object in drawers or cupboards in which we feel sure it cannot be. caius found day in a small paddock behind one of the barns, tending a mare and her baby foal. day had of late turned his attention to horses, and the farm had a bleaker look in consequence, because many of its acres were left untilled. caius leaned his elbows on the fence of the paddock. "hullo!" day turned round, asking without words what he wanted, in a very surly way. at the distance at which he stood, and without receiving any encouragement, caius found a difficulty in forming his question. "you haven't seen anything odd in the sea about here, have you?" "what sort of a thing?" "i thought i saw a queer thing swimming in the water--did you?" "no, i didn't." it was evident that no spark of interest had been roused in the farmer by the question. from that, more than anything else, caius judged that his words were true; but, because he was anxious to make assurance doubly sure, he blundered into another form of the same inquiry: "there isn't a young girl about this place, is there?" day's face grew indescribably dark. in an instant caius remembered that, if the man had any feeling about him, the question was the sorest he could have asked--the child, who would now have been a girl, drowned, her sister and brother exiled, and day bound over by legal authority to see to it that no defenceless person came in the way of the wife who had killed her child! a moment more, and day had merely turned his back, going on with his work. caius did not blame him; he respected the man the more for the feeling he displayed. vexed with himself, and not finding how to end the interview, caius waited a minute, and then turned suddenly from the fence, without knowing why he turned until he saw that the constraining force was the presence of day's wife, who stood at the end of the barn, out of sight of her husband, but looking eagerly at caius. she made a sign to him to come. no doubt she had heard what had been said. caius went to her, drawn by the eagerness of her bright black eyes. her large form was slightly clad in a cotton gown; her abundant black hair was fastened rather loosely about her head. her high-boned cheeks were thinner than of old, and her face wore a more excited expression; otherwise, there was little difference in her. she had been sent from the asylum as cured. caius gave her a civil "good-day." "she has come back to me!" said the woman. "who?" "my baby as you've put up the stone to. i've allers wanted to tell you i liked that stone; but she isn't dead--she has come back to me!" now, although the return of the drowned child had been an idea often in his mind of late, that he had merely toyed with it as a beautiful fancy was proved by the fact that no sooner did the mother express the same thought than caius recognised that she was mad. "she has come back to me!" the poor mother spoke in tones of exquisite happiness. "she is grown a big girl; she has curls on her head, and she wears a marriage-ring. who is she married to?" caius could not answer. the mother looked at him with curious steadfastness. "i thought perhaps she was married to you," she said. surely the woman had seen what he had seen in the sea; but, question her as he would, caius could gain nothing more from her--no hint of time or place, or any fact that at all added to his enlightenment. she only grew frightened at his questions, and begged him in moving terms not to tell day that she had spoken to him--not to tell the people in the village that her daughter had come back, or they would put her again in the asylum. truly, this last appeared to cains a not unlikely consequence, but it was not his business to bring it about. it was not for him, who shared her delusion, to condemn her. after that, caius knew that either he was mad or what he had seen he had seen, let the explanation be what it might--and he ceased to care much about the explanation. he remembered the look of heart-satisfaction with which day's wife had told him that her child had returned. the beautiful face looking from out the waves had no doubt wrought happiness in her; and in him also it had wrought happiness, and that which was better. he ceased to wrestle with the difference that the adventure had made in his life, or to try to ignore it; he had learned to love someone far better than himself, and that someone seemed so wholly at one with the nature in which she ranged, and also with the best he could think concerning nature, human or inanimate, that his love extended to all the world for her sake. chapter x. towed by the beard. every morning caius still took his early way along the shore, but on all these walks he found himself alone in possession of the strand and the vast blue of sea and sky. it was disappointing, yet the place itself exercised a greater and greater charm over him. he abstained from fooling away his days by the sea. after his one morning walk he refused himself the luxury of being there again, filling his time with work. he felt that the lady of the lovely face would despise him if he spent his time absurdly. thus some days passed; and then there came a night when he left a bed on which he had tossed wakefully, and went in the hot august night to the side of the sea when no one knew that he went or came. the air was exceedingly warm. the harvest moon in the zenith was flooding the world with unclouded light. the tide was ebbing, and therefore there was in the channel that swift, dangerous current sweeping out to sea of which he had once experienced the strength. caius, who associated his sea-visitant only with the sunlight and an incoming tide, did not expect to see her now; frequent disappointment had bred the absence of hope. he stood on the shore, looking at the current in which he had so nearly perished as a boy. it was glittering with white moon-rays. he thought of himself, of the check and twisting which his motives and ideas had lately received, and as he thought how slight a thing had done it, how mysterious and impossible a thing it was, his mind became stunned, and he faced the breeze, and simply lived in the sweetness of the hour, like an animal, conscious, not of itself, but only of what is external, without past or future. and now he heard a little crooning song from the waters--no words, no tune that could be called a tune. it reminded him more of a baby's toneless cooing of joy, and yet it had a rhythm to it, too, and both joy and pathos in its cadence. across the bright path of the moon's reflection he saw her come. her head and neck were crowned and garlanded with shining weed, as if for a festival, and she stretched out her white arms to him and beckoned to him and laughed. he heard her soft, infant-like laughter. to-night her beckoning was like a breeze to a leaf that is ready to fall. caius ceased to think; he only acted. he threw his cap and coat and boots on the shore. the sea-child, gazing in surprise, began to recede quickly. caius ran into the water; he projected himself toward the mermaid, and swam with all the speed of which he was capable. the salt in his eyes at first obscured his vision. when he could look about, the sea-child had gone out of the track of the moonlight, and, taking advantage of the current, was moving rapidly out to sea. he, too, swam with the current. he saw her curly head dark as a dog's in the water; her face was turned from him, and there was evident movement in her body. for the first time he thought he perceived that she was swimming with arms and feet as a woman must swim. as for caius, he made all the effort that in him lay, and as she receded past the line of the island right out into the moonlit sea, he swam madly after, reckless of the fact that his swimming power gave him no assurance of being able to return, reckless of everything except the one welcome fact that he was gaining on the sea-child. a fear oppressed him that perhaps this apparent effort of hers and her slow motion were only a ruse to lead him on--that at any moment she might dart from him or sink into her familiar depths. but this fear he did not heed as long as she remained in sight, and--yes, across the surface of the warm moonlit water he was slowly but surely gaining upon her. on he swam, making strenuous effort at speed. he was growing exhausted with the unaccustomed exercise; he knew that his strength would not hold out much longer. he hardly knew what he hoped or dreamed would come to pass when he overtook the sea-maiden, and yet he swam for dear love, which was more to him than dear life, and, panting, he came close to her. the sea-maid turned about, and her face flashed suddenly upon him, bright in the moonlight. she put out a glistening arm, perhaps in human feebleness to ward him off, perhaps, in the strength of some unknown means of defence, to warn him that at his peril he approached her. caius, reckless of everything, grasped the white wrist, and, stopping his motion, knowing he could not lie mermaid-fashion with head reared in the water, he turned on his back to float, still holding the small hand in his. he held it, and retained his consciousness long enough to know from that time forth that the hand had actually been in his--a living, struggling hand, not cold, but warm. he felt, too, in that wonderful power which we have in extreme moments of noting detail, that the hand had a ring upon it--it was the left hand--and he thought it was a plain gold ring, but it did not occur to him to think of a wedding-ring. then he knew that this dear hand that he had captured was working him woe, for by it he was drawn beneath the water. even then he did not let go, but, still holding the hand, struck out to regain the surface in one of those wild struggles to which inexpert swimmers resort when they feel the deep receiving them into itself. it would have been better for him if he had let go, for in that vehement struggle he felt the evidence of the sea-maid's power. he remembered--his last thought as he lost consciousness--that with the fishy nature is sometimes given the power to stun an enemy by an electric shock. some shock came upon him with force, as if some cold metal had struck him on the head. as his brain grew dull he heard the water gurgling over him. how long he remained stunned he did not know. he felt the water rushing about his head again; he felt that he had been drowned, and he knew, too--in that foolish way in which the half-awakened brain knows the supposed certainties of dreams--that the white hand he had essayed to hold had grasped his beard firmly under his chin, and that thus holding his head above the surface of the water, she was towing him away to unknown regions. then he seemed to know nothing again; and again he opened his eyes, to find himself lying on a beach in the moonlight, and the sea-maid's face was bending over his. he saw it distinctly, all tender human solicitude written on the moonlit lineaments. as his eyes opened more her face receded. she was gone, and he gazed vacantly at the sky; then, realizing his consciousness more clearly, he sat up suddenly to see where she had gone. it seemed to him that, like a kind enchantress, she had transformed herself to break his passion. yes, he saw her, as he had so often curiously longed to see her, moving over the dry shore--she was going back to her sea. but it was a strange, monstrous thing he saw. from her gleaming neck down to the ground was dank, shapeless form. so a walrus or huge seal might appear, could it totter about erect upon low, fin-like feet. there was no grace of shape, no tapering tail, no shiny scales, only an appearance of horrid quivering on the skin, that here and there seemed glossy in the moonlight. he saw her make her way toilsomely, awkwardly over the shingle of the beach; and when she reached the shining water, it was at first so shallow that she seemed to wade in it like a land-animal, then, when the water was deep enough to rise up well around her, she turned to him once more a quick glance over her shoulder. such relief came with the sight of her face, after this monstrous vision, that he saw the face flash on him as a sword might flash out of darkness when light catches its blade. then she was gone, and he saw the form of her head in the water while she swam swiftly across the silver track of the moonbeams and out into the darkness beyond. caius looked around him with senses still drowsy and head aching sorely. he was in no fairy region that might be the home of mermaids, but on the bit of beach from which he had launched himself into the water. his coat and hat lay near him, and just above the spot where he lay was the rude epitaph of baby day, carved by his own boyish hand so long ago. caius put his hand to his head, and found it badly bruised on one side. his heart was bruised, too, partly by the sight of the monstrous body of the lovely sea-child, partly by the fresh experience of his own weakness and incapacity. it was long before he dragged himself home. it seemed to him to be days before he recovered from the weariness of that secret adventure, and he bore the mark of the bruise on his head for many a day. the mermaid he never saw again. chapter xi. years of discretion. caius simpson took ship and crossed the sea. the influence of the beautiful face remained with him. that which had come to him was the new birth of mind (not spirit), which by the grace of god comes to many an individual, but is more clearly recognised and recorded when it comes in the life of nations--the opening of the inward eye to the meaning and joy of all things that the outward senses have heretofore perceived as not perceiving them. the art of the old world claimed him as her own, as beauty on land and sea had already done. the enjoyment of music and pictures became all-important to him, at first because he searched in them for the soul he had seen in the sea-maid's eyes. caius was of noble birth, because by inheritance and training he was the slave of righteousness. for this reason he could not neglect his work, although it had not a first place in his heart. as he was industrious, he did not fail in it; because it was not the thing he loved best, he did not markedly succeed. it was too late to change his profession, and he found in himself no such decided aptitude for anything else as should make him know that this or that would have been preferable; but he knew now that the genius of the physician was not his, that to do his work because it was duty, and to attain the respectable success which circumstance, rather than mental pre-eminence, gives, was all that he could hope. this saddened him; all his ambition revived under the smarting consciousness of inferiority to his more talented companions. the pleasures of his life came to him through his receptive faculties, and in the consciousness of having seen the wider vision, and being in consequence a nobler man. but all this, which was so much to him for a year or two, grew to be a less strong sensation than that of disappointment in the fact that he could only so meagrely fulfil his father's ideal and his own. there came a sense of dishonesty, too, in having used the old man's money chiefly in acquiring those mental graces which his father could neither comprehend nor value. three years passed. gradually the memory of his love for the sea-maid had grown indistinct; and, more or less unconscious that this love had been the door to the more wealthy gardens of his mind, he inclined to despise it now as he despised the elegy he had written for the child who was drowned. it was his own passion he was inclined to forget and despise; the sea-maid herself was remembered, and respected, and wondered at, and disbelieved in, and believed in, as of old, but that which remains in the mind, never spoken of, never used as a cause of activity of either thought or action, recedes into the latent rather than the active portion of the memory. once, just once, in the first year of his foreign life, he had told to a friend the history of that, his one and only love-story. the result had not been satisfactory. his companion was quite sure that caius had been the subject of an artful trick, and he did not fail to suggest that the woman had wanted modesty. nothing, he observed, was more common than for men who were in love to attribute mental and physical charms to women who were in reality vulgar and blatant. caius, feeling that he could advance no argument, refused to discuss the subject; it was months before he had the same liking for this friend, and it was a sign that what the other called "the sea-myth" was losing its power over him when he returned to this friendship. caius did not make many friends. it was not his nature to do so, and though constant to the few that he had, he did not keep up any very lively intercourse. it was partly because of this notable failure in social duty that, when he at last decided that the work of preparation must be considered at an end, and the active work of life begun, no opening immediately revealed itself to his inquiring gaze. two vacant positions in his native country he heard of and coveted, and before he returned he gathered such testimonials as he could, and sent them in advance, offering himself as a candidate. when he landed in canada he went at once to his first college to beg in person that the influence of his former teachers might be used on his behalf. the three years that had passed without correspondence had made a difference in the attitude of those who could help him; many of his friends also were dispersed, gone from the place. he waited in montreal until he heard that he was not the accepted candidate for the better of the two positions, and that the other post would not be filled till the early spring. caius went home again. he observed that his parents looked older. the leaves were gone from the trees, the days were short, and the earth was cold. the sea between the little island and the red sandstone cliff was utterly lonely. caius walked by its side sometimes, but there was no mermaid there. _book ii._ chapter i. the hand that beckoned. it was evening. caius was watering his father's horses. between the barns and the house the space was grass; a log fence divided it, and against this stood a huge wooden pump and a heavy log hollowed out for a trough. house and barns were white; the house was large, but the barns were many times larger. if it had not been that their sloping roofs of various heights and sizes formed a progression of angles not unpleasant to the eye, the buildings would have been very ugly; but they had also a generous and cleanly aspect which was attractive. caius brought the horses to the trough in pairs, each with a hempen halter. they were lightly-built, well-conditioned beasts, but their days of labour had wrought in them more of gentleness than of fire. as they drank now, the breeze played with their manes and forelocks, brushing them about their drooping necks and meek faces. caius pumped the water for them, and watched them meditatively the while. there was a fire low down in the western sky; over the purple of the leafless woods and the bleak acres of bare red earth its light glanced, not warming them, but showing forth their coldness, as firelight glancing through a window-pane glows cold upon the garden snows. the big butter-nut-tree that stood up high and strong over the pump rattled its twigs in the air, as bare bones might rattle. it was while he was still at the watering that the elder simpson drove up to the house door in his gig. he had been to the post-office. this was not an event that happened every day, so that the letter which he now handed caius might as well as not have been retarded a day or two in its delivery. caius took it, leading the horses to their stalls, and he examined it by the light of the stable lantern. the writing, the appearance of the envelope and post-mark, were all quite unfamiliar. the writing was the fine italian hand common to ladies of a former generation, and was, in caius' mind, connected only with the idea of elderly women. he opened the letter, therefore, with the less curiosity. inside he found several pages of the same fine writing, and he read it with his arm round the neck of one of the horses. the lantern, which he had hung on a nail in the stall, sent down dim candlelight upon the pair. when caius had read the letter, he turned it over and over curiously, and began to read it again, more out of sheer surprise than from any relish for its contents. it was written by one madame josephine le maã®tre, and came from a place which, although not very far from his own home, was almost as unknown to him as the most remote foreign part. it came from one of the magdalen islands, that lie some eighty miles' journey by sea to the north of his native shore. the writer stated that she knew few men upon the mainland--in which she seemed to include the larger island of prince edward--that caius simpson was the only medical man of whom she had any personal knowledge who was at that time unemployed. she stated, also, that upon the island where she lived there were some hundreds of fisher-folk, and that a very deadly disease, that she supposed to be diphtheria, was among them. the only doctor in the whole group refused to come to them, because he feared to take back the infection to the other islands. indeed, so great was the dread of this infection, that no helpful person would come to their aid except an english priest, and he was able only to make a short weekly visit. it was some months now since the disease had first appeared, and it was increasing rather than diminishing. "come," said the letter, "and do what you can to save the lives of these poor people--their need of you is very great; but do not come if you are not willing to risk your life, for you will risk it. do not come if you are not willing to be cut off from the world all the months the ice lies in the gulf, for at that time we have no communication with the world. you are a good man; you go to church, and believe in the divine christ, who was also a physician. it is because of this that i dare to ask you. there is a schooner that will be lying in the harbour of souris for two or three weeks after the time that you receive this letter. then she will come here upon her last winter trip. i have arranged with the captain to bring you to us if you can come." after that the name of the schooner and its captain was given, a list also of some of the things that he would need to bring with him. it was stated that upon the island he would receive lodging and food, and that there were a few women, not unskilled in nursing, who would carry out his instructions with regard to the sick. caius folded the letter after the second reading, finished his work with the horses, and walked with his lantern through the now darkening air to the house. just for a few seconds he stopped in the cold air, and looked about him at the dark land and the starry sky. "i have now neither the belief nor the enthusiasm she attributes to me," said caius. when he got into the bright room he blinked for a moment at the light by which his father was reading. the elder man took the letter in his hard, knotted hand, and read it because he was desired to do so. when finished, he cast it upon the table, returning to his newspaper. "hoots!" said he; "the woman's mad!" and then meditatively, after he had finished his newspaper paragraph: "what dealings have you ever had with her?" "i never had any dealings with her." "when you get a letter from a strange woman"--the father spoke with some heat--"the best thing that you can do with it is to put it in the fire." now, caius knew that his father had, as a usual thing, that kindly and simple way of looking at the actions of his fellow-men which is refinement, so that it was evident that the contents of the letter were hateful. that was to be expected. the point that aroused the son's curiosity was to know how far the father recognised an obligation imposed by the letter. the letter would be hateful just in so far as it was considered worthy of attention. "i suppose," said the young man dubiously, "that we can easily find out at souris whether the statements in the letter are true or not?" the father continued to read his paper. the lamp upon the unpolished walnut table had no shade or globe upon it, and it glared with all the brilliancy of clean glass, and much wick and oil. the dining-room was orderly as ever. the map of palestine, the old bible, and some newly-acquired commentaries, obtruded themselves painfully as ornaments. there was no nook or corner in which anything could hide in shadow; there were no shutters on the windows, for there was no one to pass by, unless it might be some good or evil spirit that floated upon the dark air. mr. simpson continued to read his paper without heeding his son. the mother's voice chiding the maid in the next room was the only sound that broke the silence. "i'll write to that merchant you used to know at souris, father," caius spoke in a business-like voice. "he will be able to find out from all the vessels that come in to what extent there is disease on the magdalens." the exciting cause in caius of this remark was his father's indifference and opposition, and the desire to probe it. "you'll do nothing of the sort." simpson's answer was very testy. "what call have you to interfere with the magdalens?" his anger rose from a cause perhaps more explicable to an onlooker than to himself. in the course of years there had grown in the mind of caius much prejudice against the form and measure of his parents' religion. he would have throttled another who dared to criticise them, yet he himself took a certain pleasure in an opportunity that made criticism pertinent rather than impertinent. it was not that he prided himself on knowing or doing better, he was not naturally a theorist, nor didactic; but education had awakened his mind, not only to difficulties in the path of faith, but to a higher standard of altruism than was exacted by old-fashioned orthodoxy. "i think i'd better write to souris, sir; the letter is to me, you see, and i should not feel quite justified in taking no steps to investigate the matter." how easy the hackneyed phrase "taking steps" sounded to caius! but experience breeds strong instincts. the elder man felt the importance of this first decision, and struck out against it as an omen of ill. "in my opinion you'll do well to let the matter lie where it is. how will you look making inquiries about sick folk as if you had a great fortune to spend upon philanthropy, when it turns out that you have none? if you'd not spent all my money on your own schooling, perhaps you'd have some to play the fine gentleman with now, and send a hospital and its staff on this same schooner." (this was the first reproach of his son's extravagance which had ever passed his lips; it betokened passion indeed.) "if you write you can't do less than send a case of medicines, and who is to pay for them, i'd like to know? i'm pretty well cleared out. they're a hardened lot of wreckers on those islands--i've heard that told of them many a time. no doubt their own filth and bad living has brought disease upon them, if there's truth in the tale; and as to this strange woman, giving no testimony or certificate of her respectability, it's a queer thing if she's to begin and teach you religion and duty. it's a bold and impudent letter, and i suppose you've enough sense left, with all your new fangles, to see that you can't do all she asks. what do you think you can do? if you think i'm going to pay for charity boxes to be sent to people i've no opinion of, when all the missionary subscriptions will be due come the new year, you think great nonsense, that's all." he brought his large hard hand down on the table, so that the board rang and the lamp quaked; then he settled his rounded shoulders stubbornly, and again unfurled the newspaper. this strong declaration of wrath, and the reproaches concerning the money, were a relief to caius. a relief from what? had he contemplated for a moment taking his life in his hand and obeying the unexpected appeal? yet he felt no answering anger in return for the rebuke; he only found himself comfortably admitting that if his father put it on the score of expense he certainly had no right to give time or money that did not belong to him. it was due to his parents that all his occupation should henceforth be remunerative. he put the letter away in his pocket, but, perhaps because he laid it next his heart, the next day its cry awoke within him again, and would not be silenced. christianity was identified in his mind with an exclusive way of life, to him no longer good or true; but what of those stirring principles of socialism that were abroad in the world, flaunting themselves as superior to christianity? he was a child of the age, and dared not deny its highest precepts. who would go to these people if he did not go? as to his father, he had coaxed him before for his own advantage; he could coax him now for theirs if he would. he was sufficiently educated to know that it was more glorious to die, even unrenowned, upon such a mission, than to live in the prosperity that belongs to ordinary covetousness, that should it be his duty to obey this call, no other duty remained for him in its neglect. his personal desire in the matter was neither more nor less noble than are the average feelings of well-meaning people towards such enterprise. he would have been glad to find an excellent excuse to think no more of this mission--very glad indeed to have a more attractive opening for work set before him; but, on the other hand, the thought of movement and of fresh scenes was more attractive than staying where he was. then, it would be such a virtuous thing to do and to have done; his own conscience and everyone who heard of the action must applaud it. and he did not think so much of the applause of others as of the real worthiness of the deed. then, again, if he came back safely in the spring, he hoped by that time the offer of some good post would be waiting for him; and it would be more dignified to return from such an excellent work to find it waiting, than to sit at home humbly longing for its advent. caius went to souris and questioned the merchants, talked to the captains of the vessels in the port, saw the schooner upon which madame le maã®tre had engaged his passage. what seemed to him most strange in the working out of this bit of his life's story, was that all that the letter said appeared to be true. the small island called cloud island, where the pestilence was, and to which he had been invited, was not one at which larger ships or schooners could land, so that it was only from the harbour of another island that the seamen got their news. on all hands it was known that there was bad disease upon cloud island, that no doctor was there, and that there was one lady, a madame le maã®tre, a person of some property, who was devoting herself to nursing the sick. when caius asked who she was, and where she came from, one person said one thing and one another. some of the men told him that she was old, some of them affirmed that she was young, and this, not because there was supposed to be any mystery concerning her, but because no one seemed to have taken sufficient interest in her existence to obtain accurate information. when caius re-entered the gate of his father's farm he had decided to risk the adventure, and obey the letter in all points precisely. "would you let it be said that in all these parts there was no one to act the man but a woman?" he said to his father. to his mother he described the sufferings that this disease would work, all the details of its pains, and how little children and mothers and wives would be the chief sufferers, dying in helpless pain, or being bereft of those they loved best. as he talked, the heart of the good woman rose up within her and blessed her son, acknowledging, in spite of her natural desires, that he was in this more truly the great man than she had fancied him in her wildest dreams of opulence and renown. she credited him with far purer motives than he knew himself to possess. a father's rule over his own money is a very modified thing, the very fact of true fatherhood making him only a partner with his child. caius was under the impression that his father could have refused him the necessary outfit of medical stores for this expedition, but that was not the way old simpson looked at it. "if he must, he must," he said to his wife angrily, gloomily, for his own opinion in the matter had changed little; but to caius he gave his consent, and all the money he needed, and did not, except at first, express his disapproval, so that caius took the less pains to argue the matter with him. it was only at the last, when caius had fairly set out on his journey, and, having said good-bye, looked back to see his father stand at the gate of his own fields, that the attitude of the stalwart form and gray head gave him his first real insight into the pain the parting had cost--into the strong, sad disapproval which in the father's mind lay behind the nominal consent. caius saw it then, or, at least, he saw enough of it to feel a sharp pang of regret and self-reproach. he felt himself to be an unworthy son, and to have wronged the best of fathers. whether he was doing right or wrong in proceeding upon his mission he did not know. so in this mind he set sail. chapter ii. the isles of st. magdalen. the schooner went out into the night and sailed for the north star. the wind was strong that filled her sails; the ocean turbulent, black and cold, with the glittering white of moonlight on the upper sides of the waves. the little cabin in the forecastle was so hot and dirty that to caius, for the first half of the night, it seemed preferable almost to perish of cold upon the deck rather than rock in a narrow bunk below. the deck was a steep inclined plane, steady, but swept constantly with waves, as an incoming tide sweeps a beach. caius was compelled to crouch by what support he could find, and, lying thus, he was glad to cover himself up to the chin with an unused sail, peeping forth at the gale and the moonlight as a child peeps from the coverings of its cot. with the small hours of the night came a cold so intense that he was driven to sleep in the cabin where reigned the small iron stove that brewed the skipper's odorous pot. after he had slept a good way into the next day, he came up again to find the gale still strong and the prospect coloured now with green of wave and snow of foam, blue of sky and snow of winged cloud. the favourable force was still pushing them onward toward the invisible north star. it was on the evening of that day that they saw the islands; five or six hilly isles lay in a half-circle. the schooner entered this bay from the east. before they came near the purple hills they had sighted a fleet of island fishing boats, and now, as night approached, all these made also for the same harbour. the wind bore them all in, they cutting the water before them, gliding round the point of the sand-bar, making their way up the channel of the bay in the lessening light, a chain of gigantic sea-birds with white or ruddy wings. all around the bay the islands lay, their hills a soft red purple in the light of a clear november evening. in the blue sky above there were layers of vapour like thin gray gossamers, on which the rosy light shone. the waters of the bay were calmer than the sea outside, yet they were still broken by foam; across the foam the boats went sweeping, until in the shadow of the isles and the fast-descending night they each furled their sails and stopped their journey. it was in the western side of the bay that the vessels lay, for the gale was from the west, and here they found shelter; but night had descended suddenly, and caius could only see the black form of the nearest island, and the twinkling lights that showed where houses were collected on its shore. they waited there till the moon rose large and white, touching the island hills again into visible existence. it was over one small rocky island that she rose; this was the one that stood sentry at the entrance of the bay, and on either side of it there were moon-lit paths that stretched far out into the gulf. on the nearer island could be seen long sand reaches, and dark rounded hills, and in a hollow of the hills the clustered lights. when the moonlight was bright the master of the schooner lowered a boat and set caius and his traps ashore, telling him that some day when the gale was over he could make his way to the island of cloud. the skipper said that the gale might blow one day, or two, or three, or more, but it could not blow always, and in the meantime there was entertainment to be had for those who could pay for it on the nearer isle. when caius stood upon the beach with his portmanteaus beside him, some half a dozen men clustered round; in their thick garments and mufflers they looked outlandish enough. they spoke english, and after much talking they bore his things to a small house on the hillside. he heard the wind clamour against the wooden walls of this domicile as he stood in its porch before the door was opened. the wind shouted and laughed and shook the house, and whistled and sighed as it rushed away. below him, nearer the shore, lay the village, its white house-walls lit by the moonlight, and beyond he could see the ships in the glittering bay. when the door opened such a feast of warmth and comfort appeared to his eyes that he did not soon forget it, for he had expected nothing but the necessaries of life. bright decoration of home-made rugs and ornaments was on all sides, and a table was laid. they were four spinsters of irish descent who kept this small inn, and all that good housewifery could do to make it comfortable was done. the table was heaped with such dainties as could be concocted from the homely products of the island; large red cranberries cooked in syrup gave colour to the repast. soon a broiled chicken was set before caius, and steaming coffee rich with cream. to these old maids caius was obliged to relate wherefore he had come and whither he was bound. he told his story with a feeling of self-conscious awkwardness, because, put it in as cursory a manner as he would, he felt the heroism of his errand must appear; nor was he with this present audience mistaken. the wrinkled maidens, with their warm irish hearts, were overcome with the thought that so much youth and beauty and masculine charm, in the person of the young man before them, should be sacrificed, and, as it seemed to them, foolishly. the inhabitants of cloud island, said these ladies, were a worthless set; and in proof of it they related to him how the girls of the cloud were not too nice in their notions to marry with the shipwrecked sailors from foreign boats, a thing they assured him that was never done on their own island. italian, or german, or norwegian, or whoever the man might be, if he had good looks, a girl at the cloud would take him! and would not they themselves, caius asked, in such a case, take pity on a stranger who had need of a wife? whereat they assured him that it was safer to marry a native islander, and that no self-respecting woman could marry with a man who was not english, or irish, or scotch, or french. it was of these four latter nationalities that the native population of the islands was composed. but the ladies told him worse tales than these, for they said the devil was a frequent visitor at cloud island, and at times he went out with the fishers in their boats, choosing now one, now another, for a companion; and whenever he went, there was a wonderful catch of fish; but the devil must have his full share, which he ate raw and without cleaning--a thing which no christian could do. he lived in the round valleys of the sand-dune that led to the cloud. it was a convenient hiding-place, because when you were in one valley you could not see into the next, and the devil always leaped into the one that you were not in. as to the pestilence, it was sent as a judgment because the people had these impious dealings with the evil one; but the devil could put an end to it if he would. it was strange to see the four gray-haired sisters as they sat in a row against the wall and told him in chiming sentences these tales with full belief. "and what sort of a disease is it?" asked caius, curious to hear more. "it's the sore throat and the choke, sir," said the eldest sister, "and a very bad disease it is, for if it doesn't stop at the throat, it flies direct to the stomach, sir, and then you can't breathe." caius pondered this description for a few moments, and then he formed a question which was to the point. "and where," said he, "is the stomach?" at which she tapped her chest, and told him it was there. he had eaten somewhat greedily, and when he found that the linen of his bed was snow-white and the bed itself of the softest feathers, he lay down with great contentment. not even the jar and rush of the wind as it constantly assaulted the house, nor the bright moonlight against the curtainless window, kept him awake for a moment. he slept a dreamless sleep. chapter iii. between the surf and the sand. next day the wind had grown stronger; the same clear skies prevailed, with the keen western gale, for the west wind in these quarters is seldom humid, and at that season it was frosty and very dry, coming as it did over the already snow-covered plains of gaspã© and quebec. it seemed strange to caius to look out at the glorious sunshine and be told that not a boat would stir abroad that day, and that it would be impossible for even a cart to drive to the cloud island. he knew so little of the place to which he had come that when the spinsters spoke of driving to another island it seemed to him that they spoke as wildly as when they told of the pranks of the evil one. he learned soon that these islands were connected by long sand ridges, and that when the tide was down it was possible to drive upon the damp beach from one to another; but this was not possible, they told him, in a western gale, for the wind beat up the tide so that one could not tell how far it would descend or how soon it would return. there was risk of being caught by the waves under the hills of the dune, which a horse could not climb, and, they added, he had already been told who it was who lived in the sand hollows. in the face of the sunny morning, caius could not forbear expressing his incredulity of the diabolical legend, and his hostesses did not take the trouble to argue the point, for it is to be noted that people seldom argue on behalf of the items of faith they hold most firmly. the spinsters merely remarked that there were a strange number of wrecks on the sand-bar that led to the cloud, and that, go where he would in the village, he would get no sand-pilot to take him across while the tide was beaten up by the wind, and a pilot he must have, or he would sink in the quicksands and never be seen again. caius walked, with the merry wind for a playfellow, down through long rows of fish-sheds, and heard what the men had to say with regard to his journey. he heard exactly what the women had told him, for no one would venture upon the dune that day. then, still in company with the madcap wind, he walked up on the nearer hills, and saw that this island was narrow, lying between blue fields of sea, both bay and ocean filled with wave crests, ever moving. the outer sea beat upon the sandy beach with a roar and volume of surf such as he had never seen before, for under the water the sand-bank stretched out a mile but a little below the sea's level, and the breakers, rolling in, retarded by it and labouring to make their accustomed course, came on like wild beasts that were chafed into greater anger at each bound, so that with ever-increasing fury they roared and plunged until they touched the verge. from the hills he saw that the fish-sheds which stood along the village street could only be a camping place for the fishers at the season of work, for all along the inner sides of the hills there were small farm-houses, large enough and fine enough to make good dwellings. the island was less savage than he had supposed. indignation rose within him that people apparently so well-to-do should let their neighbours die without extending a helping hand. he would have been glad to go and bully some owner of a horse and cart into taking him the last stage of his journey without further delay; but he did not do this, he only roamed upon the hills enjoying the fair prospect of the sea and the sister isles, and went back to his inn about two o'clock. there he feasted again upon the luxurious provision that the spinsters had been making for the appetite that the new air had given him. he ate roast duck, stuffed with a paste of large island mushrooms, preserved since their season, and tarts of bake-apple berries, and cranberries, and the small dark mokok berry--three kinds of tart he ate, with fresh cream upon them, and the spinster innkeepers applauded his feat. they stood around and rejoiced at his eating, and again they told him in chorus that he must not go to the other island where the people were sick. it was just then that a great knock came at the front door; the loudness of the wind had silenced the approaching footsteps. a square-built, smooth-faced man, well wrapped in a coat of ox fur, came into the house, asking for caius simpson by name. his face was one which it was impossible to see without remarking the lines of subtle intelligence displayed in its leathery wrinkles. the eyes were light blue, very quick, almost merry--and yet not quite, for if there was humour in them, it was of the kind that takes its pleasures quietly; there was no proneness to laughter in the hard-set face. when caius heard his own name spoken, he knew that something unexpected had happened, for no one upon the island had asked his name, and he had not given it. the stranger, who, from his accent, appeared to be a canadian of irish parentage, said, in a few curt words, that he had a cart outside, and was going to drive at once to cloud island, that he wished to take the young doctor with him; for death, he observed, was not sitting idle eating his dinner at the cloud, and if anyone was coming to do battle with him it would be as well to come quickly. the sarcasm nettled caius, first, because he felt himself to be caught napping; secondly, because he knew he was innocent. the elder of the spinsters had got behind the stranger, and she intimated by signs and movements of the lips that the stranger was unknown, and therefore mysterious, and not to be trusted; and so quickly was this pantomime performed that it was done before caius had time to speak, although he was under the impression that he rose with alacrity to explain to the newcomer that he would go with him at once. the warning that the old maid gave resulted at least in some cautious questioning. caius asked the stranger who he was, and if he had come from the cloud that day. as to who he was, the man replied that his name was john o'shea, and he was the man who worked the land of madame le maã®tre. "one does not go and come from cloud island in one day at this season," said he. "'tis three days ago since i came. i've been waiting up at the parson's for the schooner. to-day we're going back together, ye and me." he was sparing of language. he shut his mouth over the short sentences he had said, and that influence which always makes it more or less difficult for one man to oppose the will of another caused caius to make his questions as few as possible. was it safe, he asked, to drive to cloud island that day? the other looked at him from head to foot. "not safe," he said, "for women and childer; but for men"--the word was lingered upon for a moment--"yes, safe enough." the innkeepers were too mindful of their manners as yet to disturb the colloquy with open interruption; but with every other sort of interruption they did disturb it, explaining by despairing gestures and direful shakings of the head that, should caius go with this gentleman, he would be driving into the very jaws of death. nevertheless, after o'shea's last words caius had assented to the expedition, although he was uncertain whether the assent was wise or not. he had the dissatisfaction of feeling that he had been ruled, dared, like a vain schoolboy, into the hasty consent. "now, if you are servant to madame le maã®tre at the cloud, how is it that you've never been seen on this island?" it was the liveliest of the sisters who could no longer keep silence. while caius was packing his traps he was under the impression that o'shea had replied that, in the first place, he had not lived long at the cloud, and, in the second, visitors from the cloud had not been so particularly welcome at the other islands. his remarks on the last subject were delivered with brief sarcasm. after he had started on the journey caius wondered that he had not remembered more particularly the gist of an answer which it concerned him to hear. at the time, however, he hastened to strap together those of his bundles which had been opened, and, under the direction of o'shea, to clothe himself in as many garments as possible, o'shea arguing haste for the sake of the tide, which, he said, had already begun to ebb, and there was not an hour to be lost. the women broke forth once more, this time into open expostulation and warning. to them o'shea vouchsafed no further word, but with an annoying assumption that the doctor's courage would quail under their warnings, he encouraged him. "there's a mere boy, a slim lad, on my cart now," he said, "that's going with us; he's no more froightened than a gull is froightened of the sea." caius showed his valour by marching out of the door, a bag in either hand. no snow had as yet fallen on the islands. the grass that was before the inn door was long and of that dry green hue that did not suggest verdure, for all the juices had gone back into the ground. it was swept into silver sheens by the wind, and as they crossed it to reach the road where the cart stood, the wind came against them all with staggering force. the four ladies came out in spite of the icy blast, and attended them to the cart, and stood to watch them as they wended their way up the rugged road that led over a hill. the cart was a small-sized wooden one--a shallow box on wheels; no springs, no paint, had been used in its making. some straw had been spread on the bottom, and on this caius was directed to recline. his bags also were placed beside him. o'shea himself sat on the front of the cart, his legs dangling, and the boy, who was "no more froightened of the journey than a sea-gull is of the sea," perched himself upon one corner of the back and looked out backwards, so that his face was turned from caius, who only knew that he was a slim lad because he had been told so; a long gray blanket-coat with capuchin drawn over the head and far over the face covered him completely. caius opposed his will to the reclining attitude which had been suggested to him, and preferred to sit upon the flat bottom with the desire to keep erect; and he did sit thus for awhile, like a porcelain mandarin with nodding head, for, although the hardy pony went slowly, the jolting of the cart on the rough, frozen road was greater than it is easy for one accustomed to ordinary vehicles to imagine. up the hill they went, past woods of stunted birch and fir, past upland fields, from which the crops had long been gathered. they were making direct for the southern side of the island. while they ascended there was still some shelter between them and the fiercest blast of the gale, and they could still look down at the homely inn below, at the village of fishers' sheds and the dancing waters of the bay. he had only passed one night there, and yet caius looked at this prospect almost fondly. it seemed familiar in comparison with the strange region into which he was going. when the ridge was gained and the descent began, the wind broke upon them with all its force. he looked below and saw the road winding for a mile or more among the farms and groves of the slope, and then out across a flat bit of shrub-covered land; beyond that was the sand, stretching here, it seemed, in a tract of some square miles. the surf was dimly seen like a cloud at its edge. it was not long that he sat up to see the view. the pony began to run down the hill; the very straw in the bottom of the cart danced. caius cast his arms about his possessions, fearing that, heavy though they were, they would be thrown out upon the roadside, and he lay holding them. the wind swept over; he could hear it whistling against the speed of the cart; he felt it like a knife against his cheeks as he lay. he saw the boy brace himself, the lithe, strong muscles of his back, apparent only by the result of their action, swayed balancing against the jolting, while, with thickly-gloved hands, he grasped the wooden ledge on which he sat. in front o'shea was like an image carved of the same wood as the cart, so firmly he held to it. well, such hours pass. after a while they came out upon the soft, dry sand beyond the scrubby flat, and the horse, with impeded footsteps, trudged slowly. the sand was so dry, driven by the wind, that the horse and cart sank in it as in driven snow. the motion, though slow, was luxurious compared to what had been. o'shea and the boy had sprung off the cart, and were marching beside it. caius clambered out, too, to walk beside them. "ye moight have stayed in, mr. doctor," said o'shea. "the pony is more than equal to carrying ye." again caius felt that o'shea derided him. he hardly knew why the man's words always gave him this impression, for his manner was civil enough, and there was no particular reason for derision apparent; for, although o'shea's figure had broadened out under the weight of years, he was not a taller man than caius, and the latter was probably the stronger of the two. when caius glanced later at the other's face, it appeared to him that he derived his impression from the deep, ray-like wrinkles that were like star-fish round the man's eyes; but if so, it must have been that something in the quality of the voice reflected the expression of the face, for they were not in such plight as would enable them to observe one another's faces much. the icy wind bore with it a burden of sparkling sand, so that they were often forced to muffle their faces, walking with heads bowed. since caius would walk, o'shea ordered the boy back into the cart, and the two men ploughed on through the sand beside the horse, whose every hair was turned by the wind, which now struck them sideways, and whose rugged mane and forelock were streaming horizontally, besprinkled with sand. the novelty of the situation, the beauty of the sand-wreaths, the intoxication of the air, the vivid brilliancy of the sun and the sky, delighted caius. the blue of heaven rounded the sandscape to their present sight, a dome of blue flame over a plain whose colour was like that of an autumn leaf become sear. caius, in his exhilaration, remarked upon the strangeness of the place, but either the prospect was too common to o'shea to excite his interest, or the enterprise he meditated burdened his mind; he gave few words in answer, and soon they, too, relapsed into the silence that the boy and the pony had all the time observed. an hour's walk, and another sound rang in their ears beside the whistling of the wind, low at first and fitful, louder and louder, till the roar of the surf was deafening. then they came to the brink and heard all the notes of which the chords of its more distant music had been composed, the gasping sob of the under tow, the rush of the lifting wave as it upreared itself high, the silken break of its foam, the crash of drums with which it fell, the dash of wave against wave, and the cry of the foremost waves that bemoaned themselves prostrate upon the beach. the cart, with its little company, turned into the narrow strip of dark damp sand that the tide had already left bare. here the footing was much firmer, and the wind struck them obliquely. the hardy pony broke into its natural pace, a moderate trot. in spite of this pace, the progress they made was not very swift, and it was already four by the clock. o'shea climbed to his place on the front of the cart; the boy sprang down and ran to warm himself, clapping his gloved hands as he ran. it was not long before caius clambered into his straw seat again, and, sitting, watched the wonder of the waves. so level was the beach, so high was the surf, that from the low cart it seemed that gigantic monsters were constantly arising from the sea; and just as the fear of them overshadowed the fascinated mind, they melted away again into nothingness. as he looked at the waves he saw that their water, mixed with sand, was a yellowish brown, and dark almost to black when the curling top yawned before the downfall; but so fast did each wave break one upon the other that glossy water was only seen in glimpses, and boiling fields of foam and high crests of foam were the main substance of all that was to be seen for a hundred yards from the shore. proceeding thus, they soon came to what was actually the end of the island, and were on the narrow ridge of sand-dunes which extended a distance of some twenty miles to the next island. the sand-hills rising sheer from the shore, fifty, sixty, or a hundred feet in height, bordered their road on the right. to avoid the soft dry sand of their base the pony often trotted in the shallow flow of the foam, which even yet now and then crept over all the damp beach to the high-water mark. the wind was like spur and lash; the horse fled before it. eyes and ears grew accustomed even to the threatening of the sea-monsters. the sun of the november afternoon sank nearer and nearer the level of sand and foam; they could not see the ocean beyond the foam. when it grew large and ruddy in the level atmosphere, and some flakes of red, red gold appeared round it, lying where the edge of the sea must be, like the islands of the blessed, when the crests of the breakers near and far began to be touched with a fiery glow, when the soft dun brown of the sand-hills turned to gold, caius, overcome with having walked and eaten much, and drunk deeply of the wine of the wild salt wind, fell into a heavy dreamless slumber, lying outstretched upon his bed of straw. chapter iv. where the devil lived. caius did not know how long he slept. he woke with a sudden start and a presentiment of evil. it was quite dark, as black as starlight night could be; for the foam of the waves hardly glimmered to sight, except here and there where some phosphorescent jelly was tossed among them like a blue death-light. what had wakened caius was the sound of voices talking ahead of the cart, and the jerk of the cart as it was evidently being driven off the smooth beach on to a very rough and steep incline. he sat up and strove to pierce the darkness by sight. they had come to no end of their journey. the long beach, with its walls of foam and of dune, stretched on without change. but upon this beach they were no longer travelling; the horse was headed, as it were, to the dune, and now began to climb its almost upright side. with an imprecation he threw himself out of the cart at a bound into sand so soft that he sank up to the knees and stumbled against the upright side of the hill. the lower voice he had heard was silent instantly. o'shea stopped the pony with a sharp word of interrogation. "where are you going?" shouted caius. "what are you going to do?" he need not have shouted, for the wind was swift to carry all sounds from his lips to o'shea; but the latter's voice, as it came back to him, seemed to stagger against the force of the wind and almost to fail. "where are we going? well, we're going roight up towards the sky at present, but in a minute we'll be going roight down towards the other place. if ye just keep on at that side of the cart ye'll get into a place where we'll have a bit of shelter and rest till the moon rises." "what is the matter? what are you turning off the road for?" caius shouted again, half dazed by his sleep and sudden awakening, and wholly angry at the disagreeable situation. he was cold, his limbs almost numb, and to his sleepy brain came the sudden remembrance of the round valleys in the dune of which he had heard, and the person who lived in them. his voice was inadequately loud. the ebullition of his rage evidently amused o'shea, for he laughed; and while caius listened to his laughter and succeeding words, it seemed to him that some spirit, not diabolic, hovered near them in the air, for among the sounds of the rushing of the wind and of the sea came the soft sound of another sort of laughter, suppressed, but breaking forth, as if in spite of itself, with irresistible amusement; and although caius felt that it was indulged at his own expense, yet he loved it, and would fain have joined in its persuasive merriment. while the poetical part of him listened, trying to catch this illusive sound, his more commonplace faculties were engaged by the answer of o'shea: "it's just as ye loike, mr. doctor. you can go on towards the cloud by the beach if you've got cat's eyes, or if you can feel with your toes where the quicksands loy; but the pony and me are going to take shelter till the moon's up." "well, where are you going?" asked caius. "can't you tell me plainly? i never heard of a horse that could climb a wall." "and if the little beast is good-natured enough to do it for ye, it's as shabby a trick as i know to keep him half-way up with the cart at his back. he's a cliver little pony, but he's not a floy; and i never knew that even a floy could stand on a wall with a cart and doctor's medicine bags a-hanging on to it. g'tup!" this last sound was addressed to the pony, which in the darkness began once more its astonishing progress up the sand-hill. the plea for mercy to the horse entered caius' reason. the spirit-like laughter had in some mysterious way soothed his heart. he stood still, detaining o'shea no longer, and dimly saw the horse and cart climb up above him. o'shea climbed first, for his tones were heard caressing and coaxing the pony, which he led. caius saw the cart, a black mass, disappear over the top of the hill, which was here not more than twenty feet high. when it was gone he could dimly descry a dark figure, which he supposed to be the boy, standing on the top, as if waiting to see what he would do; so, after holding short counsel with himself, he, too, began to stagger upward, marvelling more and more at the feat of the pony as he went, for though the precipice was not perpendicular, it had this added difficulty, that all its particles shifted as they were touched. there was, however, some solid substance underneath, for, catching at the sand grasses, clambering rather than walking, he soon found himself at the top, and would have fallen headlong if he had not perceived that there was no level space by seeing the boy already half-way down a descent, which, if it was unexpected, was less precipitous, and composed of firmer ground. he heard o'shea and the cart a good way further on, and fancied he saw them moving. the boy, at least, just kept within his sight; and so he followed down into a hollow, where he felt crisp, low-growing herbage beneath his feet, and by looking up at the stars he could observe that its sandy walls rose all around him like a cup. on the side farthest from the sea the walls of the hollow rose so high that in the darkness they looked like a mountainous region. they had gone down out of the reach of the gale; and although light airs still blew about them, here the lull was so great that it seemed like going out of winter into a softer clime. when caius came up with the cart he found that the traces had already been unfastened and the pony set loose to graze. "is there anything for him to eat?" asked caius curiously, glad also to establish some friendly interchange of thought. "one doesn't travel on these sands," said o'shea, "with a horse that can't feed itself on the things that grow in the sand. it's the first necessary quality for a horse in these parts." "what sort of things grow here?" asked caius, pawing the ground with his foot. he could not quite get over the inward impression that the mountainous-looking region of the dune over against them was towered with infernal palaces, so weird was the place. o'shea's voice came out of the darkness; his form was hardly to be seen. "sit yourself down, mr. doctor, and have some bread and cheese--that is, if ye've sufficiently forgotten the poies of the old maids. the things that grow here are good enough to sit on, and that's all we want of them, not being ponies." the answer was once more an insult in its allusion to the pies (caius was again hungry), and in its refusal of simple information; but the tone was more cheerful, and o'shea had relaxed from his extreme brevity. caius sat down, and felt almost convivial when he found that a parcel of bread and cheese and a huge bottle of cold tea were to be shared between them. either the food was perfect of its kind or his appetite good sauce, for never had anything tasted sweeter than the meal. they all three squatted in the darkness round the contents of the ample parcel, and if they said little it was because they ate much. caius found by the light of a match that his watch told it was the hour of seven; they had been at hard travel for more than four hours, and had come to a bit of the beach which could not be traversed without more light. in another hour the moon would be up and the horse rested. when the meal was finished, each rested in his own way. o'shea laid himself flat upon his back, with a blanket over his feet. the boy slipped away, and was not seen until the waving grass on the tops of the highest dunes became a fringe of silver. until then caius paced the valley, coming occasionally in contact with the browsing pony; but neither his walk nor meditation was interrupted by more formidable presence. "ay--ee--ho--ee--ho!" it was a rallying call, a shrill cry, from o'shea. it broke the silence the instant that the moon's first ray had touched the dune. the man must have been lying looking at the highest head, for when caius heard the unexpected sound he looked round more than once before he discovered its cause, and then knew that while he had been walking the whole heaven and earth had become lighter by imperceptible degrees. as he watched now, the momentary brightening was very perceptible. the heights and shadows of the sand-hills stood out to sight; he could see the line where the low herbage stopped and the waving bent began. in the sky the stars faded in a pallid gulf of violet light. the mystery of the place was less, its beauty a thousandfold greater: and the beauty was still of the dream-exciting kind that made him long to climb all its hills and seek in all its hollows, for there are some scenes that, by their very contour, suggest more than they display, and in which the human mind cannot rid itself of the notion that the physical aspect is not all that there is to be seen. but whatever the charm of the place, now that light had revealed it caius must leave it. the party put themselves in line of march once more. the boy had gone on up where the wall of the dell was lowest, and caius tramped beside o'shea, who led the pony. once up from the hollow, their eyes were dazzled at first with the flash of the moonlight upon the water. from the top of the sand ridge they could see the sea out beyond the surf--a measureless purple waste on which far breakers rose and blossomed for a moment like a hedge of whitethorn in may, and sank again with a glint of black in the shadow of the next uprising. they went down once more where they could see nothing but the surf and the sand-hills. the boy had walked far on; they saw his coated and cowled figure swaying with the motion of his walk on the shining beach in front. the tide was at its lowest. what the fishermen had said of it was true: with the wind beating it up it had gone down but a third of its rightful distance; and now the strip that it had to traverse to be full again seemed alarmingly narrow, for a great part of their journey was still to be made. the two men got up on the cart; the boy leaped up when they reached him, before o'shea could bring it to full stop for him, and on they went. even the pony seemed to realize that there was need of haste. they had travelled about two miles more when, in front of them, a cape of rock was seen jutting across the beach, its rocky headland stretching far into the sea. caius believed that the end of their journey was near; he looked eagerly at the new land, and saw that there were houses upon the top of the cliff. it seemed unnecessary even to ask if this was their destination. secure in his belief, he willingly got off the cart at the base of the cliff, and trudged behind it, while o'shea drove up a track in the sand which had the similitude of a road; rough, soft, precipitous as it was, it still bore tracks of wheels and feet, where too far inland to be washed by the waves. the sight of them was like the sight of shore to one who has been long at sea. they went up to the back of the cliff, and came upon its high grassy top; the road led through where small houses were thickly clustered on either side. caius looked for candle, or fire, or human being, and saw none, and they had not travelled far along the street of this lifeless village when he saw that the road led on down the other side of the headland, and that the beach and the dune stretched ahead of them exactly as they stretched behind. "is this a village of the dead?" he asked o'shea. the man o'shea seemed to have in him some freak of perverseness which made it hard for him to answer the simplest question. it was almost by force that caius got from him the explanation that the village was only used during certain fishing seasons, and abandoned during the winter--unless, indeed, its houses were broken into by shipwrecked sailors, whose lives depended upon finding means of warmth. the cart descended from the cliff by the same sandy road, and the pony again trotted upon the beach; its trot was deceptive, for it had the appearance of making more way than it did. on they went--on, on, over this wonderful burnished highroad which the sea and the moonlight had laid for their travel. behind and before, look as they would, they could see only the weird white hills of sand, treeless, almost shadowless now, the seahorses foaming and plunging in endless line, and between them the road, whose apparent narrowing in the far perspective was but an emblem of the truth that the waves were encroaching upon it inch by inch. chapter v. devilry. when the cart and its little company had travelled for almost another hour, a dark object in the midst of the line of foam caught their sight. it was the boy who first saw it, and he suddenly leaned forward, clutching o'shea's arm as if in fear. the man looked steadily. "she's come in since we passed here before." the boy apparently said something, although caius could not catch the voice. "no," said o'shea; "there's cargo aboard of her yit, but the men are off of her." it was a black ship that, sailless and with masts pitifully aslant, was fixed on the sand among the surf, and the movement of the water made her appear to labour forward as if in dying throes making effort to reach the shore. the boy seemed to scan the prospect before him now far more eagerly than before; but the wreck, which was, as o'shea said, deserted, seemed to be the only external object in all that gleaming waste. they passed on, drawing up for a minute near her at the boy's instigation, and scanning her decks narrowly as they were washed by the waves, but there was no sign of life. before they had gone further caius caught sight of the dark outline of another wreck; but this one was evidently of some weeks' standing, for the masts were gone and the hulk half broken through. there was still another further out. the mere repetition of the sad story had effect to make the scene seem more desolate. it seemed as if the sands on which they trod must be strewed with the bleached skeletons of sailors, and as if they embedded newly-buried corpses in their breast. the sandhills here were higher than they had been before, and there were openings between them as if passages led into the interior valleys, so that caius supposed that here in storms or in flood-tides the waves might enter into the heart of the dune. they had not travelled far beyond the first and nearest wreck, when the monotony of their journey was broken by a sudden strange excitement which seized on them all, and which caius, although he felt it, did not at once understand. the pony was jerked back by the reins which o'shea held, then turned staggering inland, and lashed forward by the whip, used for the first time that day. caius, jerked against the side of the cart, lifted up a bruised head, gazing in wonder to see nothing in the path; but he saw that the boy had sprung lightly from the cart, and was standing higher up on the sand, his whole attitude betraying alarm as he gazed searchingly at the ground. in a moment the pony reared and plunged, and then uttered a cry almost human in its fear. then came the sensation of sinking, sinking with the very earth itself. o'shea had jumped from the cart and cut the traces. caius was springing out, and felt his spring guided by a hand upon his arm. he could not have believed that the boy had so much strength, yet, with a motion too quick for explaining words, he was guided to a certain part of the sand, pushed aside like a child to be safe, while the boy with his next agile movement tugged at the portmanteaus that contained the medical stores, and flung them at caius' feet. it was a quicksand. the pony cried again--cried to them for help. caius next found himself with o'shea holding the creature's head, and aiding its mad plunging, even while his own feet sank deeper and deeper. there was a moment when they all three plunged forward together, and then the pony threw itself upon its side, by some wild effort extricating its feet, and caius, prone upon the quivering head, rolled himself and dragged it forward. then he felt strong hands lifting him and the horse together. what seemed strangest to caius, when he could look about and think, was that he had now four companions--the boy, o'shea, and two other men, coated and muffled--and that the four were all talking together eagerly in a language of which he did not understand a word. he shook the wet sand from his clothes; his legs and arms were wet. the pony stood in an entrance to a gap in the sand-hills, quivering and gasping, but safe, albeit with one leg hurt. the cart had sunk down till its flat bottom lay on the top of the quicksand, and there appeared to float, for it sunk no further. a white cloud that had winged its way up from the south-west now drifted over the moon, and became black except at its edges. the world grew much darker, and it seemed colder, if that were possible. it soon occurred to caius that the two men now added to their party had either met o'shea by appointment, or had been lying in wait for the cart, knowing that the quicksand was also waiting to engulf it. it appeared to him that their motives must be evil, and he was not slow to suspect o'shea of being in some plot with them. he had, of course, money upon him, enough certainly to attract the cupidity of men who could seldom handle money, and the medical stores were also convertible into money. it struck him now how rash he had been to come upon this lonely drive without any assurance of o'shea's respectability. these thoughts came to him because he almost immediately perceived that he was the subject of conversation. it seemed odd to stand so near them and not understand a word they said. he heard enough now to know the language they were speaking was the patois that, in those parts, is the descendant of the jersey french. these men, then, were acadians--the boy also, for he gabbled freely to them. either they had sinister designs on him, or he was an obstruction to some purpose that they wished to accomplish. this was evident now from their tones and gestures. they were talking most vehemently about him, especially the boy and o'shea, and it was evident that these two disagreed, or at least could not for some time agree, as to what was to be his fate. caius was defenceless, for so peaceful was the country to which he was accustomed that he carried no weapon. he took his present danger little to heart. there was a strange buoyancy--born, no doubt, of the bracing wind--in his spirit. if they were going to kill him--well, he would die hard; and a man can but die once. a laugh arose from the men; it sounded to him as strange a sound, for the time and place, as the almost human cry of the horse a few minutes before. then o'shea came towards him with menacing gestures. the two men went back into the gap of the sand-hills from whence they must have come. "look here," said o'shea roughly, "do ye value your life?" "certainly." caius folded his arms, and made this answer with well-bred contempt. "and ye shall have your life, but on one condition. take out of your bags what's needed for dealing with the sick this noight, for there's a dying man ye must visit before ye sleep, and the condition is that ye walk on to the cloud by yourself on this beach without once looking behoind ye. moind what i say! ye shall go free--yerself, yer money, and yer midicines--if ye walk from here to the second house that is a loighthouse without once turning yer head or looking behoind ye." he pointed to the bags with a gesture of rude authority. "take out what ye need, and begone!" "i shall do nothing of the sort," replied caius, his arms still folded. the boy had come near enough to hear what was said, but he did not interfere. "and why not?" asked o'shea, a jeer in his tones. "because i would not trust one of you not to kill me as soon as my back was turned." "and if your back isn't turned, and that pretty quick, too, ye'll not live many hours." "i prefer to die looking death in the face; but it'll be hard for the man who attempts to touch me." "oh! ye think ye'll foight for it, do ye?" asked o'shea lightly; "but ye're mistaken there--the death ye shall doie will admit of no foighting on your part." "there is something more in all this business than i understand." apart from the question whether he should die or live, caius was puzzled to understand why his enemies had themselves fallen foul of the quicksand, or what connection the accident could have with the attack upon his life. "there is more in this than i understand," he repeated loudly. "just so," replied o'shea, imperturbable; "there is more than ye can understand, and i offer ye a free passage to a safe place. haven't ye wits enough about ye to take it and be thankful?" "i will not turn my back." caius reiterated his defiance. "and ye'll stroike out with yer fist at whatever comes to harm ye? will ye hit in the face of the frost and the wind if ye're left here to perish by cold, with your clothes wet as they are? or perhaps ye'll come to blows with the quicksand if half a dozen of us should throw ye in there." "there are not half a dozen of you," he replied scornfully. "come and see." o'shea did not offer to touch him, but he began to walk towards the opening in the dune, and dragged caius after him by mere force of words. "come and see for yourself. what are ye afraid of, man? come! if ye want to look death in the face, come and see what it is ye've got to look at." caius followed reluctantly, keeping his own distance. o'shea passed the shivering pony, and went into the opening of the dune, which was now all in shadow because of the black cloud in the sky. inside was a small valley. its sand-banks might have been made of bleached bones, they looked so gray and dead. just within the opening was an unexpected sight--a row of hooded and muffled figures stood upright in the sand. there was something appalling in the sight to caius. each man was placed at exactly the same distance from his fellow; they seemed to stand with heads bowed, and hands clasped in front of their breasts; faces and hands, like their forms, were hooded and muffled. caius did not think, or analyze his emotion. no doubt the regular file of the men, suggesting discipline which has such terrible force for weal or woe, and their attitudes, suggesting motives and thoughts of which he could form not the faintest explanation, were the two elements which made the scene fearful to him. o'shea stopped a few paces from the nearest figure, and caius stopped a few paces nearer the opening of the dune. "ye see these men?" said o'shea. caius did not answer. o'shea raised his voice: "i say before them what i have said, that if ye'll swear here before heaven, as a man of honour, that ye'll walk from here to the loighthouse on the cloud--which ye shall find in the straight loine of the beach--without once turning yer head or looking behoind ye, neither man nor beast nor devil shall do ye any hurt, and yer properties shall be returned to ye when a cart can be got to take them. will ye swear?" caius made no answer. he was looking intently. as soon as the tones of o'shea's voice were carried away by the bluster of the wind, as far as the human beings there were concerned there was perfect stillness; the surf and the wind might have been sweeping the dunes alone. "and if i will not swear?" asked caius, in a voice that was loud enough to reach to the last man in the long single rank. o'shea stepped nearer him, and, as if in pretence of wiping his face with his gloved hand, he sent him a hissing whisper that gave a sudden change of friendliness and confidence to his voice, "don't be a fool! swear it." "are these men, or are they corpses?" asked caius. the stillness of the forms before him became an almost unendurable spectacle. he had no sooner spoken than o'shea appealed to the men, shouting words in the queer guttural french. and caius saw the first man slowly raise his hand as if in an attitude of oath-taking, and the second man did likewise. o'shea turned round and faced him, speaking hastily. the shadow of the cloud was sending dark shudderings of lighter and darker shades across the sand hollow, and these seemed almost like a visible body of the wind that with searching blast drifted loose sand upon them all. with the sweep of the shadow and the wind, caius saw the movement of the lifted hand go down the line. "i lay my loife upon it," said o'shea, "that if ye'll say on yer honour as a man, and as a gintleman, that ye'll not look behoind ye, ye shall go scot-free. it's a simple thing enough; what harm's there in it?" the boy had come near behind caius. he said one soft word, "promise!" or else caius imagined he said it. caius knew at least what the boy wished him to do. the pony moved nearer, shivering with cold, and caius realized that the condition of wet and cold in which they were need not be prolonged. "i promise," he shouted angrily, "and i'll keep the promise, whatever infernal reason there may be for it; but if i'm attacked from behind----" he added threats loud and violent, for he was very angry. before he had finished speaking--the thought might have been brought by some movement in the shadow of the cloud, and by the sound of the wind, or by his heated brain--but the thought came to him that o'shea, under his big fur-coat, had indulged in strange, harsh laughter. caius cared nothing. he had made his decision; he had given his word; he had no thought now but to take what of his traps he could carry and be gone on his journey. chapter vi. the sea-maid. caius understood that he had still three miles of the level beach to tread. at first he hardly felt the sand under his feet, they were so dead with cold. the spray from the roaring tide struck his face sideways. he had time now to watch each variation, each in and out of the dune, and he looked at them eagerly, as the only change that was afforded to the monotony. then for the first time he learned how completely a man is shut out from all one half of the world by the simple command not to look behind him, and all the unseen half of his world became rife, in his thought, with mysterious creatures and their works. at first he felt that he was courting certain death by keeping the word he had given; in the clap of the waves he seemed to hear the pistol-shot that was to be his doom, or the knife-like breath of the wind seemed the dagger in the hand of a following murderer. but as he went on and no evil fate befell, his fear died, and only curiosity remained--a curiosity so lively that it fixed eagerly upon the stretch of the surf behind him, upon his own footsteps left on the soft sand, upon the sand-hills that he had passed, although they were almost the same as the sand-hills that were before. it would have been a positive joy to him to turn and look at any of these things. while his mind dwelt upon it, he almost grudged each advancing step, because it put more of the interesting world into the region from which he was shut out as wholly as if a wall of separation sprang up between the behind and before. by an effort of will he turned his thought from this desire, or from considering what the mysterious something could be that it was all-important for him not to see, or who it was that in this desolate place would spy upon him if he broke his vow. when his activity had set the blood again coursing warmly in his veins, all that was paltry and depressing passed from his mind and heart, as a mist is rolled away by the wind. the sweet, wild air, that in those regions is an elixir of life to the stranger, making him young if he be old, and if he be young making him feel as demigods felt in days of yore, for a day and a night had been doing its work upon him. mere life and motion became to him a delight such as he had never felt before; and when the moon came out again from the other side of the cloud, the sight of her beams upon surf and sand was like a rare wild joy. he was glad that no one interfered with his pleasure, that he was, as far as he knew, alone with the clouds that were winging their way among moonbeams in the violet sky, and with the waves and the wind with which he held companionship. he had gone a mile, it might be more; he heard a step behind him. in vain he tried to convince himself that some noise natural to the lonely beach deceived him. in the high tide of life that the bracing air had brought him, his senses were acute and true. he knew that he heard this step: it was light, like a child's; it was nimble, like a fawn's; sometimes it was very near him. he was not in the least afraid; but do what he would, his mind could form no idea of what creature it might be who thus attended him. no dark or fearful picture crossed his mind just then; all its images were good. the fleet of white clouds that were sailing in the sky rang glad changes upon the beauty of the moonlit scene. half a mile or more caius walked listening to the footstep; then he came on a wrecked boat buried in the sand, its rim laid bare by the tide. caius struck his foot and fell upon it. striking his head, stunned for a moment, then springing up again, in the motion of falling or rising, he knew not how, he saw the beach behind him--the waves that were now nearing the foot of the dune, the track between with his footsteps upon it, and, standing in this track, alert to fly if need be, the figure of a girl. her dress was all blown by the wind, her curling hair was like a twining garland round her face, and her face--ah! that face: he knew it as well as, far better than he knew his own; its oval curves, its dimpled sweetness, its laughing eyes. just for such brief seconds of time as were necessary for perfect recognition he saw it; and then, impelled by his former purpose--no time now for a new volition--he got himself up and walked on, with his eyes in front as before. he thought the sea-maid did not know that he had seen her, for her footsteps came on after his own. or, if she knew, she trusted him not to turn. that was well; she might trust him. never in his life had caius felt less temptation to do the thing that he held to be false. he knew now, for he had seen the whole line of the beach, that there was nothing there for him to fear, nothing that could give any adequate reason to any man to compel him to walk as he now walked. that did not matter; he had given his word. in the physical exaltation of the hour the best of him was uppermost. like the angels, who walk in heavenly paths, he had no desire to be a thing that could stoop from moral rectitude. the knowledge that his old love of the sea was his companion only enhanced the strength of his vow, only made all that the strength of vows mean more dear to him; and the moonlit shore was more beautiful, and life, each moment that he was then living, more absolutely good. so they went on, and he did not try to think where the sea-maid had come from, or whether the gray flapping dress and the girlish step were but the phantom guise that she could don for the hour, or whether, if he should turn and pursue her, she would drop from her upright height into the scaly folds that he had once seen, and plunge into the waves, or whether _that_ had been the masquerade, and she a true woman of the land. he did not know or care. come what come might, his spirit walked the beach that night with the beautiful spirit that the face of the sea-maid interpreted to him. chapter vii. the grave lady. the hills of cloud island were a fair sight to see in the moonlight. when the traveller came close to them, the beach ended obviously in a sandy road which led up on the island. there was a small white wooden house near the beach; there was candlelight within, but caius took no notice of it. the next building was a lighthouse, which stood three hundred yards farther on. the light looking seaward was not visible. he passed the distance swiftly, and no sooner were his feet level with the wall of the square wooden tower, than he turned about on the soft sandy road and faced the wind that had been racing with him, and looked. the scene was all as he might have expected to see it; but there was no living creature in sight. he stood in the gale, bare-headed, looking, looking; he had no desire to enter the house. the sea-maid was not in sight, truly; but as long as he stood alone in the moonlight scene, he felt that her presence was with him. then he remembered the dying man of whom he had been told, who lay in such need of his ministrations. the thought came with no binding sense of duty such as he had felt concerning the keeping of his vow. he would have scorned to do a dishonourable thing in the face of the uplifting charm of the nature around him, and, more especially, in the presence of his love; but what had nature and this, her beautiful child, to do with the tending of disease and death? better let the man die; better remain himself in the wholesome outside. he felt that he would put himself at variance with the companions of the last glorious hour if he attended to the dictates of this dolorous duty. yet, because of a dull habit of duty he had, he turned in a minute, and went into the house where he had been told he would receive guidance for the rest of his journey. he had no sooner knocked at the substantial door on the ground-floor of the lighthouse than it was opened by a sallow-faced, kindly-looking old woman. she admitted him, as if he were an expected comer, into a large square room, in which a lamp and a fire were burning. the room was exquisitely neat and clean, as if the inspector of lighthouses might be looked for at any moment. the woman, who was french, spoke a little english, and her french was of a sort which caius could understand and answer. she placed a chair for him by the heated stove, asked where mr. o'shea and the cart had tarried, listened with great interest to a brief account of the accident in the quicksand, and, without more delay, poured out hot strong coffee, which caius drank out of a large bowl. "are you alone in the house?" asked caius. the impression was strong upon him that he was in a place where the people bore a dangerous or mysterious character. a woman to be alone, with open doors, must either be in league with those from whom danger might be feared, or must possess mysterious powers of self-defence. the woman assured him that she was alone, and perfectly safe. she gave a kindly and careful glance at the traveller's boots, which had been wet, and brought him another pair. it was evident she knew who caius was, and wherefore he had come to the island, and that her careful entertainment of him was prearranged. it was arranged, too, that she should pass him on to the patient for whom his skill was chiefly desired that night as quickly as possible. she gave him only reasonable time to be warmed and fed, telling him the while what a good man this was who had lately been taken so very ill, what an excellent husband and father, how important his life was to the welfare of the community. "for," said she, "he is truly rather rich and very intelligent; so much so that some would even say that he was the friend of madame le maã®tre." her voice had a crescendo of vehemence up to this last name. caius had his marching orders once more. his hostess went out with him to the moonlit road to point his way. she showed him where the road divided, and which path to take, and said that he must then pass three houses and enter the fourth. she begged him, with courteous authority, to hasten. the houses were a good way apart. after half an hour's fast walking, caius came to the appointed place. the house was large, of light-coloured wood, shingled all over roof and sides, and the light and shades in the lapping of the shingles gave the soft effect almost as of feathers in the lesser light of night. it stood in a large compound of undulating grassy ground. the whole lower floor of this house was one room. in the middle of it, on a small pallet bedstead, lay the sick man. beside him was a woman dressed in gray homespun, apparently his wife, and another woman who wore a dress not unlike that of a nun, a white cap being bandaged closely round her forehead, cheeks and chin. the nun-like dress gave her great dignity. she seemed to caius a strong-featured woman of large stature, apparently in early middle age. he was a good deal surprised when he found that this was madame le maã®tre. he had had no definite notion of her, but this certainly did not fulfil his idea. it was but the work of a short time to do all that could be done that night for the sick man, to leave the remedies that were to be used. it was now midnight. the hot stove in the room, causing reaction from the strongly-stimulating air, made him again feel heavy with sleep. the nun-like lady, who had as yet said almost nothing to him, now touched him on the shoulder and beckoned him to follow her. she led him out into the night again, round the house and into a barn, in either side of which were tremendous bins of hay. "your house," she said, "is a long way from here, and you are very tired. in the house here there is the infection." here she pointed him to the hay, and, giving him a warm blanket, bade him good-night. caius shut the door, and found that the place was lit by dusky rays of moonlight that came through chinks in its walls. he climbed the ladder that reached to the top of the hay, and rolled himself and his blanket warmly in it. the barn was not cold. the airiness of the walls was a relief to him after the infected room. never had couch felt more luxurious. chapter viii. how they lived on the cloud. when the chinks of moonlight had been replaced by brighter chinks of sunlight, the new doctor who had come so gallantly to the aid of the sufferers on cloud island opened his eyes upon his first day there. he heard some slight sounds, and looked over the edge of his bed to see a little table set forth in the broad passage between the two stores of hay. a slip of a girl, of about fourteen years of age, was arranging dishes upon it. when caius scrambled down, she informed him, with childish timidity of mien, that madame le maã®tre had said that he was to have his breakfast there before he went in to see "father." the child spoke french, but caius spoke english because it relieved his mind to do so. "upon my word!" he said, "madame le maã®tre keeps everything running in very good order, and takes prodigious care of us all." "oh, oui, monsieur," replied the child sagely, judging from his look of amusement and the name he had repeated that this was the proper answer. the breakfast, which was already there, consisted of fish, delicately baked, and coffee. the young doctor felt exceedingly odd, sitting in the cart-track of a barn and devouring these viands from a breakfast-table that was tolerably well set out with the usual number of dishes and condiments. the big double door was closed to keep out the cold wind, but plenty of air and numerous sunbeams managed to come in. the sunbeams were golden bars of dust, crossing and interlacing in the twilight of the windowless walls. the slip of a girl in her short frock remained, perhaps from curiosity, perhaps because she had been bidden to do so, but she made herself as little obvious as possible, standing up against one corner near the door and shyly twisting some bits of hay in her hands. caius, who was enjoying himself, discovered a new source of amusement in pretending to forget her presence and then looking at her quickly, for he always found the glance of her big gray eyes was being withdrawn from his own face, and child-like confusion ensued. when he had eaten enough, he set to his proper work with haste and diligence. he made the girl tell him how many children there were, and find them all for him, so that in a trice he had them standing in a row in the sunlight outside the barn, with their little tongues all out, that the state of their health might be properly inspected. then he went in to his patient of the night before. the disease was diphtheria. it was a severe case; but the man had been healthy, and caius approved the arrangements that madame le maã®tre had made to give him plenty of air and nourishment. the wife was alone with her husband this morning, and when caius had done all that was necessary, and given her directions for the proper protection of herself and the children, she told him that her eldest girl would go with him to the house of madame le maã®tre. that lady, said she simply, would tell him where he was to go next, and all he was to do upon the island. "upon my word!" said caius again to himself, "it seems i am to be taken care of and instructed, truly." he had a sense of being patronized; but his spirits were high--nothing depressed him; and, remembering the alarming incident of the night before, he felt that the lady's protection might not be unnecessary. when he got to the front of the house, for the first time in the morning light, he saw that the establishment was of ample size, but kept with no care for a tasteful appearance. there was no path of any sort leading from the gate in the light paling to the door; all was a thick carpet of grass, covering the unlevelled ground. the grass was waving madly in the wind, which coursed freely over undulating fields that here displayed no shrubs or trees of any sort. caius wondered if the wind always blew on these islands; it was blowing now with the same zest as the day before; the sun poured down with brilliancy upon everything, and the sea, seen in glimpses, was blue and tempestuous. truly, it seemed a land which the sun and the moon and the wind had elected to bless with lavish self-giving. when caius opened the gate of the whitewashed paling, the girl who was to be his guide came round from the back of the house after him, and on her track came a sudden rush of all the other children, who, with curls and garments flying in the wind and delightful bursts of sudden laughter, came to stand in a row again with their tongues outstretched at caius' retreating form. the girl could only talk french, and she talked very little of that, giving him "yes" or "no" demurely, as they went up the road which ran inland through the island hills, keeping about midway between sea and sea. caius saw that the houses and small farms on either side resembled those which he had seen on the other island. small and rough many of them were; but their whitewashed walls, the strong sunshine, and the large space of grass or pine shrubs that was about each, gave them an appearance of cleanliness. there was no sign of the want or squalor that he had expected; indeed, so prosperous did many of the houses look, that he himself began to have an injured feeling, thinking that he had been brought to befriend people who might very well have befriended themselves. it was when they came out at a dip in the hills near the outer sea again that the girl stopped, and pointing caius to a house within sight, went back. this house in the main resembled the other larger houses of the island; but pine and birch trees were beginning to grow high about it, and on entering its enclosure caius trod upon a gravel path, and noticed banks of earth that in the summer time had held flowers. in front of the white veranda two powerful mastiffs were lying in the sun. these lions were not chained; they were looking for him before he appeared, but did not take the trouble to rise at the sight of him; only a low and ominous rumble, as of thunder beneath the earth, greeted his approach, and gave caius the strong impression that, if need was, they would arise to some purpose. a young girl opened the door. she was fresh and pretty-looking, but of plebeian figure and countenance. her dress was again gray homespun, hanging full and short about her ankles. her manner was different from that of those people he had been lately meeting, for it had that gentle reserve and formality that bespeaks training. she ushered him into a good-sized room, where three other girls like herself were engaged in sewing. sitting at a table with a book, from which she had apparently been reading to them, was the woman in the nun-like dress whom he had met before. the walls of the room were of unpainted pinewood, planed to a satin finish, and adorned with festoons of gray moss such as hangs from forest boughs. this was tied with knots of red bittersweet berries; the feathers of sea-birds were also displayed on the walls, and chains of their delicate-coloured eggs were hanging there. caius had not stepped across the threshold before he began to suspect that he had passed from the region of the real into the ideal. "she is a romantic-minded woman," he said to himself. "i wonder if she has much sense, after all?" then the woman whom he was thus inwardly criticising rose and came across the room to meet him. her perfect gravity, her dignity of bearing, and her gracious greeting, impressed him in spite of himself. pictures that one finds in history and fiction of lady abbesses rose before his mind; it was thus that he classified her. his opinion as to the conscious romance of her life altered, for the woman before him was very real, and he knew in a moment that she had seen and suffered much. her eyes were full of suffering and of solicitude; but it did not seem to him that the suffering and solicitude were in any way connected with a personal need, for there was also peace upon her face. the room did not contain much furniture. when caius sat down, and the lady had resumed her seat, he found, as is apt to be the way in empty rooms, that the chairs were near the wall, and that he, sitting facing her, had left nearly the room's width between them. the sewing maidens looked at them with large eyes, and listened to everything that was said; and although they were silent, except for the sound of their stitching, it was so evident that their thoughts must form a running commentary that it gave caius an odd feeling of acting in company with a dramatic chorus. the lady in front of him had no such feeling; there was nothing more evident about her than that she did not think of how she appeared or how she was observed. "you are very good to have come." she spoke with a slight french accent, whether natural or acquired he could not tell. then she left that subject, and began at once to tell the story of the plague upon the island--when it began, what efforts she and a few others had made to arrest it, the carelessness and obstinacy with which the greater part of the people had fostered it, its progress. this was the substance of what she said; but she did not speak of the best efforts as being her own, nor did she call the people stupid and obstinate. she only said: "they would not have their houses properly cleaned out; they would not wash or burn garments that were infected; they would not use disinfectants, even when we could procure them; they will not yet. you may say that in this wind-swept country there can be nothing in nature to foster such a disease, nothing in the way the houses are built; but the disease came here on a ship, and it is in the houses of the people that it lingers. they will not isolate the sick; they will not----" she stopped as if at a loss for a word. she had been speaking in a voice whose music was the strain of compassion. "in fact," said caius, with some impatience, "they are a set of fools, and worse, for they won't take a telling. your duty is surely done. they do not deserve that you should risk your life nursing them; they simply deserve to be left to suffer." she looked at him for a minute, as if earnestly trying to master a view of the case new to her. "yes," speaking slowly. he saw that her hands, which were clasped in her lap, pressed themselves more closely together--"yes, that is what they deserve; but, you see, they are very ignorant. they do not see the importance of these precautions; they have not believed me; they will not believe you. they think quite honestly and truly that they will get on well enough in doing their own way." "pig-headed!" commented caius. then, perceiving that he had not quite carried her judgment along with his: "you yourself, madam, have admitted that they do not deserve that either you or i should sacrifice our lives to them." "ah, no," she replied, trouble of thought again in her eyes; "they do not deserve that. but what do we deserve--you and i?" there was no studied effect in the question. she was like one trying to think more clearly by expressing her thought aloud. "madam," replied he, the smile of gallantry upon his lips, "i have no doubt that you deserve the richest blessings of earth and heaven. for myself----" he shrugged his shoulders, just about to say conventionally, flippantly, that he was a sad, worthless fellow, but in some way her sincerity made him sincere, and he finished: "i do not know that i have done anything to forfeit them." he supposed, as soon as he had said the words, that she would have a theological objection to this view, and oppose it by rote; but there was nothing of disapproval in her mien; there was even a gleam of greater kindliness for him in her eye, and she said, not in answer, but as making a remark by the way: "that is just as i supposed when i asked you to come. you are like the young ruler, who could not have been conceited because our lord felt greatly attracted to him." before this caius had had a pleasing consciousness, regarding himself as an interesting stranger talking to a handsome and interested woman. now he had wit enough to perceive that her interest in him never dipped to the level of ordinary social relationships. he felt a sense of remoteness, and did not even blush, though knowing certainly that satire, although it was not in her mind, was sneering at him from behind the circumstance. the lady went right on, almost without pause, taking up the thread of her argument: "but when the angels whisper to us that the best blessings of earth and heaven are humility and faith and the sort of love that does not seek its own, do we get up at once and spend our time learning these things? or do we just go on as before, and think our own way good enough? 'we are fools and worse, and will not take a telling.'" a smile broke upon her lip now for the first time as she looked at him. "'pig-headed!'" she said. caius had seen that smile before. it passed instantly, and she sat before him with grave, unruffled demeanour; but all his thoughts and feelings seemed a-whirl. he could not collect his mind; he could not remember what she had said exactly; he could not think what to answer; indeed, he could not think at all. there had been a likeness to his phantastic lady-love of the sea; then it was gone again; but it left him with all his thoughts confounded. at length--because he felt that he must look like a fool indeed--he spoke, stammering the first thing that occurred to him: "the patient that i have seen did not appear to be in a house that was ill-ventilated or--or--that is, he was isolated from the rest of the family." he perceived that the lady had not the slightest knowledge of what it was that had really confused him. he knew that in her eyes, in the eyes of the maidens, it must appear that her home-thrust had gone to his heart, that he had changed the subject because too weak to be able to answer her. he was mortified at this, but he could not retrace his steps in the conversation, for she had already answered him. the household he had already visited, she said, with a few others, had helped her by following sanitary rules; and then she went on talking about what those rules were, what could and could not be done in the circumstances of the families affected. as she talked on, caius knew that the thing he had thought must be false and foolish. this woman and that other maiden were not the same in thought, or character, or deed, or aspect. furthermore, what experience he had made him feel certain that the woman who had known him in that relationship could not be so indifferent to his recognition, so indifferent to all that was in him to which her beauty appealed, as this woman was, and of this woman's indifference he felt convinced. the provision made for the board and lodging of the new doctor was explained to him. it was not considered safe for him to live with any of the families of the island. a very small wooden building, originally built as a stable, but never used, had been hastily remodelled into a house for him. it was some way further down the winding road, within sight of the house of madame le maã®tre. caius was taken to this new abode, and found that it contained two rooms, furnished with the necessities and many of the comforts of life. the stove was good; abundance of fuel was stacked near the house; simple cooking utensils hung in the outer room; adjoining it, or rather, in a bit of the same building set apart, was a small stable, in which a very good horse was standing. the horse was for his use. if he could be his own bed-maker, cook, and groom, it was evident that he would lack for nothing. a man whom madame le maã®tre sent showed caius his quarters, and delivered to him the key; he also said that madame le maã®tre would be ready in an hour to ride over the island with him and introduce him to all the houses in which there was illness. caius was left for the hour to look over his establishment and make friends with his horse. it was all very surprising. chapter ix. the sick and the dead. the bit of road that lay between madame le maã®tre's house and the house allotted to caius led, winding down a hill, through a stunted fir-wood. the small firs held out gnarled and knotty branches towards the road; their needles were a dark rich green. down this road caius saw the lady come riding. her horse was a beautiful beast, hardly more than a colt, of light make and chestnut colour. she herself was not becomingly attired; she wore just the same loose black dress that she had worn in the house, and over the white cap a black hood and cloak were muffled. no doubt in ancient times, before carriages were in use, ladies rode in such feminine wrappings; but the taste of caius had been formed upon other models. he mounted his own horse and joined her on the road without remark. he had found no saddle, only a blanket with girths, and upon this he supposed he looked quite as awkward as she did. the lady led, and they rode on across the island. caius knew that now it was the right time to tell madame le maã®tre what had occurred the night before, and the ill-usage he had suffered. as she appeared to be the most important person on the island, it was right that she should know of the mysterious band of bandits upon the beach--if, indeed, she did not already know; perhaps it was by power of these she reigned. he found himself able to conjecture almost anything. when he had quickened his horse and come beside her for the purpose of relating his adventure, she began to speak to him at once. she told him what number of cases of illness were then on her list--six in all. she told him the number who had already died; and then they came past the cemetery upon the hillside, and she pointed out the new-made graves. it appeared that, although at that time there was an abatement in the number of cases, diphtheria had already made sad ravages among the little population; and as the winter would cause the people to shut up their houses more and more closely, it was certain to increase rather than to diminish. then madame le maã®tre told him of one case, and of another, in which the family bereavement seemed particularly sad. the stories she told had great detail, but they were not tedious. caius listened, and forgot that her voice was musical or that her hood and cloak were ugly; he only thought of the actors in the short sad idylls of the island that she put before him. when they entered the first house, he discovered that she herself had been in the habit of visiting each of the sick every day as nurse, and, as far as her simple skill could go, as doctor too. in this house it was a little child that lay ill, and as soon as caius saw it he ceased to hope for its recovery. they used the new remedies that he had brought with him, and when he looked round for someone who could continue to apply them, he found that the mother was already dead, and the father took no charge of the child--he was not there. a half-grown boy of about fifteen was its only nurse, and he was not deft or wise, although love, or a rude sense of conscience, had kept him from deserting his post. "when we have visited the others, i will come back and remain," said madame le maã®tre. so they rode on down the hill and along the shingled beach that edged a lagoon. here the sea lapped softly and they were sheltered from the wind. here, too, they saw the other islands lying in the crescent they composed, and they saw the waves of the bay break on the sand-bank that was the other arm of the lagoon. still caius did not tell about his adventure of the night before. the lady looked preoccupied, as if she was thinking about the angel of death that was hovering over the cottage they had left. the next house was a large one, and here two children were ill. they were well cared for, for two of the young girls whom he had seen in madame le maã®tre's house were there for the time to nurse them. they took one of these damsels with them when they went on. she was willing to walk, but caius set her upon his horse and led it; in this way they made quicker progress. up a hill they went, and over fields, and in a small house upon a windy slope they found the mother of a family lying very ill. here, after caius had said all that there was to say, and madame le maã®tre, with skilful hands, had done all that she could do in a short time, they left the young girl. at the next and last house of their round, where the day before one child had been ill, they now found three tossing and crying with pain and fever. when it was time for them to go, caius saw his companion silently wring her hands at the thought of leaving them, for the mother, worn out and very ignorant, was the only nurse. it did not seem that it could be helped. caius went out to his horse, and madame le maã®tre to hers, but he saw her stand beside it as if too absent in mind to spring to its back; her face was looking up into the blue above. "you are greatly troubled," said caius. "oh yes," her voice was low, but it came like the sound of a cry. "i do not know what to do. all these months i have begged and entreated the people to keep away from those houses where there was illness. it was their only hope. and now that they begin to understand that, i cannot bring the healthy to nurse the sick, even if they were willing to come. they will take no precautions as we do. it is not safe; i have tried it." she did not look at caius, she was looking at the blue that hung over the sea which lay beneath them, but the weariness of a long long effort was in her tone. "could we not manage to bring them all to one house that would serve as a hospital?" "now that you have come, perhaps we can," she said, "but at present----" she looked helplessly at the door of the house they had left. "at present i will nurse these children," caius said. "i do not need to see the others again until evening." he tied his horse in a shed, and nursed the children until the moon was bright. then, when he had left them as well as might be for the night, he set out to return on his former track by memory. the island was very peaceful; on field or hill or shore he met no one, except here and there a plodding fisherman, who gave him "good-evening" without apparently knowing or caring who he was. the horse they knew, no doubt, that was enough. he made the same round as before, beginning at the other end. at the house where the woman was ill the girl who was nursing her remained. at the next house the young girl, who was dressed for the road, ingenuously claimed his protection for her homeward way. "i will go with you, monsieur, it will be more safe for me." so he put her on his horse, but they did not talk to one another. at the third house they found madame le maã®tre weeping passionately over a dead baby, and the lout of a boy weeping with her. it surprised caius to feel suddenly that he could almost have wept, too, and yet he believed that the child was better dead. someone had been out into the winter fields and gathered the small white everlasting flowers that were still waving there, and twined them in the curls of the baby's hair, and strewed them upon the meagre gray sheet that covered it. when they rode down to the village they were all quite silent. caius felt as if he had lived a long time upon this island. his brain was full of plans for a hospital and for disinfecting the furniture of the houses. he visited the good man in whose barn he had slept the preceding night. he went to his little house and fed himself and his horse. he discovered his portmanteaus that o'shea had promised to deliver, and found that their contents had not been tampered with; but even this did not bring his mind back with great interest to the events of the former night. he was thinking of other things, and yet he hardly knew of what he was thinking. chapter x. a light-giving word. the next morning, before caius went out, he wrote a short statement of all that had occurred beside the quicksand. the motive that prompted him to do this was the feeling that it would be difficult for him to make the statement to madame le maã®tre verbally. he began to realize that it was not easy for him to choose the topics of conversation when they were together. she did not ride with him next day, as now he knew the road, but in the course of the morning he saw her at the house where the three children were ill, and she came out into the keen air with him to ask some questions, and no doubt for the necessary refreshment of leaving the close house, for she walked a little way on the dry, frozen grass. heavy as was the material of her cloak and hood, the strong wind toyed with its outer parts as with muslin, but it could not lift the closely-tied folds that surrounded her face and heavily draped her figure. caius stood with her on the frozen slope. beneath them they could see the whole stretch of the shining sand-dune that led to the next island, the calm lagoon and the rough water in the bay beyond. it did not seem a likely place for outlaws to hide in; the sun poured down on every hill and hollow of the sand. caius explained then that his portmanteaus, with the stores, had arrived safely; but that he had reason to think that the man o'shea was not trusty, that, either out of malice or fear of the companions among whom he found himself, he had threatened his, dr. simpson's, life in the most unwarrantable manner. he then presented the statement which he had drawn up, and commended it to her attention. madame le maã®tre had listened to his words without obvious interest; in fact, he doubted if she had got her mind off the sick children before she opened the paper. he would have liked to go away now, leaving the paper with her, but she did not give him that opportunity. "ah! this is----" then, more understandingly, "this is an account you have written of your journey hither?" caius intimated that it was merely a complaint against o'shea. yet he felt sure, while she was reading it, that, if she had any liveliness of fancy, she must be interested in its contents, and if she had proper appreciation, she must know that he had expressed himself well. when she had finished, however, instead of coveting the possession of the document, she gently gave it back to him. "i am sorry," she said sincerely, "that you were put to inconvenience. it was so kind of you to come, that i had hoped to make your journey as comfortable as possible; but the sands are very treacherous, not because the quicksands are large or deep, but because they shift in stormy weather, sometimes appearing in one place, and sometimes in another. it has been explained"--she was looking at him now, quite interested in what she was saying--"by men who have visited these islands, that this is to be accounted for by the beds of gypsum that lie under the sand, for under some conditions the gypsum will dissolve." the explanation concerning the gypsum was certainly interesting, but the nature of the quicksand was not the point which caius had brought forward. "it is this fact, that one cannot tell where the sand will be soft, that makes it necessary to have a guide in travelling over the beach. the people here become accustomed to the appearance of the soft places, but it seems that o'shea must have been deceived by the moonlight." "i do not blame him for the accident," said caius, "but for what happened afterwards." her slight french accent gave to each of her words a quaint, distinct form of its own. "o'shea is--he is what you might call _funny_ in his way of looking at things." she paused a moment, as if entirely conscious of the inadequacy of the explanation. "i do not think," she continued, as if in perplexity, "that i can explain this matter any more; but if you will talk to o'shea----" "madam," burst out caius, "can it be that there is a large band of lawless men who have their haunts so near this island, and you do not know of it? that," he added, with emphatic reproach, "is impossible." "i never heard of any such band of men." madame le maã®tre spoke gently, and the dignity of her gentleness was such that caius was ashamed of his vehemence and his reproach. what he wondered at, what he chafed at, was, that she showed no wonder concerning an incident which her last statement made all the more remarkable. she began to turn to go towards the house, and the mind of caius hit upon the one weak point in her own acknowledged view of the matter. "you have said that it is not safe for a stranger to walk upon the sands without a guide; if you doubt my statement that these men threatened my life, it yet remains that i was left to finish my journey alone. i do not believe that there was danger myself. i do not believe that a man would sink over his head in these holes; but according to their belief and yours, madam----" he stopped, for she had turned round with a distinct flash of disapproval in her eyes. "i do not doubt your statement." she paused, and he knew that his accusation had been rude. "it would not occur to me"--there was still the slight quaintness of one unaccustomed to english--"that you could do anything unworthy of a gentleman." another pause, and caius knew that he was bound over to keep the peace. "i think o'shea got himself into trouble, and that he did the best he could for you; but o'shea lives not far from your own house. he is not my servant, except that he rents my husband's land." she paused again. caius would have urged that he had understood otherwise, or that hitherto he had not found o'shea either civil or communicative; but it appeared that the lady had something more to say after her emphasis of pause, and when she said it caius bid her good-day without making further excuse or justification. she said: "i did not understand from o'shea that he allowed you to walk on the sands without some one who would have warned you if there had been danger." when caius was riding on his way, he experienced something of that feeling of exaltation that he had felt in the presence of his inexplicable lady-love. had he not proof at least now that she was no dream or phantasy, and more than that, that she inhabited the same small land with him? these people knew her; nay (his mind worked quickly), was it not evident that she had been the link of connection between them and himself? she knew him, then--his home, his circumstances, his address. (his horse was going now where and how it would; the man's mind was confounded by the questions that came upon it pell-mell, none waiting for an answer.) in that other time when she had lived in the sea, and he had seen her from the desolate bit of coast, who was she? where had she really lived? in what way could she have gained her information concerning him? what could have tempted her to play the part of a fishy thing? he remembered the monstrous skin that had covered her; he remembered her motion in the water. then he thought of her in the gray homespun dress, such as a maid might trip her garden in, as he had seen her travelling between the surf and the dune in the winter blast. well, he lived in an enchanted land; he had to deal with men and women of no ordinary stuff and make, but they acknowledged their connection with her. he was sure that she must be near him. the explanation must come--of that, burning with curiosity as he was, he recked little. a meeting must come; all his pulses tingled with the thought. it was a thought of such a high sort of bliss to him that it seemed to wrap and enfold his other thoughts; and when he remembered again to guide his horse--all that day as he went about his work--he lived in it and worked in it. he went that evening to visit o'shea, who lived in a good-sized house half a mile or so from his own. from this interview, and from the clue which madame le maã®tre had given, he began strongly to suspect that, for some reason unknown, o'shea's threatenings were to be remembered more in the light of a practical joke than as serious. as to where the men had come from who had played their part, as to where the boy had gone to, or whether the boy and the lady were one--on these heads he got no light. the farmer affected stupidity--affected not to understand his questions, or answered them with such whimsical information on the wrong point that little was revealed. yet caius did not quarrel with o'shea. was it not possible that he, rude, whimsical man that he was, might have influence with the sea-maid of the laughing face? next morning caius received a formal message--the compliments of madame le maã®tre, and she would be glad if he would call upon her before he went elsewhere. he passed again between the growling mastiffs, and found the lady with her maidens engaged in the simple household tasks that were necessary before they went to their work of mercy. madame le maã®tre stood as she spoke to him: "when i wrote to you i said that if you came to us you would have no chance of returning until the spring. i find that that is not true. our winter has held off so long that another vessel from the mainland has called--you can see her lying in the bay. she will be returning to picton to-morrow. i think it right to tell you this; not that we do not need you now as much as we did at first; not but that my hope and courage would falter if you went; but now that you have seen the need for yourself, how great or how little it is, just as you may think, you ought to reconsider, and decide whether you will stay or not." caius spoke hastily: "i will stay." "think! it is for four months of snow and ice, and you will receive no letters, see no one that you could call a friend." "i will stay." "you have already taught me much; with the skill that you have imparted and the stores that you have brought, which i will pay for, we should be much better off than if you had not come. we should still feel only gratitude to you." "i have no thought of leaving." "remember, you think now that you have come that it is only a handful of people that you can benefit, and they will not comprehend the sacrifice that you have made, or be very grateful." "yes, i think that," replied caius, admitting her insight. "at the same time, i will remain." she sighed, and her sigh was explained by her next words: "yet you do not remain for love of the work or the people." caius felt that his steady assertion that he would remain had perhaps appeared to vaunt a heroism that was not true. he supposed that she had seen his selfishness of motive, and that it was her time now to let him see that she had not much admiration for him, so that he might make his choice without bias. "it is true that i do not love the people, but i will pass the winter here." if the lady had had the hard thought of him that he attributed to her, there was no further sign of it, for she thanked him now with a gratitude so great that silent tears trembled in her eyes. chapter xi. the lady's husband. it was impossible but that caius should take a keen interest in his medical work. it was the first time that he had stood alone to fight disease, and the weight of the responsibility added zest to his care of each particular case. it was, however, natural to him to be more interested in the general weal than in the individual, more interested in a theoretical problem than in its practical working. his mind was concerned now as to where and how the contagion hid itself, reappearing as it had done, again and again in unlikely places; for there could be assuredly no home for it in air, or sea, or land. nor could drains be at fault, for there were none. next to this, the subject most constantly in his mind was the plan of the hospital. madame le maã®tre had said to him: "i have tried to persuade the people to bring their sick to beds in my house, where we would nurse them, but they will not. it is because they are angry to think that the sick from different families would be put together and treated alike. they have great notions of the differences between themselves, and they cannot realize the danger, or believe that this plan would avert it; but now that you have come, no doubt you will be able to explain to them more clearly. perhaps they will listen to you, because you are a man and a doctor. also, what i have said will have had time to work. you may reap where i have sown." she had looked upon him encouragingly, and caius had felt encouraged; but when he began to talk to the people, both courage and patience quickly ebbed. he could not countenance the plan of bringing the sick into the house where madame le maã®tre and the young girls lived. he wanted the men who were idle in the winter time to build a temporary shed of pine-wood, which would have been easy enough, but the men laughed at him. the only reason that caius did not give them back scorn for scorn and anger for their lazy indifference was the reason that formed his third and greatest interest in his work; this was his desire to please madame le maã®tre. if he had never known and loved the lady of the sea, he thought that his desire to please madame le maã®tre would have been almost the same. she exercised over him an inexplicable influence, and he would have felt almost superstitious at being under this spell if he had not observed that everyone who came much in contact with her, and who was able to appreciate her, was ruled also, and that, not by any claim of authority she put forth, but just because it seemed to happen so. she was more unconscious of this influence than anyone. those under her rule comprised one or two of the better men of the island, many of the poor women, the girls in her house, and o'shea. with regard to himself, caius knew that her influence, if not augmented, was supplemented, by his belief that in pleasing her he was making his best appeal to the favour of the woman he loved. he never from the first day forgot his love in his work. his business was to do all that he could to serve madame le maã®tre, whose heart was in the healing of the people, but his business also was to find out the answer to the riddle in which his own heart was bound up. the first step in this, obviously, was to know more about madame le maã®tre and o'shea. the lady he dared not question; the man he questioned with persistency and with what art he could command. it was one night, not a week after his advent, that he had so far come to terms with o'shea that he sat by the stove in the latter's house, and did what he could to keep up conversation with little aid from his host. o'shea sat on one wooden chair, with his stockinged feet crossed upon another, and his legs forming a bridge between. he was smoking, and in the lamplight his smooth, queer face looked like a brown apple that had begun to shrivel--just begun, for o'shea was not old, and only a little wrinkled. his wife came often into the room, and stood looking with interest at caius. she was a fair woman, with a broad tranquil face and much light hair that was brushed smoothly. caius talked of the weather, for the snow was falling. then, after awhile: "by the way, o'shea, _who_ is madame le maã®tre?" the other had not spoken for a long time; now he took his clay pipe out of his mouth, and answered promptly: "an angel from heaven." "ah, yes; that, of course." caius stroked his moustache with the action habitual to drawing-room gallantry; then, instead of persisting, he formed his question a little differently: "who is mr. le maã®tre?" "sea-captain," said o'shea. "oh! then _where_ is he?" "don't know." "isn't that rather strange, that his wife should be here, and that you should not know where the husband is?" "i can't see the ships on the other side of the world." "where did he go to?" "well, when he last sailed"--deliberately--"he went to newcastle. his ship is what they call a tramp; it don't belong to any loine. so at newcastle she was hired to go to africy. like enough, there she got cargo for some place else." "oh! a very long voyage." "she carries steam; the longest voyage comes to an end quick enough in these days." "has madame le maã®tre always lived on this island? was she married here?" "she came here a year this october past. she came from a place near the pierced rock, south of gaspã© basin. i lived there myself. i came here because the skipper had good land here that she said i could farm." caius meditated on this. "then, you have known her ever since she was a child?" "saw her married." "what does her husband look like?" "well"--a long pause of consideration--"like a man." "what sort of a man?" "neither like you nor me." "i never noticed that we were alike." "you trim your beard, i haven't any; the skipper, he's hairy." caius conceived a great disgust for the captain. he felt pretty well convinced also that he was no favourite with o'shea. he would have liked much to ask if madame le maã®tre liked her husband, but if his own refinement had not forbidden, he had a wholesome idea that o'shea, if roused, would be a dangerous enemy. "i don't understand why, if she is married, she wears the dress of a religious order." "never saw a nun dressed jist like her. guess if you went about kissing and embracing these women ye would find it an advantage to be pretty well covered up; but"--here a long time of puffing at the pipe--"it's an advantage for more than women not to see too much of an angel." "has she any relations, anyone of her own family? where do they live?" there was no answer. "i suppose you knew her people?" o'shea sprang up and opened the house door, and the snow drove in as he held it. "i thought," he said, "i heard a body knocking." "no one knocked," said caius impatiently. "i heard someone." he stood looking very suspiciously out, and so good was his acting, if it was acting, that caius, who came and looked over his shoulder, had a superstitious feeling when he saw the blank, untrodden snow stretching wide and white into the glimmering night. he remembered that the one relative he believed the lady to have had appeared to him in strange places and vanished strangely. "you didn't hear a knock; you were dreaming." caius began to button on his coat. "i wasn't even asleep." o'shea gave a last suspicious look to the outside. "o'shea," said caius, "has--has madame le maã®tre a daughter?" the farmer turned round to him in astonishment. "bless my heart alive, no!" the snow was only two or three inches deep when caius walked home; it was light as plucked swan's-down about his feet. everywhere it was falling slowly in small dry flakes. there was little wind to make eddies in it. the waning moon had not yet risen, but the landscape, by reason of its whiteness, glimmered just visible to the sight. chapter xii. the maiden invented. the fishing-boats and small schooners were dragged high up on the beach. the ice formed upon the bay that lay in the midst of the islands. the carpet of snow grew more and more thick upon field and hill, and where the dwarf firwoods grew so close that it could not pass between their branches, it draped them, fold above fold, until one only saw the green here and there standing out from the white garment. in these days a small wooden sleigh was given to caius, to which he might harness his horse, and in which he might sit snug among oxskins if he preferred that sort of travelling to riding. madame le maã®tre still rode, and caius discarded his sleigh and rode also. missing the warmth of the skins, he was soon compelled by the cold to copy robinson crusoe and make himself breeches and leggings of the hides. in these first weeks one hope was always before his eyes. in every new house which he entered, at every turn of the roads, which began to be familiar to him, he hoped to see the maiden who had followed him upon the beach. he dreamed of her by night; he not only hoped, he expected to see her each day. it was of course conceivable that she might have returned to some other island of the group; but caius did not believe this, because he felt convinced she must be under the protection of his friends; and also, since he had arrived the weather had been such that it would have been an event known to all the fishermen if another party had made a journey along the sands. when the snow came the sands were impassable. as soon as the ice on the bay would bear, there would be coming and going, no doubt; but until then caius had the restful security that she was near him, and that it could not be many days before he saw her. the only flaw in his conclusion was that the fact did not bear it out; he did not see her. at length it became clear that the maiden was hiding herself. caius ceased to hope that he would meet her by chance, because he knew he would already have done so if it were not willed otherwise. then his mind grew restless again, and impatient; he could not even imagine where she could lie hidden, or what possible reason there could be for a life of uncomfortable concealment. caius had not allowed either o'shea or madame le maã®tre to suspect that in his stumble he had involuntarily seen his companion on the midnight journey. he did not think that the sea-maid herself knew that he had seen her there. he might have been tempted now to believe that the vision was some bright illusion, if its reality had not been proved by the fact that madame le maã®tre knew that he had a companion, and that o'shea had staked much that he should not take that long moonlight walk by her side. since the day on which he had become sure that the sea-maid had such close and real connection with human beings that he met every day, he had ceased to have those strange and uncomfortable ideas about her, which, in half his moods, relegated her into the region of freaks practised upon mortals by the denizens of the unseen, or, still farther, into the region of dreams that have no reality. however, now that she had retired again into hiding, this assurance of his was small comfort. he would have resolutely inquired of madame le maã®tre who it was who had been sent to warn him of danger if need be upon the beach, but that the lady was not one to allow herself willingly to be questioned, and in exciting her displeasure he might lose the only chance of gaining what he sought. then, too, with the thought of accosting the lady upon this subject there always arose in his mind the remembrance of the brief minute in which, to his own confounding, he had seen the face of the sea-maid in the lady's own face, and a phantom doubt came to him as to whether she were not herself the sea-maid, disfigured and made aged by the wrappings she wore. he did not, however, believe this. he had every reason to refuse the belief; and if he had had no other, this woman's character was enough, it appeared to him, to give the lie to the thought. a more intelligent view concerning that fleeting likeness was that the two women were nearly related to one another, the younger in charge of the elder; and that the younger, who had for some purpose or prank played about in the waters near his home, must have lived in some house there, must have means of communication with the place, and must have acquainted madame le maã®tre with his position when the need of a physician arose. what was so dissatisfying to him was that all this was the merest conjecture, that the lady whom he loved was a person whom he had been obliged to invent in order to explain the appearances that had so charmed him. he had not a shadow of proof of her existence. the ice became strong, and bridged over the bay that lay within the crescent of islands. all the islands, with their dunes, were covered with snow; the gales which had beaten up the surf lessened in force; and on the long snow-covered beaches there was only a fringe of white breakers upon the edge of a sea that was almost calm. the first visitor of any importance who came across the bay was the english clergyman. nearly all the people on cloud island were protestants, in so far as they had any religion. they were not a pious people, but it seemed that this priest had been exceedingly faithful to them in their trouble, and when he had been obliged to close the church for fear of the contagion, had visited them regularly, except in those few weeks between the seasons when the road by the beach had been almost impassable. caius was first aware of the advent of this welcome visitor by a great thumping at his door one morning before he had started on his daily round. on opening it, he saw a hardy little man in a fur coat, who held out his hand to him in enthusiastic greeting. "well, now, this is what i call being a good boy--a very good boy--to come here to look after these poor folk." caius disclaimed the virtue which he did not feel. "motives! i don't care anything about motives. the point is to do the right thing. i'm a good boy to come and visit them; you're a good boy to come and cure them. they are not a very grateful lot, i'm sorry to say, but we have nothing to do with that; we're put here to look after them, and what we feel about it, or what they feel about it, is not the question." he had come into caius' room, stamping the snow off his big boots. he was a spare, elderly man, with gray hair and bright eyes. his horse and sleigh stood without the door, and the horse jingled its bells continually. here was a friend! caius decided at once to question this man concerning madame le maã®tre, and--that other lady in whose existence he believed. "the main thing that you want on these islands is nerve," said the clergyman. "it would be no good at all now"--argumentatively--"for the bishop to send a man here who hadn't nerve. you never know where you'll meet a quicksand, or a hole in the ice. chubby and i nearly went under this morning and never were seen again. some of these fellows had been cutting a hole, and--well, we just saw it in time. it would have been the end of us, i can tell you; but then, you see, if you are being a good boy and doing what you're told, that does not matter so much." it appeared that chubby was the clergyman's pony. in a short time caius had heard of various other adventures which she and her master had shared together. he was interested to know if any of them would throw any light upon the remarkable conduct of o'shea and his friends; but they did not. "the men about here," he said--"i can't make anything out of them--are they lawless?" "you see"--in explanatory tone--"if you take a man and expose him to the sea and the wind for half his life, you'll find that he is pretty much asleep the other half. he may walk about with his eyes open, but his brain's pretty much asleep; he's just equal to lounging and smoking. there are just two things these men can do--fish, and gather the stuff from wrecks. they'll make from eight dollars a day at the fishing, and from sixteen to twenty when a wreck's in. they can afford to be idle the rest of the time, and they are gloriously idle." "do they ever gather in bands to rob wrecked ships, or for other unlawful purposes?" "oh no, not in the least! oh no, nothing of the kind! they'll steal from a wreck, of course, if they get the chance; but on the sly, not by violence. their worst sin is independence and self-righteousness. you can't teach the children anything in the schools, for instance, for the parents won't have them punished; they are quite sure that their children never do anything wrong. that comes of living so far out of the world, and getting their living so easily. i can tell you, utopia has a bad effect on character." caius let the matter go for that time; he had the prospect of seeing the clergyman often. another week, when the clergyman had come to the island and caius met him by chance, they had the opportunity of walking up a long snowy hill together, leading their horses. caius asked him then about madame le maã®tre and o'shea, and heard a plain consecutive tale of their lives and of their coming to the island, which denuded the subject of all unknown elements and appeared to rob it of special interest. captain le maã®tre, it appeared, had a life-long lease of the property on cloud island, and also some property on the mainland south of gaspã© basin; but the land was worth little except by tillage, and, being a seaman, he neglected it. his father had had the land before him. pembroke, the clergyman, had seen his father. he had never happened to see the son, who would now be between forty and fifty years of age; but when madame le maã®tre had come to look after the farm on cloud island, she had made herself known to him as in charge of her husband's affairs. she found that she could not get the land worked by the islanders, and had induced o'shea, who it seemed was an old farm hand of her own father's, to settle upon this farm, which was a richer one than the one he had had upon the mainland. the soil of the islands, pembroke said, was in reality exceedingly rich, but in no case had it ever been properly worked, and he was in hopes that now madame le maã®tre might produce a model farm, which would be of vast good in showing the islanders how much they lost by their indifferent manner of treating their land. "why did she come to the islands?" "conscientiousness, i think. the land here was neglected; the people here certainly present a field white to harvest to anyone who has the missionary spirit." "is she--is she very devout?" asked caius. "well, yes, in her own way she is--mind, i say in her own way. i couldn't tell you, now, whether she is protestant or papist; i don't believe she knows herself." "he that sitteth between two stools----" suggested caius, chiefly for want of something to say. "well, no, i wouldn't say that. bless you! the truest hearts on god's earth don't trouble about religious opinions; they have got the essential oil expressed out of them, and that's all they want." to caius this subject of the lady's religion appeared a matter in which he had no need to take interest, but the other went on: "she was brought up in a convent, you know--a country convent somewhere on the gaspã© coast, and, from what she tells me, the nuns had the good policy to make her happy. she tells me that where the convent gardens abutted on the sea, she and her fellows used to be allowed to fish and row about. you see, her mother had been a catholic, and the father, being an old miser, had money, so i suppose the sisters thought they could make a nun of her; and very likely they would have done, for she is just that sort, but the father stopped that little game by making her marry before he died." "i always had an idea that the people on the coast up there were all poor and quite uneducated." "well, yes, for the most part they are pretty much what you would see on these islands; but our bishop tells me that, here and there, there are excellent private houses, and the priests' houses and the convents are tolerably well off. but, to tell you the truth, i think this lady's father had some education, and his going to that part of the country may be accounted for by what she told me once about her mother. her mother was a dancer, a ballet-dancer, a very estimable and pious woman, her daughter says, and i have no doubt it is true; but an educated man who makes that sort of marriage, you know, may prefer to live out of the world." caius was becoming interested. "if she has inherited her mother's strength and lightness, that explains how she gets on her horse. by jove! i never saw a woman jump on a horse without help as she does." "just so; she has marvellous strength and endurance, and the best proof of that, is the work she is doing nowadays. why, with the exception of three days that she came to see my wife, and would have died if she hadn't, she has worked night and day among these sick people for the last six months. she came to see my wife pretty much half dead, but the drive on the sand and a short rest pretty well set her up again." pembroke drifted off here into discourse about the affairs of his parish, which comprised all the protestant inhabitants of the island. his voice went on in the cheerful, jerky, matter-of-fact tone in which he always talked. caius did not pay much heed, except that admiration for the sweet spirit of the man and for the pluck and hardihood with which he carried on his work, grew in him in spite of his heedlessness, for there was nothing that pembroke suspected less than that he himself was a hero. "pretty tough work you have of it," said caius at last; "if it was only christening and marrying and burying them all, you would have more than enough to do, with the distances so great." "oh, bless you! my boy, yes; it's the distance and the weather; but what are we here for but to do our work? life isn't long, any way, but i'll tell you what it is--a man needs to know the place to know what he can do and what he can't. now, the bishop comes over for a week in summer--i don't know a finer man than our bishop anywhere; he doesn't give himself much rest, and that's a fact; but they've sent him out from england, and what does he know about these islands? he said to me that he wanted me to have morning service every sunday, as i have it at harbour island, and service every sunday afternoon here on the cloud." "he might as well have suggested that you had morning service on the magdalens, afternoon service in newfoundland, and evening service in labrador." "exactly, just as possible, my boy; but they had the diphtheria here, so i couldn't bring him over, even in fair weather, to see how he liked the journey." all this time caius was cudgelling his brains to know how to bring the talk back to madame le maã®tre, and he ended by breaking in with an abrupt inquiry as to how old she was. a slight change came over pembroke's demeanour. it seemed to caius that his confidential tone lapsed into one of suspicious reserve. "not very old"--dryly. caius perceived that he was being suspected of taking an undue interest in the benefactress of the island. the idea, when it came from another, surprised him. "look here! i don't take much interest in madame le maã®tre, except that she seems a saint and i'd like to please her; but what i want to know is this--there is a girl who is a sister, or niece, or daughter, or some other relation of hers, who is on these islands. who is she, and where is she?" "do you mean any of the girls she has in her house? she took them from families upon the island only for the sake of training them." "i don't mean any of those girls!"--this with emphasis. "i don't know who you mean." caius turned and faced him. do what he would, he could not hide his excited interest. "you surely must know. it is impossible that there should be a girl, young, beautiful and refined, living somewhere about here, and you not know." "i should say so--quite impossible." "then, be kind enough to tell me who she is. i have an important reason for asking." "my dear boy, i would tell you with all the pleasure in the world if i knew." "i have seen her." caius spoke in a solemn voice. the priest looked at him with evident interest and curiosity. "well, where was she, and who was she?" "you must know: you are in madame le maã®tre's confidence; you travel from door to door, day in and day out; you know everybody and everything upon these islands." "i assure you," said the priest, "that i never heard of such a person." chapter xiii. white birds; white snow; white thoughts. by degrees caius was obliged to give up his last lingering belief in the existence of the lady he loved. it was a curious position to be in, for he loved her none the less. two months of work and thought for the diseased people had slipped away, and by the mere lapse of time, as well as by every other proof, he had come to know that there was no maiden in any way connected with madame le maã®tre who answered to the visions he had seen, or who might be wooed by the man who had ceased to care for all other women for her sweet sake. after caius had arrived the epidemic had become worse, as it had been prophesied it would, when the people began to exclude the winter air from their houses. in almost every family upon the little isle there was a victim, and caius, under the compelling force of the orders which madame le maã®tre never gave and the wishes she never expressed, became nurse as well as doctor, using what skill he had in every possible office for the sick, working early and late, and many a time the night through. it was not a time to prattle of the sea-maid to either madame le maã®tre or o'shea, who both of them worked at his side in the battle against death, and were, caius verily believed, more heroic and successful combatants than himself. some solution concerning his lady-love there must be, and caius neither forgot nor gave up his intention of probing the lives of these two to discover what he wished; but the foreboding that the discovery would work him no weal made it the easier to lay the matter aside and wait. they were all bound in the same icy prison; he could afford patience. the question of the hospital had been solved in this way. madame le maã®tre had taken o'shea and his wife and children to live with her, and such patients as could be persuaded or forced into hospital were taken to his house and nursed there. then, also, as the disease became more prevalent, people who had thus far refused all sanitary measures, in dire fear opened their doors, and allowed caius and o'shea to enter with whitewash brushes and other means of disinfection. caius was successful in this, that, in proportion to the number of people who were taken ill, the death-rate was only one third of what it had been before he came. he and his fellow-workers were successful also in a more radical way, for about the end of january it was suddenly observed among them that there were no new cases of illness. the ill and the weak gradually recovered. in a few more weeks the angels of death and disease retired from the field, and the island was not depopulated. whether another outbreak might or might not occur they could not tell; but knowing the thoroughness of the work which they had done, they were ready to hope that the victory was complete. gradually their work ceased, for there was no one in all the happy island who needed nursing or medical attendance. caius found then how wonderfully free the place was from all those ailments which ordinarily beset humanity. this was in the middle of february, when the days were growing long, and even the evening was bright and light upon the islands of snow and the sea of ice. it appeared to caius that madame le maã®tre had grown years older during the pestilence. deep lines of weariness had come in her face, and her eyes were heavy with want of sleep and sympathetic tears. again and again he had feared that the disease would attack her, and, indeed, he knew that it had only been the constant riding about the island hills in the wonderful air that had kept the little band of workers in health. as it was, o'shea had lost a child, and three of the girls in the house of madame le maã®tre had been ill. now that the strain was over, caius feared prostration that would be worse than the disease itself for the lady who had kept up so bravely through it all; but, ever feeling an impossibility in her presence of speaking freely of anything that concerned herself, he had hardly been able to express the solicitude he felt before it was relieved by the welcome news that she had travelled across the bay to pay a visit to pembroke's wife. she had gone without either telling caius of her intention or bidding him good-bye, and, glad as he was, he felt that he had not deserved this discourtesy at her hands. indeed, looking back now, he felt disposed to resent the indifference with which she had treated him from first to last. not as the people's doctor. in that capacity she had been eager for his services, and grateful to him with a speechless, reverent gratitude that he felt to be much more than his due; but as a man, as a companion, as a friend, she had been simply unconscious of his existence. when she had said to him at the beginning, "you will be lonely; there is no one on the island to whom you can speak as a friend," he perceived now that she had excluded herself as well as the absent world from his companionship. it seemed to him that it had never once occurred to her that it was in her power to alter this. truly, if it had not been for pembroke, the clergyman, caius would never have had a companionable word; and he had found that there were limits to the interest he could take in pembroke, that the stock of likings and disliking that they had in common was not great. then, too, since the day on which he had questioned him so vehemently about the relatives of madame le maã®tre, he fancied that the clergyman had treated him with apprehensive reserve. at the time when he had little or nothing to do, and when madame le maã®tre had left cloud island, caius would have been glad enough to go and explore the other islands, or to luxuriate again in the cookery of the old maids at the inn at which he had first been housed. two considerations kept him from this holiday-taking. in the first place, in fear of a case of illness he did not like to leave the island while its benefactress was away; and, secondly, it was reported that all visitors from the cloud were ruthlessly shut out from the houses upon the other islands, because of the unreasoning terror which had grown concerning the disease. whether he, who carried money in his pocket, would be shut out from these neighbouring islands also, he did not care to inquire. he felt too angry with the way the inhabitants behaved to have any dealings with them. the only means of amusement that remained to caius in these days were his horse and a gun that o'shea lent him. with his lunch in his pocket, he rode upon the ice as far as he might go and return the same day. he followed the roads that led by the shores of the other islands; or, where the wind had swept all depth of snow from the ice, he took a path according to his own fancy on the untrodden whiteness. colonies of arctic gulls harboured on the island, and the herring gulls remained through the winter; these, where he could get near their rocks upon the ice, he at first took delight in shooting; but he soon lost the zest for this sport, for the birds gave themselves to his gun too easily. he was capable of deriving pleasure from them other than in their slaughter, and often he rode under their rocky homes, noting how dark their white plumage looked against their white resting-places, where groups of them huddled together upon the icy battlements and snowdrift towers of the castles that the frost had built them. he would ride by slowly, and shoot his gun in the air to see them rise and wheel upward, appearing snow-white against the blue firmament; and watched them sink again, growing dark as they alighted among the snow and ice. his warning that he himself must be nearing home was to see the return of such members of the bird-colony as had been out for the deep-sea fishing. when he saw them come from afar, flying high, often with their wings dyed pink in the sunset rays, he knew that his horse must gallop homeward, or darkness might come and hide such cracks and fissures in the ice as were dangerous. the haunts of the birds which he chiefly loved were on the side of the islands turned to the open sea, for at this time ice had formed on all sides, and stretched without a break for a mile or so into the open. there was a joy in riding upon this that made riding upon the bay tame and uninteresting; for not only was the seaward shore of island and dune wilder, but the ice here might at any time break from the shore or divide itself up into large islands, and when the wind blew he fancied he heard the waves heaving beneath it, and the excitement which comes with danger, which, by some law of mysterious nature, is one of the keenest forms of pleasure, would animate his horse and himself as they flew over it. his horse was not one of the native ponies; it was a well-bred, delicately-shaped beast, accustomed to be made a friend of by its rider, and giving sympathetic response to all his moods. the horse belonged to madame le maã®tre, and was similar to the one she rode. this, together with many other things, proved to caius that the lady who lived so frugally had command of a certain supply of money, for it could not be an easy or cheap thing to transport good horses to these islands. whatever he did, however his thoughts might be occupied, it was never long before they veered round to the subject that was rapidly becoming the one subject of absorbing interest to him. before he realized what he did, his mind was confirmed in its habit; at morn, and at noontime, and at night, he found himself thinking of madame le maã®tre. the lady he was in love with was the youthful, adventurous maiden who, it seemed, did not exist; the lady that he was always thinking of was the grave, subdued, self-sacrificing woman who in some way, he knew not how, carried the mystery of the other's existence within herself. his mind was full of almost nothing but questions concerning her, for, admire and respect her as he might, he thought there was nothing in him that responded with anything like love to her grave demeanour and burdened spirit. chapter xiv. the marriage scene. by riding across the small lagoon that lay beside cloud island to the inward side of the bay, and then eastward some twelve miles toward an island that was little frequented, the last of the chain on this horn of the crescent, one came under the highest and boldest faã§ade of cliffs that was to be found in all that group. it was here that caius chanced to wander one calm mild day in early march, mild because the thermometer stood at less than 30â° below the freezing point, and a light vault of pearly cloud shut in the earth from the heaven, and seemed, by way of contrast with other days, to keep it warm. he had ridden far, following out of aimless curiosity the track that had been beaten on the side of the bay to this farthest island. it was a new road for him; he had never attempted it before; and no sooner had he got within good sight of the land, than his interest was wholly attracted by the cliffs, which, shelving somewhat outward at the top, and having all their sides very steep and smooth, were, except for a few crevices of ice, or an outward hanging icicle, or here and there a fringe of icicles, entirely free from snow and ice. he rode up under them wonderingly, pleased to feast his eyes upon the natural colour of rock and earth, and eager, with what knowledge of geology he had, to read the story they told. this story, as far as the history of the earth was concerned, was soon told; the cliffs were of gray carboniferous limestone. caius became interested in the beauty of their colouring. blue and red clay had washed down upon them in streaks and patches; where certain faults in the rock occurred, and bars of iron-yielding stone were seen, the rust had washed down also, so that upon flat facets and concave and convex surfaces a great variety of colour and tint, and light and shade, was produced. he could not proceed immediately at the base of the cliffs, for in their shelter the snow had drifted deep. he was soon obliged to keep to the beaten track, which here ran about a quarter of a mile distant from the rock. walking his horse, and looking up as he went, his attention was arrested by perceiving that a whitish stain on a smooth dark facet of the rock assumed the appearance of a white angel in the act of alighting from aã«rial flight. the picture grew so distinct that he could not take his eyes from it, even after he had gone past, until he was quite weary of looking back or of trying to keep his restive horse from dancing forward. when, at last, however, he turned his eyes from the majestic figure with the white wings, his fancy caught at certain lines and patches of rust which portrayed a horse of gigantic size galloping upon a forward part of the cliff. the second picture brought him to a standstill, and he examined the whole face of the hill, realizing that he was in the presence of a picture-gallery which nature, it seemed, had painted all for her own delight. he thought himself the discoverer; he felt at once both a loneliness and elation at finding himself in that frozen solitude, gazing with fascinated eyes at one portion of the rock after another where he saw, or fancied he saw, sketches of this and that which ravished his sense of beauty both in colour and form. in his excitement to see what would come next, he did not check the stepping of his horse, but only kept it to a gentle pace. thus he came where the road turned round with the rounding cliff, and here for a bit he saw no picture upon the rock; but still he looked intently, hoping that the panorama was not ended, and only just noticed that there was another horse beside his own within the lonely scene. in some places here the snow was drifted high near the track; in others, both the road and the adjoining tracts of ice were swept by the wind almost bare of snow. he soon became aware that the horse he had espied was not upon the road. then, aroused to curiosity, he turned out of his path and rode through shallow snow till he came close to it. the horse was standing quite still, and its rider was standing beside it, one arm embracing its neck, and with head leaning back against the creature's glossy shoulder. the person thus standing was madame le maã®tre, and she was looking up steadfastly at the cliffs, of which this point in the road displayed a new expanse. so silently had the horse of caius moved in the muffling snow that, coming up on the other side, he was able to look at the lady for one full moment before she saw him, and in that moment and the next he saw that the sight of him robbed her face of the peace which had been written there. she was wrapped as usual in her fur-lined cloak and hood. she looked to him inquiringly, with perhaps just a touch of indignant displeasure in her expression, waiting for him to explain, as if he had come on purpose to interrupt her. "i am sorry. i had no idea you were here, or i would not have come." the next moment he marvelled at himself as to how he had known that this was the right thing to say; for it did not sound polite. her displeasure was appeased. "you have found my pictures, then," she said simply. "only this hour, and by chance." by this time he was wondering by what road she had got there. if she had ridden alone across the bay from harbour island, where the pembrokes lived, she had done a bold thing for a woman, and one, moreover, which, in the state of health in which he had seen her last, would have been impossible to her. madame le maã®tre had begun to move slowly, as one who wakes from a happy dream. he perceived that she was making preparations to mount. "i cannot understand it," he cried; "how can these pictures come just by chance? i have heard of the picture rocks on lake superior, for instance, but i never conceived of anything so distinct, so lovely, as these that i have seen." "the angels make them," said madame le maã®tre. she paused again (though her bridle had been gathered in her hand ready for the mount), and looked up again at the rock. caius was not unheedful of the force of that soft but absolute assertion, but he must needs speak, if he spoke at all, from his own point of view, not hers. "i suppose," he said, "that the truth is there is something upon the rock that strikes us as a resemblance, and our imagination furnishes the detail that perfects the picture." "in that case would you not see one thing and i another?" now for the first time his eyes followed hers, and on the gray rock immediately opposite he suddenly perceived a picture, without definite edge it is true, but in composition more complete than anything he had seen before. what had formerly delighted him had been, as it were, mere sketches of one thing or another scattered in different places, but here there was a large group of figures, painted for the most part in varied tints of gray, and blue, and pink. in the foreground of this picture a young man and young woman, radiant both in face and apparel, stood before a figure draped in priestly garments of sober gray. behind them, in a vista, which seemed to be filled with an atmosphere of light and joy, a band of figures were dancing in gay procession, every line of the limbs and of the light draperies suggesting motion and glee. how did he know that some of these were men, and some were women? he had never seen such dresses as they wore, which seemed to be composed of tunics and gossamer veils of blue and red. yet he did know quite distinctly which were men and which were women, and he knew that it was a marriage scene. the bride wore a wreath of flowers; the bridegroom carried a sheaf or garland of fruit or grain, which seemed to be a part of the ceremony. caius thought he was about to offer it to the priest. for some minutes the two looked up at the rock quite silently. now the lady answered his last remark: "what is it you see?" "you know it best; tell me what it is." "it is a wedding. don't you see the wedding dance?" he had not got down from his horse; he had a feeling that if he had alighted she would have mounted. he tried now, leaning forward, to tell her how clearly he had seen the meaning, if so it might be called, of the natural fresco, and to find some words adequately to express his appreciation of its beauty. he knew that he had not expressed himself well, but she did not seem dissatisfied at the tribute he paid to a thing which she evidently regarded with personal love. "do you think," she said, "that it will alter soon, or become defaced? it has been just the same for a year. it might, you know, become defaced any day, and then no one would have seen it but ourselves. the islanders, you know, do not notice it." "ah, yes," said caius; "beauty is made up of two parts--the objects seen and the understanding eye. we only know how much we are indebted to training and education when we find out to what extent the natural eye is blind." this remark did not seem to interest her. he felt that it jarred somehow, and that she was wishing him away. "but why," he asked, "should angels paint a marriage? they neither marry----" he stopped, feeling that she might think him flippant if he quoted the text. "because it is the best thing to paint," she said. "how the best?" "well, just the best human thing: everyone knows that." "has her marriage been so gloriously happy?" said caius to himself as the soft assurance of her tones reached his ears, and for some reason or other he felt desolate, as a soul might upon whom the door of paradise swung shut. then irritably he said: "_i_ don't know it. most marriages seem to me----" he stopped, but she had understood. "but if this picture crumbles to pieces, that does not alter the fact that the angels made it lovely." (her slight accent, because it made the pronunciation of each word more careful, gave her speech a quaint suggestion of instruction that perhaps she did not intend.) "the idea is painted on our hearts in just the same way; it is the best thing we can think of, except god." "yet," urged caius, "even if it is the best from our point of view, you will allow that it is written that it is not a heavenly institution. the angels should try to teach us to look at something higher." "the words do not mean that. i don't believe there is anything higher for us. i don't believe people are not married in heaven." with sweet unreason she set aside authority when it clashed with her opinion. to caius she had never been so attractive as now, when, for the first time to him, she was proving herself of kin to ordinary folk; and yet, so curiously false are our notions of sainthood that she seemed to him the less devout because she proved to be more loving. "you see"--she spoke and paused--"you see, when i was at school in a convent i had a friend. i was perfectly happy when i was with her and she with me; it was a marriage. when we went in the garden or on the sea, we were only happy when we were with each other. that is how i learned early that it is only perfect to be two. ah, when one knows what it is to be lonely, one learns that that is true; but many people are not given grace to be lonely--they are sufficient to themselves. they say it is enough to worship god; it is a lie. he cannot be pleased; it is selfish even to be content to worship god alone." "the kind of marriage you think of, that perhaps may be made in heaven." caius was feeling again that she was remote from him, and yet the hint of passionate loneliness in tone and words remained a new revelation of her life. "is not religion enough?" he asked this only out of curiosity. "it is not true religion if we are content to be alone with god; it is not the religion of the holy christ; it is a fancy, a delusion, a mistake. have you not read about st. john? ah, i do not say that it is not often right to live alone, just as it may be right to be ill or starving. that is because the world has gone wrong; and to be content, it is to blaspheme; it is like saying that what is wrong is god's ideal for us, and will last for ever." caius was realizing that as she talked she was thinking only of the theme, not at all of him; he had enough refinement in him to perceive this quite clearly. it was the first time that she had spoken of her religion to him, and her little sermon, which he felt to be too wholly unreasonable to appeal to his mind, was yet too wholly womanly to repel his heart. some dreamy consciousness seemed to come to her now that she had tarried longer than she wished, and perhaps that her subject had not been one that she cared to discuss with him. she turned and put her hand on the pommel, and sprang into the saddle. he had often seen her make that light, wonderful spring that seated her as if by magic on her horse's back, but in her last weeks of nursing the sick folk she had not been strong enough to do it. he saw now how much stronger she looked. the weeks of rest had made her a different woman; there was a fresh colour in her cheek, and the tired lines were all gone. she looked younger by years than when he saw her last--younger, too, than when he had first seen her, for even then she was weary. if he could only have seen the line of her chin, or the height of her brow, or the way her hair turned back from her temples, he thought that he might not have reckoned the time when he had first seen her in the sick-room at cloud island as their first meeting. "you are going on?" said madame le maã®tre. "unless i can be of service to you by turning with you." he knew by the time of day that he must turn shortly; but he had no hope that she wanted him to go with her. "you can do me more service," she said, and she gave him a little smile that was like the ghost of the sea-maid's smile, "by letting me go home alone." he rode on, and when he looked back he saw that her horse was galloping and casting up a little cloud of light snow behind it, so that, riding as it were upon a small white cloud, she disappeared round the turn of the cliffs. caius found no more pictures that day that he felt to be worthy of much attention. he went back to the festive scene of the marriage, and moving his horse nearer and further from it, he found that only from the point where the lady had taken her stand was it to be distinctly seen. twenty yards from the right line of vision, he might have passed it, and never known the beauty that the streaks and stains could assume. when he went home he amused himself by seeking on the road for the track of the other horse, and when he found that it turned to cloud island he was happier. the place, at least, would not be so lonely when the lady was at home. _book iii._ chapter i. how he hunted the seals. at this time on the top of the hills the fishermen were to be seen loitering most of the day, looking to see if the seals were coming, for at this season the seals, unwary creatures, come near the islands upon the ice, and in the white world their dark forms can be descried a long distance off. there was promise of an easy beginning to seal-fishing this year, for the ice had not yet broken from the shore on the seaward side of the island, and there would not at first be need of boats. caius, who had only seen the fishermen hanging about their doors in lazy idleness, was quite unprepared for the excitement and vigour that they displayed when this first prey of the year was seen to approach. it was the morning after madame le maã®tre had returned to her home that caius, standing near his own door, was wondering within himself if he might treat her like an ordinary lady and give her a formal call of welcome. he had not decided the point when he heard sounds as of a mob rushing, and, looking up the road that came curving down the hill through the pine thicket, he saw the rout appear--men, women and children, capped and coated in rough furs, their cheeks scarlet with the frost and exercise, their eyes sparkling with delight. singly down the hill, and in groups, they came, hand-in-hand or arm-in-arm, some driving in wooden sleighs, some of them beating such implements of tinware as might be used for drums, some of them shouting words in that queer acadian french he could not understand, and all of them laughing. he could not conceive what had happened; the place that was usually so lonely, the people that had been so lazy and dull--everything within sight seemed transformed into some mad scene of carnival. the crowd swept past him, greeting him only with shouts and smiles and grimaces. he knew from the number that all the people from that end of the island were upon the road to the other end, and running after with hasty curiosity, he went far enough to see that the news of their advent had preceded them, and that from every side road or wayside house the people came out to join in the riotous march. getting further forward upon the road, caius now saw what he could not see from his own door, a great beacon fire lit upon the hill where the men had been watching. its flame and smoke leaped up from the white hill into the blue heaven. it was the seal-hunting, then, to which all the island was going forth. caius, now that he understood the tumult, experienced almost the same excitement. he ran back, donned clothes suitable for the hunt across the ice, and, mounting his horse, rode after the people. they were all bound for the end of the island on which the lighthouse stood, for a number of fish-sheds, used for cooking and sleeping in the fishing season, were built on the western shore not far from the light; and from the direction in which the seals had appeared, these were the sheds most convenient for the present purpose. by the time caius reached the sheds, the greater number of the fishermen were already far out upon the ice. in boots and caps of the coarse gray seal-skin, with guns or clubs and knives in their hands, they had a wild and murderous aspect as they marched forward in little bands. the gait, the very figure, of each man seemed changed; the slouch of idleness had given place to the keen manner of the hunter. on shore the sheds, which all winter had been empty and lonely, surrounded only by curling drifts, had become the scene of most vigorous work. the women, with snow-shovels and brooms, were clearing away the snow around them, opening the doors, lighting fires in the small stoves inside, opening bags and hampers which contained provision of food and implements for skinning the seals. the task that these women were performing was one for the strength of men; but as they worked now their merriment was loud. all their children stood about them, shouting at play or at such work as was allotted to them. some four or five of the women, with amazonian strength, were hauling from one shed a huge kettle, in which it was evidently meant to try the fat from certain portions of the seal. caius held his horse still upon the edge of the ice, too well diverted with the activity on the shore to leave it at once. behind the animated scene and the row of gray snow-thatched sheds, the shore rose white and lonely. except for the foot-tracks on the road by which they had come, and the peak of the lighthouse within sight, it would have seemed that a colony had suddenly sprung to life in an uninhabited arctic region. it was from this slope above the sheds that caius now heard himself hailed by loud shouting, and, looking up, he saw that o'shea had come there to overlook the scene below. some women stood around him. caius supposed that madame le maã®tre was there. o'shea made a trumpet of his hands and shouted that caius must not take his horse upon the ice that day, for the beast would be frightened and do himself harm. caius was affronted. the horse was not his, truly, but he believed he knew how to take care of it, yet, as it belonged to a woman, he could not risk disobeying this uncivil prohibition. although he was accustomed to the rude authority which o'shea assumed whenever he wished to be disagreeable, caius had only learned to take it with an outward appearance of indifference--his mind within him always chafed; this time the affront to his vanity was worse because he believed that madame le maã®tre had prompted, or certainly permitted, the insult. it did not soothe him to think that, with a woman's nervousness, she might have more regard for his safety than that of the horse. the brightness died out of the beautiful day, and in a lofty mood of ill-used indifference he assured himself that a gentleman could take little interest in such barbarous sport as seal-hunting. at any rate, it would go on for many a day. he certainly had not the slightest intention of dismounting at o'shea's command in order to go to the hunt. caius held his horse as quiet as he could for some ten minutes, feigning an immense interest in the occupation of the women; then leisurely curvetted about, and set his horse at a light trot along the ice close by the shore. he rode hastily past the only place where he could have ascended the bank, and after that he had no means of going home until he had rounded the island and returned by the lagoon. the distance up to the end was seven miles. caius rode on under the lonely cliffs where the gulls wintered, and threading his way upon smooth places on the ice, came, in the course of not much more than an hour, up to the end of the cliffs, crossed the neck of the sand-bar, and followed the inward shore till he got back to the first road. now, on this end of the island very few families lived. caius had only been upon the road he was about to traverse once or twice. the reason it was so little built upon was that the land here belonged entirely to the farm of madame le maã®tre, which stretched in a narrow strip for a couple of miles from o'shea's dwelling to the end of the island. the only point of interest which this district had for caius was a cottage which had been built in a very sheltered nook for the accommodation of two women, whose business it was to care for the poultry which was kept here. caius had been told that he might always stop at this lodge for a drink of milk or beer or such a lunch as it could afford, and being thirsty by reason of hard riding and ill-temper, he now tried to find the path that led to it. chapter ii. once more the vision. when caius turned up the farm road, which was entirely sheltered between gentle slopes, the bright march sun felt almost hot upon his cheek. the snow road under his horse's hoofs was full of moisture, and the snowy slopes glistened with a coating of wet. he felt for the first time that the spring of the year had come. he was not quite certain where lay the cottage of which he was in quest; and, by turning up a wrong path, he came to the back of its hen-houses. at first he only saw the blank wall of a cowshed and two wooden structures like old-fashioned dovecotes, connected by a high fence in which there was no gate. up to this fence he rode to look over it, hoping to speak to the people he heard within; but it was too high for him to see over. passing on, he brought his head level with a small window that was let into the wall of one of the hen-houses. the window had glass in it which was not at all clean, but a fragment of it was broken, and through this caius looked, intending to see if there was any gate into the yard which he could reach from the path he was on. through the small room of deserted hen-roosts, through the door which was wide open on the other side, he saw the sunny space of the yard beyond. all the fowls were gathered in an open place that had been shovelled between heaps of hard-packed snow. there were the bright tufts of cocks' tails and the glossy backs of hens brown and yellow; there were white ducks, and ducks that were green and black, and great gray geese of slender make that were evidently descended from the wild goose of the region. on the snow-heaps pigeons were standing--flitting and constantly alighting--with all the soft dove-colours in their dress. in front of the large feathered party was a young woman who stood, basin in hand, scattering corn, now on one side, now on another, with fitful caprice. she made game of the work of feeding them, coquettishly pretending to throw the boon where she did not throw it, laughing the while and talking to the birds, as if she and they led the same life and talked the same language. caius could not hear what she said, but he felt assured that the birds could understand. for some few minutes caius looked at this scene; he did not know how long he looked; his heart within him was face to face with a pain that was quite new in his life, and was so great that he could not at first understand it, but only felt that in comparison all smaller issues of life faded and became as nothing. beyond the youthful figure of the corn-giver caius saw another woman. it was the wife of o'shea, and in a moment her steadfast, quiet face looked up into his, and he knew that she saw him and did not tell of his presence; but, as her eyes looked long and mutely into his, it seemed to him that this silent woman understood something of the pain he felt. then, very quietly, he turned his horse and rode back by the path that he had come. the woman he had seen was the wife of the sea-captain le maã®tre. he said it to himself as if to be assured that the self within him had not in some way died, but could still speak and understand. he knew that he had seen the wife of this man, because the old cloak and hood, which he knew so well, had only been cast off, and were still hanging to the skirts below the girlish waist, and the white cap, too, had been thrown aside upon the snow--he had seen it. as for the girl herself, he had loved her so long that it seemed strange to him that he had never known until now how much he loved her. her face had been his one thought, his one standard of womanly beauty, for so many years that he was amazed to find that he had never known before how beautiful she was. a moment since and he had seen the march sunshine upon all the light, soft rings of curling hair that covered her head, and he had seen her laughter, and the oval turn of the dimpled chin, and within the face he had seen what he knew now he had always seen, but never before so clearly--the soul that was strong to suffer as well as strong to enjoy. by the narrow farm-path which his horse was treading caius came to the road he had left, and, turning homeward, could not help coming in front of the little cottage whose back wall he had so lately visited. he had no thought but of passing as quickly as might be, but he saw o'shea's wife standing before the door, looking for him with her quiet, eager eyes. she came out a few steps, and caius, hardly stopping, stooped his head to hear what she had to say. "i won't tell her," said the woman; then she pleaded: "let her be, poor thing! let her be happy while she can." she had slipped back into the house; caius had gone on; and then he knew that he had this new word to puzzle over. for why should he be supposed to molest the happy hours of the woman he loved, and what could be the sorrow that dogged her life, if her happy hours were supposed to be rare and precious? o'shea's wife he had observed before this to be a faithful and trusted friend of her mistress; no doubt she spoke then with the authority of knowledge and love. caius went home, and put away his horse, and entered his small house. everything was changed to him; a knowledge that he had vaguely dreaded had come, but with a grief that he had never dreamed of. for he had fancied that if it should turn out that his lady-love and madame le maã®tre were one, his would only be the disappointment of having loved a shadow, a character of his own creating, and that the woman herself he would not love; but now that was not what had befallen him. all the place was deserted; not a house had shown a sign of life as he passed. all the world had gone after the seals. this, no doubt, was the reason why the two women who had not cared for the hunting had taken that day for a holiday. caius stood at his window and looked out on the sea of ice for a little while. he was alone in the whole locality, but he would not be less alone when the people returned. they had their interests, their hopes and fears; he had nothing in common with any of them; he was alone with his pain, and his pain was just this, that he was alone. then he looked out further and further into the world from which he had come, into the world to which he must go back, and there also he saw himself to be alone. he could not endure the thought of sharing the motions of his heart and brain with anyone but the one woman from whom he was wholly separated. time might make a difference; he was forced to remember that it is commonly said that time and absence abate all such attachments. he did not judge that time would make much difference to him, but in this he might be mistaken. a man who has depth in him seldom broods over real trouble--not at first, at least. by this test may often be known the real from the fanciful woe. caius, knew, or his instincts knew, that his only chance of breasting the current was, not to think of its strength, but to keep on swimming. he took his horse's bits and the harness that had been given him for his little sleigh, cleaning and burnishing everything with the utmost care, and at the same time with despatch. he had some chemical work that had been lying aside for weeks waiting to be done, and this afternoon he did it. he had it on his mind to utilize some of his leisure by writing long letters that he might post when it was possible for him to go home; to-night he wrote two of them. while he was writing he heard the people coming in twos and threes along the road back to their houses for the night. he supposed that o'shea had got home with the girls he had been escorting, and that his wife had come home, and that madame le maã®tre had come back to her house and taken up again her regular routine of life. chapter iii. "love, i speak to thy face." caius thought a good deal about the words that o'shea's wife had said to him. he did not know exactly what she meant, nor could he guess at all from what point of view concerning himself she had spoken; but the general drift of her meaning appeared to be that he ought not to let madame le maã®tre know where and how he had seen her the day before. in spite of this, he knew that he could neither be true to himself, nor to the woman he was forced to meet daily, if he made any disguise of the recognition which had occurred. he was in no hurry to meet her; he hoped little or nothing from the interview, but dreaded it. next day he went without his horse out to where the men were killing the seals upon the edge of the ice. the warm march sun, and the march winds that agitated the open sea, were doing their work. to-day there was water appearing in places upon the ice where it joined the shore, and when caius was out with a large band of men upon the extreme edge of the solid ice, a large fragment broke loose. there were some hundred seals upon this bit of ice, which were being butchered one by one in barbarous fashion, and so busy were the men with their work that they merely looked at the widening passage of gray water and continued to kill the beasts that they had hedged round in a murderous ring. it was the duty of those on the shore to bring boats if they were needed. the fragment on which they were could not float far because the sea outside was full of loose ice, and, as it happened, when the dusk fell the chasm of water between them and the shore was not too broad to be jumped easily, for the ice, having first moved seaward, now moved landward with the tide. for two or three days caius lent a hand at killing and skinning the gentle-eyed animals. it was not that he did not feel some disgust at the work; but it meant bread to the men he was with, and he might as well help them. it was an experience, and, above all, it was distraction. when the women had seen him at work they welcomed him with demonstrative joy to the hot meals which they prepared twice a day for the hunters. caius was not quite sure what composed the soups and stews of which he partook, but they tasted good enough. when he had had enough of the seal-hunt it took him all the next day to cleanse the clothes he had worn from the smell of the fat, and he felt himself to be effeminate in the fastidiousness that made him do it. during all these days the houses and roads of the island were almost completely deserted, except that caius supposed that, after the first holiday, the maids who lived with madame le maã®tre were kept to their usual household tasks, and that their mistress worked with them. at last, one day when caius was coming from a house on one of the hills which he had visited because there was in it a little mortal very new to this world, he saw madame le maã®tre riding up the snowy road that he was descending. he felt glad, at the first sight of her, that he was no longer a youth but had fully come to man's estate, and had attained to that command of nerve and conquest over a beating heart that is the normal heritage of manhood. this thought came to him because he was so vividly reminded of the hour in which he had once before sought an interview with this lady--even holding her hand in his--and of his ignominious repulse. in spite of the sadness of his heart, a smile crossed his face, but it was gone before he met her. he had quite given up wondering now about that seafaring episode, and accepted it only as a fact. it did not matter to him why or how she had played her part; it was enough that she had done it, and all that she did was right in his eyes. the lady's horse was walking slowly up the heavy hill; the reins she hardly held, letting them loose upon its neck. it was evident that with her there was no difference since the time she had last seen caius; it appeared that she did not even purpose stopping her horse. caius stopped it gently, laying his hand upon its neck. "what is it?" she asked, with evident curiosity, for the face that he turned to her made her aware that there was something new in her quiet life. it was not easy to find his words; he did not care much to do so quickly. "i could not go on," he said, "without letting you know----" he stopped. she did not answer him with any quick impatient question. she looked at the snowy hill in front of her. "well?" she said. "the other day, you know," he said, "i rode by the back of your poultry farm, and--i saw you when you were feeding the birds." "yes?" she said; she was still looking gravely enough at the snow. the communication so far did not affect her much. "then, when i saw you, i knew that i had seen you before--in the sea--at home." a red flush had mantled her face. there was perhaps an air of offence, for he saw that she held her head higher, and knew what the turn of the neck would be in spite of the clumsy hood; but what surprised him most was that she did not express any surprise or dismay. "i did not suppose," she said, in her own gentle, distant way, "that if you had a good memory for that--foolish play, you would not know me again." her manner added: "i have attempted no concealment." "i did not know you in that dress you wear"--there was hatred for the dress in his tone as he mentioned it--"so i supposed that you did not expect me to know who you were." she did not reply, leaving the burden of finding the next words upon him. it would seem that she did not think there was more to say; and this, her supreme indifference to his recognition or non-recognition, half maddened him. he suddenly saw his case in a new aspect--she was a cruel woman, and he had much with which to reproach her. "'that foolish play,' as you call it----" he had begun angrily, but a certain sympathy for her, new-born out of his own trouble, stopped him, and he went on, only reproach in his tone: "it was a sad play for me, because my heart has never been my own since. i could not find out who you were then, or where you hid yourself; i do not know now, but----" he stopped; he did not wish to offend her; he looked at the glossy neck of the horse he was holding. "i was young and very foolish, but i loved you." the sound of his own low sad tones was still in his ears when he also heard the low music of irrepressible laughter, and, looking up, he saw that the recollection which a few minutes before had made him smile had now entirely overcome the lady's gravity. she was blushing, she was trying not to laugh; but in spite of herself she did laugh more and more heartily, and although her merriment was inopportune, he could not help joining in it to some extent. it was so cheerful to see the laughter-loving self appear within the grave face, to be beside her, and to have partnership in her mirth. so they looked in each other's eyes, and they both laughed, and after that they felt better. "and yet," said he, "it was a frolic that has worked sorrow for me." "come," said she, lifting her reins, "you will regret if you go on talking this way." she would have gone on quite lightly and contentedly, and left him there as if he had said nothing of love, as if their words had been the mere reminiscence of a past that had no result in the present, as if his heart was not breaking; but a fierce sense of this injustice made him keep his hold of her bridle. she could weep over the pains of the poor and the death of their children. she should not go unmindful that his happiness was wrecked. "do you still take me for the young muff that i used to be, that you pay no heed to what i say? i would scorn to meet you every day while i must remain here and conceal from you the fact which, such is my weakness, is the only fact in life for me just now. my heart is breaking because i have found that the woman i love is wholly out of my reach. can you not give that a passing thought of pity? i have told you now; when we meet, you will know that it is not as indifferent acquaintances, but as--enemies if you will, for you, a happy married woman--will count me your enemy! yet i have not harmed you, and the truth is better at all costs." she was giving him her full attention now, her lips a little parted as if with surprise, question plainly written upon her face. he could not understand how the cap and hood had ever concealed her from him. her chief beauty lay, perhaps, in the brow, in the shape of the face, and in its wreath of hair--or at least in the charm that these gave to the strong character of the features; but now that he knew her, he knew her face wholly, and his mind filled in what was lacking; he could perceive no lack. he looked at her, his eyes full of admiration, puzzled the while at her evident surprise. "but surely," she said, "you cannot be so foolish--you, a man now--to think that the fancy you took to a pretty face, for it could have been nothing more, was of any importance." "such fancies make or mar the lives of men." "of unprincipled fools, yes--of men who care for appearance more than sympathy. but you are not such a man! it is not as if we had been friends; it is not as if we had ever spoken. it is wicked to call such a foolish fancy by the name of love; it is desecration." while she was speaking, her words revealed to caius, with swift analysis, a distinction that he had not made before. he knew now that before he came to this island, before he had gone through the three months of toil and suffering with josephine le maã®tre, it would truly have been foolish to think of his sentiment concerning her as more than a tender ideal. now, that which had surprised him into a strength of love almost too great to be in keeping with his character, was the unity of two beings whom he had believed to be distinct--the playmate and the saint. "whether the liking we take to a beautiful face be base or noble depends, madame, upon the face; and no man could see yours without being a better man for the sight. but think: when i saw the face that had been enshrined for years in my memory yesterday, was it the face of a woman whom i did not know--with whom i had never spoken?" he was not looking at her as he spoke. he added, and his heart was revealed in the tone: "_you_ do not know what it is to be shut out from all that is good on earth." there came no answer; in a moment he lifted his eyes to see what response she gave, and he was astonished to detect a look upon her face that would have become an angel who had received some fresh beatitude. it was plain that now she saw and believed the truth of his love; it appeared, too, that she felt it to be a blessing. he could not understand this, but she wasted no words in explanation. when her eyes met his, the joy in her face passed into pity for a minute; she looked at him quietly and frankly; then she said: "love is good in itself, and suffering is good, and god is good. i think," she added very simply, as a child might have done, "that you are good, too. do not fear or be discouraged." then, with her own hand, she gently disengaged his from the bridle and rode up the hill on her errand of mercy. chapter iv. hope born of spring. "love is good; suffering is good; god is good"--that was what she had answered him when he had said that for her sake he was shut out from all that was good on earth. his heart did not rebel so bitterly against this answer as it would have done if he had not felt assured that she spoke of what she had experienced, and that his present experience was in some sort a comradeship with her. then, again, there was the inexplicable fact that the knowledge of the way in which he regarded her had given her pleasure; that was a great consolation to him, although he did not gather from it any hope for the future. her whole manner indicated that she was, as he supposed her to be, entirely out of his reach, not only by the barrier of circumstance, but by her own deliberate preference; and yet he was certain that she was glad that he loved her. what did that mean? he had so seen her life that he knew she was incapable of vanity or selfish satisfaction; when she was glad it was because it was right to be glad. caius could not unravel this, and yet, deep within him, he knew that there was consistency in it. had she not said that love in itself was good? it must be good, then, both to the giver and receiver. he felt a certain awe at finding his own poor love embraced in such a doctrine; he felt for the first time how gross and selfish, how unworthy, it was. it was now the end of march; the snow was melting; the ice was breaking; it might be three or four weeks before ships could sail in the gulf, but it would not be longer. there was no sign of further outbreak of diphtheria upon the island. caius felt the time of his going home to be near; he was not glad to think of leaving his prison of ice. two distinct efforts were made at this time to entertain him. o'shea made an expedition to the island of the picture rocks, and, in rough kindliness, insisted upon taking caius with him, not to see the rocks--o'shea thought little of them. they had an exciting journey, rowing between the ice-floes in the bay, carrying their boat over one ice fragment and then another, launching it each time into a sea of dangers. they spent a couple of days entertained by the chief man of this island, and came back again at the same delightful jeopardy of their lives. after this mr. pembroke took caius home with him, driving again over the sand-dune, upon which, now that the drifts had almost melted, a road could be made. all winter the dunes had been absolutely deserted, impassable by reason of the depth of snow. it would seem that even the devil himself must have left their valleys at this time, or have hibernated. the chief interest to caius in this expedition was to seek the hollow where he had seen, or thought he had seen, the band of mysterious men to which o'shea introduced him; but so changed was the appearance of the sand by reason of the streams and rivulets of melting snow, and so monotonous was the dune, that he grew confused, and could not in the least tell where the place had been. he paid a visit to pembroke's house, and to the inn kept by the old maids, and then went back to his own little wooden domicile with renewed contentment in its quaint appointments, in its solitude, but above all in its nearness to that other house in which the five women lived guarded by the mastiffs. caius knew well enough that these plans for his amusement had been instigated by madame le maã®tre. she was keeping out of his way, except that now and then he met her upon the roads and exchanged with her a friendly greeting. the only satisfaction that caius sought for himself at this time was an occasional visit to o'shea's house. all winter there had been growing upon him a liking for the man's wife, although the words that he exchanged with her were at all times few. now the feeling that he and she were friends had received a distinct increase. it was a long time since caius had put to anyone the questions which his mind was constantly asking concerning madame le maã®tre. apart from any thought of talking about the object of their mutual regard, it was a comfort to him to be in the presence of o'shea's wife. he felt sure that she understood her mistress better than anyone else did, and he also suspected her of a lively sympathy with himself, although it was not probable that she knew more concerning his relation to josephine le maã®tre than merely the fact that it would be hard for any man to see so much grace and beauty and remain insensible. caius sat by this woman's hearth, and whittled tops and boats for her children on the sunny doorstep when the days grew warm at noon, and did not expect any guerdon for doing it except the rest that he found in the proximity and occupation. reward came to him, however. the woman eyed him with more and more kindliness, and at length she spoke. it was one day towards the end of the month, when the last film of snow had evaporated from many a field and slope, and the vivid green of grass appeared for the first time to gladden the eyes, although many an ice-wreath and snowy hollow still lay between. on such a day the sight of a folded head of saxifrage from which the pearls are just breaking makes the heart of man bound with a pleasure that has certainly no rational cause which is adequate. caius came up from the western shore, where he had been watching a distant ship that passed on the other side of the nearer ice-floes, and which said, by no other signal than that of her white sails, that winter was gone. the sea, whose rivers and lakes among the ice had of late looked so turbid by reason of frozen particles in the water, was clear now to reflect once more the blue above it, and the ice-cakes were very white in the sunshine. caius turned his back upon this, and came up a stony path where large patches of the hill were green; and by chance he came upon o'shea's wife, who was laying out linen to bleach at some distance from her own house. close to her caius saw the ledge of rock on which the first flowers of the year were budding, and straightway fell in love with them. knowing that their plants would flourish indoors as well as out, he stooped to lift the large cakes of moss in which their roots were set. the woman, who wore a small pink shawl tied over her head and shoulders, came near to where he was stooping, and made no preface, but said: "he's dead, sir; or if he isn't, and if he should come back, o'shea will kill him!" caius did not need to ask of whom she spoke. "why?" he asked. "why should o'shea want to kill him?" "it would kill her, sir, if he came back to her. she couldn't abide him no ways, and o'shea says it's as good one murder should be done as another, and if he was hung for it he wouldn't mind. o'shea's the sort of man that would keep his word. he'd just feel it was a kind of interesting thing to do, and he worships her to that extent. but i feel sure, sir, that le maã®tre is dead. god would not be so unkind as to have me and the children bereft in that way." her simple belief in her husband's power to settle the matter was shocking to caius, because he felt that she probably knew her husband perfectly. "but why," said he again, "would it kill her if he came back?" "well, what sort of a decent man is it that would have stayed away from her all these years, poor lamb? why, sir, she wasn't but a child at the convent when her father had them married, and she back to school, and he away to his ship, and never come to see her since." caius turned as he knelt upon the grass, and, holding the emerald moss and saxifrage plants in his hand, looked up at her. "he went away two years ago," he said, repeating defiantly what he believed he had heard. "he went away six year ago," corrected she; "but it's two years now since aught was heard of him, and his ship went down, sir, coming back from afriky--that we know; but word came that the crew were saved, but never a word from him, nor a word of him, since." "did she"--his throat would hardly frame the words--a nervous spasm impeded them; yet he could not but ask--"did she care for him?" "oh well, sir, as to that, he was a beautiful-looking man, and she but a child; but when she came to herself she wrote and asked him never to come back; she told me so; and he never did." "well, that at least was civil of him." caius spoke in full earnest. "no, sir; he's not civil; he's a beast of a man. there's no sort of low trick that he hasn't done, only it can't be proved against him; for he's the sort of beast that is a snake; he only married madame for the money he'll get with her. it was when _she_ learned that that she wrote to him not to come back; but he never sent an honest word to say whether he'd stay away or not. she knows what he is, sir, for folks that he'd cheated and lied to come to her to complain. young as she is, there's white threads in her hair, just to think that he might come back at any time. it's making an old woman of her since she's come of an age to think; and she the merriest, blithest creature that ever was. when she first came out of the convent, to see her dance and sing was a sight to make old eyes young." "yes," said caius eagerly, "i know it was--i am sure it was." "oh, but you never saw her, sir, till the shadow had come on her." "do you know when it was i first saw her?" said caius, looking down at the grass. "she told me 'twas when she went to prince edward's land, the time she went to see the wife of her father's brother. 'twas the one time that o'shea let her out of his sight; but no one knew where she was, so if the captain had come at that time he couldn't have found her without coming to o'shea first. and the other time that o'shea let her go was the first winter she came here, for he knew no one could come at the islands for the snow, and we followed by the first ship in spring." "couldn't she get a separation?" "o'shea says the law is that way made that she couldn't." "if she changed her name and went away somewhere----" caius spoke thoughtfully. "and that's what o'shea has been at her to do, for at least it would give her peace; but she says, no, she'll do what's open and honest, and god will take care of her. and i'm sure i hope he will. but it's hard, sir, to see a young thing, so happy by nature as her, taking comfort in nothing but prayers and hymns and good works, so young as she is; it's enough to make the angels themselves have tears in their eyes to see it." at this the woman was wiping her own eyes; and, making soft sniffing sounds of uncultivated grief, she went back to her work of strewing wet garments upon the grass. caius felt that o'shea's wife had read the mind of the angels aright. chapter v. to the higher court. if caius, as he went his way carrying the moss and budding flowers, could have felt convinced with o'shea's wife that le maã®tre was dead, he would have been a much happier man. he could not admit the woman's logic. still, he was far happier than he had been an hour before. le maã®tre might be dead. josephine did not love le maã®tre. he felt that now, at least, he understood her life. having the flowers, the very first darlings of the spring, in his hand, he went, in the impulse of the new sympathy, and knocked at her house door. he carried his burden of moss, earth, moisture, and little gray scaly insects that, having been disturbed, crawled in and out of it, boldly into the room, whose walls were still decorated with the faded garlands of the previous autumn. "let me talk to you," said caius. the lady and the one young girl who happened to be with her had bestirred themselves to receive his gift. making a platter serve as the rock-ledge from which the living things had been disturbed, they set them in the window to grow and unfold the more quickly. they had brought him a bowl also in which to wash his hands, and then it was that he looked at the lady of the house and made his request. he hardly thought she would grant it; he felt almost breathless with his own hardihood when he saw her dismiss the girl and sit before him to hear what he might have to say. he knew then that had he asked her to talk to him he would have translated the desire of his heart far better. "o'shea's wife has been talking to me," he said. "about me?" "i hope you will forgive us. i think she could not help speaking, and i could not help listening." "what did she say?" it was the absolutely childlike directness of her thoughts and words that always seemed to caius to be the thing that put the greatest distance between them. "i could not tell you what she said; i would not dare to repeat it to you, and perhaps she would not wish you to know; but you know she is loyal to you, and what i can tell you is, that i understand better now what your life is--what it has been." then he held out his hands with an impulsive gesture towards her. the large table was between them; it was only a gesture, and he let his hands lie on the table. "let me be your friend; you may trust me," he said. "i am only a very ordinary man; but still, the best friendship i have i offer. you need not be afraid of me." "i am not afraid of you." she said it with perfect tranquillity. he did not like her answer. "are we friends, then?" he asked, and tried to smile, though he felt that some unruly nerve was painting the heaviness of his heart in his face. "how do you mean it? o'shea and his wife are my friends, each of them in a very different way----" she was going on, but he interrupted: "they are your friends because they would die to serve you; but have you never had friends who were your equals in education and intelligence?" he was speaking hastily, using random words to suggest that more could be had out of such a relation than faithful service. "are you my equal in intelligence and education?" she asked appositely, laughter in her eyes. he had time just for a momentary flash of self-wonder that he should so love a woman who, when she did not keep him at some far distance, laughed at him openly. he stammered a moment, then smiled, for he could not help it. "i would not care to claim that for myself," he said. "rather," she suggested, "let us frankly admit that you are the superior in both." he was sitting at the table, his elbows upon it, and now he covered his face with his hands, half in real, half in mock, despair: "what can i do or say?" he groaned. "what have i done that you will not answer the honest meaning you can understand in spite of my clumsy words?" then he had to look at her because she did not answer, and when he saw that she was still ready to laugh, he laughed, too. "have you never ceased to despise me because i could not swim? i can swim now, i assure you. i have studied the art. i could even show you a prize that i took in a race, if that would win your respect." "i am glad you took the prize." "i have not yet learned the magic with which mermaids move." "no, and you have not heard any excuse for the boldness of that play yet. and i was almost the cause of your death. ah! how frightened i was that night--of you and for you! and again when i went to see mr. pembroke before the snow came, and the storm came on and i was obliged to travel with you in o'shea's great-coat--that again cannot seem nice to you when you think of it. why do you like what appears so strange? you came here to do a noble work, and you have done it nobly. why not go home now, and be rid of such a suspicious character as i have shown myself to be? wherever you go, our prayers and our blessings will follow you." caius looked down at the common deal board. there were dents and marks upon it that spoke of constant household work. at length he said: "there is one reason for going that would seem to me enough: if you will tell me that you neither want nor need my companionship or help in any way; but if you cannot tell me that----" "want," she said very sadly. "ah, do you think i have no heart, no mind that likes to talk its thoughts, no sympathies? i think that if _anyone_--man, woman, or child--were to come to me from out the big world, where people have such thoughts and feelings as i have, and offer to talk to me, i could not do anything else than desire their companionship. do you think that i am hard-hearted? i am so lonely that the affection even of a dog or a bird would be a temptation to me, if it was a thing that i dared not accept, because it would make me weaker to live the life that is right. that is the way we must tell what is right or wrong." in spite of himself, he gathered comfort from the fact that, pausing here, without adequate reason that was apparent, she took for granted that the friendship he offered would be a source of weakness to her. she never stooped to try to appear reasonable. as she had been speaking, a new look had been coming out of the habitual calmness of her face, and now, in the pause, the calm went suddenly, and there was a flash of fire in her eyes that he had never seen there before: "if i were starving, would you come and offer me bread that you knew i ought not to eat? it would be cruel." she rose up suddenly, and he stood before her. "it is cruel of you to tantalize me with thoughts of happiness because you know i must want it so much. i could not live and not want it. go! you are doing a cowardly thing. you are doing what the devil did when our lord was in the wilderness. but he did not need the bread he was asked to take, and i do not need your friendship. go!" she held out the hand--the hand that had so often beckoned to him in play--and pointed him to the door. he knew that he was standing before a woman who had been irritated by inward pain into a sudden gust of anger, and now, for the first time, he was not afraid of her. in losing her self-control she had lost her control of him. "josephine," he cried, "tell me about this man, le maã®tre! he has no right over you. why do you think he is not dead? at least, tell me what you know." it seemed that, in the confusion of conflicting emotions, she hardly wondered why he had not obeyed her. "oh, he is not dead!" she spoke with bitterness. "i have no reason to suppose so. he only leaves me in suspense that he may make me the more miserable." and then, as if realizing what she had said, she lifted her head again proudly. "but remember it is nothing to you whether he is alive or dead." "nothing to me to know that you would be freed from this horrible slavery! it is not of my own gain, but of yours, i am thinking." he knew that what he had said was not wholly true, yet, in the heat of the moment, he knew that to embody in words the best that might be was to give himself the best chance of realizing it; and he did not believe now that her fierce assertion of indifference for him was true either, but his best self applauded her for it. for a minute he could not tell what josephine would do next. she stood looking at him helplessly; it seemed as though her subsiding anger had left a fear of herself in its place. but what he dreaded most was that her composure should return. "do not be angry with me," he said; "i ask because it is right that i should know. can you not get rid of this bond of marriage?" "do you think," she asked, "that the good god and the holy virgin would desire me to put myself--my life--all that is sacred--into courts and newspapers? do you think the holy mother of god--looking down upon me, her child--wants me to get out of trouble in _that_ way?" josephine had asked the question first in distress; then, with a face of peerless scorn, she seemed to put some horrid scene from before her with her hand. "the dear god would rather i would drown myself," she said; "it would at least be"--she hesitated for a word, as if at a loss in her english--"at least be cleaner." she had no sooner finished that speech than the scorn died out of her face: "ah, no," she cried repentant; "the men and women who are driven to seek such redress--i--i truly pity them--but for me--it would not be any use even if it were right. o'shea says it would be no use, and he knows. i don't think i would do it if i could; but i could not if i would." "surely he is dead," pleaded caius. "how can you live if you do not believe that?" she came a little nearer to him, making the explanation with child-like earnestness: "you see, i have talked to god and to the holy mother about this. i know they have heard my prayers and seen my tears, and will do what is good for me. i ask god always that le maã®tre may not come back to me, so now i know that if" (a gasping sigh retarded for a moment the breath that came and went in her gentle bosom) "if he does come back it will be god's will. who am i that i should know best? shall i choose to be what you call a 'missionary' to the poor and sick--and refuse god's will? god can put an end to my marriage if he will; until he does, i will do my duty to my husband: i will till the land that he left idle; i will honour the name he gave me. i dare not do anything except what is very, very right, because i have appealed to the court of heaven. you asked me just now if i did not want and need friendship; it does not matter at all what i want, and whatever god does not give me you may be sure i do not need." he knew that the peace he dreaded had come back to her. she had gone back to the memory of her strength. now he obeyed the command she had given before, and went out. chapter vi. "the night is dark." caius went home to his house. inconsistency is the hall-mark of real in distinction from unreal life. a note of happy music was sounding in his heart. the bright spring evening seemed all full of joy. he saw a flock of gannets stringing out in long line against the red evening sky, and knew that all the feathered population of the rocks was returning to its summer home. something more than the mere joy of the season was making him glad; he hardly knew what it was, for it appeared to him that circumstances were untoward. it was in vain that he reasoned that there was no cause for joy in the belief that josephine took delight in his society; that delight would only make her lot the harder, and make for him the greater grievance. he might as well have reasoned with himself that there was no cause for joy in the fact of the spring; he was so created that such things made up the bliss of life to him. caius did not himself think that josephine owed any duty to la maã®tre; he could only hope, and try to believe, that the man was dead. reason, common-sense, appeared to him to do away with what slight moral or religious obligation was involved in such a marriage; yet he was quite sure of one thing--that this young wife, left without friend or protector, would have been upon a very much lower level if she had thought in the manner as he did. he knew now that from the first day he had seen her the charm of her face had been that he read in it a character that was not only wholly different to, but nobler than, his own. he reflected now that he should not love her at all if she took a stand less high in its sweet unreasonableness, and his reason for this was simply that, had she done otherwise, she would not have been josephine. the thought that josephine was what she was intoxicated him; all the next day time and eternity seemed glorious to him. the islands were still ringed with the pearly ring of ice-floes, and for one brief spring day, for this lover, it was enough to be yet imprisoned in the same bit of green earth with his lady, to think of all the noble things she had said and done, and, by her influence, to see new vistas opening into eternity in which they two walked together. there was even some self-gratulation that he had attained to faith in heaven. he was one of those people who always suppose that they would be glad to have faith if they could. it was not faith, however, that had come to him, only a refining and quickening of his imagination. quick upon the heels of these high dreams came their test, for life is not a dream. between the magdalen islands and the mainland, besides the many stray schooners that came and went, there were two lines of regular communication--one was by a sailing vessel which carried freight regularly to and from the port of gaspã©; the other was by a small packet steamer that once a week came from nova scotia and prince edward's island, and returned by the same route. it was by this steamer, on her first appearance, that caius ought reasonably to return to his home. she would come as soon as the ice diminished; she would bring him news, withheld for four months, of how his parents had fared in his absence. caius had not yet decided that he would go home by the first trip; the thought of leaving, when it forced itself upon him, was very painful. this steamer was the first arrival expected, and the islanders, eager for variety and mails, looked excitedly to see the ice melt or be drifted away. caius looked at the ice ring with more intense longing, but his longing was that it should remain. his wishes, like prayers, besought the cold winds and frosty nights to conserve it for him. it so happened that the gaspã© schooner arrived before the southern packet, and lay outside of the ice, waiting until she could make her way through. so welcome was the sight that the islanders gathered upon the shores of the bay just for the pleasure of looking at her as she lay without the harbour. caius looked at her, too, and with comparative indifference, for he rejoiced that he was still in prison. upon that day the night fell just as it falls upon all days; but at midnight caius had a visitor. o'shea came to him in the darkness. caius was awakened from sound sleep by a muffled thumping at his door that was calculated to disturb him without carrying sharp sound into the surrounding air. his first idea was that some drunken fellow had blundered against his wall by mistake. as the sounds continued and the full strangeness of the event, in that lonely place, entered his waking brain, he arose with a certain trepidation akin to that which one feels at the thought of supernatural visitors, a feeling that was perhaps the result of some influence from the spirit of the man outside the door; for when he opened it, and held his candle to o'shea's face, he saw a look there that made him know certainly that something was wrong. o'shea came in and shut the door behind him, and went into the inner room and sat down on the foot of the bed. caius followed, holding the candle, and inspected him again. "sit down, man." o'shea made an impatient gesture at the light. "get into bed, if ye will; there's no hurry that i know of." caius stood still, looking at the farmer, and such nervousness had come upon him that he was almost trembling with fear, without the slightest notion as yet of what he feared. "in the name of heaven----" he began. "yes, heaven!" o'shea spoke with hard, meditative inquiry. "it's heaven she trusts in. what's heaven going to do for her, i'd loike to know?" "what is it?" the question now was hoarse and breathless. "well, i'll tell you what it is if ye'll give me time"--the tone was sarcastic--"and you needn't spoil yer beauty by catching yer death of cold. 'tain't nicessary, that i know of. there's things that are nicessary; there's things that will be nicessary in the next few days; but that ain't." for the first time caius did not resent the caustic manner. its sharpness was turned now towards an impending fate, and to caius o'shea had come as to a friend in need. mechanically he sat in the middle of the small bed, and huddled its blankets about him. the burly farmer, in fur coat and cap, sat in wooden-like stillness; but caius was like a man in a fever, restless in his suspense. the candle, which he had put upon the floor, cast up a yellow light on all the scant furniture, on the two men as they thus talked to each other, with pale, tense faces, and threw distorted shadows high up on the wooden walls. perhaps it was a relief to o'shea to torture caius some time with this suspense. at last he said: "he's in the schooner." "le maã®tre? how do you know?" "well, i'll tell ye how i know. i told ye there was no hurry." if he was long now in speaking, caius did not know it. upon his brain crowded thoughts and imaginations: wild plans for saving the woman he loved; wild, unholy desires of revenge; and a wild vision of misery in the background as yet--a foreboding that the end might be submission to the worst pains of impotent despair. o'shea had taken out a piece of paper, but did not open it. "'tain't an hour back i got this. the skipper of the schooner and me know each other. he's been bound over by me to let me know if that man ever set foot in his ship to come to this place, and he's managed to get a lad off his ship in the noight, and across the ice, and he brought me this. le maã®tre, he's drunk, lyin' in his bunk; that's the way he's preparing to come ashore. it may be one day, it may be two, afore the schooner can get in. le maã®tre he won't get off it till it's in th' harbour. i guess that's about all there is to tell." o'shea added this with grim abstinence from fiercer comment. "does she know?" caius' throat hardly gave voice to the words. "no, she don't; and i don't know who is to tell her. i can't. i can do most things." he looked up round the walls and ceiling, as if hunting in his mind for other things he could not do. "i'll not do that. 'tain't in my line. my wife is adown on her knees, mixing up prayers and crying at a great rate; and says i to her, 'you've been a-praying about this some years back; i'd loike to know what good it's done. get up and tell madame the news;' and says she that she couldn't, and she says that in the morning you're to tell her." o'shea set his face in grim defiance of any sentiment of pity for caius that might have suggested itself. caius said nothing; but in a minute, grasping at the one straw of hope which he saw, "what are you going to do?" he asked. o'shea smoothed out the letter he held. "well, you needn't speak so quick; it's just that there i thought we might have our considerations upon. i'm not above asking advoice of a gintleman of the world like yerself; i'm not above giving advoice, neither." he sat looking vacantly before him with a grim smile upon his face. caius saw that his mind was made up. "what are you going to do?" he asked again. at the same moment came the sharp consciousness upon him that he himself was a murderer, that he wanted to have le maã®tre murdered, that his question meant that he was eager to be made privy to the plot, willing to abet it. yet he did not feel wicked at all; before his eyes was the face of josephine lying asleep, unconscious and peaceful. he felt that he fought in a cause in which a saint might fight. "what i may or may not do," said o'shea, "is neither here nor there just now. the first thing is, what you're going to do. the schooner's out there to the north-east; the boat that's been used for the sealing is over here to the south-west; now, there ain't no sinse, that i know of, in being uncomfortable when it can be helped, or in putting ourselves about for a brute of a man who ain't worth it. it's plain enough what's the easy thing to do. to-morrow morning ye'll make out that ye can't abide no longer staying in this dull hole, and offer the skipper of one of them sealing-boats fifty dollars to have the boat across the ice and take you to souris. then ye will go up and talk plain common-sinse to madame, and tell her to put on her man's top-coat she's worn before, and skip out of this dirty fellow's clutches. there ain't nothing like being scared out of their wits for making women reasonable--it's about the only time they have their sinses, so far as i know." "if she won't come, what then?" caius demanded hastily. "my woife says that if ye're not more of a fool than we take ye for, she'll go." there was something in the mechanical repetition of what his wife had said that made caius suspect. "you don't think she'll go?" o'shea did not answer. "that is what you'll do, any way," he said; "and ye'll do it the best way ye know how." he sat upon the bed some time longer, wrapped in grim reserve. the candle guttered, flared, burned itself out. the two men were together in the dark. caius believed that if the first expedient failed, and he felt it could not but fail, murder was their only resource against what seemed to them intolerable evil. o'shea got up. "perhaps ye think the gintleman that is coming has redeeming features about him?" a fine edge of sarcasm was in his tone. "well, he hain't. before we lost sight of him, i got word concarning him from one part of the world and another. if i haven't got the law of him, it's because he's too much of a sneak. he wasn't anything but a handsome sort of beast to begin with; and, what with drinking and the life he's led, he's grown into a sort of thing that had better go on all fours like nebuchadnezzar than come nigh decent people on his hind-legs. why has he let her alone all these years?" the speech was grimly dramatic. "why, just because, first place, i believe another woman had the upper hand of him; second place, when he married madame it was the land and money her father had to leave her that made him make that bargain. he hadn't that in him that would make him care for a white slip of a girl as she was then, and, any way, he knew that the girl and the money would keep till he was sick of roving. it's as nasty a trick as could be that he's served her, playing dead dog all these years, and coming to catch her unawares. i tell ye the main thing he has on his mind is revenge for the letters she wrote him when she first got word of his tricks, and then, too, he's coming back to carouse on her money and the money she's made on his father's land, that he niver looked to himself." o'shea stalked through the small dark rooms and went out, closing the outer door gently behind him. caius sat still, wrapped in his blankets. he bowed his head upon his knees. the darkness was only the physical part of the blackness that closed over his spirit. there was only one light in this blackness--that was josephine's face. calm he saw it, touched with the look of devotion or mercy; laughing and dimpled he saw it, a thing at one with the sunshine and all the joy of earth; and then he saw it change, and grow pale with fear, and repulsion, and disgust. around this one face, that carried light with it, there were horrid shapes and sounds in the blackness of his mind. he had been a good man; he had preferred good to evil: had it all been a farce? was the thing that he was being driven to do now a thing of satanic prompting, and he himself corrupt--all the goodness which he had thought to be himself only an organism, fair outside, that rotted inwardly? or was this fear the result of false teaching, the prompting of an artificial conscience, and was the thing he wished to do the wholesome and natural course to take--right in the sight of such deity as might be beyond the curtain of the unknown, the force who had set the natural laws of being in motion? caius did not know. while his judgment was in suspense he was beset by horrible fears--the fear that he might be driven to do a villainous deed, the greater fear that he should not accomplish it, the awful fear, rising above all else in his mind, of seeing josephine overtaken by the horrible fate which menaced her, and he himself still alive to feel her misery and his own. no, rather than that he would himself kill the man. it was not the part that had been assigned to him, but if she would not save herself it would be the noblest thing to do. was he to allow o'shea, with a wife and children, to involve himself in such dire trouble, when he, who had no one dependent upon him, could do the deed, and take what consequences might be? he felt a glow of moral worth like that which he had felt when he decided upon his mission to the island--greater, for in that his motives had been mixed and sordid, and in this his only object was to save lives that were of more worth than his own. should he kill the man, he would hardly escape death, and even if he did, he could never look josephine in the face again. why not? why, if this deed were so good, could he not, after the doing of it, go back to her and read gratitude in her eyes? because josephine's standard of right and wrong was different from his. what was her standard? his mind cried out an impatient answer. "she believes it is better to suffer than to be happy." he did not believe that; he would settle this matter by his own light, and, by freeing her and saving her faithful friends, be cut off from her for ever. it would be an easy thing to do, to go up to the man and put a knife in his heart, or shoot him like a dog! his whole being revolted from the thought; when the deed came before his eyes, it seemed to him that only in some dark feverish imagination could he have dreamed of acting it out, that of course in plain common-sense, that daylight of the mind, he could not will to do this. then he thought again of the misery of the suffering wife, and he believed that, foreign as it was to his whole habit of life, he could do this, even this, to save her. then again came over him the sickening dread that the old rules of right and wrong that he had been taught were the right guides after all, and that josephine was right, and that he must submit. the very thought of submission made his soul rise up in a mad tempest of anger against such a moral law, against all who taught it, against the god who was supposed to ordain it; and so strong was the tempest of this wrath, and so weak was he, perplexed, wretched, that he would have been glad even at the same moment to have appealed to the god of his fathers, with whom he was quarrelling, for counsel and help. his quarrel was too fierce for that. his quarrel with god made trust, made mere belief even, impossible, and he was aware that it was not new, that this was only the culminating hour of a long rebellion. chapter vii. the wild waves whist. next morning, when caius walked forth into the glory of the april sunshine, he felt himself to be a poor, wretched man. there was not a fisherman upon the island, lazy, selfish as they were, and despised in his eyes, that did not appear to him to be a better man than he. all the force of training and habit made the thing that he was going to do appear despicable; but all the force of training and habit was not strong enough to make his judgment clear or direct his will. the muddy road was beginning to steam in the sunshine; the thin shining ice of night that coated its puddles was melting away. in the green strip by the roadside he saw the yellow-tufted head of a dandelion just level with the grass. the thicket of stunted firs on either side smelt sweet, and beyond them he saw the ice-field that dazzled his eyes, and the blue sea that sparkled. from this side he could not see the bay and the ship of fate lying at anchor, but he noticed with relief that the ice was not much less. there was no use in thinking or feeling; he must go on and do what was to be done. so he told himself. he shut his heart against the influence of the happy earth; he felt like a guest bidden by fate, who knew not whether the feast were to be for bridal or funeral. that he was not a strong man was shown in this--that having hoped and feared, dreamed and suffered, struggling to see a plain path where no path was, for half the night, he now felt that his power of thought and feeling had burned out, that he could only act his part, without caring much what its results might be. it was eight o'clock. he had groomed his horse, and tidied his house, and bathed, and breakfasted. he did not think it seemly to intrude upon the lady before this hour, and now he ascended her steps and knocked at her door. the dogs thumped their tails on the wooden veranda; it was only of late they had learned this welcome for him. would they give it now, he wondered, if they could see his heart? as he stood there waiting for a minute, he felt that it would be good, if possible, to have laid his dilemma fairly before the canine sense and heart, and to have let the dogs rise and tear him or let him pass, as they judged best. it was a foolish fancy. it was o'shea's wife who opened the door; her face was disfigured by crying. "you have told her?" demanded caius, with relief. the woman shook her head. "it was the fine morning that tempted her out, sir," she said. "she sent down to me, saying how she had taken a cup of milk and gone to ride on the beach, and i was to come up and look after the girls. but look here, sir"--eagerly--"it's a good thing, i'm thinking, for her spirits are high when she rides in fine weather, and she's more ready for games and plays, and thinking of pleasure. she's gone on the west shore, round by the light, for o'shea he looked at the tracks. do you get your horse and ride after, where you see her tracks in the sand." caius went. he mounted his horse and rode down upon the western shore. he found the track, and galloped upon it. the tide was low; the ice was far from shore; the highway, smoothed by the waves, was firm and good. caius galloped to the end of the island where the light was, where the sealing vessels lay round the base of the lighthouse, and out upon the dune, and still the print of her horse's feet went on in front of him. it was not the first time that he and she had been upon the dune together. a mile, two miles, three; he rode at an easy pace, for now he knew that he could not miss the rider before him. he watched the surf break gently on the broad shallow reach of sand-ridges that lay between him and the floating ice. and when he had ridden so far he was not the same man as when he mounted his horse, or at least, his own soul, of which man has hardly permanent possession, had returned to him. he could now see, over the low mists of his own moods, all the issues of josephine's case--all, at least, that were revealed to him; for souls are of different stature, and it is as the head is high or low that the battlefield is truly discerned. long before he met her he saw josephine. she had apparently gone as far as she thought wise, and was amusing herself by making her horse set his feet in the cold surf. it was a game with the horse and the wavelets that she was playing. each time he danced back and sunned himself he had to go in again; and when he stood, his hind-feet on the sand and his fore-feet reared over the foam, by way of going where she wished and keeping himself dry, caius could see her gestures so well that it seemed to him he heard the tones of playful remonstrance with which she argued the case. when she perceived that caius intended to come up to her, she rode to meet him. her white cap had been taken off and stuffed into the breast of her dress; the hood surrounded her face loosely, but did not hide it; her eyes were sparkling with pleasure--the pure animal pleasure of life and motion, the sensuous pleasure in the beauty and the music of the waves; other pleasures there might be, but these were certain, and predominated. "why did you come?" she asked the question as a happy child might ask of its playmate--no hint of danger. to caius it was a physical impossibility to answer this question with the truth just then. "is not springtime an answer?" he asked, then added: "i am going away to-day. i came for one last ride." she looked at him for a few moments, evidently supposing that he intended to go to harbour island to wait there for his ship. if that were so, it seemed that she felt no further responsibility about her conduct to him. his heart sank to see that her joy in the spring and the morning was such that the thought of parting did not apparently grieve her much. in a moment more her eyes flashed at him with the laughter at his expense which he knew so well; she tried not to laugh as she spoke, but could not help it. "i have been visiting the band of men who were going to murder you the night you came. would you like to see them?" "if you will take care of me." as she turned and rode before him he heard her laughing. "there," she said, stopping and pointing to the ground--"there is the place where the quicksand was. i have not gone over it this morning. sometimes they last from one season to another; sometimes they change themselves in a few days. i was dreadfully frightened when we began to sink, but it was you who saved the pony." "don't," said caius--"don't attempt to make the best of me. i would rather be laughed at." he spoke lightly, without feeling, and that seemed to please her. "i think," she said candidly, "we behaved very badly; but it was o'shea's fault--i only enjoyed it. and i don't see what else we could have done, because those two french sailors had to watch if anyone came to steal from the wreck, and they were going to help us so far as to go to the sheds on the cliff for boards to get up the cart; but o'shea could not have stayed all night with the bags unless i had left him my coat as well as his own." "you might have trusted me," said caius. still he spoke with no sensibility; she grew more at her ease. "o'shea wouldn't; and i couldn't control o'shea. and then we had to meet so often, that i could not bear that you should know i had worn a man's coat. i had to do it, for i couldn't drive home any other way." here a pause, and her mind wandered to another recollection. "those men we met brought us word that one of my friends was so ill; i had to hurry to him. in my heart i thought you would not respect me because i had worn a man's coat; and because---yes, it was very naughty of me indeed to behave as i did in the water that summer. even then i did try to get o'shea to let me walk with you, but he wouldn't." she had been slowly riding through a deep, soft sand-drift that was heaped at the mouth of the hollow, and when they had got through the opening, caius saw the ribs of one side of an enormous wreck protruding from the sand, about six feet in height. a small hardy weed had grown upon their heads in tufts; withered and sear with the winter, it still hung there. the ribs bent over a little, as the men he had seen had bent. "the cloud-shadows and the moonlight were very confusing," remarked josephine; "and then o'shea made the two sailors stand in the same way, and they were real. i never knew a man like o'shea for thinking of things that are half serious and half funny. i never knew him yet fail to find a way to do the thing he wanted to do; and it's always a way that makes me laugh." if josephine would not come away with him, would o'shea find a way of killing le maã®tre? and would it be a way to make her laugh? with the awful weight of the tidings he brought upon his heart, all that he said or did before he told them seemed artificial. "i thought"--half mechanically--"that i saw them all hold up their hands." "did you?" she asked. "the first two did; o'shea told them to hold up their hands." "there is something you said a minute ago that i want to answer," he said. she thought he had left the subject of his illusion because it mortified him. "you said"--he began now to feel emotion as he spoke--"that you thought i should not respect you. i want to tell you that i respected you as i respect my mother, even when you were only a mermaid. i saw you when i fell that night as we walked on this beach. if you had worn a boy's coat, or a fishskin, always, i had sense enough to see that it was a saint at play. have you read all the odd stories about the saints and the virgin--how they appear and vanish, and wear odd clothes, and play beneficent tricks with people? it was like that to me. i don't know how to say it, but i think when good people play, they have to be very, very good, or they don't really enjoy it. i don't know how to explain it, but the moderate sort of goodness spoils everything." caius, when he had said this, felt that it was something he had never thought before; and, whatever it might mean, he felt instinctively that it meant a great deal more than he knew. he felt a little shabby at having expressed it from her religious point of view, in which he had no part; but his excuse was that there was in his mind at least the doubt that she might be right, and, whether or not, his mission just then was to gain her confidence. he brushed scruples aside for the end in view. "i am glad you said that," she said. "i am not good, but i should like to be. it wasn't becoming to play a mermaid, but i didn't think of that then. i didn't know many things then that i know now. you see, my uncle's wife drowned her little child; and afterwards, when she was ill, i went to take care of her, and we could not let anyone know, because the police would have interfered for fear she would drown me. but she is quite harmless, poor thing! it is only that time stopped for her when the child was drowned, and she thinks its little body is in the water yet, if we could only find it. i found she had made that dress you call a fishskin with floats on it for herself, and she used to get into the sea, from the opening of an old cellar, at night, and push herself about with a pole. it was the beautiful wild thing that only a mad person with nice thoughts could do. but when she was ill, i played with it, for i had nothing else to do; it was desecration." "i thought you were like the child that was lost. i think you are like her." "she thought so, too; she used to think sometimes that i was her little daughter grown up. it was very strange, living with her; i almost think i might have gone mad, too, if i hadn't played with you." it was very strange, caius thought, that on this day of all days she should be willing to talk to him about herself, should be willing to laugh and chat and be happy with him. the one day that he dare not listen long, that he must disturb her peace, was the only time that she had seemed to wish to make a friend of him. "when you lived so near us," he asked, "did you ever come across the woods and see my father's house? did you see my father and mother? i think you would like them if you did." "oh, no," she said lightly; "i only knew who you were because my aunt talked about you; she never forgot what you had done for the child." "do not turn your horse yet." he allowed himself to be urgent now. "i have something to say to you which must be said. i am going home; i do not want to wait for the steamer; i want to bribe one of those sealing vessels to start with me to-day. i have come to ask you if you will not come with me to see my mother. you do not know what it is to have a mother. mothers are very good; mine is. you would like to be with her, i know; you would have the calm of feeling taken care of, instead of standing alone in the world." he said all this without letting his tone betray that that double-thoughted mind of his was telling him that this was doubtful, that his mother might be slow to believe in josephine, and that he was not sure whether josephine would be attracted by her. josephine looked at him with round-eyed surprise; then, apparently conjecturing that the invitation was purely kind, purely stupid, she thanked him, and declined it graciously. "is there no folly with which you would not easily credit me?" he smiled faintly in his reproach. "do you think i do not know what i am saying? i have been awake all night thinking what i could do for you." for a moment he looked at her helplessly, hoping that some hint of the truth would come of itself; then, turning away his face, he said hoarsely: "le maã®tre is on the gaspã© schooner. o'shea has had the news. he is lying drunk in his berth." he did not turn until he heard a slight sound. then he saw that she had slipped down from her horse, perhaps because she was afraid of falling from it. her face was quite white; there was a drawn look of abject terror upon it; but she only put her horse's rein in his hand, and pointed to the mouth of the little valley. "let me be alone a little while," she whispered. so caius rode out upon the beach, leading her horse; and there he held both restive animals as still as might be, and waited. chapter viii. "god's in his heaven." caius wondered how long he ought to wait if she did not come out to him. he wondered if she would die of misery there alone in the sand-dune, or if she would go mad, and meet him in some fantastic humour, all the intelligence scorched out of her poor brain by the cruel words he had said. he had a notion that she had wanted to say her prayers, and, although he did not believe in an answering heaven, he did believe that prayers would comfort her, and he hoped that that was why she asked to be left. when he thought of the terror in her eyes, he felt sanguine that she would come with him. now that he had seen her distress, it seemed to him worse than any notion he had preconceived of it. it was right that she should go with him. when she had once done that, he would stand between her and this man always. that would be enough; if she should never care for him, if he had nothing more than that, he would be satisfied, and the world might think what it would. if she would not go with him--well, then he would kill le maã®tre. his mind was made up; there was nothing left of hesitation or scruple. he looked at the broad sea and the sunlight and the sky, and made his vow with clenched teeth. he laughed at the words which had scared him the night before--the names of the crimes which were his alternatives; they were made righteousness to him by the sight of fear in a woman's face. it is one form of weakness to lay too much stress upon the emotion of another, just as it is weak to take too much heed of our own emotions; but caius thought the sympathy that carried all before it was strength. after awhile, waiting became intolerable. leading both horses, he walked cautiously back to a point where he could see josephine. she was sitting upon the sandy bank near where he had left her. he took his cap in his hand, and went with the horses, standing reverently before her. he felt sure now that she had been saying her prayers, because, although her face was still very pallid, she was composed and able to speak. he wished now she had not prayed. "you are very kind to me." her voice trembled, but she gave him a little smile. "i cannot pretend that i am not distressed; it would be false, and falsehood is not right. you are very, very kind, and i thank you----" she broke off, as if she had been going to say something more but had wearily forgotten what it was. "oh, do not say that!" his voice was like one pleading to be spared a blow. "i love you. there is no greater joy to me on earth than to serve you." "hush," she said; "don't say that. i am very sorry for you, but sorrow must come to us all in some way." "don't, don't!" he cried--"don't tell me that suffering is good. it is not good; it is an evil. it is right to shun evil; it is the only right. the other is a horrid fable--a lie concocted by priests and devils!" "suppose you loved someone--me, for instance--and i was dead, and you knew quite certainly that by dying you would come to where i was--would you call death good or evil?" he demurred. he did not want to admit belief in anything connected with the doctrine of submission. "i said 'suppose,'" she said. "i would go through far more than death to come near you." "suffering is just a gate, like death. we go through it to get the things we really want most." "i don't believe in a religion that calls suffering better than happiness; but i know you do." "no, i don't," she said, "and god does not; and people who talk as if he did not want us to seek happiness--even our own happiness--are making to themselves a graven image. i will tell you how i think about it, because i have been alone a great deal and been always very much afraid, and that has made me think a great deal, and you have been very kind, for you risked your life for my poor people, and now you would risk something more than that to help me. will you listen while i try to tell you?" caius signified his assent. he was losing all his hope. he was thinking that when she had done talking he would go and get ready to do murder; but he listened. "you see," she began, "the greatest happiness is love. love is greedy to get as well as to give. it is all nonsense talking about love that gives and asks for no return. we only put up with that when we cannot get the other, and why? why should we think it the grandest thing to give what we would scorn to take? you, for instance--you would rather have a person you loved do nothing for you, yet enjoy you, always demanding your affection and presence, than that he or she should be endlessly generous, and indifferent to what you give in return." "yes." he blushed as he said it. "well then, it is cant to speak as if the love that asks for no return is the noblest. now listen. i have something very solemn to say, because it is only by the greatest things that we learn what the little ought to be. when god came to earth to live for awhile, it was for the sake of his happiness and ours; he loved us in the way that i have been saying; he was not content only to bless us, he wanted us to enjoy him. he wanted that happiness from us; and he wanted us to expect it from him and from each other; and if we had answered, all would have been like the first marriage feast, where they had the very best wine, and such lots of it. but, you see, we couldn't answer; we had no souls. we were just like the men on cloud island who laughed at you when you wanted them to build a hospital. the little self or soul that we had was of that sort that we couldn't even love each other very much with it, and not him at all. so there was only one way, and that was for us to grow out of these stupid little souls, and get good big ones, that can enjoy god, and enjoy each other, and enjoy everything perfectly." she looked up over the yellow sand-hills into the deep sunny sky, and drew a long breath of the april air involuntarily. "oh," she said, "a good, big, perfect soul could enjoy so much." it seemed as if she thought she had said it all and finished the subject. "well," said caius, interested in spite of himself, "if god wanted to make us happy, he could have given us that kind of soul." "ah, no! we don't know why things have to grow, but they must; everything grows--_you_ know that. for some reason, that is the best way; so there was just one way for those souls to grow in us, and he showed us how. it is by doing what is quite perfectly right, and bearing all the suffering that comes because of it, and doing all the giving side of love, because here we can't get much. pain is not good in itself; it is a gate. our souls are growing all through the gate of the suffering, and when we get to the other side of it, we shall find we have won them. god wants us to be greedy for happiness; but we must find it by going through the gate he went through to show us the way." caius stood before her holding the horses; even they had been still while she was speaking, as if listening to the music of her voice. caius felt the misery of a wavering will and conflicting thoughts. "if i thought," he said, "that god cared about happiness--just simple happiness--it would make religion seem so much more sensible; but i'm afraid i don't believe in living after death, or that he cares----" what she said was wholly unreasonable. she put out her hand and took his, as if the hand-clasp were a compact. "trust god and see," she said. there was in her white face such a look of glorious hope, that caius, half carried away by its inspiration, still quailed before her. after he had wrung her hand, he found himself brushing his sleeve across his eyes. as he thought that he had lost her, thought of all that she would have to endure, of the murder he still longed to commit, and felt all the agony of indecision again, and suspected that after this he would scruple to commit it--when all this came upon him, he turned and leaned against one of the horses, sobbing, conscious in a vague way that he did not wish to stop himself, but only craved her pity. josephine comforted him. she did not apparently try to, she did not do or say anything to the purpose; but she evinced such consternation at the sight of his tears, that stronger thoughts came. he put aside his trouble, and helped her to mount her horse. they rode along the beach slowly together. she was content to go slowly. she looked physically too exhausted to ride fast. even yet probably, within her heart, the conflict was going forward that had only been well begun in her brief solitude of the sand valley. caius looked at her from time to time with feelings of fierce indignation and dejection. the indignation was against le maã®tre, the dejection was wholly upon his own account; for he felt that his plan of help had failed, and that where he had hoped to give strength and comfort, he had only, in utter weakness, exacted pity. caius had one virtue in these days: he did not admire anything that he did, and he did not even think much about the self he scorned. with regard to josephine, he felt that if her philosophy of life were true it was not for him to presume to pity her. so vividly had she brought her conception of the use of life before him that it was stamped upon his mind in a brief series of pictures, clear, indelible; and the last picture was one of which he could not think clearly, but it produced in him an idea of the after-life which he had not before. then he thought again of the cloud under which josephine was entering. her decision would in all probability cut down her bright, useful life to a few short years of struggle and shame and sorrow. at last he spoke: "but why do you think it right to sacrifice yourself to this man? it does not seem to me right." he knew then what clearness of thought she had, for she looked with almost horror in her face. "sacrifice myself for le maã®tre! oh no! i should have no right to do that; but to the ideal right, to god--yes. if i withheld anything from god, how could i win my soul?" "but how do you know god requires this?" "ah! i told you before. why will you not understand? i have prayed. i know god has taken this thing in his own hand." caius said no more. josephine's way of looking at this thing might not be true; that was not what he was considering just then. he knew that it was intensely true for her, would remain true for her until the event of death proved it true or false. this was the factor in the present problem that was the enemy to his scheme. then, furthermore, whether it were true or false, he knew that there was in his mind the doubt, and that doubt would remain with him, and it would prevent him from killing le maã®tre; it would even prevent him from abetting o'shea, and he supposed that that abetting would be necessary. here was cause enough for dejection--that the whole miserable progress of events which he feared most should take place. and why? because a woman held a glorious faith which might turn out to be delusion, and because he, a man, had not strength to believe for certain that it was a delusion. it raised no flicker of renewed hope in caius to meet o'shea at the turn of the shore where the boats of the seal fishery were drawn up. o'shea had a brisk look of energy that made it evident that he was still bent upon accomplishing his design. he stopped in front of the lady's horse, and said something to her which caius did not hear. "have ye arranged that little picnic over to prince edward's," he called to caius. caius looked at josephine. o'shea's mere presence had put much of the spiritual aspect of the case to flight, and he suddenly smarted under the realization that he had never put the question to her since she had known her danger--never put the request to her strongly at all. "come," said josephine; "i am going home. i am going to send all my girls to their own homes and get the house ready for my husband." o'shea, with imperturbable countenance, pushed off his hat and scratched his head. "i was thinking," he remarked casually, "that i'd jist send mammy along with ye to prince edward." (mammy was what he always called his wife.) "i am thinking he'll be real glad to see her, for she's a real respectable woman." "who?" asked josephine, puzzled. "prince edward, that owns the island," said o'shea. "and she's that down in the mouth, it's no comfort for me to have her; and she can take the baby and welcome. it's a fair sea." he looked to the south as he spoke. "i'd risk both her and the brat on it; and skipper pierre is getting ready to take the boat across the ice." caius saw that resolution had fled from josephine. she too looked at the calm blue southern sea, and agonized longing came into her eyes. it seemed to caius too cruel, too horribly cruel, that she should be tortured by this temptation. because he knew that to her it could be nothing but temptation, he sat silent when o'shea, seeing that the lady's gaze was afar, signed to him for aid; and because he hoped that she might yield he was silent, and did not come to rescue her from the tormentor. o'shea gave him a look of undisguised scorn; but since he would not woo, it appeared that this man was able to do some wooing for him. "of course," remarked o'shea, "i see difficulties. if the doctor here was a young man of parts, i'd easier put ye and mammy in his care; but old skipper pierre is no milksop." josephine looked, first alert, as if suspecting an ill-bred joke, and then, as o'shea appeared to be speaking to her quite seriously, forgetting that caius might overhear, there came upon her face a look of gentle severity. "that is not what i think of the doctor; i would trust him more quickly than anyone else, except you, o'shea." the words brought to caius a pang, but he hardly noticed it in watching the other two, for the lady, when she had spoken, looked off again with longing at the sea, and o'shea, whose rough heart melted under the trustful affection of the exception she made, for a moment turned away his head. caius saw in him the man whom he had only once seen before, and that was when his child had died. it was but a few moments; the easy quizzical manner sat upon him again. "oh, well, he hasn't got much to him one way or the other, but----" this in low, confidential tones. caius could not hear her reply; he saw that she interrupted, earnestly vindicating him. he drew his horse back a pace or two; he would not overhear her argument on his behalf, nor would he trust o'shea so far as to leave them alone together. the cleverness with which o'shea drove her into a glow of enthusiasm for caius was a revelation of power which the latter at the moment could only regard curiously, so torn was his heart in respect to the issue of the trial. he was so near that their looks told him what he could not hear, and he saw josephine's face glow with the warmth of regard which grew under the other's sneers. then he saw o'shea visibly cast that subject away as if it was of no importance; he went near to her, speaking low, but with the look of one who brought the worst news, and caius knew, without question, that he was pouring into her ears all the evil he had ever heard of le maã®tre, all the detail of his present drunken condition. caius did not move; he did not know whether the scene before him represented satan with powerful grasp upon a soul that would otherwise have passed into some more heavenly region, or whether it was a wise and good man trying to save a woman from her own fanatical folly. the latter seemed to be the case when he looked about him at the beach, at the boats, at the lighthouse on the cliff above, with a clothes-line near it, spread with flapping garments. when he looked, not outward, but inward, and saw josephine's vision of life, he believed he ought to go forward and beat off the serpent from the dove. the colloquy was not very long. then o'shea led josephine's horse nearer to caius. "madame and my wife will go with ye," he said. "i've told the men to get the boat out." "i did not say that," moaned josephine. her face was buried in her hands, and caius remembered how those pretty white hands had at one time beckoned to him, and at another had angrily waved him away. now they were held helplessly before a white face that was convulsed with fear and shame and self-abandonment. "there ain't no particular hurry," remarked o'shea soothingly; "but mammy has packed up all in the houses that needs to go, and she'll bring warm clothes and all by the time the boat's out, so there's no call for madame to go back. it would be awful unkind to the girls to set them crying; and"--this to caius--"ye jist go and put up yer things as quick as ye can." his words were accompanied by the sound of the fishermen putting rollers under the small schooner that had been selected. the old skipper, pierre, had begun to call out his orders. josephine took her hands from her face suddenly, and looked towards the busy men with such eager hungry desire for the freedom they were preparing for her that it seemed to caius that at that moment his own heart broke, for he saw that josephine was not convinced but that she had yielded. he knew that mammy's presence on the journey made no real difference in its guilt from josephine's standpoint; her duty to her god was to remain at her post. she had flinched from it out of mere cowardice--it was a fall. caius knew that he had no choice but to help her back to her better self, that he would be a bastard if he did not do it. three times he essayed to speak; he had not the right words; then, even without them, he broke the silence hurriedly: "i think you are justified in coming with me; but if you do what you believe to be wrong--you will regret it. what does your heart say? think!" it was a feeble, stammered protest; he felt no dignity in it; he almost felt it to be the craven insult seen in it by o'shea, who swore under his breath and glared at him. josephine gave only a long sobbing sigh, as one awakening from a dream. she looked at the boat again, and the men preparing it, and then at caius--straight in his eyes she looked, as if searching his face for something more. "follow your own conscience, josephine; it is truer than ours. i was wrong to let you be tempted," he said. "forgive me!" she looked again at the boat and at the sea, and then, in the stayed subdued manner that had become too habitual to her, she said to o'shea: "i will go home now. dr. simpson is right. i cannot go." o'shea was too clever a man to make an effort to hold what he knew to be lost; he let go her rein, and she rode up the path that led to the island road. when she was gone o'shea turned upon caius with a look of mingled scorn and loathing. "ye're afraid of le maã®tre coming after ye," he hissed; "or ye have a girl at home, and would foind it awkward to bring her and madam face to face; so ye give her up, the most angel woman that ever trod this earth, to be done to death by a beast, because ye're afraid for yer own skin. bah! i had come to think better of ye." with that he cut at the horse with a stick he had in his hand, and the creature, wholly unaccustomed to such pain and indignity, dashed along the shore, by chance turning homeward. caius, carried perforce as upon the wings of the wind for half a mile, was thrown off upon the sand. he picked himself up, and with wet clothes and sore limbs walked to his little house, which he felt he could no longer look upon as a home. he could hardly understand what he had done; he began to regret it. a man cannot see the forces at work upon his inmost self. he did not know that josephine's soul had taken his by the hand and lifted it up--that his love for her had risen from earth to heaven when he feared the slightest wrong-doing for her more than all other misfortune. chapter ix. "god's puppets, best and worst." all that long day a hot sun beat down upon the sea and upon the ice in the bay; and the tide, with its gentle motion of flow and ebb, made visibly more stir among the cakes of floating ice, by which it was seen that they were smaller and lighter than before. the sun-rays were doing their work, not so much by direct touch upon the ice itself as by raising the temperature of all the flowing sea, and thus, when the sun went down and the night of frost set in, the melting of the ice did not cease. morning came, and revealed a long blue channel across the bay from its entrance to harbour island. the steamer from souris had made this channel by knocking aside the light ice with her prow. she was built to travel in ice. she lay now, with funnel still smoking, in the harbour, a quarter of a mile from the small quay. the gaspã© schooner still lay without the bay, but there was a movement of unfurling sails among her masts, by which it was evident that her skipper hoped by the faint but favourable breeze that was blowing to bring her down the same blue highway. it was upon this scene that caius, wretched and sleepless, looked at early dawn. he had come out of his house and climbed the nearest knoll from which the bay could be seen, for his house and those near it looked on the open western sea. when he reached this knoll he found that o'shea was there before him, examining the movements of the ship with his glass in the gray cold of the shivering morning. the two men stood together and held no communication. pretty soon o'shea went hastily home again. caius stood still to see the sun rise clear and golden. there were no clouds, no vapours, to catch its reflections and make a wondrous spectacle of its appearing. the blue horizon slowly dipped until the whole yellow disc beamed above it; ice and water glistened pleasantly; on the hills of all the sister isles there was sunshine and shade; and round about him, in the hilly field, each rock and bush cast a long shadow. between them the sun struck the grass with such level rays that the very blades and clumps of blades cast their shadows also. caius had remained to watch if the breeze would strengthen with the sun's uprising, and he prayed the forces of heat and cold, and all things that preside over the currents of air, that it might not strengthen but languish and die. what difference did it make, a few hours more or less? no difference, he knew, and yet all the fresh energy the new day brought him went forth in this desire that josephine might have a few hours longer respite before she began the long weary course of life that stretched before her. caius had packed up all his belongings. there was nothing for him to do but drive along the dune with his luggage, as he had driven four months before, and take the steamer that night to souris. the cart that took him would no doubt bring back le maã®tre. caius had not yet hired a cart; he had not the least idea whether o'shea intended to drive him and bring back his enemy or not. that would, no doubt, be josephine's desire. caius had not seen josephine or spoken to o'shea; it mattered nothing to him what arrangement they would or would not make for him. as he still stood watching to see if the breeze would round and fill the sails which the gaspã© schooner had set, o'shea came back and called from the foot of the knoll. caius turned; he bore the man no ill will. josephine's horse had not been injured by the accident of yesterday, and his own fall was a matter of complete indifference. "i'm thinking, as ye packed yer bags, ye'll be going for the steamer." o'shea spoke with that indefinable insult in his tone which had always characterized it in the days of their first intercourse, but, apart from that, his manner was crisp and cool as the morning air; not a shade of discouragement was visible. "i am going for the steamer," said caius, and waited to hear what offer of conveyance was to be made him. "well, i'm thinking," said o'shea, "that i'll just take the boat across the bay, and bring back the captain from harbour island; but as his honour might prefer the cart, i'll send the cart round by the dune. there's no saying but, having been in tropical parts, he may be a bit scared of the ice. howsomever, knowing that he's in that haste to meet his bride, and would, no doubt, grudge so much as a day spent between here and there on the sand, i'll jist give him his chice; being who he is, and a foine gintleman, he has his right to it. as for you"--the tone instantly slipped into insolent indifference--"ye can go by one or the other with yer bags." it was not clear to caius that o'shea had any intention of himself escorting le maã®tre if he chose to go by the sand. this inclined him to suppose that he had no fixed plan to injure him. what right had he to suppose such plan had been formed? the man before him wore no look of desperate passion. in the pleasant weather even the dune was not an unfrequented place, and the bay was overlooked on all sides. caius could not decide whether his suspicion of o'shea had been just or a monstrous injustice. he felt such suspicion to be morbid, and he said nothing. the futility of asking a question that would not be answered, the difficulty of interference, and his extreme dislike of incurring from o'shea farther insult, were enough to produce his silence. behind that lay the fact that he would be almost glad if the murder was done. josephine's faith had inspired in him such love for her as had made him save her from doing what she thought wrong at any cost; but the inspiration did not extend to this. it appeared to him the lesser evil of the two. "i will go with the boat," said caius. "it is the quicker way." he felt that for some reason this pleased o'shea, who began at once to hurry off to get the luggage, but as he went he only remarked grimly: "they say as it's the longest way round that is the shortest way home. if you're tipped in the ice, mr. doctor, ye'll foind that true, i'm thinking." caius found that o'shea's boat, a heavy flat-bottomed thing, was already half launched upon the beach, furnished with stout boat-hooks for pushing among the ice, as well as her oars and sailing gear. he was glad to find that such speedy departure was to be his. he had no thought of saying good-bye to josephine. chapter x. "death shrive thy soul!" it was an immense relief to stand in the boat with the boat-hook, whose use demanded all the skill and nerve which caius had at command. for the most part they could only propel the boat by pushing or pulling the bits of ice that surrounded it with their poles. it was a very different sort of travel from that which they had experienced together when they had carried their boat over islands of ice and launched it in the great gaps between them. the ice which they had to do with now would not have borne their weight; nor was there much clear space for rowing between the fragments. o'shea pushed the boat boldly on, and they made their journey with comparative ease until, when they came near the channel made by the steamship, they found the ice lying more closely, and the difficulty of their progress increased. work as they would, they were getting on but slowly. the light wind blew past their faces, and the gaspã© schooner was seen to sail up the path which the steamer had made across the bay. "the wind's in the very chink that makes her able to take the channel. i'm thinking she'll be getting in before us." o'shea spoke with the gay indifference of one who had staked nothing on the hope of getting to the harbour first; but caius wondered if this short cut would have been undertaken without strong reason. a short period of hard exertion, of pushing and pulling the bits of ice, followed, and then: "i'm thinking we'll make the channel, any way, before she comes by, and then we'll just hail her, and the happy bridegroom can come off if he's so moinded, being in the hurry that he is. 'tain't many bridegrooms that makes all the haste he has to jine the lady." caius said nothing; the subject was too horrible. "ye and yer bags could jist go on board the ship before the loving husband came off; ye'd make the harbour that way as easy, and i'm thinking the ice on the other side of the bay is that thick ye'd be scared and want me to sit back in my boat and yelp for help, like a froightened puppy dog, instead of making the way through." cains thought that o'shea might be trying to dare him to remain in the boat. he inclined to believe that o'shea could not alone enter into conflict with a strong unscrupulous man in such a boat, in such a sea, with hope of success. at any rate, when o'shea, presuming on his friendship with the skipper, had accomplished no less a thing than bringing the sailing vessel to a standstill, caius was prepared to board her at once. the little boat was still among the ice, but upon the verge of clear water. the schooner, already near, was drifting nearer. o'shea was shouting to the men on her deck. the skipper stood there looking over her side; he was a short stout man, of cheery aspect. several sailors, and one or two other men who might be passengers, had come to the side also. beside the skipper stood a big man with a brown beard; his very way of standing still seemed to suggest habitual sluggishness of mind or manner; yet his appearance at this distance was fine. caius discovered that this was le maã®tre; he was surprised, he had supposed that he would be thin and dark. "it's captain le maã®tre i've come for; it's his wife that's wanting to see him," o'shea shouted. "he's here!" the skipper gave the information cheerfully, and le maã®tre made a slight sign showing that it was correct. "i'll just take him back, then, in the boat with me now, for it's easy enough getting this way, but there's holes in the sand that makes drivin' unpleasant. howsomever, i can't say which is the best passage. this city gentleman i've got with me now thinks he's lost his life siveral times already since he got into this boat." he pointed to caius as he ended his invitation to le maã®tre. the men on the schooner all grinned. it was o'shea's manner, as well as his words, that produced their derision. caius was wondering what would happen if le maã®tre refused to come in the boat. suspicion said that o'shea would cause the boat to be towed ashore, and would then take the captain home by the quicksands. would o'shea make him drunk, and then cast him headfirst into the swallowing sand? it seemed preposterous to be harbouring such thought against the cheerful and most respectable farmer at his side. what foundation had he for it? none but the hearing of an idle boast that the man had made one day to his wife, and that she in simplicity had taken for earnest. le maã®tre signified that he would go with o'shea. indeed, looked at from a short distance, the passage through the ice did not look so difficult as it had proved. o'shea and caius parted without word or glance of farewell. caius clambered over the side of the schooner; the one thought in his mind was to get a nearer view of le maã®tre. this man was still standing sleepily. he did not bear closer inspection well. his clothes were dirty, especially about the front of vest and coat; there was everything to suggest an entire lack of neatness in personal habits; more than that, the face at the time bore unmistakable signs that enough alcohol had been drunk to benumb, although not to stupefy, his faculties: the eye was bloodshot; the face, weather-beaten as it was, was flabby. in spite of all this, caius had expected a more villainous-looking person, and so great was his loathing that he would rather have seen him in a more obnoxious light. the man had a certain dignity of bearing; his face had that unfurrowed look that means a low moral sense, for there is no evidence of conflict. his eyes were too near each other; this last was, perhaps, the only sign by which nature from the outset had marred a really excellent piece of manly proportion. caius made these observations involuntarily. as le maã®tre stepped here and there in a dull way while a chest that belonged to him was being lowered into the boat, caius could not help realizing that his preconceived notions of the man as a monster had been exaggerated; he was a common man, fallen into low habits, and fixed in them by middle age. le maã®tre got into the boat in seaman-like fashion. he was perfectly at home there, and dull as his eye looked, he tacitly assumed command. he took o'shea's pole from him, stepped to the prow, and began to turn the boat, without regarding the fact that o'shea was still holding hasty conversation with the men on the schooner concerning the public events of the winter months--the news they had brought from the mainland. everything had been done in the greatest haste; it was not twelve minutes after the schooner had been brought to a stand when her sails were again turned to catch the breeze. the reason for this haste was to prevent more sideways drifting, for the schooner was drifting with the wind against the floating ice amongst which o'shea's boat was lying. the wind blew very softly; her speed when sailing had not been great, and the drifting motion was the most gentle possible. caius had not taken his eyes from the boat. he was watching the strength with which le maã®tre was turning her and starting her for cloud island. he was watching o'shea, who, still giving back chaff and sarcasm to the men on the schooner, was forced to turn and pick up the smaller pole which caius had relinquished; he seemed to be interested only in his talk, and to begin to help in the management of the boat mechanically. the skipper was swearing at his men and shouting to o'shea with alternate breath. the sails of the schooner had hardly yet swelled with the breeze when o'shea, bearing with all his might against a bit of ice, because of a slip of his pole, fell heavily on the side of his own boat, tipping her suddenly over on a bit of ice that sunk with her weight. le maã®tre, at the prow, in the violent upsetting, was seen to fall headlong between two bits of ice into the sea. "by----! did you ever see anything like that?" the skipper of the schooner had run to the nearest point, which was beside caius. then followed instantly a volley of commands, some of which related to throwing ropes to the small boat, some concerning the movement of the schooner, for at this moment her whole side pressed against all the bits of ice, pushing them closer and closer together. the boat had not sunk; she had partially filled with water that had flowed over the ice on which she had upset; but when the weight of le maã®tre was removed and o'shea had regained his balance, the ice rose again, righting the boat and almost instantly tipping her toward the other side, for the schooner had by this time caused a jam. it was not such a jam as must of necessity injure the boat, which was heavily built; but the fact that she was now half full of water and that there was only one man to manage her, made his situation precarious. the danger of o'shea, however, was hardly noticed by the men on the schooner, because of the horrible fact that the closing of the bits of ice together made it improbable that le maã®tre could rise again. for a moment there was an eager looking at every space of blue water that was left. if the drowning man could swim, he would surely make for such an aperture. "put your pole down to him where he went in!" the men on the schooner shouted this to o'shea. "put the rope round your waist!" this last was yelled by the skipper, perceiving that o'shea himself was by no means safe. a rope that had been thrown had a noose, through which o'shea dashed his arms; then, seizing the pole, he struck the butt-end between the blocks of ice where le maã®tre had fallen. it seemed to caius that the pole swayed in his hands, as if he were wrenching it from a hand that had gripped it strongly below; but it might have been only the grinding of the ice. o'shea thrust the pole with sudden vehemence further down, as if in a frantic effort to bring it better within reach of le maã®tre if he were there; or, as caius thought, it might have been that, feeling where the man was, he stunned him with the blow. standing in a boat that was tipping and grinding among the ice, o'shea appeared to be exercising marvellous force and dexterity in thus using the pole at all. the wind was now propelling the schooner forward, and her pressure on the ice ceased. o'shea threw off the noose of the rope wildly, and looked to the men on the vessel, as if quite uncertain what to do next. it was a difficult matter for anyone to decide. to leave him there was manifestly impossible; but if the schooner again veered round, the jamming of the ice over the head of la maã®tre would again occur. the men on the schooner, not under good discipline, were all shouting and talking. "he's dead by now, wherever he is." the skipper made this quiet parenthesis either to himself or to caius. then he shouted aloud: "work your boat through to us!" o'shea began poling vigorously. the ice was again floating loosely, and it was but the work of a few minutes to push his heavy boat into the open water that was in the wake of the schooner. there was a pause, like a pause in a funeral service, when o'shea, standing ankle-deep in the water which his boat held, and the men huddled together upon the schooner's deck, turned to look at all the places in which it seemed possible that the body of le maã®tre might again be seen. they looked and looked until they were tired with looking. the body had, no doubt, floated up under some cake of ice, and from thence would speedily sink to a bier of sand at the bottom of the bay. "by----! i never saw anything like that." it was the remark which began and ended the episode with the skipper. then he raised his voice, and shouted to o'shea: "it's no sort of use your staying here! make the rope fast to your boat, and come up on deck!" but this o'shea would not do. he replied that he would remain, and look about among the ice a bit longer, and that, any way, it would be twice as far to take his boat home from harbour island as from the place where he now was. the schooner towed his boat until he had baled the water out and got hold of his oars. the ice had floated so far apart that it seemed easy for the boat to go back through it. during this time excited pithy gossip had been going on concerning the accident. "you did all a man could do," shouted the captain to o'shea consolingly, and remarked to those about him: "there wasn't no love lost between them, but o'shea did all he could. o'shea might as easy as not have gone over himself, holding the pole under water that time." the fussy little captain, as far as caius could judge, was not acting a part. the sailors were french; they could talk some english; and they spoke in both languages a great deal. "his lady won't be much troubled, i dare say, from all i hear." the captain was becoming easy and good-natured again. he said to caius: "you are acquainted with her?" "she will be shocked," said caius. he felt as he spoke that he himself was suffering from shock--so much so that he was hardly able to think consecutively about what had occurred. "they won't have an inquest without the body," shouted the captain to o'shea. then to those about him he remarked: "he was as decent and good-natured a fellow as i'd want to see." the pronoun referred to le maã®tre. the remark was perhaps prompted by natural pity, but it was so instantly agreed to by all on the vessel that the chorus had the air of propitiating the spirit of the dead. chapter xi. the riddle of life. the schooner slowly moved along, and lay not far from the steamship. the steamship did not start for souris until the afternoon. caius was put on shore there to await the hour of embarking. in his own mind he was questioning whether he would embark with the steamer or return to cloud island; but he naturally did not make this problem known to those around him. the skipper and several men of the schooner came ashore with caius. there was a great bustle as soon as they reached the small wharf because of what they had to tell. it was apparent from all that was told, and all the replies that were made, that no shadow of suspicion was to fall upon o'shea. why should it? he had, as it seemed, no personal grudge against le maã®tre, whose death had been evidently an accident. a man who bore an office akin to that of magistrate for the islands came down from a house near the harbour, and the story was repeated to him. when caius had listened to the evidence given before this official personage, hearing the tale again that he had already heard many times in a few minutes, and told what he himself had seen, he began to wonder how he could still harbour in his mind the belief in o'shea's guilt. he found, too, that none of these people knew enough about josephine to see any special interest attaching to the story, except the fact that her husband, returning from a long voyage, had been drowned almost within sight of her house. "ah, poor lady! poor lady!" they said; and thus saying, and shaking their heads, they dispersed to eat their dinners. caius procured the bundle of letters which had come for him by this first mail of the year. he sauntered along the beach, soon getting out of sight and hearing of the little community, who were not given to walking upon a beach that was not in this case a highroad to any place. he was on the shingle of the bay, and he soon found a nook under a high black cliff where the sun beat down right warmly. he had not opened his letters; his mind did not yet admit of old interests. the days were not long passed in which men who continued to be good husbands and fathers and staunch friends killed their enemies, when necessary, with a good conscience. had o'shea a good conscience now? would he continue to be in all respects the man he had been, and the staunch friend of josephine? in his heart caius believed that le maã®tre was murdered; but he had no evidence to prove it--nothing whatever but what o'shea's wife had said to him that day she was hanging out her linen, and such talk occurs in many a household, and nothing comes of it. now josephine was free. "what a blessing!" he used the common idiom to himself, and then wondered at it. could one man's crime be another man's blessing? he found himself, out of love for josephine, wondering concerning the matter from the point of view of the religious theory of life. perhaps this was heaven's way of answering josephine's appeal, and saving her; or perhaps human souls are so knit together that o'shea, by the sin, had not blessed, but hindered her from blessing. it was a weary round of questions, which caius was not wise enough to answer. another more practical question pressed. did he dare to return now to cloud island, and watch over josephine in the shock which she must sustain, and find out if she would discover the truth concerning o'shea? after a good while he answered the question: no; he did not dare to return, knowing what he did and his own cowardly share in it. he could not face josephine, and, lonely as she was, she did not need him; she had her prayers, her angels, her heaven. perhaps time, the proverbial healer of all wounds, would wash the sense of guilt from his soul, and then he could come back and speak to josephine concerning this new freedom of hers. then he remembered that some say that for the wound of guilt time no healing art. could he find, then, other shrift? he did not know. he longed for it sorely, because he longed to feel fit to return to josephine. but, after all, what had he done of which he was ashamed? what was his guilt? had he felt any emotion that it was not natural to feel? had he done anything wrong? again he did not know. he sat with head bowed, and felt in dull misery that o'shea was a better man than he--more useful and brave, and not more guilty. he opened his letters, and found that in his absence no worse mishap had occurred at home than that his father had been laid up some time with a bad leg, and that both father and mother had allowed themselves to worry and fret lest ill should have befallen their son. caius embarked on the little steamship that afternoon, and the next noon found him at home. the person who met him on the threshold of his father's house was jim hogan. jim grinned. "since you've taken to charities abroad," he said, "i thought i'd begin at home." jim's method of beginning at home was not in the literal sense of the proverb. it turned out that he had been neighbouring to some purpose. old simpson could not move himself about indoors or attend to his work without, and jim, who had not before this attached himself by regular employment, had by some freak of good-nature given his services day by day until caius should return, and had become an indispensable member of the household. "he's not a very respectable young man," said the mother apologetically to her son, while she was still wiping her tears of joy; "but it's just wonderful what patience he's had in his own larky way with your father, when, though i say it who shouldn't, your father's been as difficult to manage as a crying baby, and jim, he just makes his jokes when anyone else would have been affronted, and there's father laughing in spite of himself sometimes. so i don't know how it is, but we've just had him to stop on, for he's took to the farm wonderful." an hour after, when alone with his father, simpson said to him: "your mother, you know, was timorous at night when i couldn't help myself; and then she'd begin crying, as women will, saying as she knew you were dead, and that, any way, it was lonesome without you. so when i saw that it comforted her a bit to have someone to cook for, i encouraged the fellow. i told him he'd nothing to look for from me, for his father is richer than i am nowadays; but he's just the sort to like vagary." jim went home, and caius began a simple round of home duties. his father needed much attendance; the farm servants needed direction. caius soon found out, without being told, that neither in one capacity nor the other did he fulfil the old man's pleasure nearly so well as the rough-and-ready jim. even his mother hardly let a day pass without innocently alluding to some prank of jim's that had amused her. she would have been very angry if anyone had told her that she did not find her son as good a companion. caius did not tell her so, but he was perfectly aware of it. caius had not been long at home when his cousin mabel came to visit them. this time his mother made no sly remarks concerning mabel's reason for timing her visit, because it seemed that mabel had paid a long and comforting visit while he had been at the magdalen islands. mabel did not treat caius now with the unconscious flattery of blind admiration, neither did she talk to him about jim; but her silence whenever jim's name was mentioned was eloquent. caius summed all this up in his own mind. he and jim had commenced life as lads together. the one had trodden the path of virtue and laudable ambition; the other had just amused himself, and that in many reprehensible ways; and now, when the ripe age of manhood was attained in that state of life to which--as the catechism would have it--it had pleased god to call them, it was jim who was the useful and honoured man, not caius. it was clear that all the months and years of his absence had enabled his parents to do very well without their son. they did not know it, but in all the smaller things that make up the most of life, his interests had ceased to be their interests. caius had the courage to realize that even at home he was not much wanted. if, when jim married mabel, he would settle down with the old folks, they would be perfectly happy. on his return, caius had learned that the post for which he had applied in the autumn had not been awarded to him. he knew that he must go as soon as possible to find out a good place in which to begin his professional life, but at present the state of his father's bad leg was so critical, and the medical skill of the neighbourhood so poor, that he was forced to wait. all this time there was one main thought in his mind, to which all others were subordinate. he saw his situation quite clearly; he had no doubts about it. if josephine would come to him and be his wife, he would be happy and prosperous. josephine had the power to make him twice the man he was without her. it was not only that his happiness was bound up in her; it was not only that josephine had money and could manage it well, although he was not at all above thinking of that; it was not even that she would help and encourage and console him as no one else would. there was that subtle something, more often the fruit of what is called friendship than of love, by which josephine's presence increased all his strong faculties and subdued his faults. caius knew this with the unerring knowledge of instinct. he tried to reason about it, too: even a dull king reigns well if he have but the wit to choose good ministers; and among men, each ruling his small kingdom, they are often the most successful who possess, not many talents, but the one talent of choosing well in friendship and in love. ah! but it is one thing to choose and another to obtain. caius still felt that he dared not seek josephine. since le maã®tre's death something of the first blank horror of his own guilt had passed away, but still he knew that he was not innocent. then, too, if he dared to woo her, what would be the result? that last admonition and warning that he had given her when she was about to leave the island with him clogged his hope when he sought to take courage. he knew that popular lore declared that, whether or not she acknowledged its righteousness, her woman's vanity would take arms against it. caius had written to josephine a letter of common friendliness upon the occasion of her husband's death, and had received in return a brief sedate note that might, indeed, have been written by the ancient lady whom the quaint italian handwriting learned in the country convent had at first figured to his imagination. he knew from this letter that josephine did not suppose that blame attached to o'shea. she spoke of her husband's death as an accident. caius knew that she had accepted it as a deliverance from god. it was this attitude of hers which made the whole circumstance appear to him the more solemn. so caius waited through the lovely season in which summer hovers with warm sunshiny wings over a land of flowers before she settles down upon it to abide. he was unhappy. a shade, whose name was failure, lived with him day by day, and spoke to him concerning the future as well as the past. debating much in his mind what he might do, fearing to make his plight worse by doing anything, he grew timid at the very thought of addressing josephine. happily, there is something more merciful to a man than his own self--something which in his hour of need assists him, and that often very bountifully. chapter xii. to call a spirit from the vasty deep. it was when the first wild-flowers of the year had passed away, and scarlet columbine and meadow-rue waved lightly in the sunny glades of the woods, and all the world was green--the new and perfect green of june--that one afternoon caius, at his father's door, met a visitor who was most rarely seen there. it was farmer day. he accosted caius, perhaps a little sheepishly, but with an obvious desire to be civil, for he had a favour to ask which he evidently considered of greater magnitude than caius did when he heard what it was. day's wife was ill. the doctor of the locality had said more than once that she would not live many days, but she had gone on living some time, it appeared, since this had been first said. day did not now call upon caius as a medical man. his wife had taken a fancy to see him because of his remembered efforts to save her child. day said apologetically that it was a woman's whim, but he would be obliged if caius, at his convenience, would call upon her. it spoke much for the long peculiarity and dreariness of day's domestic life that he evidently believed that this would be a disagreeable thing for caius to do. day went on to the village. caius strolled off through the warm woods and across the hot cliffs to make this visit. the woman was not in bed. she was dying of consumption. the fever was flickering in her high-boned cheeks when she opened the door of the desolate farmhouse. she wore a brown calico gown; her abundant black hair was not yet streaked with gray. caius could not see that she looked much older than she had done upon the evening, years ago, when he had first had reason to observe her closely. he remembered what josephine had told him--that time had stood still with her since that night: it seemed true in more senses than one. a light of satisfaction showed itself in her dark face when, after a moment's inspection, she realized who he was. "come in," she said briefly. caius went in, and had reason to regret, as well on his own account as on hers, that she shut the door. to be out in the summer would have been longer life for her, and to have the summer shut out made him realize forcibly that he was alone in the desolate house with a woman whose madness gave her a weird seeming which was almost equivalent to ghostliness. when one enters a house from which the public has long been excluded and which is the abode of a person of deranged mind, it is perhaps natural to expect, although unconsciously, that the interior arrangements should be very strange. instead of this, the house, gloomy and sparsely furnished as it was, was clean and in order. it lacked everything to make it pleasant--air, sunshine, and any cheerful token of comfort; but it was only in this dreary negation that it failed; there was no positive fault to be found even with the atmosphere of the kitchen and bare lobby through which he was conducted, and he discovered, to his surprise, that he was to be entertained in a small parlour, which had a round polished centre table, on which lay the usual store of such things as are seen in such parlours all the world over--a bible, a couple of albums, a woollen mat, and an ornament under a glass case. caius sat down, holding his hat in his hand, with an odd feeling that he was acting a part in behaving as if the circumstances were at all ordinary. the woman also sat down, but not as if for ease. she drew one of the big cheap albums towards her, and began vigorously searching in it from the beginning, as if it were a book of strange characters in which she wished to find a particular passage. she fixed her eyes upon each small cheap photograph in turn, as if trying hard to remember who it represented, and whether it was, or was not, the one she wanted. caius looked on amazed. at length, about the middle of the book, she came to a portrait at which she stopped, and with a look of cunning took out another which was hidden under it, and thrust it at caius. "it's for you," she said; "it's mine, and i'm going to die, and it's you i'll give it to." she looked and spoke as if the proffered gift was a thing more precious than the rarest gem. caius took it, and saw that it was a picture of a baby girl, about three years old. he had not the slightest doubt who the child was; he stood by the window and examined it long and eagerly. the sun, unaided by the deceptive shading of the more skilled photographer, had imprinted the little face clearly. caius saw the curls, and the big sad eyes with their long lashes, and all the baby features and limbs, his memory aiding to make the portrait perfect. his eager look was for the purpose of discovering whether or not his imagination had played him false; but it was true what he had thought--the little one was like josephine. "i shall be glad to have it," he said--"very glad." "i had it taken at montrose," said the poor mother; and, strange to say, she said it in a commonplace way, just as any woman might speak of procuring her child's likeness. "day, he was angry; he said it was waste of money; that's why i give it to you." a fierce cunning look flitted again across her face for a moment. "don't let him see it," she whispered. "day, he is a bad father; he don't care for the children or me. that's why i've put her in the water." she made this last statement concerning her husband and child with a nonchalant air, like one too much accustomed to the facts to be distressed at them. for a few minutes it seemed that she relapsed into a state of dulness, neither thought nor feeling stirring within her. caius, supposing that she had nothing more to say, still watched her intently, because the evidences of disease were interesting to him. when he least expected it, she awoke again into eagerness; she put her elbows on the table and leaned towards him. "there's something i want you to do," she whispered. "i can't do it any more. i'm dying. since i began dying, i can't get into the water to look for her. my baby is in the water, you know; i put her in. she isn't dead, but she's there, only i can't find her. day told me that once you got into the water to look for her too, but you gave it up too easy, and no one else has ever so much as got in to help me find her." the last part of the speech was spoken in a dreary monotone. she stopped with a heart-broken sigh that expressed hopeless loneliness in this mad quest. "the baby is dead," he said gently. she answered him with eager, excited voice: "no, she isn't; that's where you are wrong. you put it on the stone that she was dead. when i came out of th' asylum i went to look at the stone, and i laughed. but i liked you to make the stone; that's why i like you, because nobody else put up a stone for her." caius laid a cool hand on the feverish one she was now brandishing at him. "you are dying, you say"--pityingly. "it is better for you to think that your baby is dead, for when you die you will go to her." the woman laughed, not harshly, but happily. "she isn't dead. she came back to me once. she was grown a big girl, and had a wedding-ring on her hand. who do you think she was married to? i thought perhaps it was you." the repetition of this old question came from her lips so suddenly that caius dropped her hand and stepped back a pace. he felt his heart beating. was it a good omen? there have been cases where a half-crazed brain has been known, by chance or otherwise, to foretell the future. the question that was now for the second time repeated to him seemed to his hope like an instance of this second sight, only half understood by the eye that saw it. "it was not your little daughter that came back, mrs. day. it was her cousin, who is very like her, and she came to help you when you were ill, and to be a daughter to you." she looked at him darkly, as if the saner powers of her mind were struggling to understand; but in a minute the monomania had again possession of her. "she had beautiful hair," she said; "i stroked it with my hand; it curled just as it used to do. do you think i don't know my own child? but she had grown quite big, and her ring was made of gold. i would like to see her again now before i die." very wistfully she spoke of the beauty and kindness of the girl whose visit had cheered her. the poor crazed heart was full of longing for the one presence that could give her any comfort this side of death. "i thought i'd never see her again." she fixed her dark eyes on caius as she spoke. "i was going to ask you, after i was dead and couldn't look for her any more, if you'd keep on looking for her in the sea till you found her. but i wish you'd go now and see if you couldn't fetch her before i die." "yes, i will go," answered caius suddenly. the strong determination of his quick assent seemed to surprise even her in whose mind there could be no rational cause for surprise. "do you mean it?" "yes, i mean it. i will go, mrs. day." a moment more she paused, as if for time for full belief in his promise to dawn upon her, and then, instead of letting him go, she rose up quickly with mysterious looks and gestures. her words were whispered: "come, then, and i'll show you the way. come; you mustn't tell day. day doesn't know anything about it." she had led him back to the door of the house and gone out before him. "come, i'll show you the way. hush! don't talk, or someone might hear us. walk close to the barn, and no one will see. i never showed anyone before but her when she came to me wearing the gold ring. what are you so slow for? come, i'll show you the way to look for her." impelled by curiosity and the fear of increasing her excitement if he refused, caius followed her down the side of the open yard in which he had once seen her stand in fierce quarrel with her husband. it had seemed a dreary place then, when the three children swung on the gate and neither the shadow of death nor madness hung over it; it seemed far more desolate now, in spite of the bright summer sunlight. the barns and stable, as they swiftly passed them, looked much neglected, and there was not about the whole farmstead another man or woman to be seen. as the mad woman went swiftly in front of him, caius remembered, perhaps for the first time in all these years, that after her husband had struck her upon that night, she had gone up to the cowshed that was nearest the sea, and that afterwards he had met her at the door of the root-house that was in the bank of the chine. it was thither she went now, opening the door of the cowshed and leading him through it to a door at the other end, and down a path to this cellar cut in the bank. the cellar had apparently been very little used. the path to it was well beaten, but caius observed that it ran past the cellar down the chine to a landing where day now kept a flat-bottomed boat. they stood on this path before the heavy door of the cellar. rust had eaten into the iron latch and the padlock that secured it, but the woman produced a key and opened the ring of the lock and took him into a chamber about twelve feet square, in which props of decaying beams held up the earth of the walls and roof. the place was cold, smelling strongly of damp earth and decaying roots; but, so far, there was nothing remarkable to be seen; just such a cellar was used on his father's farm to keep stores of potatoes and turnips in when the frost of winter made its way through all the wooden barns. in three corners remains of such root stores were lying; in the fourth, the corner behind the door, nearest the sea, some boards were laid on the floor, and on them flower-pots containing stalks of withered plants and bulbs that had never sprouted. "they're mine," she said. "day dursn't touch them;" and saying this, she fell to work with eager feverishness, removing the pots and boards. when she had done so, it was revealed that the earth under the boards had broken through into another cellar or cave, in which some light could be seen. "i always heard the sea when i was in this place, and one day i broke through this hole. the man that first had the farm made it, i s'pose, to pitch his seaweed into from the shore." she let her long figure down through the hole easily enough, for there were places to set the feet on, and landed on a heap of earth and dried weed. when caius had dropped down into this second chamber, he saw that it had evidently been used for just the purpose she had mentioned. the seaweed gathered from the beach after storms was in common use for enriching the fields, and someone in a past generation had apparently dug this cave in the soft rock and clay of the cliff; it was at a height above the sea-line at which the seaweed could be conveniently pitched into it from a cart on the shore below. some three or four feet of dry rotten seaweed formed its carpet. the aperture towards the sea was almost entirely overgrown with such grass and weeds as grew on the bluff. it was evident that in the original cutting there had been an opening also sideways into the chine, which had caved in and been grown over. the cellar above had, no doubt, been made by someone who was not aware of the existence of this former place. to caius the secret chamber was enchanted ground. he stepped to its window, framed in waving grasses, and saw the high tide lapping just a little way below. it was into this place of safety that josephine had crept when she had disappeared from his view before he could mount the cliff to see whither she went. she had often stood where he now stood, half afraid, half audacious, in that curious dress of hers, before she summoned up courage to slip into the sea for daylight or moonlight wanderings. he turned round to hear the gaunt woman beside him again talking excitedly. upon a bit of rusty iron that still held its place on the wall hung what he had taken to be a heap of sacking. she took this down now and displayed it with a cunning look. "i made it myself," she said, "it holds one up wonderful in the water; but now i've been a-dying so long the buoys have burst." caius pityingly took the garment from her. her mad grief, and another woman's madcap pleasure, made it a sacred thing. his extreme curiosity found satisfaction in discovering that the coarse foundation was covered with a curious broidery of such small floats as might, with untiring industry, be collected in a farmhouse: corks and small pieces of wood with holes bored through them were fastened at regular intervals, not without some attempt at pattern, and between them the bladders of smaller animals, prepared as fishermen prepare them for their nets. larger specimens of the same kind were concealed inside the neck of the huge sack, but on the outside everything was comparatively small, and it seemed as if the hands that had worked it so elaborately had been directed by a brain in which familiarity with patchwork, and other homely forms of the sewing-woman's art, had been confused with an adequate idea of the rough use for which the garment was needed. some knowledge of the skill with which fishermen prepare their floats had also evidently been hers, for the whole outside of the garment was smeared or painted with a brownish substance that had preserved it to a wonderful extent from the ravages of moisture and salt. it was torn now, or, rather, it seemed that it had been cut from top to bottom; but, besides this one great rent, it was in a rotten condition, ready to fall to pieces, and, as the dying woman had said, many of the air-blown floats had burst. caius was wondering whether the occasion on which this curious bathing-dress had been torn was that in which he, by pursuing josephine, had forced her to cease pushing herself about in shallow water and take to more ordinary swimming. he looked around and saw the one other implement which had been necessary to complete the strange outfit; it, too, was a thing of ordinary appearance and use: a long pole or poker, with a handle at one end and a small flat bar at the other, a thing used for arranging the fire in the deep brick ovens that were still in use at the older farmsteads. it was about six feet long. the woman, seeing his attention directed to it, took it eagerly and showed how it might be used, drawing him with her to the aperture over the shore and pointing out eagerly the landmarks by which she knew how far the shallow water extended at certain times of the tide. her topographical knowledge of all the sea's bed within about a mile of the high-water mark was extraordinarily minute, and caius listened to the information she poured upon him, only now beginning to realize that she expected him to wear the dress, and take the iron pole, and slip from the old cellar into the tide when it rose high enough, and from thence bring back the girl with the soft curls and the golden ring. it was one of those moments in which laughter and tears meet, but there was a glamour of such strange fantasy over the scene that caius felt, not so much its humour or its pathos, as its fairy-like unreality, and that which gave him the sense of unreality was that to his companion it was intensely real. "you said you would go." some perception of his hesitation must have come to her; her words were strong with insistence and wistful with reproach. "you said you would go and fetch her in to me before i die." then caius put back the dress she held on the rusty peg where it had hung for so long. "i am a man," he said. "i can swim without life-preservers. i will go and try to bring the girl back to you. but not now, not from here; it will take me a week to go and come, for i know that she lives far away in the middle of the deep gulf. come back to the house and take care of yourself, so that you may live until she comes. you may trust me. i will certainly bring her to you if she's alive and if she can come." with these promises and protestations he prevailed upon the poor woman to return with him to her lonely home. caius had not got far on his road home, when he met day coming from the village. caius was full of his determination to go for josephine by the next trip of the small steamer. his excuse was valid; he could paint the interview from which he had just come so that josephine would be moved by it, would welcome his interference, and come again to nurse her uncle's wife. thus thinking, he had hurried along, but when he met day his knight-errantry received a check. "your wife ought not to be alone," he said to day. "no; that's true!" the farmer replied drearily; "but it isn't everybody she'll have in the house with her." "your son and daughter are too far away to be sent for?" "yes"--briefly--"they are in the west." caius paused a moment, thinking next to introduce the subject which had set all his pulses bounding. because it was momentous to him, he hesitated, and while he hesitated the other spoke. "there is one relation i've got, the daughter of a brother of mine who died up by gaspã© basin. she's on the magdalens now. i understood that you had had dealings with her." "yes; i was just about to suggest--i was going to say----" "i wrote to her. she is coming," said day. chapter xiii. the evening and the morning. josephine had come. all night and all the next day she had been by her aunt's bedside; for day's wife lay helpless now, and death was very near. this much caius knew, having kept himself informed by communication with the village doctor, and twenty-four hours after josephine's arrival he walked over to the day farm, hoping that, as the cool of the evening might relax the strain in the sick-room, she would be able to speak to him for a few minutes. when he got to the dreary house he met its owner, who had just finished his evening work. the two men sat on wooden chairs outside the door and watched the dusk gathering on sea and land, and although they did not talk much, each felt glad of the other's companionship. it was nine years since caius had first made up his mind that day was a monster of brutality and wickedness; now he could not think himself back into the state of mind that could have formed such a judgment when caius had condemned day, he had been a religions youth who thought well of himself; now his old religious habits and beliefs had dropped off, but he did not think well of himself or harshly of his neighbour. in those days he had felt sufficient for life; now all his feeling was summed up in the desire that was scarcely a hope, that some heavenly power, holy and strong, would come to his aid. it is when the whole good of life hangs in a trembling balance that people become like children, and feel the need of the motherly powers of heaven. caius sat with day for two hours, and josephine did not come down to speak to him. he was glad to know that day's evening passed the more easily because he sat there with him; he was glad of that when he was glad of nothing that concerned himself. day and caius did not talk about death or sorrow, or anything like that. all the remarks that they interchanged turned upon the horses day was rearing and their pastures. day told that he had found the grass on the little island rich. "i remember finding two of your colts there one day when i explored it. it was four years ago," said caius dreamily. day took no interest in this lapse of time. "it's an untidy bit of land," he said, "and i can't clear it. 'tisn't mine; but no one heeds the colts grazing." "do you swim them across?" asked caius, half in polite interest, half because his memory was wandering upon the water. "they got so sharp at swimming, i had to raise the fence on the top of the cliff," said day. the evening wore away. in the morning caius, smitten with the fever of hope and fear, rose up at dawn, and, as in a former time he had been wont to do, ran to the seashore by the nearest path and walked beside the edge of the waves. he turned, as he had always done, towards the little island and the day farm. how well he knew every outward curve and indentation of the soft red shelving bank! how well he knew the colouring of the cool scene in the rising day, the iridescent light upon the lapping waves, the glistening of the jasper red of the damp beach, and the earthen pinks of the upper cliffs! the sea birds with low pathetic note called out to him concerning their memories of the first dawn in which he had walked there searching for the body of the dead baby. then the cool tints of dawn passed into the golden sunrise, and the birds went on calling to him concerning the many times in which he had trodden this path as a lover whose mistress had seemed so strange a denizen of this same wide sea. caius did not think with scorn now of this old puzzle and bewilderment, but remembered it fondly, and went and sat beneath baby day's epitaph, on the very rock from which he had first seen josephine. it was very early in the morning; the sun had risen bright and warm. at that season even this desolate bit of shore wag garlanded above with the most lovely green; the little island was green as an emerald. caius did not intend to keep his present place long. the rocky point where the red cliff ended hid any portion of the day farm from his view, and as soon as the morning was far enough advanced he intended to go and see how the owner and his household had fared during the night. in the meantime he waited, and while he waited fate came to him smiling. once or twice as he sat he heard the sound of horse's feet passing on the cliff above him. he knew that day's horses were there, for they were pastured alternately upon the cliff and upon the richer herbage of the little island. he supposed by the sounds that they were catching one of them for use on the farm. the sounds went further away, for he did not hear the tread of hoofs again. he had forgotten them; his face had dropped upon his hands; he was looking at nothing, except that, beneath the screen of his fingers, he could see the red pebbles at his feet. something very like a prayer was in his heart; it had no form; it was not a thing of which his intellect could take cognizance. just then he heard a cry of fear and a sound as if of something dashing into the water. the sounds came from behind the rocky point. caius knew the voice that cried and he rose up wildly, but staggered, baffled by his old difficulty, that the path thither lay only through deep water or round above the cliff. then he saw a horse swimming round the red rocks, and on its back a woman sat, not at ease--evidently distressed and frightened by the course the animal was taking. to caius the situation became clear. josephine had thought to refresh herself after her night's vigil by taking an early ride, and the young half-broken horse, finding himself at large, was making for the delicacies which he knew were to be found on the island pasture. josephine did not know why her steed had put out to sea, or whither he was going. she turned round, and, seeing caius, held out her hand, imploring his aid. caius thanked heaven at that moment it was true that josephine kept her seat upon the horse perfectly, and it was true that, unless the animal intended to lie down and roll when he got into the deep grass of the island, he had probably no malicious intention in going there. that did not matter. josephine was terrified by finding herself in the sea and she had cried to him for aid. a quick run, a short swim, and caius waded up on the island sands. the colt had a much longer distance to swim, and caius waited to lay his hand on the bridle. for a minute or two there was a chase among the shallow, rippling waves, but a horse sinking in heavy sand is not hard to catch. josephine sat passive, having enough to do, perhaps, merely to keep her seat. when at length caius stood on the island grass with the bridle in his hand, she slipped down without a word and stood beside him. caius let the dripping animal go, and he went, plunging with delight among the flowering weeds and bushes. caius himself was dripping also, but, then, he could answer for his own movements that he would not come too near the lady. josephine no longer wore her loose black working dress; this morning she was clad in an old habit of green cloth. it was faded with weather, and too long in the skirt for the fashion then in vogue, but caius did not know that; he only saw that the lower part of the skirt was wet, and that, as she stood at her own graceful height upon the grass, the wet cloth twisted about her feet and lay beside them in a rounded fold, so that she looked just now more like the pictures of the fabled sea-maids than she had ever done when she had floated in the water. the first thing josephine did was to look up in his face and laugh; it was her own merry peal of low laughter that reminded him always of a child laughing, not more for fun than for mere happiness. it bridged for him all the sad anxieties and weary hours that had passed since he had heard her laugh before; and, furthermore, he knew, without another moment's doubt, that josephine, knowing him as she did, would never have looked up to him like that unless she loved him. it was not that she was thinking of love just then--that was not what was in her face; but it was clear that she was conscious of no shadow of difference between them such as would have been there if his love had been doomed to disappointment. she looked to him to join in her laughter with perfect comradeship. "why did the horse come here?" asked josephine. caius explained the motives of the colt as far as he understood them; and she told how she had persuaded her uncle to let her ride it, and all that she had thought and felt when it had run away with her down the chine and into the water. it was not at all what he could have believed beforehand, that when he met josephine they would talk with perfect contentment of the affairs of the passing hour; and yet so it was. with graver faces they talked of the dying woman, with whom josephine had passed the night. it was not a case in which death was sad; it was life, not death, that was sad for the wandering brain. but josephine could tell how in those last nights the poor mother had found peace in the presence of her supposed child. "she curls my hair round her thin fingers and seems so happy," said josephine. she did not say that the thin hands had fingered her wedding-ring; but caius thought of it, and that brought him back the remembrance of something that had to be said that must be said then, or every moment would become a sin of weak delay. "i want to tell you," he began--"i know i must tell you--i don't know exactly why, but i must--i am sorry to say anything to remind you--to distress you--but i hated le maã®tre! looking back, it seems to me that the only reason i did not kill him was that i was too much of a coward." josephine looked off upon the sea. the wearied pained look that she used to wear when the people were ill about her, or that she had worn when she heard le maã®tre was returning, came back to her face, so that she seemed not at all the girl who had been laughing with him a minute before, but a saint, whose image he could have worshipped. and yet he saw then, more clearly than he had ever seen, that the charm, the perfect consistency of her character, lay in the fact that the childlike joy was never far off from the woman's strength and patience, and that a womanly heart always underlay the merriest laughter. they stood silent for a long time. it is in silence that god's creation grows. at length josephine spoke slowly: "yes, we are often very, very wicked; but i think when we are so much ashamed that we have to tell about it--i think it means that we will never do it again." "i am not good enough to love you," said caius brokenly. "ah! do not say that"--she turned her face away from him--"remember the last time you spoke to me upon the end of the dune." caius went back to the shore to get the boat that lay at the foot of the chine. the colt was allowed to enjoy his paradise of island flowers in peace. the end. advertisements appleton's town and country library. published semimonthly. 1. _the steel hammer._ by louis ulbach. 2. _eve._ a novel. by s. baring-gould. 3. _for fifteen years._ a sequel to the steel hammer. by louis ulbach. 4. _a counsel of perfection._ a novel. by lucas malet. 5. _the deemster._ a romance. by hall caine. 6. _a virginia inheritance._ by edmund pendleton. 7. _ninette_: an idyll of provence. by the author of vã©ra. 8. "_the right honourable._" by justin mccarthy and mrs. campbell-praed. 9. _the silence of dean maitland._ by maxwell gray. 10. _mrs. lorimer_: a study in black and white. by lucas malet. 11. _the elect lady._ by george macdonald. 12. _the mystery of the "ocean star."_ by w. clark russell. 13. _aristocracy._ a novel. 14. _a recoiling vengeance._ by frank barrett. with illustrations. 15. _the secret of fontaine-la-croix._ by margaret field. 16. _the master of rathkelly._ by hawley smart. 17. _donovan:_ a modern englishman. by edna lyall. 18. _this mortal coil._ by grant allen. 19. _a fair emigrant._ by rosa mulholland. 20. _the apostate._ by ernest daudet. 21. _raleigh westgate_; or, epimenides in maine. by helen kendrick johnson. 22. _arius the libyan_: a romance of the primitive church. 23. _constance, and calbot's rival._ by julian hawthorne. 24. _we two._ by edna lyall. 25. _a dreamer of dreams._ by the author of thoth. 26. _the ladies' gallery._ by justin mccarthy and mrs. campbell-praed. 27. _the reproach of annesley._ by maxwell gray. 28. _near to happiness._ 29. _in the wire-grass._ by louis pendleton. 30. _lace._ a berlin romance. by paul lindau. 31. _american coin._ a novel. by the author of aristocracy. 32. _won by waiting._ by edna lyall. 33. _the story of helen davenant._ by violet fane. 34. _the light of her countenance._ by h. h. boyesen. 35. _mistress beatrice cope._ by m. e. le clerc. 36. _the knight-errant._ by edna lyall. 37. _in the golden days._ by edna lyall. 38. _giraldi;_ or, the curse of love. by ross george dering. 39. _a hardy norseman._ by edna lyall. 40. _the romance of jenny harlowe_, and _sketches of maritime life._ by w. clark russell. 41. _passion's slave_. by richard ashe-king. 42. _the awakening of mary fenwick._ by beatrice whitby. 43. _countess loreley._ translated from the german of rudolf menger. 44. _blind love._ by wilkie collins. 45. _the dean's daughter._ by sophie f. f. veitch. 46. _countess irene._ a romance of austrian life. by j. fogerty. 47. _robert browning's principal shorter poems._ 48. _frozen hearts._ by g. webb appleton. 49. _djambek the georgian._ by a. g. von suttner. 50. _the craze of christian engelhart._ by henry faulkner darnell. 51. _lal._ by william a. hammond, m.d. 52. _aline._ a novel. by henry grã�ville. 53. _joost avelingh._ a dutch story. by maarten maartens. 54. _katy of catoctin._ by george alfred townsend. 55. _throckmorton._ a novel. by molly elliot seawell. 56. _expatriation._ by the author of aristocracy. 57. _geoffrey hampstead._ by t. s. jarvis. 58. _dmitri._ a romance of old russia. by f. w. bain, m.a. 59. _part of the property._ by beatrice whitby. 60. _bismarck in private life._ by a fellow-student. 61. _in low relief._ by morley roberts. 62. _the canadians of old._ a historical romance. by philippe gaspã�. 63. _a squire of low degree._ by lily a. long. 64. _a fluttered dovecote._ by george manville fenn. 65. _the nugents of carriconna._ an irish story. by tighe hopkins. 66. _a sensitive plant._ by e. and d. gerard. 67. _doã±a luz._ by juan valera. translated by mrs. mary j. serrano. 68. _pepita ximenez._ by juan valera. translated by mrs. mary j. serrano. 69. _the primes and their neighbors._ by richard malcolm johnston. 70. _the iron game._ by henry f. keenan. 71. _stories of old new spain._ by thomas a. janvier. 72. _the maid of honor._ by hon. lewis wingfield. 73. _in the heart of the storm._ by maxwell gray. 74. _consequences._ by egerton castle. 75. _the three miss kings._ by ada cambridge. 76. _a matter of skill._ by beatrice whitby. 77. _maid marian, and other stories._ by molly elliot seawell. 78. _one woman's way._ by edmund pendleton. 79. _a merciful divorce._ by f. w. maude. 80. _stephen ellicott's daughter._ by mrs j. h. needell. 81. _one reason why._ by beatrice whitby. 82. _the tragedy of ida noble._ by w. clark russell. 83. _the johnstown stage, and other stories._ by robert h. fletcher. 84. _a widower indeed._ by rhoda broughton and elizabeth bisland. 85. _the flight of the shadow._ by george macdonald. 86. _love or money._ by katharine lee. 87. _not all in vain._ by ada cambridge. 88. _it happened yesterday._ by frederick marshall. 89. _my guardian._ by ada cambridge. 90. _the story of philip methuen._ by mrs. j. h. needell. 91. _amethyst_: the story of a beauty. by christabel r. coleridge. 92. _don braulio._ by juan valera. translated by clara bell. 93. _the chronicles of mr. bill williams._ by richard malcolm johnston. 94. _a queen of curds and cream._ by dorothea gerard. 95. _"la bella" and others._ by egerton castle. 96. "_december roses._" by mrs. campbell-praed. 97. _jean de kerdren._ by jeanne schultz. 98. _etelka's vow._ by dorothea gerard. 99. _cross currents._ by mary a. dickens. 100. _his life's magnet._ by theodora elmslie. 101. _passing the love of women._ by mrs. j. h. needell. 102. _in old st. stephen's._ by jeanie drake. 103. _the berkeleys and their neighbors._ by molly elliot seawell. 104. _mona maclean, medical student._ by graham travers. 105. _mrs. bligh._ by rhoda broughton. 106. _a stumble on the threshold._ by james payn. 107. _hanging moss._ by paul lindau. 108. _a comedy of elopement._ by christian reid. 109. _in the suntime of her youth._ by beatrice whitby. 110. _stories in black and white._ by thomas hardy and others. 110â½. _an englishman in paris._ notes and recollections. 111. _commander mendoza._ by juan valera. 112. _dr. paull's theory._ by mrs. a. m. diehl. 113. _children of destiny._ by molly elliot seawell. 114. _a little minx._ by ada cambridge. 115. _capt'n davy's honeymoon._ by hall caine. 116. _the voice of a flower._ by e. gerard. 117. _singularly deluded._ by sarah grand. 118. _suspected._ by louisa stratenus. 119. _lucia, hugh and another._ by mrs. j. h. needell. 120. _the tutor's secret._ by victor cherbulies. 121. _from the five rivers._ by mrs. f. a. steel. 122. _an innocent impostor, and other stories._ by maxwell gray. 123. _ideala._ by sarah grand. 124. _a comedy of masks._ by ernest dowson and arthur moore. 125. _relics._ by francis macnab. 126. _dodo: a detail of the day._ by e. f. benson. 127. _a woman of forty._ by esmã� stuart. 128. _diana tempest._ by mary cholmondeley. 129. _a recipe for diamonds._ by c. j. cutliffe hyne. 130. _christina chard._ by mrs. campbell-praed. 131. _a gray eye or so._ by frank frankfort moore. 132. _earlscourt._ by alexander allardyce. 133. _a marriage ceremony._ by ada cambridge. 134. _a ward in chancery._ by mrs. alexander. 135. _lot 13._ by dorothea gerard. 136. _our manifold nature._ by sarah grand. 137. _a costly freak._ by maxwell gray. 138. _a beginner._ by rhoda broughton. 139. _a yellow aster._ by mrs. mannington caffyn ("iota"). 140. _the rubicon._ by e. f. benson. 141. _the trespasser._ by gilbert parker. 142. _the rich miss riddell._ by dorothea gerard. 143. _mary fenwick's daughter._ by beatrice whitby. 144. _red diamonds._ by justin mccarthy. 145. _a daughter of music._ by g. colmore. 146. _outlaw and lawmaker._ by mrs. campbell-praed. 147. _dr. janet of harley street._ by arabella kenealy. 148. _george mandeville's husband._ by c. e. raimond. 149. _vashti and esther._ 150. _timar's two worlds._ by m. jokai. 151. _a victim of good luck._ by w. e. norris. 152. _the trail of the sword._ by gilbert parker. 153. _a mild barbarian._ by edgar fawcett. 154. _the god in the car._ by anthony hope. 155. _children of circumstance._ by mrs. m. caffyn ("iota"). 156. _at the gate of samaria._ by william j. locke. 157. _the justification of andrew lebrun._ by frank barrett. 158. _dust and laurels._ by mary l. pendered. 159. _the good ship mohock._ by w. clark russell. 160. _noemi._ by s. baring-gould. 161. _the honour of savelli._ by s. levett yeats. 162. _kitty's engagement._ by florence warden. each, 12mo. paper, 50 cents; cloth, $1.00. * * * * * georg ebers's romances. cleopatra. translated from the german by mary j. safford. 2 volumes. a thorny path. (per aspera.) translated by clara bell. 2 volumes. an egyptian princess. translated by eleanor grove. 2 volumes. uarda. translated by clara bell. 2 volumes. homo sum. translated by clara bell. 1 volume. the sisters. translated by clara bell. 1 volume. a question. translated by mary j. safford. 1 volume. the emperor. translated by clara bell. 2 volumes. the burgomaster's wife. translated by mary j. safford. 1 volume. a word, only a word. translated by mary j. safford. 1 volume. serapis. translated by clara bell. 1 volume. the bride of the nile. translated by clara bell. 2 volumes. margery. (gred.) translated by clara bell. 2 volumes. joshua. translated by mary j. safford. 1 volume. the elixir and other tales. translated by mrs. edward h. bell. 1 vol. each of the above, 16mo, paper cover, 40 cents per volume; cloth, 75 cents. set of 28 volumes, cloth, in box, $16.50. also, 12mo edition of the above (except "a question," "the elixir," "cleopatra," and "a thorny path"), in 8 volumes, cloth, $1.00 each. * * * * * new york: d. appleton & co., publishers, 72 fifth avenue. * * * * * novels by hall caine. _the manxman._ by hall caine. 12mo. cloth, $1.50. "a story of marvelous dramatic intensity, and in its ethical meaning has a force comparable only to hawthorne's 'scarlet letter.'"--_boston beacon._ "a work of power which is another stone added to the foundation of enduring fame to which mr. caine is yearly adding."--_public opinion._ "a wonderfully strong study of character; a powerful analysis of those elements which go to make up the strength and weakness of a man, which are at fierce warfare within the same breast: contending against each other, as it were, the one to raise him to fame and power, the other to drag him down to degradation and shame. never in the whole range of literature have we seen the struggle between these forces for supremacy over the man more powerfully, more realistically delineated, than mr. caine pictures it."--_boston home journal._ "'the manxman' is one of the most notable novels of the year, and is unquestionably destined to perpetuate the fame of hall caine for many a year to come."--_philadelphia telegraph._ "the author exhibits a mastery of the elemental passions of life that places hum high among the foremost of present writers of fiction."--_philadelphia inquirer._ _the deemster. a romance of the isle of man._ by hall caine. 12mo. cloth, $1.50. 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"widely read and praised on both sides of the atlantic and pacific, with scores of illustrations which fit the text exactly and show the mind of artist and writer in unison."--_new york evening post._ "it is to be doubted whether another book can be found so thoroughly amusing from beginning to end."--_boston daily advertiser._ "a brighter, merrier, more entirely charming book would be, indeed, difficult to find."--_st. louis republic._ _an american girl in london._ with 80 illustrations by f. h. townsend. 12mo. paper, 75 cents; cloth, $1.50. "one of the most naã¯ve and entertaining books of the season."--_new york observer._ "so sprightly a book as this, on life in london as observed by an american, has never before been written."--_philadelphia bulletin._ "overrunning with cleverness and good-will."--_new york commercial advertiser._ _the simple adventures of a mem-sahib._ with 37 illustrations by f. h. townsend. 12mo. cloth, $1.50. 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"an exceedingly strong novel. it is an australian story, teeming with a certain calmness of emotional power that finds expression in a continual outflow of living thought and feeling."--_boston times._ "the story is told with great brilliancy, the character and society sketching is very charming, while delightful incidents and happy surprises abound. it is a triple love-story, pure in tone, and of very high literary merit."--_chicago herald._ _not all in vain._ 12mo. paper, 50 cents; cloth, $1.00. "a worthy companion to the best of the author's former efforts, and in some respects superior to any of them."--_detroit free press._ "its surprises are as unexpected as frank stockton's, but they are the surprises that are met with so commonly in human experience.... a better story has not been published in many moons."--_philadelphia inquirer._ _a marriage ceremony._ 12mo. paper, 50 cents; cloth, $1.00. "'a marriage ceremony' is highly original in conception, its action graceful though rapid, and its characters speaking with that life and sprightliness that have made their author rank as a peer of delineators."--_baltimore american._ "this story by ada cambridge is one of her best, and to say that is to at once award it high praise."--_boston advertiser._ "it is a pleasure to read this novel."--_london athenã¦um._ _a little minx._ 12mo. paper, 50 cents; cloth, $1.00. "a thoroughly charming new novel, which is just the finest bit of work its author has yet accomplished."--_baltimore american._ "the character of the heroine is especially cleverly drawn."--_new york commercial advertiser._ the press on ada cambridge's books. "many of the types of character introduced would not have disgraced george eliot."--vanity fair. * * * * * new york: d. appleton & co., 72 fifth avenue. anne's house of dreams by lucy maud montgomery "to laura, in memory of the olden time." contents chapter 1 in the garret of green gables 2 the house of dreams 3 the land of dreams among 4 the first bride of green gables 5 the home coming 6 captain jim 7 the schoolmaster's bride 8 miss cornelia bryant comes to call 9 an evening at four winds point 10 leslie moore 11 the story of leslie moore 12 leslie comes over 13 a ghostly evening 14 november days 15 christmas at four winds 16 new year's eve at the light 17 a four winds winter 18 spring days 19 dawn and dusk 20 lost margaret 21 barriers swept away 22 miss cornelia arranges matters 23 owen ford comes 24 the life-book of captain jim 25 the writing of the book 26 owen ford's confession 27 on the sand bar 28 odds and ends 29 gilbert and anne disagree 30 leslie decides 31 the truth makes free 32 miss cornelia discusses the affair 33 leslie returns 34 the ship o'dreams comes to harbor 35 politics at four winds 36 beauty for ashes 38 red roses 39 captain jim crosses the bar 40 farewell to the house of dreams chapter 1 in the garret of green gables "thanks be, i'm done with geometry, learning or teaching it," said anne shirley, a trifle vindictively, as she thumped a somewhat battered volume of euclid into a big chest of books, banged the lid in triumph, and sat down upon it, looking at diana wright across the green gables garret, with gray eyes that were like a morning sky. the garret was a shadowy, suggestive, delightful place, as all garrets should be. through the open window, by which anne sat, blew the sweet, scented, sun-warm air of the august afternoon; outside, poplar boughs rustled and tossed in the wind; beyond them were the woods, where lover's lane wound its enchanted path, and the old apple orchard which still bore its rosy harvests munificently. and, over all, was a great mountain range of snowy clouds in the blue southern sky. through the other window was glimpsed a distant, white-capped, blue sea--the beautiful st. lawrence gulf, on which floats, like a jewel, abegweit, whose softer, sweeter indian name has long been forsaken for the more prosaic one of prince edward island. diana wright, three years older than when we last saw her, had grown somewhat matronly in the intervening time. but her eyes were as black and brilliant, her cheeks as rosy, and her dimples as enchanting, as in the long-ago days when she and anne shirley had vowed eternal friendship in the garden at orchard slope. in her arms she held a small, sleeping, black-curled creature, who for two happy years had been known to the world of avonlea as "small anne cordelia." avonlea folks knew why diana had called her anne, of course, but avonlea folks were puzzled by the cordelia. there had never been a cordelia in the wright or barry connections. mrs. harmon andrews said she supposed diana had found the name in some trashy novel, and wondered that fred hadn't more sense than to allow it. but diana and anne smiled at each other. they knew how small anne cordelia had come by her name. "you always hated geometry," said diana with a retrospective smile. "i should think you'd be real glad to be through with teaching, anyhow." "oh, i've always liked teaching, apart from geometry. these past three years in summerside have been very pleasant ones. mrs. harmon andrews told me when i came home that i wouldn't likely find married life as much better than teaching as i expected. evidently mrs. harmon is of hamlet's opinion that it may be better to bear the ills that we have than fly to others that we know not of." anne's laugh, as blithe and irresistible as of yore, with an added note of sweetness and maturity, rang through the garret. marilla in the kitchen below, compounding blue plum preserve, heard it and smiled; then sighed to think how seldom that dear laugh would echo through green gables in the years to come. nothing in her life had ever given marilla so much happiness as the knowledge that anne was going to marry gilbert blythe; but every joy must bring with it its little shadow of sorrow. during the three summerside years anne had been home often for vacations and weekends; but, after this, a bi-annual visit would be as much as could be hoped for. "you needn't let what mrs. harmon says worry you," said diana, with the calm assurance of the four-years matron. "married life has its ups and downs, of course. you mustn't expect that everything will always go smoothly. but i can assure you, anne, that it's a happy life, when you're married to the right man." anne smothered a smile. diana's airs of vast experience always amused her a little. "i daresay i'll be putting them on too, when i've been married four years," she thought. "surely my sense of humor will preserve me from it, though." "is it settled yet where you are going to live?" asked diana, cuddling small anne cordelia with the inimitable gesture of motherhood which always sent through anne's heart, filled with sweet, unuttered dreams and hopes, a thrill that was half pure pleasure and half a strange, ethereal pain. "yes. that was what i wanted to tell you when i 'phoned to you to come down today. by the way, i can't realize that we really have telephones in avonlea now. it sounds so preposterously up-to-date and modernish for this darling, leisurely old place." "we can thank the a. v. i. s. for them," said diana. "we should never have got the line if they hadn't taken the matter up and carried it through. there was enough cold water thrown to discourage any society. but they stuck to it, nevertheless. you did a splendid thing for avonlea when you founded that society, anne. what fun we did have at our meetings! will you ever forget the blue hall and judson parker's scheme for painting medicine advertisements on his fence?" "i don't know that i'm wholly grateful to the a. v. i. s. in the matter of the telephone," said anne. "oh, i know it's most convenient--even more so than our old device of signalling to each other by flashes of candlelight! and, as mrs. rachel says, 'avonlea must keep up with the procession, that's what.' but somehow i feel as if i didn't want avonlea spoiled by what mr. harrison, when he wants to be witty, calls 'modern inconveniences.' i should like to have it kept always just as it was in the dear old years. that's foolish--and sentimental--and impossible. so i shall immediately become wise and practical and possible. the telephone, as mr. harrison concedes, is 'a buster of a good thing'--even if you do know that probably half a dozen interested people are listening along the line." "that's the worst of it," sighed diana. "it's so annoying to hear the receivers going down whenever you ring anyone up. they say mrs. harmon andrews insisted that their 'phone should be put in their kitchen just so that she could listen whenever it rang and keep an eye on the dinner at the same time. today, when you called me, i distinctly heard that queer clock of the pyes' striking. so no doubt josie or gertie was listening." "oh, so that is why you said, 'you've got a new clock at green gables, haven't you?' i couldn't imagine what you meant. i heard a vicious click as soon as you had spoken. i suppose it was the pye receiver being hung up with profane energy. well, never mind the pyes. as mrs. rachel says, 'pyes they always were and pyes they always will be, world without end, amen.' i want to talk of pleasanter things. it's all settled as to where my new home shall be." "oh, anne, where? i do hope it's near here." "no-o-o, that's the drawback. gilbert is going to settle at four winds harbor--sixty miles from here." "sixty! it might as well be six hundred," sighed diana. "i never can get further from home now than charlottetown." "you'll have to come to four winds. it's the most beautiful harbor on the island. there's a little village called glen st. mary at its head, and dr. david blythe has been practicing there for fifty years. he is gilbert's great-uncle, you know. he is going to retire, and gilbert is to take over his practice. dr. blythe is going to keep his house, though, so we shall have to find a habitation for ourselves. i don't know yet what it is, or where it will be in reality, but i have a little house o'dreams all furnished in my imagination--a tiny, delightful castle in spain." "where are you going for your wedding tour?" asked diana. "nowhere. don't look horrified, diana dearest. you suggest mrs. harmon andrews. she, no doubt, will remark condescendingly that people who can't afford wedding 'towers' are real sensible not to take them; and then she'll remind me that jane went to europe for hers. i want to spend my honeymoon at four winds in my own dear house of dreams." "and you've decided not to have any bridesmaid?" "there isn't any one to have. you and phil and priscilla and jane all stole a march on me in the matter of marriage; and stella is teaching in vancouver. i have no other 'kindred soul' and i won't have a bridesmaid who isn't." "but you are going to wear a veil, aren't you?" asked diana, anxiously. "yes, indeedy. i shouldn't feel like a bride without one. i remember telling matthew, that evening when he brought me to green gables, that i never expected to be a bride because i was so homely no one would ever want to marry me--unless some foreign missionary did. i had an idea then that foreign missionaries couldn't afford to be finicky in the matter of looks if they wanted a girl to risk her life among cannibals. you should have seen the foreign missionary priscilla married. he was as handsome and inscrutable as those daydreams we once planned to marry ourselves, diana; he was the best dressed man i ever met, and he raved over priscilla's 'ethereal, golden beauty.' but of course there are no cannibals in japan." "your wedding dress is a dream, anyhow," sighed diana rapturously. "you'll look like a perfect queen in it--you're so tall and slender. how do you keep so slim, anne? i'm fatter than ever--i'll soon have no waist at all." "stoutness and slimness seem to be matters of predestination," said anne. "at all events, mrs. harmon andrews can't say to you what she said to me when i came home from summerside, 'well, anne, you're just about as skinny as ever.' it sounds quite romantic to be 'slender,' but 'skinny' has a very different tang." "mrs. harmon has been talking about your trousseau. she admits it's as nice as jane's, although she says jane married a millionaire and you are only marrying a 'poor young doctor without a cent to his name.'" anne laughed. "my dresses are nice. i love pretty things. i remember the first pretty dress i ever had--the brown gloria matthew gave me for our school concert. before that everything i had was so ugly. it seemed to me that i stepped into a new world that night." "that was the night gilbert recited 'bingen on the rhine,' and looked at you when he said, 'there's another, not a sister.' and you were so furious because he put your pink tissue rose in his breast pocket! you didn't much imagine then that you would ever marry him." "oh, well, that's another instance of predestination," laughed anne, as they went down the garret stairs. chapter 2 the house of dreams there was more excitement in the air of green gables than there had ever been before in all its history. even marilla was so excited that she couldn't help showing it--which was little short of being phenomenal. "there's never been a wedding in this house," she said, half apologetically, to mrs. rachel lynde. "when i was a child i heard an old minister say that a house was not a real home until it had been consecrated by a birth, a wedding and a death. we've had deaths here--my father and mother died here as well as matthew; and we've even had a birth here. long ago, just after we moved into this house, we had a married hired man for a little while, and his wife had a baby here. but there's never been a wedding before. it does seem so strange to think of anne being married. in a way she just seems to me the little girl matthew brought home here fourteen years ago. i can't realize that she's grown up. i shall never forget what i felt when i saw matthew bringing in a girl. i wonder what became of the boy we would have got if there hadn't been a mistake. i wonder what his fate was." "well, it was a fortunate mistake," said mrs. rachel lynde, "though, mind you, there was a time i didn't think so--that evening i came up to see anne and she treated us to such a scene. many things have changed since then, that's what." mrs. rachel sighed, and then brisked up again. when weddings were in order mrs. rachel was ready to let the dead past bury its dead. "i'm going to give anne two of my cotton warp spreads," she resumed. "a tobacco-stripe one and an apple-leaf one. she tells me they're getting to be real fashionable again. well, fashion or no fashion, i don't believe there's anything prettier for a spare-room bed than a nice apple-leaf spread, that's what. i must see about getting them bleached. i've had them sewed up in cotton bags ever since thomas died, and no doubt they're an awful color. but there's a month yet, and dew-bleaching will work wonders." only a month! marilla sighed and then said proudly: "i'm giving anne that half dozen braided rugs i have in the garret. i never supposed she'd want them--they're so old-fashioned, and nobody seems to want anything but hooked mats now. but she asked me for them--said she'd rather have them than anything else for her floors. they are pretty. i made them of the nicest rags, and braided them in stripes. it was such company these last few winters. and i'll make her enough blue plum preserve to stock her jam closet for a year. it seems real strange. those blue plum trees hadn't even a blossom for three years, and i thought they might as well be cut down. and this last spring they were white, and such a crop of plums i never remember at green gables." "well, thank goodness that anne and gilbert really are going to be married after all. it's what i've always prayed for," said mrs. rachel, in the tone of one who is comfortably sure that her prayers have availed much. "it was a great relief to find out that she really didn't mean to take the kingsport man. he was rich, to be sure, and gilbert is poor--at least, to begin with; but then he's an island boy." "he's gilbert blythe," said marilla contentedly. marilla would have died the death before she would have put into words the thought that was always in the background of her mind whenever she had looked at gilbert from his childhood up--the thought that, had it not been for her own wilful pride long, long ago, he might have been her son. marilla felt that, in some strange way, his marriage with anne would put right that old mistake. good had come out of the evil of the ancient bitterness. as for anne herself, she was so happy that she almost felt frightened. the gods, so says the old superstition, do not like to behold too happy mortals. it is certain, at least, that some human beings do not. two of that ilk descended upon anne one violet dusk and proceeded to do what in them lay to prick the rainbow bubble of her satisfaction. if she thought she was getting any particular prize in young dr. blythe, or if she imagined that he was still as infatuated with her as he might have been in his salad days, it was surely their duty to put the matter before her in another light. yet these two worthy ladies were not enemies of anne; on the contrary, they were really quite fond of her, and would have defended her as their own young had anyone else attacked her. human nature is not obliged to be consistent. mrs. inglis--nee jane andrews, to quote from the daily enterprise--came with her mother and mrs. jasper bell. but in jane the milk of human kindness had not been curdled by years of matrimonial bickerings. her lines had fallen in pleasant places. in spite of the fact--as mrs. rachel lynde would say--that she had married a millionaire, her marriage had been happy. wealth had not spoiled her. she was still the placid, amiable, pink-cheeked jane of the old quartette, sympathising with her old chum's happiness and as keenly interested in all the dainty details of anne's trousseau as if it could rival her own silken and bejewelled splendors. jane was not brilliant, and had probably never made a remark worth listening to in her life; but she never said anything that would hurt anyone's feelings--which may be a negative talent but is likewise a rare and enviable one. "so gilbert didn't go back on you after all," said mrs. harmon andrews, contriving to convey an expression of surprise in her tone. "well, the blythes generally keep their word when they've once passed it, no matter what happens. let me see--you're twenty-five, aren't you, anne? when i was a girl twenty-five was the first corner. but you look quite young. red-headed people always do." "red hair is very fashionable now," said anne, trying to smile, but speaking rather coldly. life had developed in her a sense of humor which helped her over many difficulties; but as yet nothing had availed to steel her against a reference to her hair. "so it is--so it is," conceded mrs. harmon. "there's no telling what queer freaks fashion will take. well, anne, your things are very pretty, and very suitable to your position in life, aren't they, jane? i hope you'll be very happy. you have my best wishes, i'm sure. a long engagement doesn't often turn out well. but, of course, in your case it couldn't be helped." "gilbert looks very young for a doctor. i'm afraid people won't have much confidence in him," said mrs. jasper bell gloomily. then she shut her mouth tightly, as if she had said what she considered it her duty to say and held her conscience clear. she belonged to the type which always has a stringy black feather in its hat and straggling locks of hair on its neck. anne's surface pleasure in her pretty bridal things was temporarily shadowed; but the deeps of happiness below could not thus be disturbed; and the little stings of mesdames bell and andrews were forgotten when gilbert came later, and they wandered down to the birches of the brook, which had been saplings when anne had come to green gables, but were now tall, ivory columns in a fairy palace of twilight and stars. in their shadows anne and gilbert talked in lover-fashion of their new home and their new life together. "i've found a nest for us, anne." "oh, where? not right in the village, i hope. i wouldn't like that altogether." "no. there was no house to be had in the village. this is a little white house on the harbor shore, half way between glen st. mary and four winds point. it's a little out of the way, but when we get a 'phone in that won't matter so much. the situation is beautiful. it looks to the sunset and has the great blue harbor before it. the sand-dunes aren't very far away--the sea winds blow over them and the sea spray drenches them." "but the house itself, gilbert,--our first home? what is it like?" "not very large, but large enough for us. there's a splendid living room with a fireplace in it downstairs, and a dining room that looks out on the harbor, and a little room that will do for my office. it is about sixty years old--the oldest house in four winds. but it has been kept in pretty good repair, and was all done over about fifteen years ago--shingled, plastered and re-floored. it was well built to begin with. i understand that there was some romantic story connected with its building, but the man i rented it from didn't know it." "he said captain jim was the only one who could spin that old yarn now." "who is captain jim?" "the keeper of the lighthouse on four winds point. you'll love that four winds light, anne. it's a revolving one, and it flashes like a magnificent star through the twilights. we can see it from our living room windows and our front door." "who owns the house?" "well, it's the property of the glen st. mary presbyterian church now, and i rented it from the trustees. but it belonged until lately to a very old lady, miss elizabeth russell. she died last spring, and as she had no near relatives she left her property to the glen st. mary church. her furniture is still in the house, and i bought most of it--for a mere song you might say, because it was all so old-fashioned that the trustees despaired of selling it. glen st. mary folks prefer plush brocade and sideboards with mirrors and ornamentations, i fancy. but miss russell's furniture is very good and i feel sure you'll like it, anne." "so far, good," said anne, nodding cautious approval. "but, gilbert, people cannot live by furniture alone. you haven't yet mentioned one very important thing. are there trees about this house?" "heaps of them, oh, dryad! there is a big grove of fir trees behind it, two rows of lombardy poplars down the lane, and a ring of white birches around a very delightful garden. our front door opens right into the garden, but there is another entrance--a little gate hung between two firs. the hinges are on one trunk and the catch on the other. their boughs form an arch overhead." "oh, i'm so glad! i couldn't live where there were no trees--something vital in me would starve. well, after that, there's no use asking you if there's a brook anywhere near. that would be expecting too much." "but there is a brook--and it actually cuts across one corner of the garden." "then," said anne, with a long sigh of supreme satisfaction, "this house you have found is my house of dreams and none other." chapter 3 the land of dreams among "have you made up your mind who you're going to have to the wedding, anne?" asked mrs. rachel lynde, as she hemstitched table napkins industriously. "it's time your invitations were sent, even if they are to be only informal ones." "i don't mean to have very many," said anne. "we just want those we love best to see us married. gilbert's people, and mr. and mrs. allan, and mr. and mrs. harrison." "there was a time when you'd hardly have numbered mr. harrison among your dearest friends," said marilla drily. "well, i wasn't very strongly attracted to him at our first meeting," acknowledged anne, with a laugh over the recollection. "but mr. harrison has improved on acquaintance, and mrs. harrison is really a dear. then, of course, there are miss lavendar and paul." "have they decided to come to the island this summer? i thought they were going to europe." "they changed their minds when i wrote them i was going to be married. i had a letter from paul today. he says he must come to my wedding, no matter what happens to europe." "that child always idolised you," remarked mrs. rachel. "that 'child' is a young man of nineteen now, mrs. lynde." "how time does fly!" was mrs. lynde's brilliant and original response. "charlotta the fourth may come with them. she sent word by paul that she would come if her husband would let her. i wonder if she still wears those enormous blue bows, and whether her husband calls her charlotta or leonora. i should love to have charlotta at my wedding. charlotta and i were at a wedding long syne. they expect to be at echo lodge next week. then there are phil and the reverend jo----" "it sounds awful to hear you speaking of a minister like that, anne," said mrs. rachel severely. "his wife calls him that." "she should have more respect for his holy office, then," retorted mrs. rachel. "i've heard you criticise ministers pretty sharply yourself," teased anne. "yes, but i do it reverently," protested mrs. lynde. "you never heard me nickname a minister." anne smothered a smile. "well, there are diana and fred and little fred and small anne cordelia--and jane andrews. i wish i could have miss stacey and aunt jamesina and priscilla and stella. but stella is in vancouver, and pris is in japan, and miss stacey is married in california, and aunt jamesina has gone to india to explore her daughter's mission field, in spite of her horror of snakes. it's really dreadful--the way people get scattered over the globe." "the lord never intended it, that's what," said mrs. rachel authoritatively. "in my young days people grew up and married and settled down where they were born, or pretty near it. thank goodness you've stuck to the island, anne. i was afraid gilbert would insist on rushing off to the ends of the earth when he got through college, and dragging you with him." "if everybody stayed where he was born places would soon be filled up, mrs. lynde." "oh, i'm not going to argue with you, anne. _i_ am not a b.a. what time of the day is the ceremony to be?" "we have decided on noon--high noon, as the society reporters say. that will give us time to catch the evening train to glen st. mary." "and you'll be married in the parlor?" "no--not unless it rains. we mean to be married in the orchard--with the blue sky over us and the sunshine around us. do you know when and where i'd like to be married, if i could? it would be at dawn--a june dawn, with a glorious sunrise, and roses blooming in the gardens; and i would slip down and meet gilbert and we would go together to the heart of the beech woods,--and there, under the green arches that would be like a splendid cathedral, we would be married." marilla sniffed scornfully and mrs. lynde looked shocked. "but that would be terrible queer, anne. why, it wouldn't really seem legal. and what would mrs. harmon andrews say?" "ah, there's the rub," sighed anne. "there are so many things in life we cannot do because of the fear of what mrs. harmon andrews would say. ''tis true, 'tis pity, and pity 'tis, 'tis true.' what delightful things we might do were it not for mrs. harmon andrews!" "by times, anne, i don't feel quite sure that i understand you altogether," complained mrs. lynde. "anne was always romantic, you know," said marilla apologetically. "well, married life will most likely cure her of that," mrs. rachel responded comfortingly. anne laughed and slipped away to lover's lane, where gilbert found her; and neither of them seemed to entertain much fear, or hope, that their married life would cure them of romance. the echo lodge people came over the next week, and green gables buzzed with the delight of them. miss lavendar had changed so little that the three years since her last island visit might have been a watch in the night; but anne gasped with amazement over paul. could this splendid six feet of manhood be the little paul of avonlea schooldays? "you really make me feel old, paul," said anne. "why, i have to look up to you!" "you'll never grow old, teacher," said paul. "you are one of the fortunate mortals who have found and drunk from the fountain of youth,--you and mother lavendar. see here! when you're married i won't call you mrs. blythe. to me you'll always be 'teacher'--the teacher of the best lessons i ever learned. i want to show you something." the "something" was a pocketbook full of poems. paul had put some of his beautiful fancies into verse, and magazine editors had not been as unappreciative as they are sometimes supposed to be. anne read paul's poems with real delight. they were full of charm and promise. "you'll be famous yet, paul. i always dreamed of having one famous pupil. he was to be a college president--but a great poet would be even better. some day i'll be able to boast that i whipped the distinguished paul irving. but then i never did whip you, did i, paul? what an opportunity lost! i think i kept you in at recess, however." "you may be famous yourself, teacher. i've seen a good deal of your work these last three years." "no. i know what i can do. i can write pretty, fanciful little sketches that children love and editors send welcome cheques for. but i can do nothing big. my only chance for earthly immortality is a corner in your memoirs." charlotta the fourth had discarded the blue bows but her freckles were not noticeably less. "i never did think i'd come down to marrying a yankee, miss shirley, ma'am," she said. "but you never know what's before you, and it isn't his fault. he was born that way." "you're a yankee yourself, charlotta, since you've married one." "miss shirley, ma'am, i'm not! and i wouldn't be if i was to marry a dozen yankees! tom's kind of nice. and besides, i thought i'd better not be too hard to please, for i mightn't get another chance. tom don't drink and he don't growl because he has to work between meals, and when all's said and done i'm satisfied, miss shirley, ma'am." "does he call you leonora?" asked anne. "goodness, no, miss shirley, ma'am. i wouldn't know who he meant if he did. of course, when we got married he had to say, 'i take thee, leonora,' and i declare to you, miss shirley, ma'am, i've had the most dreadful feeling ever since that it wasn't me he was talking to and i haven't been rightly married at all. and so you're going to be married yourself, miss shirley, ma'am? i always thought i'd like to marry a doctor. it would be so handy when the children had measles and croup. tom is only a bricklayer, but he's real good-tempered. when i said to him, says i, 'tom, can i go to miss shirley's wedding? i mean to go anyhow, but i'd like to have your consent,' he just says, 'suit yourself, charlotta, and you'll suit me.' that's a real pleasant kind of husband to have, miss shirley, ma'am." philippa and her reverend jo arrived at green gables the day before the wedding. anne and phil had a rapturous meeting which presently simmered down to a cosy, confidential chat over all that had been and was about to be. "queen anne, you're as queenly as ever. i've got fearfully thin since the babies came. i'm not half so good-looking; but i think jo likes it. there's not such a contrast between us, you see. and oh, it's perfectly magnificent that you're going to marry gilbert. roy gardner wouldn't have done at all, at all. i can see that now, though i was horribly disappointed at the time. you know, anne, you did treat roy very badly." "he has recovered, i understand," smiled anne. "oh, yes. he is married and his wife is a sweet little thing and they're perfectly happy. everything works together for good. jo and the bible say that, and they are pretty good authorities." "are alec and alonzo married yet?" "alec is, but alonzo isn't. how those dear old days at patty's place come back when i'm talking to you, anne! what fun we had!" "have you been to patty's place lately?" "oh, yes, i go often. miss patty and miss maria still sit by the fireplace and knit. and that reminds me--we've brought you a wedding gift from them, anne. guess what it is." "i never could. how did they know i was going to be married?" "oh, i told them. i was there last week. and they were so interested. two days ago miss patty wrote me a note asking me to call; and then she asked if i would take her gift to you. what would you wish most from patty's place, anne?" "you can't mean that miss patty has sent me her china dogs?" "go up head. they're in my trunk this very moment. and i've a letter for you. wait a moment and i'll get it." "dear miss shirley," miss patty had written, "maria and i were very much interested in hearing of your approaching nuptials. we send you our best wishes. maria and i have never married, but we have no objection to other people doing so. we are sending you the china dogs. i intended to leave them to you in my will, because you seemed to have sincere affection for them. but maria and i expect to live a good while yet (d.v.), so i have decided to give you the dogs while you are young. you will not have forgotten that gog looks to the right and magog to the left." "just fancy those lovely old dogs sitting by the fireplace in my house of dreams," said anne rapturously. "i never expected anything so delightful." that evening green gables hummed with preparations for the following day; but in the twilight anne slipped away. she had a little pilgrimage to make on this last day of her girlhood and she must make it alone. she went to matthew's grave, in the little poplar-shaded avonlea graveyard, and there kept a silent tryst with old memories and immortal loves. "how glad matthew would be tomorrow if he were here," she whispered. "but i believe he does know and is glad of it--somewhere else. i've read somewhere that 'our dead are never dead until we have forgotten them.' matthew will never be dead to me, for i can never forget him." she left on his grave the flowers she had brought and walked slowly down the long hill. it was a gracious evening, full of delectable lights and shadows. in the west was a sky of mackerel clouds--crimson and amber-tinted, with long strips of apple-green sky between. beyond was the glimmering radiance of a sunset sea, and the ceaseless voice of many waters came up from the tawny shore. all around her, lying in the fine, beautiful country silence, were the hills and fields and woods she had known and loved so long. "history repeats itself," said gilbert, joining her as she passed the blythe gate. "do you remember our first walk down this hill, anne--our first walk together anywhere, for that matter?" "i was coming home in the twilight from matthew's grave--and you came out of the gate; and i swallowed the pride of years and spoke to you." "and all heaven opened before me," supplemented gilbert. "from that moment i looked forward to tomorrow. when i left you at your gate that night and walked home i was the happiest boy in the world. anne had forgiven me." "i think you had the most to forgive. i was an ungrateful little wretch--and after you had really saved my life that day on the pond, too. how i loathed that load of obligation at first! i don't deserve the happiness that has come to me." gilbert laughed and clasped tighter the girlish hand that wore his ring. anne's engagement ring was a circlet of pearls. she had refused to wear a diamond. "i've never really liked diamonds since i found out they weren't the lovely purple i had dreamed. they will always suggest my old disappointment." "but pearls are for tears, the old legend says," gilbert had objected. "i'm not afraid of that. and tears can be happy as well as sad. my very happiest moments have been when i had tears in my eyes--when marilla told me i might stay at green gables--when matthew gave me the first pretty dress i ever had--when i heard that you were going to recover from the fever. so give me pearls for our troth ring, gilbert, and i'll willingly accept the sorrow of life with its joy." but tonight our lovers thought only of joy and never of sorrow. for the morrow was their wedding day, and their house of dreams awaited them on the misty, purple shore of four winds harbor. chapter 4 the first bride of green gables anne wakened on the morning of her wedding day to find the sunshine winking in at the window of the little porch gable and a september breeze frolicking with her curtains. "i'm so glad the sun will shine on me," she thought happily. she recalled the first morning she had wakened in that little porch room, when the sunshine had crept in on her through the blossom-drift of the old snow queen. that had not been a happy wakening, for it brought with it the bitter disappointment of the preceding night. but since then the little room had been endeared and consecrated by years of happy childhood dreams and maiden visions. to it she had come back joyfully after all her absences; at its window she had knelt through that night of bitter agony when she believed gilbert dying, and by it she had sat in speechless happiness the night of her betrothal. many vigils of joy and some of sorrow had been kept there; and today she must leave it forever. henceforth it would be hers no more; fifteen-year-old dora was to inherit it when she had gone. nor did anne wish it otherwise; the little room was sacred to youth and girlhood--to the past that was to close today before the chapter of wifehood opened. green gables was a busy and joyous house that forenoon. diana arrived early, with little fred and small anne cordelia, to lend a hand. davy and dora, the green gables twins, whisked the babies off to the garden. "don't let small anne cordelia spoil her clothes," warned diana anxiously. "you needn't be afraid to trust her with dora," said marilla. "that child is more sensible and careful than most of the mothers i've known. she's really a wonder in some ways. not much like that other harum-scarum i brought up." marilla smiled across her chicken salad at anne. it might even be suspected that she liked the harum-scarum best after all. "those twins are real nice children," said mrs. rachel, when she was sure they were out of earshot. "dora is so womanly and helpful, and davy is developing into a very smart boy. he isn't the holy terror for mischief he used to be." "i never was so distracted in my life as i was the first six months he was here," acknowledged marilla. "after that i suppose i got used to him. he's taken a great notion to farming lately, and wants me to let him try running the farm next year. i may, for mr. barry doesn't think he'll want to rent it much longer, and some new arrangement will have to be made." "well, you certainly have a lovely day for your wedding, anne," said diana, as she slipped a voluminous apron over her silken array. "you couldn't have had a finer one if you'd ordered it from eaton's." "indeed, there's too much money going out of this island to that same eaton's," said mrs. lynde indignantly. she had strong views on the subject of octopus-like department stores, and never lost an opportunity of airing them. "and as for those catalogues of theirs, they're the avonlea girls' bible now, that's what. they pore over them on sundays instead of studying the holy scriptures." "well, they're splendid to amuse children with," said diana. "fred and small anne look at the pictures by the hour." "_i_ amused ten children without the aid of eaton's catalogue," said mrs. rachel severely. "come, you two, don't quarrel over eaton's catalogue," said anne gaily. "this is my day of days, you know. i'm so happy i want every one else to be happy, too." "i'm sure i hope your happiness will last, child," sighed mrs. rachel. she did hope it truly, and believed it, but she was afraid it was in the nature of a challenge to providence to flaunt your happiness too openly. anne, for her own good, must be toned down a trifle. but it was a happy and beautiful bride who came down the old, homespun-carpeted stairs that september noon--the first bride of green gables, slender and shining-eyed, in the mist of her maiden veil, with her arms full of roses. gilbert, waiting for her in the hall below, looked up at her with adoring eyes. she was his at last, this evasive, long-sought anne, won after years of patient waiting. it was to him she was coming in the sweet surrender of the bride. was he worthy of her? could he make her as happy as he hoped? if he failed her--if he could not measure up to her standard of manhood--then, as she held out her hand, their eyes met and all doubt was swept away in a glad certainty. they belonged to each other; and, no matter what life might hold for them, it could never alter that. their happiness was in each other's keeping and both were unafraid. they were married in the sunshine of the old orchard, circled by the loving and kindly faces of long-familiar friends. mr. allan married them, and the reverend jo made what mrs. rachel lynde afterwards pronounced to be the "most beautiful wedding prayer" she had ever heard. birds do not often sing in september, but one sang sweetly from some hidden bough while gilbert and anne repeated their deathless vows. anne heard it and thrilled to it; gilbert heard it, and wondered only that all the birds in the world had not burst into jubilant song; paul heard it and later wrote a lyric about it which was one of the most admired in his first volume of verse; charlotta the fourth heard it and was blissfully sure it meant good luck for her adored miss shirley. the bird sang until the ceremony was ended and then it wound up with one mad little, glad little trill. never had the old gray-green house among its enfolding orchards known a blither, merrier afternoon. all the old jests and quips that must have done duty at weddings since eden were served up, and seemed as new and brilliant and mirth-provoking as if they had never been uttered before. laughter and joy had their way; and when anne and gilbert left to catch the carmody train, with paul as driver, the twins were ready with rice and old shoes, in the throwing of which charlotta the fourth and mr. harrison bore a valiant part. marilla stood at the gate and watched the carriage out of sight down the long lane with its banks of goldenrod. anne turned at its end to wave her last good-bye. she was gone--green gables was her home no more; marilla's face looked very gray and old as she turned to the house which anne had filled for fourteen years, and even in her absence, with light and life. but diana and her small fry, the echo lodge people and the allans, had stayed to help the two old ladies over the loneliness of the first evening; and they contrived to have a quietly pleasant little supper time, sitting long around the table and chatting over all the details of the day. while they were sitting there anne and gilbert were alighting from the train at glen st. mary. chapter 5 the home coming dr. david blythe had sent his horse and buggy to meet them, and the urchin who had brought it slipped away with a sympathetic grin, leaving them to the delight of driving alone to their new home through the radiant evening. anne never forgot the loveliness of the view that broke upon them when they had driven over the hill behind the village. her new home could not yet be seen; but before her lay four winds harbor like a great, shining mirror of rose and silver. far down, she saw its entrance between the bar of sand dunes on one side and a steep, high, grim, red sandstone cliff on the other. beyond the bar the sea, calm and austere, dreamed in the afterlight. the little fishing village, nestled in the cove where the sand-dunes met the harbor shore, looked like a great opal in the haze. the sky over them was like a jewelled cup from which the dusk was pouring; the air was crisp with the compelling tang of the sea, and the whole landscape was infused with the subtleties of a sea evening. a few dim sails drifted along the darkening, fir-clad harbor shores. a bell was ringing from the tower of a little white church on the far side; mellowly and dreamily sweet, the chime floated across the water blent with the moan of the sea. the great revolving light on the cliff at the channel flashed warm and golden against the clear northern sky, a trembling, quivering star of good hope. far out along the horizon was the crinkled gray ribbon of a passing steamer's smoke. "oh, beautiful, beautiful," murmured anne. "i shall love four winds, gilbert. where is our house?" "we can't see it yet--the belt of birch running up from that little cove hides it. it's about two miles from glen st. mary, and there's another mile between it and the light-house. we won't have many neighbors, anne. there's only one house near us and i don't know who lives in it. shall you be lonely when i'm away?" "not with that light and that loveliness for company. who lives in that house, gilbert?" "i don't know. it doesn't look--exactly--as if the occupants would be kindred spirits, anne, does it?" the house was a large, substantial affair, painted such a vivid green that the landscape seemed quite faded by contrast. there was an orchard behind it, and a nicely kept lawn before it, but, somehow, there was a certain bareness about it. perhaps its neatness was responsible for this; the whole establishment, house, barns, orchard, garden, lawn and lane, was so starkly neat. "it doesn't seem probable that anyone with that taste in paint could be very kindred," acknowledged anne, "unless it were an accident--like our blue hall. i feel certain there are no children there, at least. it's even neater than the old copp place on the tory road, and i never expected to see anything neater than that." they had not met anybody on the moist, red road that wound along the harbor shore. but just before they came to the belt of birch which hid their home, anne saw a girl who was driving a flock of snow-white geese along the crest of a velvety green hill on the right. great, scattered firs grew along it. between their trunks one saw glimpses of yellow harvest fields, gleams of golden sand-hills, and bits of blue sea. the girl was tall and wore a dress of pale blue print. she walked with a certain springiness of step and erectness of bearing. she and her geese came out of the gate at the foot of the hill as anne and gilbert passed. she stood with her hand on the fastening of the gate, and looked steadily at them, with an expression that hardly attained to interest, but did not descend to curiosity. it seemed to anne, for a fleeting moment, that there was even a veiled hint of hostility in it. but it was the girl's beauty which made anne give a little gasp--a beauty so marked that it must have attracted attention anywhere. she was hatless, but heavy braids of burnished hair, the hue of ripe wheat, were twisted about her head like a coronet; her eyes were blue and star-like; her figure, in its plain print gown, was magnificent; and her lips were as crimson as the bunch of blood-red poppies she wore at her belt. "gilbert, who is the girl we have just passed?" asked anne, in a low voice. "i didn't notice any girl," said gilbert, who had eyes only for his bride. "she was standing by that gate--no, don't look back. she is still watching us. i never saw such a beautiful face." "i don't remember seeing any very handsome girls while i was here. there are some pretty girls up at the glen, but i hardly think they could be called beautiful." "this girl is. you can't have seen her, or you would remember her. nobody could forget her. i never saw such a face except in pictures. and her hair! it made me think of browning's 'cord of gold' and 'gorgeous snake'!" "probably she's some visitor in four winds--likely some one from that big summer hotel over the harbor." "she wore a white apron and she was driving geese." "she might do that for amusement. look, anne--there's our house." anne looked and forgot for a time the girl with the splendid, resentful eyes. the first glimpse of her new home was a delight to eye and spirit--it looked so like a big, creamy seashell stranded on the harbor shore. the rows of tall lombardy poplars down its lane stood out in stately, purple silhouette against the sky. behind it, sheltering its garden from the too keen breath of sea winds, was a cloudy fir wood, in which the winds might make all kinds of weird and haunting music. like all woods, it seemed to be holding and enfolding secrets in its recesses,--secrets whose charm is only to be won by entering in and patiently seeking. outwardly, dark green arms keep them inviolate from curious or indifferent eyes. the night winds were beginning their wild dances beyond the bar and the fishing hamlet across the harbor was gemmed with lights as anne and gilbert drove up the poplar lane. the door of the little house opened, and a warm glow of firelight flickered out into the dusk. gilbert lifted anne from the buggy and led her into the garden, through the little gate between the ruddy-tipped firs, up the trim, red path to the sandstone step. "welcome home," he whispered, and hand in hand they stepped over the threshold of their house of dreams. chapter 6 captain jim "old doctor dave" and "mrs. doctor dave" had come down to the little house to greet the bride and groom. doctor dave was a big, jolly, white-whiskered old fellow, and mrs. doctor was a trim rosy-cheeked, silver-haired little lady who took anne at once to her heart, literally and figuratively. "i'm so glad to see you, dear. you must be real tired. we've got a bite of supper ready, and captain jim brought up some trout for you. captain jim--where are you? oh, he's slipped out to see to the horse, i suppose. come upstairs and take your things off." anne looked about her with bright, appreciative eyes as she followed mrs. doctor dave upstairs. she liked the appearance of her new home very much. it seemed to have the atmosphere of green gables and the flavor of her old traditions. "i think i would have found miss elizabeth russell a 'kindred spirit,'" she murmured when she was alone in her room. there were two windows in it; the dormer one looked out on the lower harbor and the sand-bar and the four winds light. "a magic casement opening on the foam of perilous seas in fairy lands forlorn," quoted anne softly. the gable window gave a view of a little harvest-hued valley through which a brook ran. half a mile up the brook was the only house in sight--an old, rambling, gray one surrounded by huge willows through which its windows peered, like shy, seeking eyes, into the dusk. anne wondered who lived there; they would be her nearest neighbors and she hoped they would be nice. she suddenly found herself thinking of the beautiful girl with the white geese. "gilbert thought she didn't belong here," mused anne, "but i feel sure she does. there was something about her that made her part of the sea and the sky and the harbor. four winds is in her blood." when anne went downstairs gilbert was standing before the fireplace talking to a stranger. both turned as anne entered. "anne, this is captain boyd. captain boyd, my wife." it was the first time gilbert had said "my wife" to anybody but anne, and he narrowly escaped bursting with the pride of it. the old captain held out a sinewy hand to anne; they smiled at each other and were friends from that moment. kindred spirit flashed recognition to kindred spirit. "i'm right down pleased to meet you, mistress blythe; and i hope you'll be as happy as the first bride was who came here. i can't wish you no better than that. but your husband doesn't introduce me jest exactly right. 'captain jim' is my week-a-day name and you might as well begin as you're sartain to end up--calling me that. you sartainly are a nice little bride, mistress blythe. looking at you sorter makes me feel that i've jest been married myself." amid the laughter that followed mrs. doctor dave urged captain jim to stay and have supper with them. "thank you kindly. 'twill be a real treat, mistress doctor. i mostly has to eat my meals alone, with the reflection of my ugly old phiz in a looking-glass opposite for company. 'tisn't often i have a chance to sit down with two such sweet, purty ladies." captain jim's compliments may look very bald on paper, but he paid them with such a gracious, gentle deference of tone and look that the woman upon whom they were bestowed felt that she was being offered a queen's tribute in a kingly fashion. captain jim was a high-souled, simple-minded old man, with eternal youth in his eyes and heart. he had a tall, rather ungainly figure, somewhat stooped, yet suggestive of great strength and endurance; a clean-shaven face deeply lined and bronzed; a thick mane of iron-gray hair falling quite to his shoulders, and a pair of remarkably blue, deep-set eyes, which sometimes twinkled and sometimes dreamed, and sometimes looked out seaward with a wistful quest in them, as of one seeking something precious and lost. anne was to learn one day what it was for which captain jim looked. it could not be denied that captain jim was a homely man. his spare jaws, rugged mouth, and square brow were not fashioned on the lines of beauty; and he had passed through many hardships and sorrows which had marked his body as well as his soul; but though at first sight anne thought him plain she never thought anything more about it--the spirit shining through that rugged tenement beautified it so wholly. they gathered gaily around the supper table. the hearth fire banished the chill of the september evening, but the window of the dining room was open and sea breezes entered at their own sweet will. the view was magnificent, taking in the harbor and the sweep of low, purple hills beyond. the table was heaped with mrs. doctor's delicacies but the piece de resistance was undoubtedly the big platter of sea trout. "thought they'd be sorter tasty after travelling," said captain jim. "they're fresh as trout can be, mistress blythe. two hours ago they were swimming in the glen pond." "who is attending to the light tonight, captain jim?" asked doctor dave. "nephew alec. he understands it as well as i do. well, now, i'm real glad you asked me to stay to supper. i'm proper hungry--didn't have much of a dinner today." "i believe you half starve yourself most of the time down at that light," said mrs. doctor dave severely. "you won't take the trouble to get up a decent meal." "oh, i do, mistress doctor, i do," protested captain jim. "why, i live like a king gen'rally. last night i was up to the glen and took home two pounds of steak. i meant to have a spanking good dinner today." "and what happened to the steak?" asked mrs. doctor dave. "did you lose it on the way home?" "no." captain jim looked sheepish. "just at bedtime a poor, ornery sort of dog came along and asked for a night's lodging. guess he belonged to some of the fishermen 'long shore. i couldn't turn the poor cur out--he had a sore foot. so i shut him in the porch, with an old bag to lie on, and went to bed. but somehow i couldn't sleep. come to think it over, i sorter remembered that the dog looked hungry." "and you got up and gave him that steak--all that steak," said mrs. doctor dave, with a kind of triumphant reproof. "well, there wasn't anything else to give him," said captain jim deprecatingly. "nothing a dog'd care for, that is. i reckon he was hungry, for he made about two bites of it. i had a fine sleep the rest of the night but my dinner had to be sorter scanty--potatoes and point, as you might say. the dog, he lit out for home this morning. i reckon he weren't a vegetarian." "the idea of starving yourself for a worthless dog!" sniffed mrs. doctor. "you don't know but he may be worth a lot to somebody," protested captain jim. "he didn't look of much account, but you can't go by looks in jedging a dog. like meself, he might be a real beauty inside. the first mate didn't approve of him, i'll allow. his language was right down forcible. but the first mate is prejudiced. no use in taking a cat's opinion of a dog. 'tennyrate, i lost my dinner, so this nice spread in this dee-lightful company is real pleasant. it's a great thing to have good neighbors." "who lives in the house among the willows up the brook?" asked anne. "mrs. dick moore," said captain jim--"and her husband," he added, as if by way of an afterthought. anne smiled, and deduced a mental picture of mrs. dick moore from captain jim's way of putting it; evidently a second mrs. rachel lynde. "you haven't many neighbors, mistress blythe," captain jim went on. "this side of the harbor is mighty thinly settled. most of the land belongs to mr. howard up yander past the glen, and he rents it out for pasture. the other side of the harbor, now, is thick with folks--'specially macallisters. there's a whole colony of macallisters you can't throw a stone but you hit one. i was talking to old leon blacquiere the other day. he's been working on the harbor all summer. 'dey're nearly all macallisters over thar,' he told me. 'dare's neil macallister and sandy macallister and william macallister and alec macallister and angus macallister--and i believe dare's de devil macallister.'" "there are nearly as many elliotts and crawfords," said doctor dave, after the laughter had subsided. "you know, gilbert, we folk on this side of four winds have an old saying--'from the conceit of the elliotts, the pride of the macallisters, and the vainglory of the crawfords, good lord deliver us.'" "there's a plenty of fine people among them, though," said captain jim. "i sailed with william crawford for many a year, and for courage and endurance and truth that man hadn't an equal. they've got brains over on that side of four winds. mebbe that's why this side is sorter inclined to pick on 'em. strange, ain't it, how folks seem to resent anyone being born a mite cleverer than they be." doctor dave, who had a forty years' feud with the over-harbor people, laughed and subsided. "who lives in that brilliant emerald house about half a mile up the road?" asked gilbert. captain jim smiled delightedly. "miss cornelia bryant. she'll likely be over to see you soon, seeing you're presbyterians. if you were methodists she wouldn't come at all. cornelia has a holy horror of methodists." "she's quite a character," chuckled doctor dave. "a most inveterate man-hater!" "sour grapes?" queried gilbert, laughing. "no, 'tisn't sour grapes," answered captain jim seriously. "cornelia could have had her pick when she was young. even yet she's only to say the word to see the old widowers jump. she jest seems to have been born with a sort of chronic spite agin men and methodists. she's got the bitterest tongue and the kindest heart in four winds. wherever there's any trouble, that woman is there, doing everything to help in the tenderest way. she never says a harsh word about another woman, and if she likes to card us poor scalawags of men down i reckon our tough old hides can stand it." "she always speaks well of you, captain jim," said mrs. doctor. "yes, i'm afraid so. i don't half like it. it makes me feel as if there must be something sorter unnateral about me." chapter 7 the schoolmaster's bride "who was the first bride who came to this house, captain jim?" anne asked, as they sat around the fireplace after supper. "was she a part of the story i've heard was connected with this house?" asked gilbert. "somebody told me you could tell it, captain jim." "well, yes, i know it. i reckon i'm the only person living in four winds now that can remember the schoolmaster's bride as she was when she come to the island. she's been dead this thirty year, but she was one of them women you never forget." "tell us the story," pleaded anne. "i want to find out all about the women who have lived in this house before me." "well, there's jest been three--elizabeth russell, and mrs. ned russell, and the schoolmaster's bride. elizabeth russell was a nice, clever little critter, and mrs. ned was a nice woman, too. but they weren't ever like the schoolmaster's bride. "the schoolmaster's name was john selwyn. he came out from the old country to teach school at the glen when i was a boy of sixteen. he wasn't much like the usual run of derelicts who used to come out to p.e.i. to teach school in them days. most of them were clever, drunken critters who taught the children the three r's when they were sober, and lambasted them when they wasn't. but john selwyn was a fine, handsome young fellow. he boarded at my father's, and he and me were cronies, though he was ten years older'n me. we read and walked and talked a heap together. he knew about all the poetry that was ever written, i reckon, and he used to quote it to me along shore in the evenings. dad thought it an awful waste of time, but he sorter endured it, hoping it'd put me off the notion of going to sea. well, nothing could do that--mother come of a race of sea-going folk and it was born in me. but i loved to hear john read and recite. it's almost sixty years ago, but i could repeat yards of poetry i learned from him. nearly sixty years!" captain jim was silent for a space, gazing into the glowing fire in a quest of the bygones. then, with a sigh, he resumed his story. "i remember one spring evening i met him on the sand-hills. he looked sorter uplifted--jest like you did, dr. blythe, when you brought mistress blythe in tonight. i thought of him the minute i seen you. and he told me that he had a sweetheart back home and that she was coming out to him. i wasn't more'n half pleased, ornery young lump of selfishness that i was; i thought he wouldn't be as much my friend after she came. but i'd enough decency not to let him see it. he told me all about her. her name was persis leigh, and she would have come out with him if it hadn't been for her old uncle. he was sick, and he'd looked after her when her parents died and she wouldn't leave him. and now he was dead and she was coming out to marry john selwyn. 'twasn't no easy journey for a woman in them days. there weren't no steamers, you must ricollect. "'when do you expect her?' says i. "'she sails on the royal william, the 20th of june,' says he, 'and so she should be here by mid-july. i must set carpenter johnson to building me a home for her. her letter come today. i know before i opened it that it had good news for me. i saw her a few nights ago.' "i didn't understand him, and then he explained--though i didn't understand that much better. he said he had a gift--or a curse. them was his words, mistress blythe--a gift or a curse. he didn't know which it was. he said a great-great-grandmother of his had had it, and they burned her for a witch on account of it. he said queer spells--trances, i think was the name he give 'em--come over him now and again. are there such things, doctor?" "there are people who are certainly subject to trances," answered gilbert. "the matter is more in the line of psychical research than medical. what were the trances of this john selwyn like?" "like dreams," said the old doctor skeptically. "he said he could see things in them," said captain jim slowly. "mind you, i'm telling you jest what he said--things that were happening--things that were going to happen. he said they were sometimes a comfort to him and sometimes a horror. four nights before this he'd been in one--went into it while he was sitting looking at the fire. and he saw an old room he knew well in england, and persis leigh in it, holding out her hands to him and looking glad and happy. so he knew he was going to hear good news of her." "a dream--a dream," scoffed the old doctor. "likely--likely," conceded captain jim. "that's what _i_ said to him at the time. it was a vast more comfortable to think so. i didn't like the idea of him seeing things like that--it was real uncanny. "'no,' says he, 'i didn't dream it. but we won't talk of this again. you won't be so much my friend if you think much about it.' "i told him nothing could make me any less his friend. but he jest shook his head and says, says he: "'lad, i know. i've lost friends before because of this. i don't blame them. there are times when i feel hardly friendly to myself because of it. such a power has a bit of divinity in it--whether of a good or an evil divinity who shall say? and we mortals all shrink from too close contact with god or devil.' "them was his words. i remember them as if 'twas yesterday, though i didn't know jest what he meant. what do you s'pose he did mean, doctor?" "i doubt if he knew what he meant himself," said doctor dave testily. "i think i understand," whispered anne. she was listening in her old attitude of clasped lips and shining eyes. captain jim treated himself to an admiring smile before he went on with his story. "well, purty soon all the glen and four winds people knew the schoolmaster's bride was coming, and they were all glad because they thought so much of him. and everybody took an interest in his new house--this house. he picked this site for it, because you could see the harbor and hear the sea from it. he made the garden out there for his bride, but he didn't plant the lombardies. mrs. ned russell planted them. but there's a double row of rose-bushes in the garden that the little girls who went to the glen school set out there for the schoolmaster's bride. he said they were pink for her cheeks and white for her brow and red for her lips. he'd quoted poetry so much that he sorter got into the habit of talking it, too, i reckon. "almost everybody sent him some little present to help out the furnishing of the house. when the russells came into it they were well-to-do and furnished it real handsome, as you can see; but the first furniture that went into it was plain enough. this little house was rich in love, though. the women sent in quilts and tablecloths and towels, and one man made a chest for her, and another a table and so on. even blind old aunt margaret boyd wove a little basket for her out of the sweet-scented sand-hill grass. the schoolmaster's wife used it for years to keep her handkerchiefs in. "well, at last everything was ready--even to the logs in the big fireplace ready for lighting. 'twasn't exactly this fireplace, though 'twas in the same place. miss elizabeth had this put in when she made the house over fifteen years ago. it was a big, old-fashioned fireplace where you could have roasted an ox. many's the time i've sat here and spun yarns, same's i'm doing tonight." again there was a silence, while captain jim kept a passing tryst with visitants anne and gilbert could not see--the folks who had sat with him around that fireplace in the vanished years, with mirth and bridal joy shining in eyes long since closed forever under churchyard sod or heaving leagues of sea. here on olden nights children had tossed laughter lightly to and fro. here on winter evenings friends had gathered. dance and music and jest had been here. here youths and maidens had dreamed. for captain jim the little house was tenanted with shapes entreating remembrance. "it was the first of july when the house was finished. the schoolmaster began to count the days then. we used to see him walking along the shore, and we'd say to each other, 'she'll soon be with him now.' "she was expected the middle of july, but she didn't come then. nobody felt anxious. vessels were often delayed for days and mebbe weeks. the royal william was a week overdue--and then two--and then three. and at last we began to be frightened, and it got worse and worse. fin'lly i couldn't bear to look into john selwyn's eyes. d'ye know, mistress blythe"--captain jim lowered his voice--"i used to think that they looked just like what his old great-great-grandmother's must have been when they were burning her to death. he never said much but he taught school like a man in a dream and then hurried to the shore. many a night he walked there from dark to dawn. people said he was losing his mind. everybody had given up hope--the royal william was eight weeks overdue. it was the middle of september and the schoolmaster's bride hadn't come--never would come, we thought. "there was a big storm then that lasted three days, and on the evening after it died away i went to the shore. i found the schoolmaster there, leaning with his arms folded against a big rock, gazing out to sea. "i spoke to him but he didn't answer. his eyes seemed to be looking at something i couldn't see. his face was set, like a dead man's. "'john--john,' i called out--jest like that--jest like a frightened child, 'wake up--wake up.' "that strange, awful look seemed to sorter fade out of his eyes. "he turned his head and looked at me. i've never forgot his face--never will forget it till i ships for my last voyage. "'all is well, lad,' he says. 'i've seen the royal william coming around east point. she will be here by dawn. tomorrow night i shall sit with my bride by my own hearth-fire.' "do you think he did see it?" demanded captain jim abruptly. "god knows," said gilbert softly. "great love and great pain might compass we know not what marvels." "i am sure he did see it," said anne earnestly. "fol-de-rol," said doctor dave, but he spoke with less conviction than usual. "because, you know," said captain jim solemnly, "the royal william came into four winds harbor at daylight the next morning. "every soul in the glen and along the shore was at the old wharf to meet her. the schoolmaster had been watching there all night. how we cheered as she sailed up the channel." captain jim's eyes were shining. they were looking at the four winds harbor of sixty years agone, with a battered old ship sailing through the sunrise splendor. "and persis leigh was on board?" asked anne. "yes--her and the captain's wife. they'd had an awful passage--storm after storm--and their provisions give out, too. but there they were at last. when persis leigh stepped onto the old wharf john selwyn took her in his arms--and folks stopped cheering and begun to cry. i cried myself, though 'twas years, mind you, afore i'd admit it. ain't it funny how ashamed boys are of tears?" "was persis leigh beautiful?" asked anne. "well, i don't know that you'd call her beautiful exactly--i--don't--know," said captain jim slowly. "somehow, you never got so far along as to wonder if she was handsome or not. it jest didn't matter. there was something so sweet and winsome about her that you had to love her, that was all. but she was pleasant to look at--big, clear, hazel eyes and heaps of glossy brown hair, and an english skin. john and her were married at our house that night at early candle-lighting; everybody from far and near was there to see it and we all brought them down here afterwards. mistress selwyn lighted the fire, and we went away and left them sitting here, jest as john had seen in that vision of his. a strange thing--a strange thing! but i've seen a turrible lot of strange things in my time." captain jim shook his head sagely. "it's a dear story," said anne, feeling that for once she had got enough romance to satisfy her. "how long did they live here?" "fifteen years. i ran off to sea soon after they were married, like the young scalawag i was. but every time i come back from a voyage i'd head for here, even before i went home, and tell mistress selwyn all about it. fifteen happy years! they had a sort of talent for happiness, them two. some folks are like that, if you've noticed. they couldn't be unhappy for long, no matter what happened. they quarrelled once or twice, for they was both high-sperrited. but mistress selwyn says to me once, says she, laughing in that pretty way of hers, 'i felt dreadful when john and i quarrelled, but underneath it all i was very happy because i had such a nice husband to quarrel with and make it up with.' then they moved to charlottetown, and ned russell bought this house and brought his bride here. they were a gay young pair, as i remember them. miss elizabeth russell was alec's sister. she came to live with them a year or so later, and she was a creature of mirth, too. the walls of this house must be sorter soaked with laughing and good times. you're the third bride i've seen come here, mistress blythe--and the handsomest." captain jim contrived to give his sunflower compliment the delicacy of a violet, and anne wore it proudly. she was looking her best that night, with the bridal rose on her cheeks and the love-light in her eyes; even gruff old doctor dave gave her an approving glance, and told his wife, as they drove home together, that that red-headed wife of the boy's was something of a beauty. "i must be getting back to the light," announced captain jim. "i've enj'yed this evening something tremenjus." "you must come often to see us," said anne. "i wonder if you'd give that invitation if you knew how likely i'll be to accept it," captain jim remarked whimsically. "which is another way of saying you wonder if i mean it," smiled anne. "i do, 'cross my heart,' as we used to say at school." "then i'll come. you're likely to be pestered with me at any hour. and i'll be proud to have you drop down and visit me now and then, too. gin'rally i haven't anyone to talk to but the first mate, bless his sociable heart. he's a mighty good listener, and has forgot more'n any macallister of them all ever knew, but he isn't much of a conversationalist. you're young and i'm old, but our souls are about the same age, i reckon. we both belong to the race that knows joseph, as cornelia bryant would say." "the race that knows joseph?" puzzled anne. "yes. cornelia divides all the folks in the world into two kinds--the race that knows joseph and the race that don't. if a person sorter sees eye to eye with you, and has pretty much the same ideas about things, and the same taste in jokes--why, then he belongs to the race that knows joseph." "oh, i understand," exclaimed anne, light breaking in upon her. "it's what i used to call--and still call in quotation marks 'kindred spirits.'" "jest so--jest so," agreed captain jim. "we're it, whatever it is. when you come in tonight, mistress blythe, i says to myself, says i, 'yes, she's of the race that knows joseph.' and mighty glad i was, for if it wasn't so we couldn't have had any real satisfaction in each other's company. the race that knows joseph is the salt of the airth, i reckon." the moon had just risen when anne and gilbert went to the door with their guests. four winds harbor was beginning to be a thing of dream and glamour and enchantment--a spellbound haven where no tempest might ever ravin. the lombardies down the lane, tall and sombre as the priestly forms of some mystic band, were tipped with silver. "always liked lombardies," said captain jim, waving a long arm at them. "they're the trees of princesses. they're out of fashion now. folks complain that they die at the top and get ragged-looking. so they do--so they do, if you don't risk your neck every spring climbing up a light ladder to trim them out. i always did it for miss elizabeth, so her lombardies never got out-at-elbows. she was especially fond of them. she liked their dignity and stand-offishness. they don't hobnob with every tom, dick and harry. if it's maples for company, mistress blythe, it's lombardies for society." "what a beautiful night," said mrs. doctor dave, as she climbed into the doctor's buggy. "most nights are beautiful," said captain jim. "but i 'low that moonlight over four winds makes me sorter wonder what's left for heaven. the moon's a great friend of mine, mistress blythe. i've loved her ever since i can remember. when i was a little chap of eight i fell asleep in the garden one evening and wasn't missed. i woke up along in the night and i was most scared to death. what shadows and queer noises there was! i dursn't move. jest crouched there quaking, poor small mite. seemed 's if there weren't anyone in the world but meself and it was mighty big. then all at once i saw the moon looking down at me through the apple boughs, jest like an old friend. i was comforted right off. got up and walked to the house as brave as a lion, looking at her. many's the night i've watched her from the deck of my vessel, on seas far away from here. why don't you folks tell me to take in the slack of my jaw and go home?" the laughter of the goodnights died away. anne and gilbert walked hand in hand around their garden. the brook that ran across the corner dimpled pellucidly in the shadows of the birches. the poppies along its banks were like shallow cups of moonlight. flowers that had been planted by the hands of the schoolmaster's bride flung their sweetness on the shadowy air, like the beauty and blessing of sacred yesterdays. anne paused in the gloom to gather a spray. "i love to smell flowers in the dark," she said. "you get hold of their soul then. oh, gilbert, this little house is all i've dreamed it. and i'm so glad that we are not the first who have kept bridal tryst here!" chapter 8 miss cornelia bryant comes to call that september was a month of golden mists and purple hazes at four winds harbor--a month of sun-steeped days and of nights that were swimming in moonlight, or pulsating with stars. no storm marred it, no rough wind blew. anne and gilbert put their nest in order, rambled on the shores, sailed on the harbor, drove about four winds and the glen, or through the ferny, sequestered roads of the woods around the harbor head; in short, had such a honeymoon as any lovers in the world might have envied them. "if life were to stop short just now it would still have been richly worth while, just for the sake of these past four weeks, wouldn't it?" said anne. "i don't suppose we will ever have four such perfect weeks again--but we've had them. everything--wind, weather, folks, house of dreams--has conspired to make our honeymoon delightful. there hasn't even been a rainy day since we came here." "and we haven't quarrelled once," teased gilbert. "well, 'that's a pleasure all the greater for being deferred,'" quoted anne. "i'm so glad we decided to spend our honeymoon here. our memories of it will always belong here, in our house of dreams, instead of being scattered about in strange places." there was a certain tang of romance and adventure in the atmosphere of their new home which anne had never found in avonlea. there, although she had lived in sight of the sea, it had not entered intimately into her life. in four winds it surrounded her and called to her constantly. from every window of her new home she saw some varying aspect of it. its haunting murmur was ever in her ears. vessels sailed up the harbor every day to the wharf at the glen, or sailed out again through the sunset, bound for ports that might be half way round the globe. fishing boats went white-winged down the channel in the mornings, and returned laden in the evenings. sailors and fisher-folk travelled the red, winding harbor roads, light-hearted and content. there was always a certain sense of things going to happen--of adventures and farings-forth. the ways of four winds were less staid and settled and grooved than those of avonlea; winds of change blew over them; the sea called ever to the dwellers on shore, and even those who might not answer its call felt the thrill and unrest and mystery and possibilities of it. "i understand now why some men must go to sea," said anne. "that desire which comes to us all at times--'to sail beyond the bourne of sunset'--must be very imperious when it is born in you. i don't wonder captain jim ran away because of it. i never see a ship sailing out of the channel, or a gull soaring over the sand-bar, without wishing i were on board the ship or had wings, not like a dove 'to fly away and be at rest,' but like a gull, to sweep out into the very heart of a storm." "you'll stay right here with me, anne-girl," said gilbert lazily. "i won't have you flying away from me into the hearts of storms." they were sitting on their red sand-stone doorstep in the late afternoon. great tranquillities were all about them in land and sea and sky. silvery gulls were soaring over them. the horizons were laced with long trails of frail, pinkish clouds. the hushed air was threaded with a murmurous refrain of minstrel winds and waves. pale asters were blowing in the sere and misty meadows between them and the harbor. "doctors who have to be up all night waiting on sick folk don't feel very adventurous, i suppose," anne said indulgently. "if you had had a good sleep last night, gilbert, you'd be as ready as i am for a flight of imagination." "i did good work last night, anne," said gilbert quietly. "under god, i saved a life. this is the first time i could ever really claim that. in other cases i may have helped; but, anne, if i had not stayed at allonby's last night and fought death hand to hand, that woman would have died before morning. i tried an experiment that was certainly never tried in four winds before. i doubt if it was ever tried anywhere before outside of a hospital. it was a new thing in kingsport hospital last winter. i could never have dared try it here if i had not been absolutely certain that there was no other chance. i risked it--and it succeeded. as a result, a good wife and mother is saved for long years of happiness and usefulness. as i drove home this morning, while the sun was rising over the harbor, i thanked god that i had chosen the profession i did. i had fought a good fight and won--think of it, anne, won, against the great destroyer. it's what i dreamed of doing long ago when we talked together of what we wanted to do in life. that dream of mine came true this morning." "was that the only one of your dreams that has come true?" asked anne, who knew perfectly well what the substance of his answer would be, but wanted to hear it again. "you know, anne-girl," said gilbert, smiling into her eyes. at that moment there were certainly two perfectly happy people sitting on the doorstep of a little white house on the four winds harbor shore. presently gilbert said, with a change of tone, "do i or do i not see a full-rigged ship sailing up our lane?" anne looked and sprang up. "that must be either miss cornelia bryant or mrs. moore coming to call," she said. "i'm going into the office, and if it is miss cornelia i warn you that i'll eavesdrop," said gilbert. "from all i've heard regarding miss cornelia i conclude that her conversation will not be dull, to say the least." "it may be mrs. moore." "i don't think mrs. moore is built on those lines. i saw her working in her garden the other day, and, though i was too far away to see clearly, i thought she was rather slender. she doesn't seem very socially inclined when she has never called on you yet, although she's your nearest neighbor." "she can't be like mrs. lynde, after all, or curiosity would have brought her," said anne. "this caller is, i think, miss cornelia." miss cornelia it was; moreover, miss cornelia had not come to make any brief and fashionable wedding call. she had her work under her arm in a substantial parcel, and when anne asked her to stay she promptly took off her capacious sun-hat, which had been held on her head, despite irreverent september breezes, by a tight elastic band under her hard little knob of fair hair. no hat pins for miss cornelia, an it please ye! elastic bands had been good enough for her mother and they were good enough for her. she had a fresh, round, pink-and-white face, and jolly brown eyes. she did not look in the least like the traditional old maid, and there was something in her expression which won anne instantly. with her old instinctive quickness to discern kindred spirits she knew she was going to like miss cornelia, in spite of uncertain oddities of opinion, and certain oddities of attire. nobody but miss cornelia would have come to make a call arrayed in a striped blue-and-white apron and a wrapper of chocolate print, with a design of huge, pink roses scattered over it. and nobody but miss cornelia could have looked dignified and suitably garbed in it. had miss cornelia been entering a palace to call on a prince's bride, she would have been just as dignified and just as wholly mistress of the situation. she would have trailed her rose-spattered flounce over the marble floors just as unconcernedly, and she would have proceeded just as calmly to disabuse the mind of the princess of any idea that the possession of a mere man, be he prince or peasant, was anything to brag of. "i've brought my work, mrs. blythe, dearie," she remarked, unrolling some dainty material. "i'm in a hurry to get this done, and there isn't any time to lose." anne looked in some surprise at the white garment spread over miss cornelia's ample lap. it was certainly a baby's dress, and it was most beautifully made, with tiny frills and tucks. miss cornelia adjusted her glasses and fell to embroidering with exquisite stitches. "this is for mrs. fred proctor up at the glen," she announced. "she's expecting her eighth baby any day now, and not a stitch has she ready for it. the other seven have wore out all she made for the first, and she's never had time or strength or spirit to make any more. that woman is a martyr, mrs. blythe, believe me. when she married fred proctor _i_ knew how it would turn out. he was one of your wicked, fascinating men. after he got married he left off being fascinating and just kept on being wicked. he drinks and he neglects his family. isn't that like a man? i don't know how mrs. proctor would ever keep her children decently clothed if her neighbors didn't help her out." as anne was afterwards to learn, miss cornelia was the only neighbor who troubled herself much about the decency of the young proctors. "when i heard this eighth baby was coming i decided to make some things for it," miss cornelia went on. "this is the last and i want to finish it today." "it's certainly very pretty," said anne. "i'll get my sewing and we'll have a little thimble party of two. you are a beautiful sewer, miss bryant." "yes, i'm the best sewer in these parts," said miss cornelia in a matter-of-fact tone. "i ought to be! lord, i've done more of it than if i'd had a hundred children of my own, believe me! i s'pose i'm a fool, to be putting hand embroidery on this dress for an eighth baby. but, lord, mrs. blythe, dearie, it isn't to blame for being the eighth, and i kind of wished it to have one real pretty dress, just as if it was wanted. nobody's wanting the poor mite--so i put some extra fuss on its little things just on that account." "any baby might be proud of that dress," said anne, feeling still more strongly that she was going to like miss cornelia. "i s'pose you've been thinking i was never coming to call on you," resumed miss cornelia. "but this is harvest month, you know, and i've been busy--and a lot of extra hands hanging round, eating more'n they work, just like the men. i'd have come yesterday, but i went to mrs. roderick macallister's funeral. at first i thought my head was aching so badly i couldn't enjoy myself if i did go. but she was a hundred years old, and i'd always promised myself that i'd go to her funeral." "was it a successful function?" asked anne, noticing that the office door was ajar. "what's that? oh, yes, it was a tremendous funeral. she had a very large connection. there was over one hundred and twenty carriages in the procession. there was one or two funny things happened. i thought that die i would to see old joe bradshaw, who is an infidel and never darkens the door of a church, singing 'safe in the arms of jesus' with great gusto and fervor. he glories in singing--that's why he never misses a funeral. poor mrs. bradshaw didn't look much like singing--all wore out slaving. old joe starts out once in a while to buy her a present and brings home some new kind of farm machinery. isn't that like a man? but what else would you expect of a man who never goes to church, even a methodist one? i was real thankful to see you and the young doctor in the presbyterian church your first sunday. no doctor for me who isn't a presbyterian." "we were in the methodist church last sunday evening," said anne wickedly. "oh, i s'pose dr. blythe has to go to the methodist church once in a while or he wouldn't get the methodist practice." "we liked the sermon very much," declared anne boldly. "and i thought the methodist minster's prayer was one of the most beautiful i ever heard." "oh, i've no doubt he can pray. i never heard anyone make more beautiful prayers than old simon bentley, who was always drunk, or hoping to be, and the drunker he was the better he prayed." "the methodist minister is very fine looking," said anne, for the benefit of the office door. "yes, he's quite ornamental," agreed miss cornelia. "oh, and very ladylike. and he thinks that every girl who looks at him falls in love with him--as if a methodist minister, wandering about like any jew, was such a prize! if you and the young doctor take my advice, you won't have much to do with the methodists. my motto is--if you are a presbyterian, be a presbyterian." "don't you think that methodists go to heaven as well as presbyterians?" asked anne smilelessly. "that isn't for us to decide. it's in higher hands than ours," said miss cornelia solemnly. "but i ain't going to associate with them on earth whatever i may have to do in heaven. this methodist minister isn't married. the last one they had was, and his wife was the silliest, flightiest little thing i ever saw. i told her husband once that he should have waited till she was grown up before he married her. he said he wanted to have the training of her. wasn't that like a man?" "it's rather hard to decide just when people are grown up," laughed anne. "that's a true word, dearie. some are grown up when they're born, and others ain't grown up when they're eighty, believe me. that same mrs. roderick i was speaking of never grew up. she was as foolish when she was a hundred as when she was ten." "perhaps that was why she lived so long," suggested anne. "maybe 'twas. _i_'d rather live fifty sensible years than a hundred foolish ones." "but just think what a dull world it would be if everyone was sensible," pleaded anne. miss cornelia disdained any skirmish of flippant epigram. "mrs. roderick was a milgrave, and the milgraves never had much sense. her nephew, ebenezer milgrave, used to be insane for years. he believed he was dead and used to rage at his wife because she wouldn't bury him. _i_'d a-done it." miss cornelia looked so grimly determined that anne could almost see her with a spade in her hand. "don't you know any good husbands, miss bryant?" "oh, yes, lots of them--over yonder," said miss cornelia, waving her hand through the open window towards the little graveyard of the church across the harbor. "but living--going about in the flesh?" persisted anne. "oh, there's a few, just to show that with god all things are possible," acknowledged miss cornelia reluctantly. "i don't deny that an odd man here and there, if he's caught young and trained up proper, and if his mother has spanked him well beforehand, may turn out a decent being. your husband, now, isn't so bad, as men go, from all i hear. i s'pose"--miss cornelia looked sharply at anne over her glasses--"you think there's nobody like him in the world." "there isn't," said anne promptly. "ah, well, i heard another bride say that once," sighed miss cornelia. "jennie dean thought when she married that there wasn't anybody like her husband in the world. and she was right--there wasn't! and a good thing, too, believe me! he led her an awful life--and he was courting his second wife while jennie was dying. "wasn't that like a man? however, i hope your confidence will be better justified, dearie. the young doctor is taking real well. i was afraid at first he mightn't, for folks hereabouts have always thought old doctor dave the only doctor in the world. doctor dave hadn't much tact, to be sure--he was always talking of ropes in houses where someone had hanged himself. but folks forgot their hurt feelings when they had a pain in their stomachs. if he'd been a minister instead of a doctor they'd never have forgiven him. soul-ache doesn't worry folks near as much as stomach-ache. seeing as we're both presbyterians and no methodists around, will you tell me your candid opinion of our minister?" "why--really--i--well," hesitated anne. miss cornelia nodded. "exactly. i agree with you, dearie. we made a mistake when we called him. his face just looks like one of those long, narrow stones in the graveyard, doesn't it? 'sacred to the memory' ought to be written on his forehead. i shall never forget the first sermon he preached after he came. it was on the subject of everyone doing what they were best fitted for--a very good subject, of course; but such illustrations as he used! he said, 'if you had a cow and an apple tree, and if you tied the apple tree in your stable and planted the cow in your orchard, with her legs up, how much milk would you get from the apple tree, or how many apples from the cow?' did you ever hear the like in your born days, dearie? i was so thankful there were no methodists there that day--they'd never have been done hooting over it. but what i dislike most in him is his habit of agreeing with everybody, no matter what is said. if you said to him, 'you're a scoundrel,' he'd say, with that smooth smile of his, 'yes, that's so.' a minister should have more backbone. the long and the short of it is, i consider him a reverend jackass. but, of course, this is just between you and me. when there are methodists in hearing i praise him to the skies. some folks think his wife dresses too gay, but _i_ say when she has to live with a face like that she needs something to cheer her up. you'll never hear me condemning a woman for her dress. i'm only too thankful when her husband isn't too mean and miserly to allow it. not that i bother much with dress myself. women just dress to please the men, and i'd never stoop to that. i have had a real placid, comfortable life, dearie, and it's just because i never cared a cent what the men thought." "why do you hate the men so, miss bryant?" "lord, dearie, i don't hate them. they aren't worth it. i just sort of despise them. i think i'll like your husband if he keeps on as he has begun. but apart from him about the only men in the world i've much use for are the old doctor and captain jim." "captain jim is certainly splendid," agreed anne cordially. "captain jim is a good man, but he's kind of vexing in one way. you can't make him mad. i've tried for twenty years and he just keeps on being placid. it does sort of rile me. and i s'pose the woman he should have married got a man who went into tantrums twice a day." "who was she?" "oh, i don't know, dearie. i never remember of captain jim making up to anybody. he was edging on old as far as my memory goes. he's seventy-six, you know. i never heard any reason for his staying a bachelor, but there must be one, believe me. he sailed all his life till five years ago, and there's no corner of the earth he hasn't poked his nose into. he and elizabeth russell were great cronies, all their lives, but they never had any notion of sweet-hearting. elizabeth never married, though she had plenty of chances. she was a great beauty when she was young. the year the prince of wales came to the island she was visiting her uncle in charlottetown and he was a government official, and so she got invited to the great ball. she was the prettiest girl there, and the prince danced with her, and all the other women he didn't dance with were furious about it, because their social standing was higher than hers and they said he shouldn't have passed them over. elizabeth was always very proud of that dance. mean folks said that was why she never married--she couldn't put up with an ordinary man after dancing with a prince. but that wasn't so. she told me the reason once--it was because she had such a temper that she was afraid she couldn't live peaceably with any man. she had an awful temper--she used to have to go upstairs and bite pieces out of her bureau to keep it down by times. but i told her that wasn't any reason for not marrying if she wanted to. there's no reason why we should let the men have a monopoly of temper, is there, mrs. blythe, dearie?" "i've a bit of temper myself," sighed anne. "it's well you have, dearie. you won't be half so likely to be trodden on, believe me! my, how that golden glow of yours is blooming! your garden looks fine. poor elizabeth always took such care of it." "i love it," said anne. "i'm glad it's so full of old-fashioned flowers. speaking of gardening, we want to get a man to dig up that little lot beyond the fir grove and set it out with strawberry plants for us. gilbert is so busy he will never get time for it this fall. do you know anyone we can get?" "well, henry hammond up at the glen goes out doing jobs like that. he'll do, maybe. he's always a heap more interested in his wages than in his work, just like a man, and he's so slow in the uptake that he stands still for five minutes before it dawns on him that he's stopped. his father threw a stump at him when he was small. "nice gentle missile, wasn't it? so like a man! course, the boy never got over it. but he's the only one i can recommend at all. he painted my house for me last spring. it looks real nice now, don't you think?" anne was saved by the clock striking five. "lord, is it that late?" exclaimed miss cornelia. "how time does slip by when you're enjoying yourself! well, i must betake myself home." "no, indeed! you are going to stay and have tea with us," said anne eagerly. "are you asking me because you think you ought to, or because you really want to?" demanded miss cornelia. "because i really want to." "then i'll stay. you belong to the race that knows joseph." "i know we are going to be friends," said anne, with the smile that only they of the household of faith ever saw. "yes, we are, dearie. thank goodness, we can choose our friends. we have to take our relatives as they are, and be thankful if there are no penitentiary birds among them. not that i've many--none nearer than second cousins. i'm a kind of lonely soul, mrs. blythe." there was a wistful note in miss cornelia's voice. "i wish you would call me anne," exclaimed anne impulsively. "it would seem more homey. everyone in four winds, except my husband, calls me mrs. blythe, and it makes me feel like a stranger. do you know that your name is very near being the one i yearned after when i was a child. i hated 'anne' and i called myself 'cordelia' in imagination." "i like anne. it was my mother's name. old-fashioned names are the best and sweetest in my opinion. if you're going to get tea you might send the young doctor to talk to me. he's been lying on the sofa in that office ever since i came, laughing fit to kill over what i've been saying." "how did you know?" cried anne, too aghast at this instance of miss cornelia's uncanny prescience to make a polite denial. "i saw him sitting beside you when i came up the lane, and i know men's tricks," retorted miss cornelia. "there, i've finished my little dress, dearie, and the eighth baby can come as soon as it pleases." chapter 9 an evening at four winds point it was late september when anne and gilbert were able to pay four winds light their promised visit. they had often planned to go, but something always occurred to prevent them. captain jim had "dropped in" several times at the little house. "i don't stand on ceremony, mistress blythe," he told anne. "it's a real pleasure to me to come here, and i'm not going to deny myself jest because you haven't got down to see me. there oughtn't to be no bargaining like that among the race that knows joseph. i'll come when i can, and you come when you can, and so long's we have our pleasant little chat it don't matter a mite what roof's over us." captain jim took a great fancy to gog and magog, who were presiding over the destinies of the hearth in the little house with as much dignity and aplomb as they had done at patty's place. "aren't they the cutest little cusses?" he would say delightedly; and he bade them greeting and farewell as gravely and invariably as he did his host and hostess. captain jim was not going to offend household deities by any lack of reverence and ceremony. "you've made this little house just about perfect," he told anne. "it never was so nice before. mistress selwyn had your taste and she did wonders; but folks in those days didn't have the pretty little curtains and pictures and nicknacks you have. as for elizabeth, she lived in the past. you've kinder brought the future into it, so to speak. i'd be real happy even if we couldn't talk at all, when i come here--jest to sit and look at you and your pictures and your flowers would be enough of a treat. it's beautiful--beautiful." captain jim was a passionate worshipper of beauty. every lovely thing heard or seen gave him a deep, subtle, inner joy that irradiated his life. he was quite keenly aware of his own lack of outward comeliness and lamented it. "folks say i'm good," he remarked whimsically upon one occasion, "but i sometimes wish the lord had made me only half as good and put the rest of it into looks. but there, i reckon he knew what he was about, as a good captain should. some of us have to be homely, or the purty ones--like mistress blythe here--wouldn't show up so well." one evening anne and gilbert finally walked down to the four winds light. the day had begun sombrely in gray cloud and mist, but it had ended in a pomp of scarlet and gold. over the western hills beyond the harbor were amber deeps and crystalline shallows, with the fire of sunset below. the north was a mackerel sky of little, fiery golden clouds. the red light flamed on the white sails of a vessel gliding down the channel, bound to a southern port in a land of palms. beyond her, it smote upon and incarnadined the shining, white, grassless faces of the sand dunes. to the right, it fell on the old house among the willows up the brook, and gave it for a fleeting space casements more splendid than those of an old cathedral. they glowed out of its quiet and grayness like the throbbing, blood-red thoughts of a vivid soul imprisoned in a dull husk of environment. "that old house up the brook always seems so lonely," said anne. "i never see visitors there. of course, its lane opens on the upper road--but i don't think there's much coming and going. it seems odd we've never met the moores yet, when they live within fifteen minutes' walk of us. i may have seen them in church, of course, but if so i didn't know them. i'm sorry they are so unsociable, when they are our only near neighbors." "evidently they don't belong to the race that knows joseph," laughed gilbert. "have you ever found out who that girl was whom you thought so beautiful?" "no. somehow i have never remembered to ask about her. but i've never seen her anywhere, so i suppose she must have been a stranger. oh, the sun has just vanished--and there's the light." as the dusk deepened, the great beacon cut swathes of light through it, sweeping in a circle over the fields and the harbor, the sandbar and the gulf. "i feel as if it might catch me and whisk me leagues out to sea," said anne, as one drenched them with radiance; and she felt rather relieved when they got so near the point that they were inside the range of those dazzling, recurrent flashes. as they turned into the little lane that led across the fields to the point they met a man coming out of it--a man of such extraordinary appearance that for a moment they both frankly stared. he was a decidedly fine-looking person-tall, broad-shouldered, well-featured, with a roman nose and frank gray eyes; he was dressed in a prosperous farmer's sunday best; in so far he might have been any inhabitant of four winds or the glen. but, flowing over his breast nearly to his knees, was a river of crinkly brown beard; and adown his back, beneath his commonplace felt hat, was a corresponding cascade of thick, wavy, brown hair. "anne," murmured gilbert, when they were out of earshot, "you didn't put what uncle dave calls 'a little of the scott act' in that lemonade you gave me just before we left home, did you?" "no, i didn't," said anne, stifling her laughter, lest the retreating enigma should hear here. "who in the world can he be?" "i don't know; but if captain jim keeps apparitions like that down at this point i'm going to carry cold iron in my pocket when i come here. he wasn't a sailor, or one might pardon his eccentricity of appearance; he must belong to the over-harbor clans. uncle dave says they have several freaks over there." "uncle dave is a little prejudiced, i think. you know all the over-harbor people who come to the glen church seem very nice. oh, gilbert, isn't this beautiful?" the four winds light was built on a spur of red sand-stone cliff jutting out into the gulf. on one side, across the channel, stretched the silvery sand shore of the bar; on the other, extended a long, curving beach of red cliffs, rising steeply from the pebbled coves. it was a shore that knew the magic and mystery of storm and star. there is a great solitude about such a shore. the woods are never solitary--they are full of whispering, beckoning, friendly life. but the sea is a mighty soul, forever moaning of some great, unshareable sorrow, which shuts it up into itself for all eternity. we can never pierce its infinite mystery--we may only wander, awed and spellbound, on the outer fringe of it. the woods call to us with a hundred voices, but the sea has one only--a mighty voice that drowns our souls in its majestic music. the woods are human, but the sea is of the company of the archangels. anne and gilbert found uncle jim sitting on a bench outside the lighthouse, putting the finishing touches to a wonderful, full-rigged, toy schooner. he rose and welcomed them to his abode with the gentle, unconscious courtesy that became him so well. "this has been a purty nice day all through, mistress blythe, and now, right at the last, it's brought its best. would you like to sit down here outside a bit, while the light lasts? i've just finished this bit of a plaything for my little grand nephew, joe, up at the glen. after i promised to make it for him i was kinder sorry, for his mother was vexed. she's afraid he'll be wanting to go to sea later on and she doesn't want the notion encouraged in him. but what could i do, mistress blythe? i'd promised him, and i think it's sorter real dastardly to break a promise you make to a child. come, sit down. it won't take long to stay an hour." the wind was off shore, and only broke the sea's surface into long, silvery ripples, and sent sheeny shadows flying out across it, from every point and headland, like transparent wings. the dusk was hanging a curtain of violet gloom over the sand dunes and the headlands where gulls were huddling. the sky was faintly filmed over with scarfs of silken vapor. cloud fleets rode at anchor along the horizons. an evening star was watching over the bar. "isn't that a view worth looking at?" said captain jim, with a loving, proprietary pride. "nice and far from the market-place, ain't it? no buying and selling and getting gain. you don't have to pay anything--all that sea and sky free--'without money and without price.' there's going to be a moonrise purty soon, too--i'm never tired of finding out what a moonrise can be over them rocks and sea and harbor. there's a surprise in it every time." they had their moonrise, and watched its marvel and magic in a silence that asked nothing of the world or each other. then they went up into the tower, and captain jim showed and explained the mechanism of the great light. finally they found themselves in the dining room, where a fire of driftwood was weaving flames of wavering, elusive, sea-born hues in the open fireplace. "i put this fireplace in myself," remarked captain jim. "the government don't give lighthouse keepers such luxuries. look at the colors that wood makes. if you'd like some driftwood for your fire, mistress blythe, i'll bring you up a load some day. sit down. i'm going to make you a cup of tea." captain jim placed a chair for anne, having first removed therefrom a huge, orange-colored cat and a newspaper. "get down, matey. the sofa is your place. i must put this paper away safe till i can find time to finish the story in it. it's called a mad love. 'tisn't my favorite brand of fiction, but i'm reading it jest to see how long she can spin it out. it's at the sixty-second chapter now, and the wedding ain't any nearer than when it begun, far's i can see. when little joe comes i have to read him pirate yarns. ain't it strange how innocent little creatures like children like the blood-thirstiest stories?" "like my lad davy at home," said anne. "he wants tales that reek with gore." captain jim's tea proved to be nectar. he was pleased as a child with anne's compliments, but he affected a fine indifference. "the secret is i don't skimp the cream," he remarked airily. captain jim had never heard of oliver wendell holmes, but he evidently agreed with that writer's dictum that "big heart never liked little cream pot." "we met an odd-looking personage coming out of your lane," said gilbert as they sipped. "who was he?" captain jim grinned. "that's marshall elliott--a mighty fine man with jest one streak of foolishness in him. i s'pose you wondered what his object was in turning himself into a sort of dime museum freak." "is he a modern nazarite or a hebrew prophet left over from olden times?" asked anne. "neither of them. it's politics that's at the bottom of his freak. all those elliotts and crawfords and macallisters are dyed-in-the-wool politicians. they're born grit or tory, as the case may be, and they live grit or tory, and they die grit or tory; and what they're going to do in heaven, where there's probably no politics, is more than i can fathom. this marshall elliott was born a grit. i'm a grit myself in moderation, but there's no moderation about marshall. fifteen years ago there was a specially bitter general election. marshall fought for his party tooth and nail. he was dead sure the liberals would win--so sure that he got up at a public meeting and vowed that he wouldn't shave his face or cut his hair until the grits were in power. well, they didn't go in--and they've never got in yet--and you saw the result today for yourselves. marshall stuck to his word." "what does his wife think of it?" asked anne. "he's a bachelor. but if he had a wife i reckon she couldn't make him break that vow. that family of elliotts has always been more stubborn than natteral. marshall's brother alexander had a dog he set great store by, and when it died the man actilly wanted to have it buried in the graveyard, 'along with the other christians,' he said. course, he wasn't allowed to; so he buried it just outside the graveyard fence, and never darkened the church door again. but sundays he'd drive his family to church and sit by that dog's grave and read his bible all the time service was going on. they say when he was dying he asked his wife to bury him beside the dog; she was a meek little soul but she fired up at that. she said she wasn't going to be buried beside no dog, and if he'd rather have his last resting place beside the dog than beside her, jest to say so. alexander elliott was a stubborn mule, but he was fond of his wife, so he give in and said, 'well, durn it, bury me where you please. but when gabriel's trump blows i expect my dog to rise with the rest of us, for he had as much soul as any durned elliott or crawford or macallister that ever strutted.' them was his parting words. as for marshall, we're all used to him, but he must strike strangers as right down peculiar-looking. i've known him ever since he was ten--he's about fifty now--and i like him. him and me was out cod-fishing today. that's about all i'm good for now--catching trout and cod occasional. but 'tweren't always so--not by no manner of means. i used to do other things, as you'd admit if you saw my life-book." anne was just going to ask what his life-book was when the first mate created a diversion by springing upon captain jim's knee. he was a gorgeous beastie, with a face as round as a full moon, vivid green eyes, and immense, white, double paws. captain jim stroked his velvet back gently. "i never fancied cats much till i found the first mate," he remarked, to the accompaniment of the mate's tremendous purrs. "i saved his life, and when you've saved a creature's life you're bound to love it. it's next thing to giving life. there's some turrible thoughtless people in the world, mistress blythe. some of them city folks who have summer homes over the harbor are so thoughtless that they're cruel. it's the worst kind of cruelty--the thoughtless kind. you can't cope with it. they keep cats there in the summer, and feed and pet 'em, and doll 'em up with ribbons and collars. and then in the fall they go off and leave 'em to starve or freeze. it makes my blood boil, mistress blythe. one day last winter i found a poor old mother cat dead on the shore, lying against the skin-and-bone bodies of her three little kittens. she'd died trying to shelter 'em. she had her poor stiff paws around 'em. master, i cried. then i swore. then i carried them poor little kittens home and fed 'em up and found good homes for 'em. i knew the woman who left the cat and when she come back this summer i jest went over the harbor and told her my opinion of her. it was rank meddling, but i do love meddling in a good cause." "how did she take it?" asked gilbert. "cried and said she 'didn't think.' i says to her, says i, 'do you s'pose that'll be held for a good excuse in the day of jedgment, when you'll have to account for that poor old mother's life? the lord'll ask you what he give you your brains for if it wasn't to think, i reckon.' i don't fancy she'll leave cats to starve another time." "was the first mate one of the forsaken?" asked anne, making advances to him which were responded to graciously, if condescendingly. "yes. i found him one bitter cold day in winter, caught in the branches of a tree by his durn-fool ribbon collar. he was almost starving. if you could have seen his eyes, mistress blythe! he was nothing but a kitten, and he'd got his living somehow since he'd been left until he got hung up. when i loosed him he gave my hand a pitiful swipe with his little red tongue. he wasn't the able seaman you see now. he was meek as moses. that was nine years ago. his life has been long in the land for a cat. he's a good old pal, the first mate is." "i should have expected you to have a dog," said gilbert. captain jim shook his head. "i had a dog once. i thought so much of him that when he died i couldn't bear the thought of getting another in his place. he was a friend--you understand, mistress blythe? matey's only a pal. i'm fond of matey--all the fonder on account of the spice of devilment that's in him--like there is in all cats. but i loved my dog. i always had a sneaking sympathy for alexander elliott about his dog. there isn't any devil in a good dog. that's why they're more lovable than cats, i reckon. but i'm darned if they're as interesting. here i am, talking too much. why don't you check me? when i do get a chance to talk to anyone i run on turrible. if you've done your tea i've a few little things you might like to look at--picked 'em up in the queer corners i used to be poking my nose into." captain jim's "few little things" turned out to be a most interesting collection of curios, hideous, quaint and beautiful. and almost every one had some striking story attached to it. anne never forgot the delight with which she listened to those old tales that moonlit evening by that enchanted driftwood fire, while the silver sea called to them through the open window and sobbed against the rocks below them. captain jim never said a boastful word, but it was impossible to help seeing what a hero the man had been--brave, true, resourceful, unselfish. he sat there in his little room and made those things live again for his hearers. by a lift of the eyebrow, a twist of the lip, a gesture, a word, he painted a whole scene or character so that they saw it as it was. some of captain jim's adventures had such a marvellous edge that anne and gilbert secretly wondered if he were not drawing a rather long bow at their credulous expense. but in this, as they found later, they did him injustice. his tales were all literally true. captain jim had the gift of the born storyteller, whereby "unhappy, far-off things" can be brought vividly before the hearer in all their pristine poignancy. anne and gilbert laughed and shivered over his tales, and once anne found herself crying. captain jim surveyed her tears with pleasure shining from his face. "i like to see folks cry that way," he remarked. "it's a compliment. but i can't do justice to the things i've seen or helped to do. i've 'em all jotted down in my life-book, but i haven't got the knack of writing them out properly. if i could hit on jest the right words and string 'em together proper on paper i could make a great book. it would beat a mad love holler, and i believe joe'd like it as well as the pirate yarns. yes, i've had some adventures in my time; and, do you know, mistress blythe, i still lust after 'em. yes, old and useless as i be, there's an awful longing sweeps over me at times to sail out--out--out there--forever and ever." "like ulysses, you would 'sail beyond the sunset and the baths of all the western stars until you die,'" said anne dreamily. "ulysses? i've read of him. yes, that's just how i feel--jest how all us old sailors feel, i reckon. i'll die on land after all, i s'pose. well, what is to be will be. there was old william ford at the glen who never went on the water in his life, 'cause he was afraid of being drowned. a fortune-teller had predicted he would be. and one day he fainted and fell with his face in the barn trough and was drowned. must you go? well, come soon and come often. the doctor is to do the talking next time. he knows a heap of things i want to find out. i'm sorter lonesome here by times. it's been worse since elizabeth russell died. her and me was such cronies." captain jim spoke with the pathos of the aged, who see their old friends slipping from them one by one--friends whose place can never be quite filled by those of a younger generation, even of the race that knows joseph. anne and gilbert promised to come soon and often. "he's a rare old fellow, isn't he?" said gilbert, as they walked home. "somehow, i can't reconcile his simple, kindly personality with the wild, adventurous life he has lived," mused anne. "you wouldn't find it so hard if you had seen him the other day down at the fishing village. one of the men of peter gautier's boat made a nasty remark about some girl along the shore. captain jim fairly scorched the wretched fellow with the lightning of his eyes. he seemed a man transformed. he didn't say much--but the way he said it! you'd have thought it would strip the flesh from the fellow's bones. i understand that captain jim will never allow a word against any woman to be said in his presence." "i wonder why he never married," said anne. "he should have sons with their ships at sea now, and grandchildren climbing over him to hear his stories--he's that kind of a man. instead, he has nothing but a magnificent cat." but anne was mistaken. captain jim had more than that. he had a memory. chapter 10 leslie moore "i'm going for a walk to the outside shore tonight," anne told gog and magog one october evening. there was no one else to tell, for gilbert had gone over the harbor. anne had her little domain in the speckless order one would expect of anyone brought up by marilla cuthbert, and felt that she could gad shoreward with a clear conscience. many and delightful had been her shore rambles, sometimes with gilbert, sometimes with captain jim, sometimes alone with her own thoughts and new, poignantly-sweet dreams that were beginning to span life with their rainbows. she loved the gentle, misty harbor shore and the silvery, wind-haunted sand shore, but best of all she loved the rock shore, with its cliffs and caves and piles of surf-worn boulders, and its coves where the pebbles glittered under the pools; and it was to this shore she hied herself tonight. there had been an autumn storm of wind and rain, lasting for three days. thunderous had been the crash of billows on the rocks, wild the white spray and spume that blew over the bar, troubled and misty and tempest-torn the erstwhile blue peace of four winds harbor. now it was over, and the shore lay clean-washed after the storm; not a wind stirred, but there was still a fine surf on, dashing on sand and rock in a splendid white turmoil--the only restless thing in the great, pervading stillness and peace. "oh, this is a moment worth living through weeks of storm and stress for," anne exclaimed, delightedly sending her far gaze across the tossing waters from the top of the cliff where she stood. presently she scrambled down the steep path to the little cove below, where she seemed shut in with rocks and sea and sky. "i'm going to dance and sing," she said. "there's no one here to see me--the seagulls won't carry tales of the matter. i may be as crazy as i like." she caught up her skirt and pirouetted along the hard strip of sand just out of reach of the waves that almost lapped her feet with their spent foam. whirling round and round, laughing like a child, she reached the little headland that ran out to the east of the cove; then she stopped suddenly, blushing crimson; she was not alone; there had been a witness to her dance and laughter. the girl of the golden hair and sea-blue eyes was sitting on a boulder of the headland, half-hidden by a jutting rock. she was looking straight at anne with a strange expression--part wonder, part sympathy, part--could it be?--envy. she was bare-headed, and her splendid hair, more than ever like browning's "gorgeous snake," was bound about her head with a crimson ribbon. she wore a dress of some dark material, very plainly made; but swathed about her waist, outlining its fine curves, was a vivid girdle of red silk. her hands, clasped over her knee, were brown and somewhat work-hardened; but the skin of her throat and cheeks was as white as cream. a flying gleam of sunset broke through a low-lying western cloud and fell across her hair. for a moment she seemed the spirit of the sea personified--all its mystery, all its passion, all its elusive charm. "you--you must think me crazy," stammered anne, trying to recover her self-possession. to be seen by this stately girl in such an abandon of childishness--she, mrs. dr. blythe, with all the dignity of the matron to keep up--it was too bad! "no," said the girl, "i don't." she said nothing more; her voice was expressionless; her manner slightly repellent; but there was something in her eyes--eager yet shy, defiant yet pleading--which turned anne from her purpose of walking away. instead, she sat down on the boulder beside the girl. "let's introduce ourselves," she said, with the smile that had never yet failed to win confidence and friendliness. "i am mrs. blythe--and i live in that little white house up the harbor shore." "yes, i know," said the girl. "i am leslie moore--mrs. dick moore," she added stiffly. anne was silent for a moment from sheer amazement. it had not occurred to her that this girl was married--there seemed nothing of the wife about her. and that she should be the neighbor whom anne had pictured as a commonplace four winds housewife! anne could not quickly adjust her mental focus to this astonishing change. "then--then you live in that gray house up the brook," she stammered. "yes. i should have gone over to call on you long ago," said the other. she did not offer any explanation or excuse for not having gone. "i wish you would come," said anne, recovering herself somewhat. "we're such near neighbors we ought to be friends. that is the sole fault of four winds--there aren't quite enough neighbors. otherwise it is perfection." "you like it?" "like it! i love it. it is the most beautiful place i ever saw." "i've never seen many places," said leslie moore, slowly, "but i've always thought it was very lovely here. i--i love it, too." she spoke, as she looked, shyly, yet eagerly. anne had an odd impression that this strange girl--the word "girl" would persist--could say a good deal if she chose. "i often come to the shore," she added. "so do i," said anne. "it's a wonder we haven't met here before." "probably you come earlier in the evening than i do. it is generally late--almost dark--when i come. and i love to come just after a storm--like this. i don't like the sea so well when it's calm and quiet. i like the struggle--and the crash--and the noise." "i love it in all its moods," declared anne. "the sea at four winds is to me what lover's lane was at home. tonight it seemed so free--so untamed--something broke loose in me, too, out of sympathy. that was why i danced along the shore in that wild way. i didn't suppose anybody was looking, of course. if miss cornelia bryant had seen me she would have forboded a gloomy prospect for poor young dr. blythe." "you know miss cornelia?" said leslie, laughing. she had an exquisite laugh; it bubbled up suddenly and unexpectedly with something of the delicious quality of a baby's. anne laughed, too. "oh, yes. she has been down to my house of dreams several times." "your house of dreams?" "oh, that's a dear, foolish little name gilbert and i have for our home. we just call it that between ourselves. it slipped out before i thought." "so miss russell's little white house is your house of dreams," said leslie wonderingly. "_i_ had a house of dreams once--but it was a palace," she added, with a laugh, the sweetness of which was marred by a little note of derision. "oh, i once dreamed of a palace, too," said anne. "i suppose all girls do. and then we settle down contentedly in eight-room houses that seem to fulfill all the desires of our hearts--because our prince is there. you should have had your palace really, though--you are so beautiful. you must let me say it--it has to be said--i'm nearly bursting with admiration. you are the loveliest thing i ever saw, mrs. moore." "if we are to be friends you must call me leslie," said the other with an odd passion. "of course i will. and my friends call me anne." "i suppose i am beautiful," leslie went on, looking stormily out to sea. "i hate my beauty. i wish i had always been as brown and plain as the brownest and plainest girl at the fishing village over there. well, what do you think of miss cornelia?" the abrupt change of subject shut the door on any further confidences. "miss cornelia is a darling, isn't she?" said anne. "gilbert and i were invited to her house to a state tea last week. you've heard of groaning tables." "i seem to recall seeing the expression in the newspaper reports of weddings," said leslie, smiling. "well, miss cornelia's groaned--at least, it creaked--positively. you couldn't have believed she would have cooked so much for two ordinary people. she had every kind of pie you could name, i think--except lemon pie. she said she had taken the prize for lemon pies at the charlottetown exhibition ten years ago and had never made any since for fear of losing her reputation for them." "were you able to eat enough pie to please her?" "_i_ wasn't. gilbert won her heart by eating--i won't tell you how much. she said she never knew a man who didn't like pie better than his bible. do you know, i love miss cornelia." "so do i," said leslie. "she is the best friend i have in the world." anne wondered secretly why, if this were so, miss cornelia had never mentioned mrs. dick moore to her. miss cornelia had certainly talked freely about every other individual in or near four winds. "isn't that beautiful?" said leslie, after a brief silence, pointing to the exquisite effect of a shaft of light falling through a cleft in the rock behind them, across a dark green pool at its base. "if i had come here--and seen nothing but just that--i would go home satisfied." "the effects of light and shadow all along these shores are wonderful," agreed anne. "my little sewing room looks out on the harbor, and i sit at its window and feast my eyes. the colors and shadows are never the same two minutes together." "and you are never lonely?" asked leslie abruptly. "never--when you are alone?" "no. i don't think i've ever been really lonely in my life," answered anne. "even when i'm alone i have real good company--dreams and imaginations and pretendings. i like to be alone now and then, just to think over things and taste them. but i love friendship--and nice, jolly little times with people. oh, won't you come to see me--often? please do. i believe," anne added, laughing, "that you'd like me if you knew me." "i wonder if you would like me," said leslie seriously. she was not fishing for a compliment. she looked out across the waves that were beginning to be garlanded with blossoms of moonlit foam, and her eyes filled with shadows. "i'm sure i would," said anne. "and please don't think i'm utterly irresponsible because you saw me dancing on the shore at sunset. no doubt i shall be dignified after a time. you see, i haven't been married very long. i feel like a girl, and sometimes like a child, yet." "i have been married twelve years," said leslie. here was another unbelievable thing. "why, you can't be as old as i am!" exclaimed anne. "you must have been a child when you were married." "i was sixteen," said leslie, rising, and picking up the cap and jacket lying beside her. "i am twenty-eight now. well, i must go back." "so must i. gilbert will probably be home. but i'm so glad we both came to the shore tonight and met each other." leslie said nothing, and anne was a little chilled. she had offered friendship frankly but it had not been accepted very graciously, if it had not been absolutely repelled. in silence they climbed the cliffs and walked across a pasture-field of which the feathery, bleached, wild grasses were like a carpet of creamy velvet in the moonlight. when they reached the shore lane leslie turned. "i go this way, mrs. blythe. you will come over and see me some time, won't you?" anne felt as if the invitation had been thrown at her. she got the impression that leslie moore gave it reluctantly. "i will come if you really want me to," she said a little coldly. "oh, i do--i do," exclaimed leslie, with an eagerness which seemed to burst forth and beat down some restraint that had been imposed on it. "then i'll come. good-night--leslie." "good-night, mrs. blythe." anne walked home in a brown study and poured out her tale to gilbert. "so mrs. dick moore isn't one of the race that knows joseph?" said gilbert teasingly. "no--o--o, not exactly. and yet--i think she was one of them once, but has gone or got into exile," said anne musingly. "she is certainly very different from the other women about here. you can't talk about eggs and butter to her. to think i've been imagining her a second mrs. rachel lynde! have you ever seen dick moore, gilbert?" "no. i've seen several men working about the fields of the farm, but i don't know which was moore." "she never mentioned him. i know she isn't happy." "from what you tell me i suppose she was married before she was old enough to know her own mind or heart, and found out too late that she had made a mistake. it's a common tragedy enough, anne. "a fine woman would have made the best of it. mrs. moore has evidently let it make her bitter and resentful." "don't let us judge her till we know," pleaded anne. "i don't believe her case is so ordinary. you will understand her fascination when you meet her, gilbert. it is a thing quite apart from her beauty. i feel that she possesses a rich nature, into which a friend might enter as into a kingdom; but for some reason she bars every one out and shuts all her possibilities up in herself, so that they cannot develop and blossom. there, i've been struggling to define her to myself ever since i left her, and that is the nearest i can get to it. i'm going to ask miss cornelia about her." chapter 11 the story of leslie moore "yes, the eighth baby arrived a fortnight ago," said miss cornelia, from a rocker before the fire of the little house one chilly october afternoon. "it's a girl. fred was ranting mad--said he wanted a boy--when the truth is he didn't want it at all. if it had been a boy he'd have ranted because it wasn't a girl. they had four girls and three boys before, so i can't see that it made much difference what this one was, but of course he'd have to be cantankerous, just like a man. the baby is real pretty, dressed up in its nice little clothes. it has black eyes and the dearest, tiny hands." "i must go and see it. i just love babies," said anne, smiling to herself over a thought too dear and sacred to be put into words. "i don't say but what they're nice," admitted miss cornelia. "but some folks seem to have more than they really need, believe me. my poor cousin flora up at the glen had eleven, and such a slave as she is! her husband suicided three years ago. just like a man!" "what made him do that?" asked anne, rather shocked. "couldn't get his way over something, so he jumped into the well. a good riddance! he was a born tyrant. but of course it spoiled the well. flora could never abide the thought of using it again, poor thing! so she had another dug and a frightful expense it was, and the water as hard as nails. if he had to drown himself there was plenty of water in the harbor, wasn't there? i've no patience with a man like that. we've only had two suicides in four winds in my recollection. the other was frank west--leslie moore's father. by the way, has leslie ever been over to call on you yet?" "no, but i met her on the shore a few nights ago and we scraped an acquaintance," said anne, pricking up her ears. miss cornelia nodded. "i'm glad, dearie. i was hoping you'd foregather with her. what do you think of her?" "i thought her very beautiful." "oh, of course. there was never anybody about four winds could touch her for looks. did you ever see her hair? it reaches to her feet when she lets it down. but i meant how did you like her?" "i think i could like her very much if she'd let me," said anne slowly. "but she wouldn't let you--she pushed you off and kept you at arm's length. poor leslie! you wouldn't be much surprised if you knew what her life has been. it's been a tragedy--a tragedy!" repeated miss cornelia emphatically. "i wish you would tell me all about her--that is, if you can do so without betraying any confidence." "lord, dearie, everybody in four winds knows poor leslie's story. it's no secret--the outside, that is. nobody knows the inside but leslie herself, and she doesn't take folks into her confidence. i'm about the best friend she has on earth, i reckon, and she's never uttered a word of complaint to me. have you ever seen dick moore?" "no." "well, i may as well begin at the beginning and tell you everything straight through, so you'll understand it. as i said, leslie's father was frank west. he was clever and shiftless--just like a man. oh, he had heaps of brains--and much good they did him! he started to go to college, and he went for two years, and then his health broke down. the wests were all inclined to be consumptive. so frank came home and started farming. he married rose elliott from over harbor. rose was reckoned the beauty of four winds--leslie takes her looks from her mother, but she has ten times the spirit and go that rose had, and a far better figure. now you know, anne, i always take the ground that us women ought to stand by each other. we've got enough to endure at the hands of the men, the lord knows, so i hold we hadn't ought to clapper-claw one another, and it isn't often you'll find me running down another woman. but i never had much use for rose elliott. she was spoiled to begin with, believe me, and she was nothing but a lazy, selfish, whining creature. frank was no hand to work, so they were poor as job's turkey. poor! they lived on potatoes and point, believe me. they had two children--leslie and kenneth. leslie had her mother's looks and her father's brains, and something she didn't get from either of them. she took after her grandmother west--a splendid old lady. she was the brightest, friendliest, merriest thing when she was a child, anne. everybody liked her. she was her father's favorite and she was awful fond of him. they were 'chums,' as she used to say. she couldn't see any of his faults--and he was a taking sort of man in some ways. "well, when leslie was twelve years old, the first dreadful thing happened. she worshipped little kenneth--he was four years younger than her, and he was a dear little chap. and he was killed one day--fell off a big load of hay just as it was going into the barn, and the wheel went right over his little body and crushed the life out of it. and mind you, anne, leslie saw it. she was looking down from the loft. she gave one screech--the hired man said he never heard such a sound in all his life--he said it would ring in his ears till gabriel's trump drove it out. but she never screeched or cried again about it. she jumped from the loft onto the load and from the load to the floor, and caught up the little bleeding, warm, dead body, anne--they had to tear it from her before she would let it go. they sent for me--i can't talk of it." miss cornelia wiped the tears from her kindly brown eyes and sewed in bitter silence for a few minutes. "well," she resumed, "it was all over--they buried little kenneth in that graveyard over the harbor, and after a while leslie went back to her school and her studies. she never mentioned kenneth's name--i've never heard it cross her lips from that day to this. i reckon that old hurt still aches and burns at times; but she was only a child and time is real kind to children, anne, dearie. after a while she began to laugh again--she had the prettiest laugh. you don't often hear it now." "i heard it once the other night," said anne. "it is a beautiful laugh." "frank west began to go down after kenneth's death. he wasn't strong and it was a shock to him, because he was real fond of the child, though, as i've said, leslie was his favorite. he got mopy and melancholy, and couldn't or wouldn't work. and one day, when leslie was fourteen years of age, he hanged himself--and in the parlor, too, mind you, anne, right in the middle of the parlor from the lamp hook in the ceiling. wasn't that like a man? it was the anniversary of his wedding day, too. nice, tasty time to pick for it, wasn't it? and, of course, that poor leslie had to be the one to find him. she went into the parlor that morning, singing, with some fresh flowers for the vases, and there she saw her father hanging from the ceiling, his face as black as a coal. it was something awful, believe me!" "oh, how horrible!" said anne, shuddering. "the poor, poor child!" "leslie didn't cry at her father's funeral any more then she had cried at kenneth's. rose whooped and howled for two, however, and leslie had all she could do trying to calm and comfort her mother. i was disgusted with rose and so was everyone else, but leslie never got out of patience. she loved her mother. leslie is clannish--her own could never do wrong in her eyes. well, they buried frank west beside kenneth, and rose put up a great big monument to him. it was bigger than his character, believe me! anyhow, it was bigger than rose could afford, for the farm was mortgaged for more than its value. but not long after leslie's old grandmother west died and she left leslie a little money--enough to give her a year at queen's academy. leslie had made up her mind to pass for a teacher if she could, and then earn enough to put herself through redmond college. that had been her father's pet scheme--he wanted her to have what he had lost. leslie was full of ambition and her head was chock full of brains. she went to queen's, and she took two years' work in one year and got her first; and when she came home she got the glen school. she was so happy and hopeful and full of life and eagerness. when i think of what she was then and what she is now, i say--drat the men!" miss cornelia snipped her thread off as viciously as if, nero-like, she was severing the neck of mankind by the stroke. "dick moore came into her life that summer. his father, abner moore, kept store at the glen, but dick had a sea-going streak in him from his mother; he used to sail in summer and clerk in his father's store in winter. he was a big, handsome fellow, with a little ugly soul. he was always wanting something till he got it, and then he stopped wanting it--just like a man. oh, he didn't growl at the weather when it was fine, and he was mostly real pleasant and agreeable when everything went right. but he drank a good deal, and there were some nasty stories told of him and a girl down at the fishing village. he wasn't fit for leslie to wipe her feet on, that's the long and short of it. and he was a methodist! but he was clean mad about her--because of her good looks in the first place, and because she wouldn't have anything to say to him in the second. he vowed he'd have her--and he got her!" "how did he bring it about?" "oh, it was an iniquitous thing! i'll never forgive rose west. you see, dearie, abner moore held the mortgage on the west farm, and the interest was overdue some years, and dick just went and told mrs. west that if leslie wouldn't marry him he'd get his father to foreclose the mortgage. rose carried on terrible--fainted and wept, and pleaded with leslie not to let her be turned out of her home. she said it would break her heart to leave the home she'd come to as a bride. i wouldn't have blamed her for feeling dreadful bad over it--but you wouldn't have thought she'd be so selfish as to sacrifice her own flesh and blood because of it, would you? well, she was. "and leslie gave in--she loved her mother so much she would have done anything to save her pain. she married dick moore. none of us knew why at the time. it wasn't till long afterward that i found out how her mother had worried her into it. i was sure there was something wrong, though, because i knew how she had snubbed him time and again, and it wasn't like leslie to turn face--about like that. besides, i knew that dick moore wasn't the kind of man leslie could ever fancy, in spite of his good looks and dashing ways. of course, there was no wedding, but rose asked me to go and see them married. i went, but i was sorry i did. i'd seen leslie's face at her brother's funeral and at her father's funeral--and now it seemed to me i was seeing it at her own funeral. but rose was smiling as a basket of chips, believe me! "leslie and dick settled down on the west place--rose couldn't bear to part with her dear daughter!--and lived there for the winter. in the spring rose took pneumonia and died--a year too late! leslie was heart-broken enough over it. isn't it terrible the way some unworthy folks are loved, while others that deserve it far more, you'd think, never get much affection? as for dick, he'd had enough of quiet married life--just like a man. he was for up and off. he went over to nova scotia to visit his relations--his father had come from nova scotia--and he wrote back to leslie that his cousin, george moore, was going on a voyage to havana and he was going too. the name of the vessel was the four sisters and they were to be gone about nine weeks. "it must have been a relief to leslie. but she never said anything. from the day of her marriage she was just what she is now--cold and proud, and keeping everyone but me at a distance. i won't be kept at a distance, believe me! i've just stuck to leslie as close as i knew how in spite of everything." "she told me you were the best friend she had," said anne. "did she?" exclaimed miss cornelia delightedly. "well, i'm real thankful to hear it. sometimes i've wondered if she really did want me around at all--she never let me think so. you must have thawed her out more than you think, or she wouldn't have said that much itself to you. oh, that poor, heart-broken girl! i never see dick moore but i want to run a knife clean through him." miss cornelia wiped her eyes again and having relieved her feelings by her blood-thirsty wish, took up her tale. "well, leslie was left over there alone. dick had put in the crop before he went, and old abner looked after it. the summer went by and the four sisters didn't come back. the nova scotia moores investigated, and found she had got to havana and discharged her cargo and took on another and left for home; and that was all they ever found out about her. by degrees people began to talk of dick moore as one that was dead. almost everyone believed that he was, though no one felt certain, for men have turned up here at the harbor after they'd been gone for years. leslie never thought he was dead--and she was right. a thousand pities too! the next summer captain jim was in havana--that was before he gave up the sea, of course. he thought he'd poke round a bit--captain jim was always meddlesome, just like a man--and he went to inquiring round among the sailors' boarding houses and places like that, to see if he could find out anything about the crew of the four sisters. he'd better have let sleeping dogs lie, in my opinion! well, he went to one out-of-the-way place, and there he found a man he knew at first sight it was dick moore, though he had a big beard. captain jim got it shaved off and then there was no doubt--dick moore it was--his body at least. his mind wasn't there--as for his soul, in my opinion he never had one!" "what had happened to him?" "nobody knows the rights of it. all the folks who kept the boarding house could tell was that about a year before they had found him lying on their doorstep one morning in an awful condition--his head battered to a jelly almost. they supposed he'd got hurt in some drunken row, and likely that's the truth of it. they took him in, never thinking he could live. but he did--and he was just like a child when he got well. he hadn't memory or intellect or reason. they tried to find out who he was but they never could. he couldn't even tell them his name--he could only say a few simple words. he had a letter on him beginning 'dear dick' and signed 'leslie,' but there was no address on it and the envelope was gone. they let him stay on--he learned to do a few odd jobs about the place--and there captain jim found him. he brought him home--i've always said it was a bad day's work, though i s'pose there was nothing else he could do. he thought maybe when dick got home and saw his old surroundings and familiar faces his memory would wake up. but it hadn't any effect. there he's been at the house up the brook ever since. he's just like a child, no more nor less. takes fractious spells occasionally, but mostly he's just vacant and good humored and harmless. he's apt to run away if he isn't watched. that's the burden leslie has had to carry for eleven years--and all alone. old abner moore died soon after dick was brought home and it was found he was almost bankrupt. when things were settled up there was nothing for leslie and dick but the old west farm. leslie rented it to john ward, and the rent is all she has to live on. sometimes in summer she takes a boarder to help out. but most visitors prefer the other side of the harbor where the hotels and summer cottages are. leslie's house is too far from the bathing shore. she's taken care of dick and she's never been away from him for eleven years--she's tied to that imbecile for life. and after all the dreams and hopes she once had! you can imagine what it has been like for her, anne, dearie--with her beauty and spirit and pride and cleverness. it's just been a living death." "poor, poor girl!" said anne again. her own happiness seemed to reproach her. what right had she to be so happy when another human soul must be so miserable? "will you tell me just what leslie said and how she acted the night you met her on the shore?" asked miss cornelia. she listened intently and nodded her satisfaction. "you thought she was stiff and cold, anne, dearie, but i can tell you she thawed out wonderful for her. she must have taken to you real strong. i'm so glad. you may be able to help her a good deal. i was thankful when i heard that a young couple was coming to this house, for i hoped it would mean some friends for leslie; especially if you belonged to the race that knows joseph. you will be her friend, won't you, anne, dearie?" "indeed i will, if she'll let me," said anne, with all her own sweet, impulsive earnestness. "no, you must be her friend, whether she'll let you or not," said miss cornelia resolutely. "don't you mind if she's stiff by times--don't notice it. remember what her life has been--and is--and must always be, i suppose, for creatures like dick moore live forever, i understand. you should see how fat he's got since he came home. he used to be lean enough. just make her be friends--you can do it--you're one of those who have the knack. only you mustn't be sensitive. and don't mind if she doesn't seem to want you to go over there much. she knows that some women don't like to be where dick is--they complain he gives them the creeps. just get her to come over here as often as she can. she can't get away so very much--she can't leave dick long, for the lord knows what he'd do--burn the house down most likely. at nights, after he's in bed and asleep, is about the only time she's free. he always goes to bed early and sleeps like the dead till next morning. that is how you came to meet her at the shore likely. she wanders there considerable." "i will do everything i can for her," said anne. her interest in leslie moore, which had been vivid ever since she had seen her driving her geese down the hill, was intensified a thousand fold by miss cornelia's narration. the girl's beauty and sorrow and loneliness drew her with an irresistible fascination. she had never known anyone like her; her friends had hitherto been wholesome, normal, merry girls like herself, with only the average trials of human care and bereavement to shadow their girlish dreams. leslie moore stood apart, a tragic, appealing figure of thwarted womanhood. anne resolved that she would win entrance into the kingdom of that lonely soul and find there the comradeship it could so richly give, were it not for the cruel fetters that held it in a prison not of its own making. "and mind you this, anne, dearie," said miss cornelia, who had not yet wholly relieved her mind, "you mustn't think leslie is an infidel because she hardly ever goes to church--or even that she's a methodist. she can't take dick to church, of course--not that he ever troubled church much in his best days. but you just remember that she's a real strong presbyterian at heart, anne, dearie." chapter 12 leslie comes over leslie came over to the house of dreams one frosty october night, when moonlit mists were hanging over the harbor and curling like silver ribbons along the seaward glens. she looked as if she repented coming when gilbert answered her knock; but anne flew past him, pounced on her, and drew her in. "i'm so glad you picked tonight for a call," she said gaily. "i made up a lot of extra good fudge this afternoon and we want someone to help us eat it--before the fire--while we tell stories. perhaps captain jim will drop in, too. this is his night." "no. captain jim is over home," said leslie. "he--he made me come here," she added, half defiantly. "i'll say a thank-you to him for that when i see him," said anne, pulling easy chairs before the fire. "oh, i don't mean that i didn't want to come," protested leslie, flushing a little. "i--i've been thinking of coming--but it isn't always easy for me to get away." "of course it must be hard for you to leave mr. moore," said anne, in a matter-of-fact tone. she had decided that it would be best to mention dick moore occasionally as an accepted fact, and not give undue morbidness to the subject by avoiding it. she was right, for leslie's air of constraint suddenly vanished. evidently she had been wondering how much anne knew of the conditions of her life and was relieved that no explanations were needed. she allowed her cap and jacket to be taken, and sat down with a girlish snuggle in the big armchair by magog. she was dressed prettily and carefully, with the customary touch of color in the scarlet geranium at her white throat. her beautiful hair gleamed like molten gold in the warm firelight. her sea-blue eyes were full of soft laughter and allurement. for the moment, under the influence of the little house of dreams, she was a girl again--a girl forgetful of the past and its bitterness. the atmosphere of the many loves that had sanctified the little house was all about her; the companionship of two healthy, happy, young folks of her own generation encircled her; she felt and yielded to the magic of her surroundings--miss cornelia and captain jim would scarcely have recognized her; anne found it hard to believe that this was the cold, unresponsive woman she had met on the shore--this animated girl who talked and listened with the eagerness of a starved soul. and how hungrily leslie's eyes looked at the bookcases between the windows! "our library isn't very extensive," said anne, "but every book in it is a friend. we've picked our books up through the years, here and there, never buying one until we had first read it and knew that it belonged to the race of joseph." leslie laughed--beautiful laughter that seemed akin to all the mirth that had echoed through the little house in the vanished years. "i have a few books of father's--not many," she said. "i've read them until i know them almost by heart. i don't get many books. there's a circulating library at the glen store--but i don't think the committee who pick the books for mr. parker know what books are of joseph's race--or perhaps they don't care. it was so seldom i got one i really liked that i gave up getting any." "i hope you'll look on our bookshelves as your own," said anne. "you are entirely and wholeheartedly welcome to the loan of any book on them." "you are setting a feast of fat things before me," said leslie, joyously. then, as the clock struck ten, she rose, half unwillingly. "i must go. i didn't realise it was so late. captain jim is always saying it doesn't take long to stay an hour. but i've stayed two--and oh, but i've enjoyed them," she added frankly. "come often," said anne and gilbert. they had risen and stood together in the firelight's glow. leslie looked at them--youthful, hopeful, happy, typifying all she had missed and must forever miss. the light went out of her face and eyes; the girl vanished; it was the sorrowful, cheated woman who answered the invitation almost coldly and got herself away with a pitiful haste. anne watched her until she was lost in the shadows of the chill and misty night. then she turned slowly back to the glow of her own radiant hearthstone. "isn't she lovely, gilbert? her hair fascinates me. miss cornelia says it reaches to her feet. ruby gillis had beautiful hair--but leslie's is alive--every thread of it is living gold." "she is very beautiful," agreed gilbert, so heartily that anne almost wished he were a little less enthusiastic. "gilbert, would you like my hair better if it were like leslie's?" she asked wistfully. "i wouldn't have your hair any color but just what it is for the world," said gilbert, with one or two convincing accompaniments. you wouldn't be anne if you had golden hair--or hair of any color but"-"red," said anne, with gloomy satisfaction. "yes, red--to give warmth to that milk-white skin and those shining gray-green eyes of yours. golden hair wouldn't suit you at all queen anne--my queen anne--queen of my heart and life and home." "then you may admire leslie's all you like," said anne magnanimously. chapter 13 a ghostly evening one evening, a week later, anne decided to run over the fields to the house up the brook for an informal call. it was an evening of gray fog that had crept in from the gulf, swathed the harbor, filled the glens and valleys, and clung heavily to the autumnal meadows. through it the sea sobbed and shuddered. anne saw four winds in a new aspect, and found it weird and mysterious and fascinating; but it also gave her a little feeling of loneliness. gilbert was away and would be away until the morrow, attending a medical pow-wow in charlottetown. anne longed for an hour of fellowship with some girl friend. captain jim and miss cornelia were "good fellows" each, in their own way; but youth yearned to youth. "if only diana or phil or pris or stella could drop in for a chat," she said to herself, "how delightful it would be! this is such a ghostly night. i'm sure all the ships that ever sailed out of four winds to their doom could be seen tonight sailing up the harbor with their drowned crews on their decks, if that shrouding fog could suddenly be drawn aside. i feel as if it concealed innumerable mysteries--as if i were surrounded by the wraiths of old generations of four winds people peering at me through that gray veil. if ever the dear dead ladies of this little house came back to revisit it they would come on just such a night as this. if i sit here any longer i'll see one of them there opposite me in gilbert's chair. this place isn't exactly canny tonight. even gog and magog have an air of pricking up their ears to hear the footsteps of unseen guests. i'll run over to see leslie before i frighten myself with my own fancies, as i did long ago in the matter of the haunted wood. i'll leave my house of dreams to welcome back its old inhabitants. my fire will give them my good-will and greeting--they will be gone before i come back, and my house will be mine once more. tonight i am sure it is keeping a tryst with the past." laughing a little over her fancy, yet with something of a creepy sensation in the region of her spine, anne kissed her hand to gog and magog and slipped out into the fog, with some of the new magazines under her arm for leslie. "leslie's wild for books and magazines," miss cornelia had told her, "and she hardly ever sees one. she can't afford to buy them or subscribe for them. she's really pitifully poor, anne. i don't see how she makes out to live at all on the little rent the farm brings in. she never even hints a complaint on the score of poverty, but i know what it must be. she's been handicapped by it all her life. she didn't mind it when she was free and ambitious, but it must gall now, believe me. i'm glad she seemed so bright and merry the evening she spent with you. captain jim told me he had fairly to put her cap and coat on and push her out of the door. don't be too long going to see her either. if you are she'll think it's because you don't like the sight of dick, and she'll crawl into her shell again. dick's a great, big, harmless baby, but that silly grin and chuckle of his do get on some people's nerves. thank goodness, i've no nerves myself. i like dick moore better now than i ever did when he was in his right senses--though the lord knows that isn't saying much. i was down there one day in housecleaning time helping leslie a bit, and i was frying doughnuts. dick was hanging round to get one, as usual, and all at once he picked up a scalding hot one i'd just fished out and dropped it on the back of my neck when i was bending over. then he laughed and laughed. believe me, anne, it took all the grace of god in my heart to keep me from just whisking up that stew-pan of boiling fat and pouring it over his head." anne laughed over miss cornelia's wrath as she sped through the darkness. but laughter accorded ill with that night. she was sober enough when she reached the house among the willows. everything was very silent. the front part of the house seemed dark and deserted, so anne slipped round to the side door, which opened from the veranda into a little sitting room. there she halted noiselessly. the door was open. beyond, in the dimly lighted room, sat leslie moore, with her arms flung out on the table and her head bent upon them. she was weeping horribly--with low, fierce, choking sobs, as if some agony in her soul were trying to tear itself out. an old black dog was sitting by her, his nose resting on his lap, his big doggish eyes full of mute, imploring sympathy and devotion. anne drew back in dismay. she felt that she could not intermeddle with this bitterness. her heart ached with a sympathy she might not utter. to go in now would be to shut the door forever on any possible help or friendship. some instinct warned anne that the proud, bitter girl would never forgive the one who thus surprised her in her abandonment of despair. anne slipped noiselessly from the veranda and found her way across the yard. beyond, she heard voices in the gloom and saw the dim glow of a light. at the gate she met two men--captain jim with a lantern, and another who she knew must be dick moore--a big man, badly gone to fat, with a broad, round, red face, and vacant eyes. even in the dull light anne got the impression that there was something unusual about his eyes. "is this you, mistress blythe?" said captain jim. "now, now, you hadn't oughter be roaming about alone on a night like this. you could get lost in this fog easier than not. jest you wait till i see dick safe inside the door and i'll come back and light you over the fields. i ain't going to have dr. blythe coming home and finding that you walked clean over cape leforce in the fog. a woman did that once, forty years ago. "so you've been over to see leslie," he said, when he rejoined her. "i didn't go in," said anne, and told what she had seen. captain jim sighed. "poor, poor, little girl! she don't cry often, mistress blythe--she's too brave for that. she must feel terrible when she does cry. a night like this is hard on poor women who have sorrows. there's something about it that kinder brings up all we've suffered--or feared." "it's full of ghosts," said anne, with a shiver. "that was why i came over--i wanted to clasp a human hand and hear a human voice. "there seem to be so many inhuman presences about tonight. even my own dear house was full of them. they fairly elbowed me out. so i fled over here for companionship of my kind." "you were right not to go in, though, mistress blythe. leslie wouldn't have liked it. she wouldn't have liked me going in with dick, as i'd have done if i hadn't met you. i had dick down with me all day. i keep him with me as much as i can to help leslie a bit." "isn't there something odd about his eyes?" asked anne. "you noticed that? yes, one is blue and t'other is hazel--his father had the same. it's a moore peculiarity. that was what told me he was dick moore when i saw him first down in cuby. if it hadn't a-bin for his eyes i mightn't a-known him, with his beard and fat. you know, i reckon, that it was me found him and brought him home. miss cornelia always says i shouldn't have done it, but i can't agree with her. it was the right thing to do--and so 'twas the only thing. there ain't no question in my mind about that. but my old heart aches for leslie. she's only twenty-eight and she's eaten more bread with sorrow than most women do in eighty years." they walked on in silence for a little while. presently anne said, "do you know, captain jim, i never like walking with a lantern. i have always the strangest feeling that just outside the circle of light, just over its edge in the darkness, i am surrounded by a ring of furtive, sinister things, watching me from the shadows with hostile eyes. i've had that feeling from childhood. what is the reason? i never feel like that when i'm really in the darkness--when it is close all around me--i'm not the least frightened." "i've something of that feeling myself," admitted captain jim. "i reckon when the darkness is close to us it is a friend. but when we sorter push it away from us--divorce ourselves from it, so to speak, with lantern light--it becomes an enemy. but the fog is lifting. "there's a smart west wind rising, if you notice. the stars will be out when you get home." they were out; and when anne re-entered her house of dreams the red embers were still glowing on the hearth, and all the haunting presences were gone. chapter 14 november days the splendor of color which had glowed for weeks along the shores of four winds harbor had faded out into the soft gray-blue of late autumnal hills. there came many days when fields and shores were dim with misty rain, or shivering before the breath of a melancholy sea-wind--nights, too, of storm and tempest, when anne sometimes wakened to pray that no ship might be beating up the grim north shore, for if it were so not even the great, faithful light whirling through the darkness unafraid, could avail to guide it into safe haven. "in november i sometimes feel as if spring could never come again," she sighed, grieving over the hopeless unsightliness of her frosted and bedraggled flower-plots. the gay little garden of the schoolmaster's bride was rather a forlorn place now, and the lombardies and birches were under bare poles, as captain jim said. but the fir-wood behind the little house was forever green and staunch; and even in november and december there came gracious days of sunshine and purple hazes, when the harbor danced and sparkled as blithely as in midsummer, and the gulf was so softly blue and tender that the storm and the wild wind seemed only things of a long-past dream. anne and gilbert spent many an autumn evening at the lighthouse. it was always a cheery place. even when the east wind sang in minor and the sea was dead and gray, hints of sunshine seemed to be lurking all about it. perhaps this was because the first mate always paraded it in panoply of gold. he was so large and effulgent that one hardly missed the sun, and his resounding purrs formed a pleasant accompaniment to the laughter and conversation which went on around captain jim's fireplace. captain jim and gilbert had many long discussions and high converse on matters beyond the ken of cat or king. "i like to ponder on all kinds of problems, though i can't solve 'em," said captain jim. "my father held that we should never talk of things we couldn't understand, but if we didn't, doctor, the subjects for conversation would be mighty few. i reckon the gods laugh many a time to hear us, but what matters so long as we remember that we're only men and don't take to fancying that we're gods ourselves, really, knowing good and evil. i reckon our pow-wows won't do us or anyone much harm, so let's have another whack at the whence, why and whither this evening, doctor." while they "whacked," anne listened or dreamed. sometimes leslie went to the lighthouse with them, and she and anne wandered along the shore in the eerie twilight, or sat on the rocks below the lighthouse until the darkness drove them back to the cheer of the driftwood fire. then captain jim would brew them tea and tell them "tales of land and sea and whatsoever might betide the great forgotten world outside." leslie seemed always to enjoy those lighthouse carousals very much, and bloomed out for the time being into ready wit and beautiful laughter, or glowing-eyed silence. there was a certain tang and savor in the conversation when leslie was present which they missed when she was absent. even when she did not talk she seemed to inspire others to brilliancy. captain jim told his stories better, gilbert was quicker in argument and repartee, anne felt little gushes and trickles of fancy and imagination bubbling to her lips under the influence of leslie's personality. "that girl was born to be a leader in social and intellectual circles, far away from four winds," she said to gilbert as they walked home one night. "she's just wasted here--wasted." "weren't you listening to captain jim and yours truly the other night when we discussed that subject generally? we came to the comforting conclusion that the creator probably knew how to run his universe quite as well as we do, and that, after all, there are no such things as 'wasted' lives, saving and except when an individual wilfully squanders and wastes his own life--which leslie moore certainly hasn't done. and some people might think that a redmond b.a., whom editors were beginning to honor, was 'wasted' as the wife of a struggling country doctor in the rural community of four winds." "gilbert!" "if you had married roy gardner, now," continued gilbert mercilessly, "you could have been 'a leader in social and intellectual circles far away from four winds.'" "gilbert blythe!" "you know you were in love with him at one time, anne." "gilbert, that's mean--'pisen mean, just like all the men,' as miss cornelia says. i never was in love with him. i only imagined i was. you know that. you know i'd rather be your wife in our house of dreams and fulfillment than a queen in a palace." gilbert's answer was not in words; but i am afraid that both of them forgot poor leslie speeding her lonely way across the fields to a house that was neither a palace nor the fulfillment of a dream. the moon was rising over the sad, dark sea behind them and transfiguring it. her light had not yet reached the harbor, the further side of which was shadowy and suggestive, with dim coves and rich glooms and jewelling lights. "how the home lights shine out tonight through the dark!" said anne. "that string of them over the harbor looks like a necklace. and what a coruscation there is up at the glen! oh, look, gilbert; there is ours. i'm so glad we left it burning. i hate to come home to a dark house. our homelight, gilbert! isn't it lovely to see?" "just one of earth's many millions of homes, anne--girl--but ours--ours--our beacon in 'a naughty world.' when a fellow has a home and a dear, little, red-haired wife in it what more need he ask of life?" "well, he might ask one thing more," whispered anne happily. "oh, gilbert, it seems as if i just couldn't wait for the spring." chapter 15 christmas at four winds at first anne and gilbert talked of going home to avonlea for christmas; but eventually they decided to stay in four winds. "i want to spend the first christmas of our life together in our own home," decreed anne. so it fell out that marilla and mrs. rachel lynde and the twins came to four winds for christmas. marilla had the face of a woman who had circumnavigated the globe. she had never been sixty miles away from home before; and she had never eaten a christmas dinner anywhere save at green gables. mrs. rachel had made and brought with her an enormous plum pudding. nothing could have convinced mrs. rachel that a college graduate of the younger generation could make a christmas plum pudding properly; but she bestowed approval on anne's house. "anne's a good housekeeper," she said to marilla in the spare room the night of their arrival. "i've looked into her bread box and her scrap pail. i always judge a housekeeper by those, that's what. there's nothing in the pail that shouldn't have been thrown away, and no stale pieces in the bread box. of course, she was trained up with you--but, then, she went to college afterwards. i notice she's got my tobacco stripe quilt on the bed here, and that big round braided mat of yours before her living-room fire. it makes me feel right at home." anne's first christmas in her own house was as delightful as she could have wished. the day was fine and bright; the first skim of snow had fallen on christmas eve and made the world beautiful; the harbor was still open and glittering. captain jim and miss cornelia came to dinner. leslie and dick had been invited, but leslie made excuse; they always went to her uncle isaac west's for christmas, she said. "she'd rather have it so," miss cornelia told anne. "she can't bear taking dick where there are strangers. christmas is always a hard time for leslie. she and her father used to make a lot of it." miss cornelia and mrs. rachel did not take a very violent fancy to each other. "two suns hold not their courses in one sphere." but they did not clash at all, for mrs. rachel was in the kitchen helping anne and marilla with the dinner, and it fell to gilbert to entertain captain jim and miss cornelia,--or rather to be entertained by them, for a dialogue between those two old friends and antagonists was assuredly never dull. "it's many a year since there was a christmas dinner here, mistress blythe," said captain jim. "miss russell always went to her friends in town for christmas. but i was here to the first christmas dinner that was ever eaten in this house--and the schoolmaster's bride cooked it. that was sixty years ago today, mistress blythe--and a day very like this--just enough snow to make the hills white, and the harbor as blue as june. i was only a lad, and i'd never been invited out to dinner before, and i was too shy to eat enough. i've got all over that." "most men do," said miss cornelia, sewing furiously. miss cornelia was not going to sit with idle hands, even on christmas. babies come without any consideration for holidays, and there was one expected in a poverty-stricken household at glen st. mary. miss cornelia had sent that household a substantial dinner for its little swarm, and so meant to eat her own with a comfortable conscience. "well, you know, the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, cornelia," explained captain jim. "i believe you--when he has a heart," retorted miss cornelia. "i suppose that's why so many women kill themselves cooking--just as poor amelia baxter did. she died last christmas morning, and she said it was the first christmas since she was married that she didn't have to cook a big, twenty-plate dinner. it must have been a real pleasant change for her. well, she's been dead a year, so you'll soon hear of horace baxter taking notice." "i heard he was taking notice already," said captain jim, winking at gilbert. "wasn't he up to your place one sunday lately, with his funeral blacks on, and a boiled collar?" "no, he wasn't. and he needn't come neither. i could have had him long ago when he was fresh. i don't want any second-hand goods, believe me. as for horace baxter, he was in financial difficulties a year ago last summer, and he prayed to the lord for help; and when his wife died and he got her life insurance he said he believed it was the answer to his prayer. wasn't that like a man?" "have you really proof that he said that, cornelia?" "i have the methodist minister's word for it--if you call that proof. robert baxter told me the same thing too, but i admit that isn't evidence. robert baxter isn't often known to tell the truth." "come, come, cornelia, i think he generally tells the truth, but he changes his opinion so often it sometimes sounds as if he didn't." "it sounds like it mighty often, believe me. but trust one man to excuse another. i have no use for robert baxter. he turned methodist just because the presbyterian choir happened to be singing 'behold the bridegroom cometh' for a collection piece when him and margaret walked up the aisle the sunday after they were married. served him right for being late! he always insisted the choir did it on purpose to insult him, as if he was of that much importance. but that family always thought they were much bigger potatoes than they really were. his brother eliphalet imagined the devil was always at his elbow--but _i_ never believed the devil wasted that much time on him." "i--don't--know," said captain jim thoughtfully. "eliphalet baxter lived too much alone--hadn't even a cat or dog to keep him human. when a man is alone he's mighty apt to be with the devil--if he ain't with god. he has to choose which company he'll keep, i reckon. if the devil always was at life baxter's elbow it must have been because life liked to have him there." "man-like," said miss cornelia, and subsided into silence over a complicated arrangement of tucks until captain jim deliberately stirred her up again by remarking in a casual way: "i was up to the methodist church last sunday morning." "you'd better have been home reading your bible," was miss cornelia's retort. "come, now, cornelia, _i_ can't see any harm in going to the methodist church when there's no preaching in your own. i've been a presbyterian for seventy-six years, and it isn't likely my theology will hoist anchor at this late day." "it's setting a bad example," said miss cornelia grimly. "besides," continued wicked captain jim, "i wanted to hear some good singing. the methodists have a good choir; and you can't deny, cornelia, that the singing in our church is awful since the split in the choir." "what if the singing isn't good? they're doing their best, and god sees no difference between the voice of a crow and the voice of a nightingale." "come, come, cornelia," said captain jim mildly, "i've a better opinion of the almighty's ear for music than that." "what caused the trouble in our choir?" asked gilbert, who was suffering from suppressed laughter. "it dates back to the new church, three years ago," answered captain jim. "we had a fearful time over the building of that church--fell out over the question of a new site. the two sites wasn't more'n two hundred yards apart, but you'd have thought they was a thousand by the bitterness of that fight. we was split up into three factions--one wanted the east site and one the south, and one held to the old. it was fought out in bed and at board, and in church and at market. all the old scandals of three generations were dragged out of their graves and aired. three matches was broken up by it. and the meetings we had to try to settle the question! cornelia, will you ever forget the one when old luther burns got up and made a speech? he stated his opinions forcibly." "call a spade a spade, captain. you mean he got red-mad and raked them all, fore and aft. they deserved it too--a pack of incapables. but what would you expect of a committee of men? that building committee held twenty-seven meetings, and at the end of the twenty-seventh weren't no nearer having a church than when they begun--not so near, for a fact, for in one fit of hurrying things along they'd gone to work and tore the old church down, so there we were, without a church, and no place but the hall to worship in." "the methodists offered us their church, cornelia." "the glen st. mary church wouldn't have been built to this day," went on miss cornelia, ignoring captain jim, "if we women hadn't just started in and took charge. we said we meant to have a church, if the men meant to quarrel till doomsday, and we were tired of being a laughing-stock for the methodists. we held one meeting and elected a committee and canvassed for subscriptions. we got them, too. when any of the men tried to sass us we told them they'd tried for two years to build a church and it was our turn now. we shut them up close, believe me, and in six months we had our church. of course, when the men saw we were determined they stopped fighting and went to work, man-like, as soon as they saw they had to, or quit bossing. oh, women can't preach or be elders; but they can build churches and scare up the money for them." "the methodists allow women to preach," said captain jim. miss cornelia glared at him. "i never said the methodists hadn't common sense, captain. what i say is, i doubt if they have much religion." "i suppose you are in favor of votes for women, miss cornelia," said gilbert. "i'm not hankering after the vote, believe me," said miss cornelia scornfully. "_i_ know what it is to clean up after the men. but some of these days, when the men realize they've got the world into a mess they can't get it out of, they'll be glad to give us the vote, and shoulder their troubles over on us. that's their scheme. oh, it's well that women are patient, believe me!" "what about job?" suggested captain jim. "job! it was such a rare thing to find a patient man that when one was really discovered they were determined he shouldn't be forgotten," retorted miss cornelia triumphantly. "anyhow, the virtue doesn't go with the name. there never was such an impatient man born as old job taylor over harbor." "well, you know, he had a good deal to try him, cornelia. even you can't defend his wife. i always remember what old william macallister said of her at her funeral, 'there's nae doot she was a chreestian wumman, but she had the de'il's own temper.'" "i suppose she was trying," admitted miss cornelia reluctantly, "but that didn't justify what job said when she died. he rode home from the graveyard the day of the funeral with my father. he never said a word till they got near home. then he heaved a big sigh and said, 'you may not believe it, stephen, but this is the happiest day of my life!' wasn't that like a man?" "i s'pose poor old mrs. job did make life kinder uneasy for him," reflected captain jim. "well, there's such a thing as decency, isn't there? even if a man is rejoicing in his heart over his wife being dead, he needn't proclaim it to the four winds of heaven. and happy day or not, job taylor wasn't long in marrying again, you might notice. his second wife could manage him. she made him walk spanish, believe me! the first thing she did was to make him hustle round and put up a tombstone to the first mrs. job--and she had a place left on it for her own name. she said there'd be nobody to make job put up a monument to her." "speaking of taylors, how is mrs. lewis taylor up at the glen, doctor?" asked captain jim. "she's getting better slowly--but she has to work too hard," replied gilbert. "her husband works hard too--raising prize pigs," said miss cornelia. "he's noted for his beautiful pigs. he's a heap prouder of his pigs than of his children. but then, to be sure, his pigs are the best pigs possible, while his children don't amount to much. he picked a poor mother for them, and starved her while she was bearing and rearing them. his pigs got the cream and his children got the skim milk. "there are times, cornelia, when i have to agree with you, though it hurts me," said captain jim. "that's just exactly the truth about lewis taylor. when i see those poor, miserable children of his, robbed of all children ought to have, it p'isens my own bite and sup for days afterwards." gilbert went out to the kitchen in response to anne's beckoning. anne shut the door and gave him a connubial lecture. "gilbert, you and captain jim must stop baiting miss cornelia. oh, i've been listening to you--and i just won't allow it." 'anne, miss cornelia is enjoying herself hugely. you know she is.' "well, never mind. you two needn't egg her on like that. dinner is ready now, and, gilbert, don't let mrs. rachel carve the geese. i know she means to offer to do it because she doesn't think you can do it properly. show her you can." "i ought to be able to. i've been studying a-b-c-d diagrams of carving for the past month," said gilbert. "only don't talk to me while i'm doing it, anne, for if you drive the letters out of my head i'll be in a worse predicament than you were in old geometry days when the teacher changed them." gilbert carved the geese beautifully. even mrs. rachel had to admit that. and everybody ate of them and enjoyed them. anne's first christmas dinner was a great success and she beamed with housewifely pride. merry was the feast and long; and when it was over they gathered around the cheer of the red hearth flame and captain jim told them stories until the red sun swung low over four winds harbor, and the long blue shadows of the lombardies fell across the snow in the lane. "i must be getting back to the light," he said finally. "i'll jest have time to walk home before sundown. thank you for a beautiful christmas, mistress blythe. bring master davy down to the light some night before he goes home. "i want to see those stone gods," said davy with a relish. chapter 16 new year's eve at the light the green gables folk went home after christmas, marilla under solemn covenant to return for a month in the spring. more snow came before new year's, and the harbor froze over, but the gulf still was free, beyond the white, imprisoned fields. the last day of the old year was one of those bright, cold, dazzling winter days, which bombard us with their brilliancy, and command our admiration but never our love. the sky was sharp and blue; the snow diamonds sparkled insistently; the stark trees were bare and shameless, with a kind of brazen beauty; the hills shot assaulting lances of crystal. even the shadows were sharp and stiff and clear-cut, as no proper shadows should be. everything that was handsome seemed ten times handsomer and less attractive in the glaring splendor; and everything that was ugly seemed ten times uglier, and everything was either handsome or ugly. there was no soft blending, or kind obscurity, or elusive mistiness in that searching glitter. the only things that held their own individuality were the firs--for the fir is the tree of mystery and shadow, and yields never to the encroachments of crude radiance. but finally the day began to realise that she was growing old. then a certain pensiveness fell over her beauty which dimmed yet intensified it; sharp angles, glittering points, melted away into curves and enticing gleams. the white harbor put on soft grays and pinks; the far-away hills turned amethyst. "the old year is going away beautifully," said anne. she and leslie and gilbert were on their way to the four winds point, having plotted with captain jim to watch the new year in at the light. the sun had set and in the southwestern sky hung venus, glorious and golden, having drawn as near to her earth-sister as is possible for her. for the first time anne and gilbert saw the shadow cast by that brilliant star of evening, that faint, mysterious shadow, never seen save when there is white snow to reveal it, and then only with averted vision, vanishing when you gaze at it directly. "it's like the spirit of a shadow, isn't it?" whispered anne. "you can see it so plainly haunting your side when you look ahead; but when you turn and look at it--it's gone." "i have heard that you can see the shadow of venus only once in a lifetime, and that within a year of seeing it your life's most wonderful gift will come to you," said leslie. but she spoke rather hardly; perhaps she thought that even the shadow of venus could bring her no gift of life. anne smiled in the soft twilight; she felt quite sure what the mystic shadow promised her. they found marshall elliott at the lighthouse. at first anne felt inclined to resent the intrusion of this long-haired, long-bearded eccentric into the familiar little circle. but marshall elliott soon proved his legitimate claim to membership in the household of joseph. he was a witty, intelligent, well-read man, rivalling captain jim himself in the knack of telling a good story. they were all glad when he agreed to watch the old year out with them. captain jim's small nephew joe had come down to spend new year's with his great-uncle, and had fallen asleep on the sofa with the first mate curled up in a huge golden ball at his feet. "ain't he a dear little man?" said captain jim gloatingly. "i do love to watch a little child asleep, mistress blythe. it's the most beautiful sight in the world, i reckon. joe does love to get down here for a night, because i have him sleep with me. at home he has to sleep with the other two boys, and he doesn't like it. why can't i sleep with father, uncle jim?" says he. 'everybody in the bible slept with their fathers.' as for the questions he asks, the minister himself couldn't answer them. they fair swamp me. 'uncle jim, if i wasn't me who'd i be?' and, 'uncle jim, what would happen if god died?' he fired them two off at me tonight, afore he went to sleep. as for his imagination, it sails away from everything. he makes up the most remarkable yarns--and then his mother shuts him up in the closet for telling stories. and he sits down and makes up another one, and has it ready to relate to her when she lets him out. he had one for me when he come down tonight. 'uncle jim,' says he, solemn as a tombstone, 'i had a 'venture in the glen today.' 'yes, what was it?' says i, expecting something quite startling, but nowise prepared for what i really got. 'i met a wolf in the street,' says he, 'a 'normous wolf with a big, red mouf and awful long teeth, uncle jim.' 'i didn't know there was any wolves up at the glen,' says i. 'oh, he comed there from far, far away,' says joe, 'and i fought he was going to eat me up, uncle jim.' 'were you scared?' says i. 'no, 'cause i had a big gun,' says joe, 'and i shot the wolf dead, uncle jim,--solid dead--and then he went up to heaven and bit god,' says he. well, i was fair staggered, mistress blythe." the hours bloomed into mirth around the driftwood fire. captain jim told tales, and marshall elliott sang old scotch ballads in a fine tenor voice; finally captain jim took down his old brown fiddle from the wall and began to play. he had a tolerable knack of fiddling, which all appreciated save the first mate, who sprang from the sofa as if he had been shot, emitted a shriek of protest, and fled wildly up the stairs. "can't cultivate an ear for music in that cat nohow," said captain jim. "he won't stay long enough to learn to like it. when we got the organ up at the glen church old elder richards bounced up from his seat the minute the organist began to play and scuttled down the aisle and out of the church at the rate of no-man's-business. it reminded me so strong of the first mate tearing loose as soon as i begin to fiddle that i come nearer to laughing out loud in church than i ever did before or since." there was something so infectious in the rollicking tunes which captain jim played that very soon marshall elliott's feet began to twitch. he had been a noted dancer in his youth. presently he started up and held out his hands to leslie. instantly she responded. round and round the firelit room they circled with a rhythmic grace that was wonderful. leslie danced like one inspired; the wild, sweet abandon of the music seemed to have entered into and possessed her. anne watched her in fascinated admiration. she had never seen her like this. all the innate richness and color and charm of her nature seemed to have broken loose and overflowed in crimson cheek and glowing eye and grace of motion. even the aspect of marshall elliott, with his long beard and hair, could not spoil the picture. on the contrary, it seemed to enhance it. marshall elliott looked like a viking of elder days, dancing with one of the blue-eyed, golden-haired daughters of the northland. "the purtiest dancing i ever saw, and i've seen some in my time," declared captain jim, when at last the bow fell from his tired hand. leslie dropped into her chair, laughing, breathless. "i love dancing," she said apart to anne. "i haven't danced since i was sixteen--but i love it. the music seems to run through my veins like quicksilver and i forget everything--everything--except the delight of keeping time to it. there isn't any floor beneath me, or walls about me, or roof over me--i'm floating amid the stars." captain jim hung his fiddle up in its place, beside a large frame enclosing several banknotes. "is there anybody else of your acquaintance who can afford to hang his walls with banknotes for pictures?" he asked. "there's twenty ten-dollar notes there, not worth the glass over them. they're old bank of p. e. island notes. had them by me when the bank failed, and i had 'em framed and hung up, partly as a reminder not to put your trust in banks, and partly to give me a real luxurious, millionairy feeling. hullo, matey, don't be scared. you can come back now. the music and revelry is over for tonight. the old year has just another hour to stay with us. i've seen seventy-six new years come in over that gulf yonder, mistress blythe." "you'll see a hundred," said marshall elliott. captain jim shook his head. "no; and i don't want to--at least, i think i don't. death grows friendlier as we grow older. not that one of us really wants to die though, marshall. tennyson spoke truth when he said that. there's old mrs. wallace up at the glen. she's had heaps of trouble all her life, poor soul, and she's lost almost everyone she cared about. she's always saying that she'll be glad when her time comes, and she doesn't want to sojourn any longer in this vale of tears. but when she takes a sick spell there's a fuss! doctors from town, and a trained nurse, and enough medicine to kill a dog. life may be a vale of tears, all right, but there are some folks who enjoy weeping, i reckon." they spent the old year's last hour quietly around the fire. a few minutes before twelve captain jim rose and opened the door. "we must let the new year in," he said. outside was a fine blue night. a sparkling ribbon of moonlight garlanded the gulf. inside the bar the harbor shone like a pavement of pearl. they stood before the door and waited--captain jim with his ripe, full experience, marshall elliott in his vigorous but empty middle life, gilbert and anne with their precious memories and exquisite hopes, leslie with her record of starved years and her hopeless future. the clock on the little shelf above the fireplace struck twelve. "welcome, new year," said captain jim, bowing low as the last stroke died away. "i wish you all the best year of your lives, mates. i reckon that whatever the new year brings us will be the best the great captain has for us--and somehow or other we'll all make port in a good harbor." chapter 17 a four winds winter winter set in vigorously after new year's. big, white drifts heaped themselves about the little house, and palms of frost covered its windows. the harbor ice grew harder and thicker, until the four winds people began their usual winter travelling over it. the safe ways were "bushed" by a benevolent government, and night and day the gay tinkle of the sleigh-bells sounded on it. on moonlit nights anne heard them in her house of dreams like fairy chimes. the gulf froze over, and the four winds light flashed no more. during the months when navigation was closed captain jim's office was a sinecure. "the first mate and i will have nothing to do till spring except keep warm and amuse ourselves. the last lighthouse keeper used always to move up to the glen in winter; but i'd rather stay at the point. the first mate might get poisoned or chewed up by dogs at the glen. it's a mite lonely, to be sure, with neither the light nor the water for company, but if our friends come to see us often we'll weather it through." captain jim had an ice boat, and many a wild, glorious spin gilbert and anne and leslie had over the glib harbor ice with him. anne and leslie took long snowshoe tramps together, too, over the fields, or across the harbor after storms, or through the woods beyond the glen. they were very good comrades in their rambles and their fireside communings. each had something to give the other--each felt life the richer for friendly exchange of thought and friendly silence; each looked across the white fields between their homes with a pleasant consciousness of a friend beyond. but, in spite of all this, anne felt that there was always a barrier between leslie and herself--a constraint that never wholly vanished. "i don't know why i can't get closer to her," anne said one evening to captain jim. "i like her so much--i admire her so much--i want to take her right into my heart and creep right into hers. but i can never cross the barrier." "you've been too happy all your life, mistress blythe," said captain jim thoughtfully. "i reckon that's why you and leslie can't get real close together in your souls. the barrier between you is her experience of sorrow and trouble. she ain't responsible for it and you ain't; but it's there and neither of you can cross it." "my childhood wasn't very happy before i came to green gables," said anne, gazing soberly out of the window at the still, sad, dead beauty of the leafless tree-shadows on the moonlit snow. "mebbe not--but it was just the usual unhappiness of a child who hasn't anyone to look after it properly. there hasn't been any tragedy in your life, mistress blythe. and poor leslie's has been almost all tragedy. she feels, i reckon, though mebbe she hardly knows she feels it, that there's a vast deal in her life you can't enter nor understand--and so she has to keep you back from it--hold you off, so to speak, from hurting her. you know if we've got anything about us that hurts we shrink from anyone's touch on or near it. it holds good with our souls as well as our bodies, i reckon. leslie's soul must be near raw--it's no wonder she hides it away." "if that were really all, i wouldn't mind, captain jim. i would understand. but there are times--not always, but now and again--when i almost have to believe that leslie doesn't--doesn't like me. sometimes i surprise a look in her eyes that seems to show resentment and dislike--it goes so quickly--but i've seen it, i'm sure of that. and it hurts me, captain jim. i'm not used to being disliked--and i've tried so hard to win leslie's friendship." "you have won it, mistress blythe. don't you go cherishing any foolish notion that leslie don't like you. if she didn't she wouldn't have anything to do with you, much less chumming with you as she does. i know leslie moore too well not to be sure of that." "the first time i ever saw her, driving her geese down the hill on the day i came to four winds, she looked at me with the same expression," persisted anne. "i felt it, even in the midst of my admiration of her beauty. she looked at me resentfully--she did, indeed, captain jim." "the resentment must have been about something else, mistress blythe, and you jest come in for a share of it because you happened past. leslie does take sullen spells now and again, poor girl. i can't blame her, when i know what she has to put up with. i don't know why it's permitted. the doctor and i have talked a lot abut the origin of evil, but we haven't quite found out all about it yet. there's a vast of onunderstandable things in life, ain't there, mistress blythe? sometimes things seem to work out real proper-like, same as with you and the doctor. and then again they all seem to go catawampus. there's leslie, so clever and beautiful you'd think she was meant for a queen, and instead she's cooped up over there, robbed of almost everything a woman'd value, with no prospect except waiting on dick moore all her life. though, mind you, mistress blythe, i daresay she'd choose her life now, such as it is, rather than the life she lived with dick before he went away. that's something a clumsy old sailor's tongue mustn't meddle with. but you've helped leslie a lot--she's a different creature since you come to four winds. us old friends see the difference in her, as you can't. miss cornelia and me was talking it over the other day, and it's one of the mighty few p'ints that we see eye to eye on. so jest you throw overboard any idea of her not liking you." anne could hardly discard it completely, for there were undoubtedly times when she felt, with an instinct that was not to be combated by reason, that leslie harbored a queer, indefinable resentment towards her. at times, this secret consciousness marred the delight of their comradeship; at others it was almost forgotten; but anne always felt the hidden thorn was there, and might prick her at any moment. she felt a cruel sting from it on the day when she told leslie of what she hoped the spring would bring to the little house of dreams. leslie looked at her with hard, bitter, unfriendly eyes. "so you are to have that, too," she said in a choked voice. and without another word she had turned and gone across the fields homeward. anne was deeply hurt; for the moment she felt as if she could never like leslie again. but when leslie came over a few evenings later she was so pleasant, so friendly, so frank, and witty, and winsome, that anne was charmed into forgiveness and forgetfulness. only, she never mentioned her darling hope to leslie again; nor did leslie ever refer to it. but one evening, when late winter was listening for the word of spring, she came over to the little house for a twilight chat; and when she went away she left a small, white box on the table. anne found it after she was gone and opened it wonderingly. in it was a tiny white dress of exquisite workmanship--delicate embroidery, wonderful tucking, sheer loveliness. every stitch in it was handwork; and the little frills of lace at neck and sleeves were of real valenciennes. lying on it was a card--"with leslie's love." "what hours of work she must have put on it," said anne. "and the material must have cost more than she could really afford. it is very sweet of her." but leslie was brusque and curt when anne thanked her, and again the latter felt thrown back upon herself. leslie's gift was not alone in the little house. miss cornelia had, for the time being, given up sewing for unwanted, unwelcome eighth babies, and fallen to sewing for a very much wanted first one, whose welcome would leave nothing to be desired. philippa blake and diana wright each sent a marvellous garment; and mrs. rachel lynde sent several, in which good material and honest stitches took the place of embroidery and frills. anne herself made many, desecrated by no touch of machinery, spending over them the happiest hours of the happy winter. captain jim was the most frequent guest of the little house, and none was more welcome. every day anne loved the simple-souled, true-hearted old sailor more and more. he was as refreshing as a sea breeze, as interesting as some ancient chronicle. she was never tired of listening to his stories, and his quaint remarks and comments were a continual delight to her. captain jim was one of those rare and interesting people who "never speak but they say something." the milk of human kindness and the wisdom of the serpent were mingled in his composition in delightful proportions. nothing ever seemed to put captain jim out or depress him in any way. "i've kind of contracted a habit of enj'ying things," he remarked once, when anne had commented on his invariable cheerfulness. "it's got so chronic that i believe i even enj'y the disagreeable things. it's great fun thinking they can't last. 'old rheumatiz,' says i, when it grips me hard, 'you've got to stop aching sometime. the worse you are the sooner you'll stop, mebbe. i'm bound to get the better of you in the long run, whether in the body or out of the body.'" one night, by the fireside at the light anne saw captain jim's "life-book." he needed no coaxing to show it and proudly gave it to her to read. "i writ it to leave to little joe," he said. "i don't like the idea of everything i've done and seen being clean forgot after i've shipped for my last v'yage. joe, he'll remember it, and tell the yarns to his children." it was an old leather-bound book filled with the record of his voyages and adventures. anne thought what a treasure trove it would be to a writer. every sentence was a nugget. in itself the book had no literary merit; captain jim's charm of storytelling failed him when he came to pen and ink; he could only jot roughly down the outline of his famous tales, and both spelling and grammar were sadly askew. but anne felt that if anyone possessed of the gift could take that simple record of a brave, adventurous life, reading between the bald lines the tales of dangers staunchly faced and duty manfully done, a wonderful story might be made from it. rich comedy and thrilling tragedy were both lying hidden in captain jim's "life-book," waiting for the touch of the master hand to waken the laughter and grief and horror of thousands. anne said something of this to gilbert as they walked home. "why don't you try your hand at it yourself, anne?" anne shook her head. "no. i only wish i could. but it's not in the power of my gift. you know what my forte is, gilbert--the fanciful, the fairylike, the pretty. to write captain jim's life-book as it should be written one should be a master of vigorous yet subtle style, a keen psychologist, a born humorist and a born tragedian. a rare combination of gifts is needed. paul might do it if he were older. anyhow, i'm going to ask him to come down next summer and meet captain jim." "come to this shore," wrote anne to paul. "i am afraid you cannot find here nora or the golden lady or the twin sailors; but you will find one old sailor who can tell you wonderful stories." paul, however wrote back, saying regretfully that he could not come that year. he was going abroad for two year's study. "when i return i'll come to four winds, dear teacher," he wrote. "but meanwhile, captain jim is growing old," said anne, sorrowfully, "and there is nobody to write his life-book." chapter 18 spring days the ice in the harbor grew black and rotten in the march suns; in april there were blue waters and a windy, white-capped gulf again; and again the four winds light begemmed the twilights. "i'm so glad to see it once more," said anne, on the first evening of its reappearance. "i've missed it so all winter. the northwestern sky has seemed blank and lonely without it." the land was tender with brand-new, golden-green, baby leaves. there was an emerald mist on the woods beyond the glen. the seaward valleys were full of fairy mists at dawn. vibrant winds came and went with salt foam in their breath. the sea laughed and flashed and preened and allured, like a beautiful, coquettish woman. the herring schooled and the fishing village woke to life. the harbor was alive with white sails making for the channel. the ships began to sail outward and inward again. "on a spring day like this," said anne, "i know exactly what my soul will feel like on the resurrection morning." "there are times in spring when i sorter feel that i might have been a poet if i'd been caught young," remarked captain jim. "i catch myself conning over old lines and verses i heard the schoolmaster reciting sixty years ago. they don't trouble me at other times. now i feel as if i had to get out on the rocks or the fields or the water and spout them." captain jim had come up that afternoon to bring anne a load of shells for her garden, and a little bunch of sweet-grass which he had found in a ramble over the sand dunes. "it's getting real scarce along this shore now," he said. "when i was a boy there was a-plenty of it. but now it's only once in a while you'll find a plot--and never when you're looking for it. you jest have to stumble on it--you're walking along on the sand hills, never thinking of sweet-grass--and all at once the air is full of sweetness--and there's the grass under your feet. i favor the smell of sweet-grass. it always makes me think of my mother." "she was fond of it?" asked anne. "not that i knows on. dunno's she ever saw any sweet-grass. no, it's because it has a kind of motherly perfume--not too young, you understand--something kind of seasoned and wholesome and dependable--jest like a mother. the schoolmaster's bride always kept it among her handkerchiefs. you might put that little bunch among yours, mistress blythe. i don't like these boughten scents--but a whiff of sweet-grass belongs anywhere a lady does." anne had not been especially enthusiastic over the idea of surrounding her flower beds with quahog shells; as a decoration they did not appeal to her on first thought. but she would not have hurt captain jim's feelings for anything; so she assumed a virtue she did not at first feel, and thanked him heartily. and when captain jim had proudly encircled every bed with a rim of the big, milk-white shells, anne found to her surprise that she liked the effect. on a town lawn, or even up at the glen, they would not have been in keeping, but here, in the old-fashioned, sea-bound garden of the little house of dreams, they belonged. "they do look nice," she said sincerely. "the schoolmaster's bride always had cowhawks round her beds," said captain jim. "she was a master hand with flowers. she looked at 'em--and touched 'em--so--and they grew like mad. some folks have that knack--i reckon you have it, too, mistress blythe." "oh, i don't know--but i love my garden, and i love working in it. to potter with green, growing things, watching each day to see the dear, new sprouts come up, is like taking a hand in creation, i think. just now my garden is like faith--the substance of things hoped for. but bide a wee." "it always amazes me to look at the little, wrinkled brown seeds and think of the rainbows in 'em," said captain jim. "when i ponder on them seeds i don't find it nowise hard to believe that we've got souls that'll live in other worlds. you couldn't hardly believe there was life in them tiny things, some no bigger than grains of dust, let alone color and scent, if you hadn't seen the miracle, could you?" anne, who was counting her days like silver beads on a rosary, could not now take the long walk to the lighthouse or up the glen road. but miss cornelia and captain jim came very often to the little house. miss cornelia was the joy of anne's and gilbert's existence. they laughed side-splittingly over her speeches after every visit. when captain jim and she happened to visit the little house at the same time there was much sport for the listening. they waged wordy warfare, she attacking, he defending. anne once reproached the captain for his baiting of miss cornelia. "oh, i do love to set her going, mistress blythe," chuckled the unrepentant sinner. "it's the greatest amusement i have in life. that tongue of hers would blister a stone. and you and that young dog of a doctor enj'y listening to her as much as i do." captain jim came along another evening to bring anne some mayflowers. the garden was full of the moist, scented air of a maritime spring evening. there was a milk-white mist on the edge of the sea, with a young moon kissing it, and a silver gladness of stars over the glen. the bell of the church across the harbor was ringing dreamily sweet. the mellow chime drifted through the dusk to mingle with the soft spring-moan of the sea. captain jim's mayflowers added the last completing touch to the charm of the night. "i haven't seen any this spring, and i've missed them," said anne, burying her face in them. "they ain't to be found around four winds, only in the barrens away behind the glen up yander. i took a little trip today to the land-of-nothing-to-do, and hunted these up for you. i reckon they're the last you'll see this spring, for they're nearly done." "how kind and thoughtful you are, captain jim. nobody else--not even gilbert"--with a shake of her head at him--"remembered that i always long for mayflowers in spring." "well, i had another errand, too--i wanted to take mr. howard back yander a mess of trout. he likes one occasional, and it's all i can do for a kindness he did me once. i stayed all the afternoon and talked to him. he likes to talk to me, though he's a highly eddicated man and i'm only an ignorant old sailor, because he's one of the folks that's got to talk or they're miserable, and he finds listeners scarce around here. the glen folks fight shy of him because they think he's an infidel. he ain't that far gone exactly--few men is, i reckon--but he's what you might call a heretic. heretics are wicked, but they're mighty int'resting. it's jest that they've got sorter lost looking for god, being under the impression that he's hard to find--which he ain't never. most of 'em blunder to him after awhile, i guess. i don't think listening to mr. howard's arguments is likely to do me much harm. mind you, i believe what i was brought up to believe. it saves a vast of bother--and back of it all, god is good. the trouble with mr. howard is that he's a leetle too clever. he thinks that he's bound to live up to his cleverness, and that it's smarter to thrash out some new way of getting to heaven than to go by the old track the common, ignorant folks is travelling. but he'll get there sometime all right, and then he'll laugh at himself." "mr. howard was a methodist to begin with," said miss cornelia, as if she thought he had not far to go from that to heresy. "do you know, cornelia," said captain jim gravely, "i've often thought that if i wasn't a presbyterian i'd be a methodist." "oh, well," conceded miss cornelia, "if you weren't a presbyterian it wouldn't matter much what you were. speaking of heresy, reminds me, doctor--i've brought back that book you lent me--that natural law in the spiritual world--i didn't read more'n a third of it. i can read sense, and i can read nonsense, but that book is neither the one nor the other." "it is considered rather heretical in some quarters," admitted gilbert, "but i told you that before you took it, miss cornelia." "oh, i wouldn't have minded its being heretical. i can stand wickedness, but i can't stand foolishness," said miss cornelia calmly, and with the air of having said the last thing there was to say about natural law. "speaking of books, a mad love come to an end at last two weeks ago," remarked captain jim musingly. "it run to one hundred and three chapters. when they got married the book stopped right off, so i reckon their troubles were all over. it's real nice that that's the way in books anyhow, isn't it, even if 'tistn't so anywhere else?" "i never read novels," said miss cornelia. "did you hear how geordie russell was today, captain jim?" "yes, i called in on my way home to see him. he's getting round all right--but stewing in a broth of trouble, as usual, poor man. "'course he brews up most of it for himself, but i reckon that don't make it any easier to bear." "he's an awful pessimist," said miss cornelia. "well, no, he ain't a pessimist exactly, cornelia. he only jest never finds anything that suits him." "and isn't that a pessimist?" "no, no. a pessimist is one who never expects to find anything to suit him. geordie hain't got that far yet." "you'd find something good to say of the devil himself, jim boyd." "well, you've heard the story of the old lady who said he was persevering. but no, cornelia, i've nothing good to say of the devil." "do you believe in him at all?" asked miss cornelia seriously. "how can you ask that when you know what a good presbyterian i am, cornelia? how could a presbyterian get along without a devil?" "do you?" persisted miss cornelia. captain jim suddenly became grave. "i believe in what i heard a minister once call 'a mighty and malignant and intelligent power of evil working in the universe,'" he said solemnly. "i do that, cornelia. you can call it the devil, or the 'principle of evil,' or the old scratch, or any name you like. it's there, and all the infidels and heretics in the world can't argue it away, any more'n they can argue god away. it's there, and it's working. but, mind you, cornelia, i believe it's going to get the worst of it in the long run." "i am sure i hope so," said miss cornelia, none too hopefully. "but speaking of the devil, i am positive that billy booth is possessed by him now. have you heard of billy's latest performance?" "no, what was that?" "he's gone and burned up his wife's new, brown broadcloth suit, that she paid twenty-five dollars for in charlottetown, because he declares the men looked too admiring at her when she wore it to church the first time. wasn't that like a man?" "mistress booth is mighty pretty, and brown's her color," said captain jim reflectively. "is that any good reason why he should poke her new suit into the kitchen stove? billy booth is a jealous fool, and he makes his wife's life miserable. she's cried all the week about her suit. oh, anne, i wish i could write like you, believe me. wouldn't i score some of the men round here!" "those booths are all a mite queer," said captain jim. "billy seemed the sanest of the lot till he got married and then this queer jealous streak cropped out in him. his brother daniel, now, was always odd." "took tantrums every few days or so and wouldn't get out of bed," said miss cornelia with a relish. "his wife would have to do all the barn work till he got over his spell. when he died people wrote her letters of condolence; if i'd written anything it would have been one of congratulation. their father, old abram booth, was a disgusting old sot. he was drunk at his wife's funeral, and kept reeling round and hiccuping 'i didn't dri--i--i--nk much but i feel a--a--awfully que--e--e--r.' i gave him a good jab in the back with my umbrella when he came near me, and it sobered him up until they got the casket out of the house. young johnny booth was to have been married yesterday, but he couldn't be because he's gone and got the mumps. wasn't that like a man?" "how could he help getting the mumps, poor fellow?" "i'd poor fellow him, believe me, if i was kate sterns. i don't know how he could help getting the mumps, but i do know the wedding supper was all prepared and everything will be spoiled before he's well again. such a waste! he should have had the mumps when he was a boy." "come, come, cornelia, don't you think you're a mite unreasonable?" miss cornelia disdained to reply and turned instead to susan baker, a grim-faced, kind-hearted elderly spinster of the glen, who had been installed as maid-of-all-work at the little house for some weeks. susan had been up to the glen to make a sick call, and had just returned. "how is poor old aunt mandy tonight?" asked miss cornelia. susan sighed. "very poorly--very poorly, cornelia. i am afraid she will soon be in heaven, poor thing!" "oh, surely, it's not so bad as that!" exclaimed miss cornelia, sympathetically. captain jim and gilbert looked at each other. then they suddenly rose and went out. "there are times," said captain jim, between spasms, "when it would be a sin not to laugh. them two excellent women!" chapter 19 dawn and dusk in early june, when the sand hills were a great glory of pink wild roses, and the glen was smothered in apple blossoms, marilla arrived at the little house, accompanied by a black horsehair trunk, patterned with brass nails, which had reposed undisturbed in the green gables garret for half a century. susan baker, who, during her few weeks' sojourn in the little house, had come to worship "young mrs. doctor," as she called anne, with blind fervor, looked rather jealously askance at marilla at first. but as marilla did not try to interfere in kitchen matters, and showed no desire to interrupt susan's ministrations to young mrs. doctor, the good handmaiden became reconciled to her presence, and told her cronies at the glen that miss cuthbert was a fine old lady and knew her place. one evening, when the sky's limpid bowl was filled with a red glory, and the robins were thrilling the golden twilight with jubilant hymns to the stars of evening, there was a sudden commotion in the little house of dreams. telephone messages were sent up to the glen, doctor dave and a white-capped nurse came hastily down, marilla paced the garden walks between the quahog shells, murmuring prayers between her set lips, and susan sat in the kitchen with cotton wool in her ears and her apron over her head. leslie, looking out from the house up the brook, saw that every window of the little house was alight, and did not sleep that night. the june night was short; but it seemed an eternity to those who waited and watched. "oh, will it never end?" said marilla; then she saw how grave the nurse and doctor dave looked, and she dared ask no more questions. suppose anne--but marilla could not suppose it. "do not tell me," said susan fiercely, answering the anguish in marilla's eyes, "that god could be so cruel as to take that darling lamb from us when we all love her so much." "he has taken others as well beloved," said marilla hoarsely. but at dawn, when the rising sun rent apart the mists hanging over the sandbar, and made rainbows of them, joy came to the little house. anne was safe, and a wee, white lady, with her mother's big eyes, was lying beside her. gilbert, his face gray and haggard from his night's agony, came down to tell marilla and susan. "thank god," shuddered marilla. susan got up and took the cotton wool out of her ears. "now for breakfast," she said briskly. "i am of the opinion that we will all be glad of a bite and sup. you tell young mrs. doctor not to worry about a single thing--susan is at the helm. you tell her just to think of her baby." gilbert smiled rather sadly as he went away. anne, her pale face blanched with its baptism of pain, her eyes aglow with the holy passion of motherhood, did not need to be told to think of her baby. she thought of nothing else. for a few hours she tasted of happiness so rare and exquisite that she wondered if the angels in heaven did not envy her. "little joyce," she murmured, when marilla came in to see the baby. "we planned to call her that if she were a girlie. there were so many we would have liked to name her for; we couldn't choose between them, so we decided on joyce--we can call her joy for short--joy--it suits so well. oh, marilla, i thought i was happy before. now i know that i just dreamed a pleasant dream of happiness. this is the reality." "you mustn't talk, anne--wait till you're stronger," said marilla warningly. "you know how hard it is for me not to talk," smiled anne. at first she was too weak and too happy to notice that gilbert and the nurse looked grave and marilla sorrowful. then, as subtly, and coldly, and remorselessly as a sea-fog stealing landward, fear crept into her heart. why was not gilbert gladder? why would he not talk about the baby? why would they not let her have it with her after that first heavenly--happy hour? was--was there anything wrong? "gilbert," whispered anne imploringly, "the baby--is all right--isn't she? tell me--tell me." gilbert was a long while in turning round; then he bent over anne and looked in her eyes. marilla, listening fearfully outside the door, heard a pitiful, heartbroken moan, and fled to the kitchen where susan was weeping. "oh, the poor lamb--the poor lamb! how can she bear it, miss cuthbert? i am afraid it will kill her. she has been that built up and happy, longing for that baby, and planning for it. cannot anything be done nohow, miss cuthbert?" "i'm afraid not, susan. gilbert says there is no hope. he knew from the first the little thing couldn't live." "and it is such a sweet baby," sobbed susan. "i never saw one so white--they are mostly red or yallow. and it opened its big eyes as if it was months old. the little, little thing! oh, the poor, young mrs. doctor!" at sunset the little soul that had come with the dawning went away, leaving heartbreak behind it. miss cornelia took the wee, white lady from the kindly but stranger hands of the nurse, and dressed the tiny waxen form in the beautiful dress leslie had made for it. leslie had asked her to do that. then she took it back and laid it beside the poor, broken, tear-blinded little mother. "the lord has given and the lord has taken away, dearie," she said through her own tears. "blessed be the name of the lord." then she went away, leaving anne and gilbert alone together with their dead. the next day, the small white joy was laid in a velvet casket which leslie had lined with apple-blossoms, and taken to the graveyard of the church across the harbor. miss cornelia and marilla put all the little love-made garments away, together with the ruffled basket which had been befrilled and belaced for dimpled limbs and downy head. little joy was never to sleep there; she had found a colder, narrower bed. "this has been an awful disappointment to me," sighed miss cornelia. "i've looked forward to this baby--and i did want it to be a girl, too." "i can only be thankful that anne's life was spared," said marilla, with a shiver, recalling those hours of darkness when the girl she loved was passing through the valley of the shadow. "poor, poor lamb! her heart is broken," said susan. "i envy anne," said leslie suddenly and fiercely, "and i'd envy her even if she had died! she was a mother for one beautiful day. i'd gladly give my life for that!" "i wouldn't talk like that, leslie, dearie," said miss cornelia deprecatingly. she was afraid that the dignified miss cuthbert would think leslie quite terrible. anne's convalescence was long, and made bitter for her by many things. the bloom and sunshine of the four winds world grated harshly on her; and yet, when the rain fell heavily, she pictured it beating so mercilessly down on that little grave across the harbor; and when the wind blew around the eaves she heard sad voices in it she had never heard before. kindly callers hurt her, too, with the well-meant platitudes with which they strove to cover the nakedness of bereavement. a letter from phil blake was an added sting. phil had heard of the baby's birth, but not of its death, and she wrote anne a congratulatory letter of sweet mirth which hurt her horribly. "i would have laughed over it so happily if i had my baby," she sobbed to marilla. "but when i haven't it just seems like wanton cruelty--though i know phil wouldn't hurt me for the world. oh, marilla, i don't see how i can ever be happy again--everything will hurt me all the rest of my life." "time will help you," said marilla, who was racked with sympathy but could never learn to express it in other than age-worn formulas. "it doesn't seem fair," said anne rebelliously. "babies are born and live where they are not wanted--where they will be neglected--where they will have no chance. i would have loved my baby so--and cared for it so tenderly--and tried to give her every chance for good. and yet i wasn't allowed to keep her." "it was god's will, anne," said marilla, helpless before the riddle of the universe--the why of undeserved pain. "and little joy is better off." "i can't believe that," cried anne bitterly. then, seeing that marilla looked shocked, she added passionately, "why should she be born at all--why should any one be born at all--if she's better off dead? i don't believe it is better for a child to die at birth than to live its life out--and love and be loved--and enjoy and suffer--and do its work--and develop a character that would give it a personality in eternity. and how do you know it was god's will? perhaps it was just a thwarting of his purpose by the power of evil. we can't be expected to be resigned to that." "oh, anne, don't talk so," said marilla, genuinely alarmed lest anne were drifting into deep and dangerous waters. "we can't understand--but we must have faith--we must believe that all is for the best. i know you find it hard to think so, just now. but try to be brave--for gilbert's sake. he's so worried about you. you aren't getting strong as fast as you should." "oh, i know i've been very selfish," sighed anne. "i love gilbert more than ever--and i want to live for his sake. but it seems as if part of me was buried over there in that little harbor graveyard--and it hurts so much that i'm afraid of life." "it won't hurt so much always, anne." "the thought that it may stop hurting sometimes hurts me worse than all else, marilla." "yes, i know, i've felt that too, about other things. but we all love you, anne. captain jim has been up every day to ask for you--and mrs. moore haunts the place--and miss bryant spends most of her time, i think, cooking up nice things for you. susan doesn't like it very well. she thinks she can cook as well as miss bryant." "dear susan! oh, everybody has been so dear and good and lovely to me, marilla. i'm not ungrateful--and perhaps--when this horrible ache grows a little less--i'll find that i can go on living." chapter 20 lost margaret anne found that she could go on living; the day came when she even smiled again over one of miss cornelia's speeches. but there was something in the smile that had never been in anne's smile before and would never be absent from it again. on the first day she was able to go for a drive gilbert took her down to four winds point, and left her there while he rowed over the channel to see a patient at the fishing village. a rollicking wind was scudding across the harbor and the dunes, whipping the water into white-caps and washing the sandshore with long lines of silvery breakers. "i'm real proud to see you here again, mistress blythe," said captain jim. "sit down--sit down. i'm afeared it's mighty dusty here today--but there's no need of looking at dust when you can look at such scenery, is there?" "i don't mind the dust," said anne, "but gilbert says i must keep in the open air. i think i'll go and sit on the rocks down there." "would you like company or would you rather be alone?" "if by company you mean yours i'd much rather have it than be alone," said anne, smiling. then she sighed. she had never before minded being alone. now she dreaded it. when she was alone now she felt so dreadfully alone. "here's a nice little spot where the wind can't get at you," said captain jim, when they reached the rocks. "i often sit here. it's a great place jest to sit and dream." "oh--dreams," sighed anne. "i can't dream now, captain jim--i'm done with dreams." "oh, no, you're not, mistress blythe--oh, no, you're not," said captain jim meditatively. "i know how you feel jest now--but if you keep on living you'll get glad again, and the first thing you know you'll be dreaming again--thank the good lord for it! if it wasn't for our dreams they might as well bury us. how'd we stand living if it wasn't for our dream of immortality? and that's a dream that's bound to come true, mistress blythe. you'll see your little joyce again some day." "but she won't be my baby," said anne, with trembling lips. "oh, she may be, as longfellow says, 'a fair maiden clothed with celestial grace'--but she'll be a stranger to me." "god will manage better'n that, i believe," said captain jim. they were both silent for a little time. then captain jim said very softly: "mistress blythe, may i tell you about lost margaret?" "of course," said anne gently. she did not know who "lost margaret" was, but she felt that she was going to hear the romance of captain jim's life. "i've often wanted to tell you about her," captain jim went on. "do you know why, mistress blythe? it's because i want somebody to remember and think of her sometime after i'm gone. i can't bear that her name should be forgotten by all living souls. and now nobody remembers lost margaret but me." then captain jim told the story--an old, old forgotten story, for it was over fifty years since margaret had fallen asleep one day in her father's dory and drifted--or so it was supposed, for nothing was ever certainly known as to her fate--out of the channel, beyond the bar, to perish in the black thundersquall which had come up so suddenly that long-ago summer afternoon. but to captain jim those fifty years were but as yesterday when it is past. "i walked the shore for months after that," he said sadly, "looking to find her dear, sweet little body; but the sea never give her back to me. but i'll find her sometime, mistress blythe--i'll find her sometime. she's waiting for me. i wish i could tell you jest how she looked, but i can't. i've seen a fine, silvery mist hanging over the bar at sunrise that seemed like her--and then again i've seen a white birch in the woods back yander that made me think of her. she had pale, brown hair and a little white, sweet face, and long slender fingers like yours, mistress blythe, only browner, for she was a shore girl. sometimes i wake up in the night and hear the sea calling to me in the old way, and it seems as if lost margaret called in it. and when there's a storm and the waves are sobbing and moaning i hear her lamenting among them. and when they laugh on a gay day it's her laugh--lost margaret's sweet, roguish, little laugh. the sea took her from me, but some day i'll find her. mistress blythe. it can't keep us apart forever." "i am glad you have told me about her," said anne. "i have often wondered why you had lived all your life alone." "i couldn't ever care for anyone else. lost margaret took my heart with her--out there," said the old lover, who had been faithful for fifty years to his drowned sweetheart. "you won't mind if i talk a good deal about her, will you, mistress blythe? it's a pleasure to me--for all the pain went out of her memory years ago and jest left its blessing. i know you'll never forget her, mistress blythe. and if the years, as i hope, bring other little folks to your home, i want you to promise me that you'll tell them the story of lost margaret, so that her name won't be forgotten among humankind." chapter 21 barriers swept away "anne," said leslie, breaking abruptly a short silence, "you don't know how good it is to be sitting here with you again--working--and talking--and being silent together." they were sitting among the blue-eyed grasses on the bank of the brook in anne's garden. the water sparkled and crooned past them; the birches threw dappled shadows over them; roses bloomed along the walks. the sun was beginning to be low, and the air was full of woven music. there was one music of the wind in the firs behind the house, and another of the waves on the bar, and still another from the distant bell of the church near which the wee, white lady slept. anne loved that bell, though it brought sorrowful thoughts now. she looked curiously at leslie, who had thrown down her sewing and spoken with a lack of restraint that was very unusual with her. "on that horrible night when you were so ill," leslie went on, "i kept thinking that perhaps we'd have no more talks and walks and works together. and i realised just what your friendship had come to mean to me--just what you meant--and just what a hateful little beast i had been." "leslie! leslie! i never allow anyone to call my friends names." "it's true. that's exactly what i am--a hateful little beast. there's something i've got to tell you, anne. i suppose it will make you despise me, but i must confess it. anne, there have been times this past winter and spring when i have hated you." "i knew it," said anne calmly. "you knew it?" "yes, i saw it in your eyes." "and yet you went on liking me and being my friend." "well, it was only now and then you hated me, leslie. between times you loved me, i think." "i certainly did. but that other horrid feeling was always there, spoiling it, back in my heart. i kept it down--sometimes i forgot it--but sometimes it would surge up and take possession of me. i hated you because i envied you--oh, i was sick with envy of you at times. you had a dear little home--and love--and happiness--and glad dreams--everything i wanted--and never had--and never could have. oh, never could have! that was what stung. i wouldn't have envied you, if i had had any hope that life would ever be different for me. but i hadn't--i hadn't--and it didn't seem fair. it made me rebellious--and it hurt me--and so i hated you at times. oh, i was so ashamed of it--i'm dying of shame now--but i couldn't conquer it. "that night, when i was afraid you mightn't live--i thought i was going to be punished for my wickedness--and i loved you so then. anne, anne, i never had anything to love since my mother died, except dick's old dog--and it's so dreadful to have nothing to love--life is so empty--and there's nothing worse than emptiness--and i might have loved you so much--and that horrible thing had spoiled it--" leslie was trembling and growing almost incoherent with the violence of her emotion. "don't, leslie," implored anne, "oh, don't. i understand--don't talk of it any more." "i must--i must. when i knew you were going to live i vowed that i would tell you as soon as you were well--that i wouldn't go on accepting your friendship and companionship without telling you how unworthy i was of it. and i've been so afraid--it would turn you against me." "you needn't fear that, leslie." "oh, i'm so glad--so glad, anne." leslie clasped her brown, work-hardened hands tightly together to still their shaking. "but i want to tell you everything, now i've begun. you don't remember the first time i saw you, i suppose--it wasn't that night on the shore--" "no, it was the night gilbert and i came home. you were driving your geese down the hill. i should think i do remember it! i thought you were so beautiful--i longed for weeks after to find out who you were." "i knew who you were, although i had never seen either of you before. i had heard of the new doctor and his bride who were coming to live in miss russell's little house. i--i hated you that very moment, anne." "i felt the resentment in your eyes--then i doubted--i thought i must be mistaken--because why should it be?" "it was because you looked so happy. oh, you'll agree with me now that i am a hateful beast--to hate another woman just because she was happy,--and when her happiness didn't take anything from me! that was why i never went to see you. i knew quite well i ought to go--even our simple four winds customs demanded that. but i couldn't. i used to watch you from my window--i could see you and your husband strolling about your garden in the evening--or you running down the poplar lane to meet him. and it hurt me. and yet in another way i wanted to go over. i felt that, if i were not so miserable, i could have liked you and found in you what i've never had in my life--an intimate, real friend of my own age. and then you remember that night at the shore? you were afraid i would think you crazy. you must have thought _i_ was." "no, but i couldn't understand you, leslie. one moment you drew me to you--the next you pushed me back." "i was very unhappy that evening. i had had a hard day. dick had been very--very hard to manage that day. generally he is quite good-natured and easily controlled, you know, anne. but some days he is very different. i was so heartsick--i ran away to the shore as soon as he went to sleep. it was my only refuge. i sat there thinking of how my poor father had ended his life, and wondering if i wouldn't be driven to it some day. oh, my heart was full of black thoughts! and then you came dancing along the cove like a glad, light-hearted child. i--i hated you more then than i've ever done since. and yet i craved your friendship. the one feeling swayed me one moment; the other feeling the next. when i got home that night i cried for shame of what you must think of me. but it's always been just the same when i came over here. sometimes i'd be happy and enjoy my visit. and at other times that hideous feeling would mar it all. there were times when everything about you and your house hurt me. you had so many dear little things i couldn't have. do you know--it's ridiculous--but i had an especial spite at those china dogs of yours. there were times when i wanted to catch up gog and magog and bang their pert black noses together! oh, you smile, anne--but it was never funny to me. i would come here and see you and gilbert with your books and your flowers, and your household gods, and your little family jokes--and your love for each other showing in every look and word, even when you didn't know it--and i would go home to--you know what i went home to! oh, anne, i don't believe i'm jealous and envious by nature. when i was a girl i lacked many things my schoolmates had, but i never cared--i never disliked them for it. but i seem to have grown so hateful--" "leslie, dearest, stop blaming yourself. you are not hateful or jealous or envious. the life you have to live has warped you a little, perhaps-but it would have ruined a nature less fine and noble than yours. i'm letting you tell me all this because i believe it's better for you to talk it out and rid your soul of it. but don't blame yourself any more." "well, i won't. i just wanted you to know me as i am. that time you told me of your darling hope for the spring was the worst of all, anne. i shall never forgive myself for the way i behaved then. i repented it with tears. and i did put many a tender and loving thought of you into the little dress i made. but i might have known that anything i made could only be a shroud in the end." "now, leslie, that is bitter and morbid--put such thoughts away. "i was so glad when you brought the little dress; and since i had to lose little joyce i like to think that the dress she wore was the one you made for her when you let yourself love me." "anne, do you know, i believe i shall always love you after this. i don't think i'll ever feel that dreadful way about you again. talking it all out seems to have done away with it, somehow. it's very strange--and i thought it so real and bitter. it's like opening the door of a dark room to show some hideous creature you've believed to be there--and when the light streams in your monster turns out to have been just a shadow, vanishing when the light comes. it will never come between us again." "no, we are real friends now, leslie, and i am very glad." "i hope you won't misunderstand me if i say something else. anne, i was grieved to the core of my heart when you lost your baby; and if i could have saved her for you by cutting off one of my hands i would have done it. but your sorrow has brought us closer together. your perfect happiness isn't a barrier any longer. oh, don't misunderstand, dearest--i'm not glad that your happiness isn't perfect any longer--i can say that sincerely; but since it isn't, there isn't such a gulf between us." "i do understand that, too, leslie. now, we'll just shut up the past and forget what was unpleasant in it. it's all going to be different. we're both of the race of joseph now. i think you've been wonderful--wonderful. and, leslie, i can't help believing that life has something good and beautiful for you yet." leslie shook her head. "no," she said dully. "there isn't any hope. dick will never be better--and even if his memory were to come back--oh, anne, it would be worse, even worse, than it is now. this is something you can't understand, you happy bride. anne, did miss cornelia ever tell you how i came to marry dick?" "yes." "i'm glad--i wanted you to know--but i couldn't bring myself to talk of it if you hadn't known. anne, it seems to me that ever since i was twelve years old life has been bitter. before that i had a happy childhood. we were very poor--but we didn't mind. father was so splendid--so clever and loving and sympathetic. we were chums as far back as i can remember. and mother was so sweet. she was very, very beautiful. i look like her, but i am not so beautiful as she was." "miss cornelia says you are far more beautiful." "she is mistaken--or prejudiced. i think my figure is better--mother was slight and bent by hard work--but she had the face of an angel. i used just to look up at her in worship. we all worshipped her,--father and kenneth and i." anne remembered that miss cornelia had given her a very different impression of leslie's mother. but had not love the truer vision? still, it was selfish of rose west to make her daughter marry dick moore. "kenneth was my brother," went on leslie. "oh, i can't tell you how i loved him. and he was cruelly killed. do you know how?" "yes." "anne, i saw his little face as the wheel went over him. he fell on his back. anne--anne--i can see it now. i shall always see it. anne, all i ask of heaven is that that recollection shall be blotted out of my memory. o my god!" "leslie, don't speak of it. i know the story--don't go into details that only harrow your soul up unavailingly. it will be blotted out." after a moment's struggle, leslie regained a measure of self-control. "then father's health got worse and he grew despondent--his mind became unbalanced--you've heard all that, too?" "yes." "after that i had just mother to live for. but i was very ambitious. i meant to teach and earn my way through college. i meant to climb to the very top--oh, i won't talk of that either. it's no use. you know what happened. i couldn't see my dear little heart-broken mother, who had been such a slave all her life, turned out of her home. of course, i could have earned enough for us to live on. but mother couldn't leave her home. she had come there as a bride--and she had loved father so--and all her memories were there. even yet, anne, when i think that i made her last year happy i'm not sorry for what i did. as for dick--i didn't hate him when i married him--i just felt for him the indifferent, friendly feeling i had for most of my schoolmates. i knew he drank some--but i had never heard the story of the girl down at the fishing cove. if i had, i couldn't have married him, even for mother's sake. afterwards--i did hate him--but mother never knew. she died--and then i was alone. i was only seventeen and i was alone. dick had gone off in the four sisters. i hoped he wouldn't be home very much more. the sea had always been in his blood. i had no other hope. well, captain jim brought him home, as you know--and that's all there is to say. you know me now, anne--the worst of me--the barriers are all down. and you still want to be my friend?" anne looked up through the birches, at the white paper-lantern of a half moon drifting downwards to the gulf of sunset. her face was very sweet. "i am your friend and you are mine, for always," she said. "such a friend as i never had before. i have had many dear and beloved friends--but there is a something in you, leslie, that i never found in anyone else. you have more to offer me in that rich nature of yours, and i have more to give you than i had in my careless girlhood. we are both women--and friends forever." they clasped hands and smiled at each other through the tears that filled the gray eyes and the blue. chapter 22 miss cornelia arranges matters gilbert insisted that susan should be kept on at the little house for the summer. anne protested at first. "life here with just the two of us is so sweet, gilbert. it spoils it a little to have anyone else. susan is a dear soul, but she is an outsider. it won't hurt me to do the work here." "you must take your doctor's advice," said gilbert. "there's an old proverb to the effect that shoemakers' wives go barefoot and doctors' wives die young. i don't mean that it shall be true in my household. you will keep susan until the old spring comes back into your step, and those little hollows on your cheeks fill out." "you just take it easy, mrs. doctor, dear," said susan, coming abruptly in. "have a good time and do not worry about the pantry. susan is at the helm. there is no use in keeping a dog and doing your own barking. i am going to take your breakfast up to you every morning." "indeed you are not," laughed anne. "i agree with miss cornelia that it's a scandal for a woman who isn't sick to eat her breakfast in bed, and almost justifies the men in any enormities." "oh, cornelia!" said susan, with ineffable contempt. "i think you have better sense, mrs. doctor, dear, than to heed what cornelia bryant says. i cannot see why she must be always running down the men, even if she is an old maid. _i_ am an old maid, but you never hear me abusing the men. i like 'em. i would have married one if i could. is it not funny nobody ever asked me to marry him, mrs. doctor, dear? i am no beauty, but i am as good-looking as most of the married women you see. but i never had a beau. what do you suppose is the reason?" "it may be predestination," suggested anne, with unearthly solemnity. susan nodded. "that is what i have often thought, mrs. doctor, dear, and a great comfort it is. i do not mind nobody wanting me if the almighty decreed it so for his own wise purposes. but sometimes doubt creeps in, mrs. doctor, dear, and i wonder if maybe the old scratch has not more to do with it than anyone else. i cannot feel resigned then. but maybe," added susan, brightening up, "i will have a chance to get married yet. i often and often think of the old verse my aunt used to repeat: there never was a goose so gray but sometime soon or late some honest gander came her way and took her for his mate! a woman cannot ever be sure of not being married till she is buried, mrs. doctor, dear, and meanwhile i will make a batch of cherry pies. i notice the doctor favors 'em, and i do like cooking for a man who appreciates his victuals." miss cornelia dropped in that afternoon, puffing a little. "i don't mind the world or the devil much, but the flesh does rather bother me," she admitted. "you always look as cool as a cucumber, anne, dearie. do i smell cherry pie? if i do, ask me to stay to tea. haven't tasted a cherry pie this summer. my cherries have all been stolen by those scamps of gilman boys from the glen." "now, now, cornelia," remonstrated captain jim, who had been reading a sea novel in a corner of the living room, "you shouldn't say that about those two poor, motherless gilman boys, unless you've got certain proof. jest because their father ain't none too honest isn't any reason for calling them thieves. it's more likely it's been the robins took your cherries. they're turrible thick this year." "robins!" said miss cornelia disdainfully. "humph! two-legged robins, believe me!" "well, most of the four winds robins are constructed on that principle," said captain jim gravely. miss cornelia stared at him for a moment. then she leaned back in her rocker and laughed long and ungrudgingly. "well, you have got one on me at last, jim boyd, i'll admit. just look how pleased he is, anne, dearie, grinning like a chessy-cat. as for the robins' legs if robins have great, big, bare, sunburned legs, with ragged trousers hanging on 'em, such as i saw up in my cherry tree one morning at sunrise last week, i'll beg the gilman boys' pardon. by the time i got down they were gone. i couldn't understand how they had disappeared so quick, but captain jim has enlightened me. they flew away, of course." captain jim laughed and went away, regretfully declining an invitation to stay to supper and partake of cherry pie. "i'm on my way to see leslie and ask her if she'll take a boarder," miss cornelia resumed. "i'd a letter yesterday from a mrs. daly in toronto, who boarded a spell with me two years ago. she wanted me to take a friend of hers for the summer. his name is owen ford, and he's a newspaper man, and it seems he's a grandson of the schoolmaster who built this house. john selwyn's oldest daughter married an ontario man named ford, and this is her son. he wants to see the old place his grandparents lived in. he had a bad spell of typhoid in the spring and hasn't got rightly over it, so his doctor has ordered him to the sea. he doesn't want to go to the hotel--he just wants a quiet home place. i can't take him, for i have to be away in august. i've been appointed a delegate to the w.f.m.s. convention in kingsport and i'm going. i don't know whether leslie'll want to be bothered with him, either, but there's no one else. if she can't take him he'll have to go over the harbor." "when you've seen her come back and help us eat our cherry pies," said anne. "bring leslie and dick, too, if they can come. and so you're going to kingsport? what a nice time you will have. i must give you a letter to a friend of mine there--mrs. jonas blake." "i've prevailed on mrs. thomas holt to go with me," said miss cornelia complacently. "it's time she had a little holiday, believe me. she has just about worked herself to death. tom holt can crochet beautifully, but he can't make a living for his family. he never seems to be able to get up early enough to do any work, but i notice he can always get up early to go fishing. isn't that like a man?" anne smiled. she had learned to discount largely miss cornelia's opinions of the four winds men. otherwise she must have believed them the most hopeless assortment of reprobates and ne'er-do-wells in the world, with veritable slaves and martyrs for wives. this particular tom holt, for example, she knew to be a kind husband, a much loved father, and an excellent neighbor. if he were rather inclined to be lazy, liking better the fishing he had been born for than the farming he had not, and if he had a harmless eccentricity for doing fancy work, nobody save miss cornelia seemed to hold it against him. his wife was a "hustler," who gloried in hustling; his family got a comfortable living off the farm; and his strapping sons and daughters, inheriting their mother's energy, were all in a fair way to do well in the world. there was not a happier household in glen st. mary than the holts'. miss cornelia returned satisfied from the house up the brook. "leslie's going to take him," she announced. "she jumped at the chance. she wants to make a little money to shingle the roof of her house this fall, and she didn't know how she was going to manage it. i expect captain jim'll be more than interested when he hears that a grandson of the selwyns' is coming here. leslie said to tell you she hankered after cherry pie, but she couldn't come to tea because she has to go and hunt up her turkeys. they've strayed away. but she said, if there was a piece left, for you to put it in the pantry and she'd run over in the cat's light, when prowling's in order, to get it. you don't know, anne, dearie, what good it did my heart to hear leslie send you a message like that, laughing like she used to long ago. "there's a great change come over her lately. she laughs and jokes like a girl, and from her talk i gather she's here real often." "every day--or else i'm over there," said anne. "i don't know what i'd do without leslie, especially just now when gilbert is so busy. he's hardly ever home except for a few hours in the wee sma's. he's really working himself to death. so many of the over-harbor people send for him now." "they might better be content with their own doctor," said miss cornelia. "though to be sure i can't blame them, for he's a methodist. ever since dr. blythe brought mrs. allonby round folks think he can raise the dead. i believe dr. dave is a mite jealous--just like a man. he thinks dr. blythe has too many new-fangled notions! 'well,' i says to him, 'it was a new-fangled notion saved rhoda allonby. if you'd been attending her she'd have died, and had a tombstone saying it had pleased god to take her away.' oh, i do like to speak my mind to dr. dave! he's bossed the glen for years, and he thinks he's forgotten more than other people ever knew. speaking of doctors, i wish dr. blythe'd run over and see to that boil on dick moore's neck. it's getting past leslie's skill. i'm sure i don't know what dick moore wants to start in having boils for--as if he wasn't enough trouble without that!" "do you know, dick has taken quite a fancy to me," said anne. "he follows me round like a dog, and smiles like a pleased child when i notice him." "does it make you creepy?" "not at all. i rather like poor dick moore. he seems so pitiful and appealing, somehow." "you wouldn't think him very appealing if you'd see him on his cantankerous days, believe me. but i'm glad you don't mind him--it's all the nicer for leslie. she'll have more to do when her boarder comes. i hope he'll be a decent creature. you'll probably like him--he's a writer." "i wonder why people so commonly suppose that if two individuals are both writers they must therefore be hugely congenial," said anne, rather scornfully. "nobody would expect two blacksmiths to be violently attracted toward each other merely because they were both blacksmiths." nevertheless, she looked forward to the advent of owen ford with a pleasant sense of expectation. if he were young and likeable he might prove a very pleasant addition to society in four winds. the latch-string of the little house was always out for the race of joseph. chapter 23 owen ford comes one evening miss cornelia telephoned down to anne. "the writer man has just arrived here. i'm going to drive him down to your place, and you can show him the way over to leslie's. it's shorter than driving round by the other road, and i'm in a mortal hurry. the reese baby has gone and fallen into a pail of hot water at the glen, and got nearly scalded to death and they want me right off--to put a new skin on the child, i presume. mrs. reese is always so careless, and then expects other people to mend her mistakes. you won't mind, will you, dearie? his trunk can go down tomorrow." "very well," said anne. "what is he like, miss cornelia?" "you'll see what he's like outside when i take him down. as for what he's like inside only the lord who made him knows that. i'm not going to say another word, for every receiver in the glen is down." "miss cornelia evidently can't find much fault with mr. ford's looks, or she would find it in spite of the receivers," said anne. "i conclude therefore, susan, that mr. ford is rather handsome than otherwise." "well, mrs. doctor, dear, i do enjoy seeing a well-looking man," said susan candidly. "had i not better get up a snack for him? there is a strawberry pie that would melt in your mouth." "no, leslie is expecting him and has his supper ready. besides, i want that strawberry pie for my own poor man. he won't be home till late, so leave the pie and a glass of milk out for him, susan." "that i will, mrs. doctor, dear. susan is at the helm. after all, it is better to give pie to your own men than to strangers, who may be only seeking to devour, and the doctor himself is as well-looking a man as you often come across." when owen ford came anne secretly admitted, as miss cornelia towed him in, that he was very "well-looking" indeed. he was tall and broad-shouldered, with thick, brown hair, finely-cut nose and chin, large and brilliant dark-gray eyes. "and did you notice his ears and his teeth, mrs. doctor, dear?" queried susan later on. "he has got the nicest-shaped ears i ever saw on a man's head. i am choice about ears. when i was young i was scared that i might have to marry a man with ears like flaps. but i need not have worried, for never a chance did i have with any kind of ears." anne had not noticed owen ford's ears, but she did see his teeth, as his lips parted over them in a frank and friendly smile. unsmiling, his face was rather sad and absent in expression, not unlike the melancholy, inscrutable hero of anne's own early dreams; but mirth and humor and charm lighted it up when he smiled. certainly, on the outside, as miss cornelia said, owen ford was a very presentable fellow. "you cannot realise how delighted i am to be here, mrs. blythe," he said, looking around him with eager, interested eyes. "i have an odd feeling of coming home. my mother was born and spent her childhood here, you know. she used to talk a great deal to me of her old home. i know the geography of it as well as of the one i lived in, and, of course, she told me the story of the building of the house, and of my grandfather's agonised watch for the royal william. i had thought that so old a house must have vanished years ago, or i should have come to see it before this." "old houses don't vanish easily on this enchanted coast," smiled anne. "this is a 'land where all things always seem the same'--nearly always, at least. john selwyn's house hasn't even been much changed, and outside the rose-bushes your grandfather planted for his bride are blooming this very minute." "how the thought links me with them! with your leave i must explore the whole place soon." "our latch-string will always be out for you," promised anne. "and do you know that the old sea captain who keeps the four winds light knew john selwyn and his bride well in his boyhood? he told me their story the night i came here--the third bride of the old house." "can it be possible? this is a discovery. i must hunt him up." "it won't be difficult; we are all cronies of captain jim. he will be as eager to see you as you could be to see him. your grandmother shines like a star in his memory. but i think mrs. moore is expecting you. i'll show you our 'cross-lots' road." anne walked with him to the house up the brook, over a field that was as white as snow with daisies. a boat-load of people were singing far across the harbor. the sound drifted over the water like faint, unearthly music wind-blown across a starlit sea. the big light flashed and beaconed. owen ford looked around him with satisfaction. "and so this is four winds," he said. "i wasn't prepared to find it quite so beautiful, in spite of all mother's praises. what colors--what scenery--what charm! i shall get as strong as a horse in no time. and if inspiration comes from beauty, i should certainly be able to begin my great canadian novel here." "you haven't begun it yet?" asked anne. "alack-a-day, no. i've never been able to get the right central idea for it. it lurks beyond me--it allures--and beckons--and recedes--i almost grasp it and it is gone. perhaps amid this peace and loveliness, i shall be able to capture it. miss bryant tells me that you write." "oh, i do little things for children. i haven't done much since i was married. and--i have no designs on a great canadian novel," laughed anne. "that is quite beyond me." owen ford laughed too. "i dare say it is beyond me as well. all the same i mean to have a try at it some day, if i can ever get time. a newspaper man doesn't have much chance for that sort of thing. i've done a good deal of short story writing for the magazines, but i've never had the leisure that seems to be necessary for the writing of a book. with three months of liberty i ought to make a start, though--if i could only get the necessary motif for it--the soul of the book." an idea whisked through anne's brain with a suddenness that made her jump. but she did not utter it, for they had reached the moore house. as they entered the yard leslie came out on the veranda from the side door, peering through the gloom for some sign of her expected guest. she stood just where the warm yellow light flooded her from the open door. she wore a plain dress of cheap, cream-tinted cotton voile, with the usual girdle of crimson. leslie was never without her touch of crimson. she had told anne that she never felt satisfied without a gleam of red somewhere about her, if it were only a flower. to anne, it always seemed to symbolise leslie's glowing, pent-up personality, denied all expression save in that flaming glint. leslie's dress was cut a little away at the neck and had short sleeves. her arms gleamed like ivory-tinted marble. every exquisite curve of her form was outlined in soft darkness against the light. her hair shone in it like flame. beyond her was a purple sky, flowering with stars over the harbor. anne heard her companion give a gasp. even in the dusk she could see the amazement and admiration on his face. "who is that beautiful creature?" he asked. "that is mrs. moore," said anne. "she is very lovely, isn't she?" "i--i never saw anything like her," he answered, rather dazedly. "i wasn't prepared--i didn't expect--good heavens, one doesn't expect a goddess for a landlady! why, if she were clothed in a gown of sea-purple, with a rope of amethysts in her hair, she would be a veritable sea-queen. and she takes in boarders!" "even goddesses must live," said anne. "and leslie isn't a goddess. she's just a very beautiful woman, as human as the rest of us. did miss bryant tell you about mr. moore?" "yes,--he's mentally deficient, or something of the sort, isn't he? but she said nothing about mrs. moore, and i supposed she'd be the usual hustling country housewife who takes in boarders to earn an honest penny." "well, that's just what leslie is doing," said anne crisply. "and it isn't altogether pleasant for her, either. i hope you won't mind dick. if you do, please don't let leslie see it. it would hurt her horribly. he's just a big baby, and sometimes a rather annoying one." "oh, i won't mind him. i don't suppose i'll be much in the house anyhow, except for meals. but what a shame it all is! her life must be a hard one." "it is. but she doesn't like to be pitied." leslie had gone back into the house and now met them at the front door. she greeted owen ford with cold civility, and told him in a business-like tone that his room and his supper were ready for him. dick, with a pleased grin, shambled upstairs with the valise, and owen ford was installed as an inmate of the old house among the willows. chapter 24 the life-book of captain jim "i have a little brown cocoon of an idea that may possibly expand into a magnificent moth of fulfilment," anne told gilbert when she reached home. he had returned earlier than she had expected, and was enjoying susan's cherry pie. susan herself hovered in the background, like a rather grim but beneficent guardian spirit, and found as much pleasure in watching gilbert eat pie as he did in eating it. "what is your idea?" he asked. "i sha'n't tell you just yet--not till i see if i can bring the thing about." "what sort of a chap is ford?" "oh, very nice, and quite good-looking." "such beautiful ears, doctor, dear," interjected susan with a relish. "he is about thirty or thirty-five, i think, and he meditates writing a novel. his voice is pleasant and his smile delightful, and he knows how to dress. he looks as if life hadn't been altogether easy for him, somehow." owen ford came over the next evening with a note to anne from leslie; they spent the sunset time in the garden and then went for a moonlit sail on the harbor, in the little boat gilbert had set up for summer outings. they liked owen immensely and had that feeling of having known him for many years which distinguishes the freemasonry of the house of joseph. "he is as nice as his ears, mrs. doctor, dear," said susan, when he had gone. he had told susan that he had never tasted anything like her strawberry shortcake and susan's susceptible heart was his forever. "he has got a way with him," she reflected, as she cleared up the relics of the supper. "it is real queer he is not married, for a man like that could have anybody for the asking. well, maybe he is like me, and has not met the right one yet." susan really grew quite romantic in her musings as she washed the supper dishes. two nights later anne took owen ford down to four winds point to introduce him to captain jim. the clover fields along the harbor shore were whitening in the western wind, and captain jim had one of his finest sunsets on exhibition. he himself had just returned from a trip over the harbor. "i had to go over and tell henry pollack he was dying. everybody else was afraid to tell him. they expected he'd take on turrible, for he's been dreadful determined to live, and been making no end of plans for the fall. his wife thought he oughter be told and that i'd be the best one to break it to him that he couldn't get better. henry and me are old cronies--we sailed in the gray gull for years together. well, i went over and sat down by henry's bed and i says to him, says i, jest right out plain and simple, for if a thing's got to be told it may as well be told first as last, says i, 'mate, i reckon you've got your sailing orders this time,' i was sorter quaking inside, for it's an awful thing to have to tell a man who hain't any idea he's dying that he is. but lo and behold, mistress blythe, henry looks up at me, with those bright old black eyes of his in his wizened face and says, says he, 'tell me something i don't know, jim boyd, if you want to give me information. i've known that for a week.' i was too astonished to speak, and henry, he chuckled. 'to see you coming in here,' says he, 'with your face as solemn as a tombstone and sitting down there with your hands clasped over your stomach, and passing me out a blue-mouldy old item of news like that! it'd make a cat laugh, jim boyd,' says he. 'who told you?' says i, stupid like. 'nobody,' says he. 'a week ago tuesday night i was lying here awake--and i jest knew. i'd suspicioned it before, but then i knew. i've been keeping up for the wife's sake. and i'd like to have got that barn built, for eben'll never get it right. but anyhow, now that you've eased your mind, jim, put on a smile and tell me something interesting,' well, there it was. they'd been so scared to tell him and he knew it all the time. strange how nature looks out for us, ain't it, and lets us know what we should know when the time comes? did i never tell you the yarn about henry getting the fish hook in his nose, mistress blythe?" "no." "well, him and me had a laugh over it today. it happened nigh unto thirty years ago. him and me and several more was out mackerel fishing one day. it was a great day--never saw such a school of mackerel in the gulf--and in the general excitement henry got quite wild and contrived to stick a fish hook clean through one side of his nose. well, there he was; there was barb on one end and a big piece of lead on the other, so it couldn't be pulled out. we wanted to take him ashore at once, but henry was game; he said he'd be jiggered if he'd leave a school like that for anything short of lockjaw; then he kept fishing away, hauling in hand over fist and groaning between times. fin'lly the school passed and we come in with a load; i got a file and begun to try to file through that hook. i tried to be as easy as i could, but you should have heard henry--no, you shouldn't either. it was well no ladies were around. henry wasn't a swearing man, but he'd heard some few matters of that sort along shore in his time, and he fished 'em all out of his recollection and hurled 'em at me. fin'lly he declared he couldn't stand it and i had no bowels of compassion. so we hitched up and i drove him to a doctor in charlottetown, thirty-five miles--there weren't none nearer in them days--with that blessed hook still hanging from his nose. when we got there old dr. crabb jest took a file and filed that hook jest the same as i'd tried to do, only he weren't a mite particular about doing it easy!" captain jim's visit to his old friend had revived many recollections and he was now in the full tide of reminiscences. "henry was asking me today if i remembered the time old father chiniquy blessed alexander macallister's boat. another odd yarn--and true as gospel. i was in the boat myself. we went out, him and me, in alexander macallister's boat one morning at sunrise. besides, there was a french boy in the boat--catholic of course. you know old father chiniquy had turned protestant, so the catholics hadn't much use for him. well, we sat out in the gulf in the broiling sun till noon, and not a bite did we get. when we went ashore old father chiniquy had to go, so he said in that polite way of his, 'i'm very sorry i cannot go out with you dis afternoon, mr. macallister, but i leave you my blessing. you will catch a t'ousand dis afternoon. 'well, we did not catch a thousand, but we caught exactly nine hundred and ninety-nine--the biggest catch for a small boat on the whole north shore that summer. curious, wasn't it? alexander macallister, he says to andrew peters, 'well, and what do you think of father chiniquy now?' 'vell,' growled andrew, 'i t'ink de old devil has got a blessing left yet.' laws, how henry did laugh over that today!" "do you know who mr. ford is, captain jim?" asked anne, seeing that captain jim's fountain of reminiscence had run out for the present. "i want you to guess." captain jim shook his head. "i never was any hand at guessing, mistress blythe, and yet somehow when i come in i thought, 'where have i seen them eyes before?'--for i have seen 'em." "think of a september morning many years ago," said anne, softly. "think of a ship sailing up the harbor--a ship long waited for and despaired of. think of the day the royal william came in and the first look you had at the schoolmaster's bride." captain jim sprang up. "they're persis selwyn's eyes," he almost shouted. "you can't be her son--you must be her--" "grandson; yes, i am alice selwyn's son." captain jim swooped down on owen ford and shook his hand over again. "alice selwyn's son! lord, but you're welcome! many's the time i've wondered where the descendants of the schoolmaster were living. i knew there was none on the island. alice--alice--the first baby ever born in that little house. no baby ever brought more joy! i've dandled her a hundred times. it was from my knee she took her first steps alone. can't i see her mother's face watching her--and it was near sixty years ago. is she living yet?" "no, she died when i was only a boy." "oh, it doesn't seem right that i should be living to hear that," sighed captain jim. "but i'm heart-glad to see you. it's brought back my youth for a little while. you don't know yet what a boon that is. mistress blythe here has the trick--she does it quite often for me." captain jim was still more excited when he discovered that owen ford was what he called a "real writing man." he gazed at him as at a superior being. captain jim knew that anne wrote, but he had never taken that fact very seriously. captain jim thought women were delightful creatures, who ought to have the vote, and everything else they wanted, bless their hearts; but he did not believe they could write. "jest look at a mad love," he would protest. "a woman wrote that and jest look at it--one hundred and three chapters when it could all have been told in ten. a writing woman never knows when to stop; that's the trouble. the p'int of good writing is to know when to stop." "mr. ford wants to hear some of your stories, captain jim" said anne. "tell him the one about the captain who went crazy and imagined he was the flying dutchman." this was captain jim's best story. it was a compound of horror and humor, and though anne had heard it several times she laughed as heartily and shivered as fearsomely over it as mr. ford did. other tales followed, for captain jim had an audience after his own heart. he told how his vessel had been run down by a steamer; how he had been boarded by malay pirates; how his ship had caught fire; how he helped a political prisoner escape from a south african republic; how he had been wrecked one fall on the magdalens and stranded there for the winter; how a tiger had broken loose on board ship; how his crew had mutinied and marooned him on a barren island--these and many other tales, tragic or humorous or grotesque, did captain jim relate. the mystery of the sea, the fascination of far lands, the lure of adventure, the laughter of the world--his hearers felt and realised them all. owen ford listened, with his head on his hand, and the first mate purring on his knee, his brilliant eyes fastened on captain jim's rugged, eloquent face. "won't you let mr. ford see your life-book, captain jim?" asked anne, when captain jim finally declared that yarn-spinning must end for the time. "oh, he don't want to be bothered with that," protested captain jim, who was secretly dying to show it. "i should like nothing better than to see it, captain boyd," said owen. "if it is half as wonderful as your tales it will be worth seeing." with pretended reluctance captain jim dug his life-book out of his old chest and handed it to owen. "i reckon you won't care to wrastle long with my old hand o' write. i never had much schooling," he observed carelessly. "just wrote that there to amuse my nephew joe. he's always wanting stories. comes here yesterday and says to me, reproachful-like, as i was lifting a twenty-pound codfish out of my boat, 'uncle jim, ain't a codfish a dumb animal?' i'd been a-telling him, you see, that he must be real kind to dumb animals, and never hurt 'em in any way. i got out of the scrape by saying a codfish was dumb enough but it wasn't an animal, but joe didn't look satisfied, and i wasn't satisfied myself. you've got to be mighty careful what you tell them little critters. they can see through you." while talking, captain jim watched owen ford from the corner of his eye as the latter examined the life-book; and presently observing that his guest was lost in its pages, he turned smilingly to his cupboard and proceeded to make a pot of tea. owen ford separated himself from the life-book, with as much reluctance as a miser wrenches himself from his gold, long enough to drink his tea, and then returned to it hungrily. "oh, you can take that thing home with you if you want to," said captain jim, as if the "thing" were not his most treasured possession. "i must go down and pull my boat up a bit on the skids. there's a wind coming. did you notice the sky tonight? mackerel skies and mares' tails make tall ships carry short sails." owen ford accepted the offer of the life-book gladly. on their way home anne told him the story of lost margaret. "that old captain is a wonderful old fellow," he said. "what a life he has led! why, the man had more adventures in one week of his life than most of us have in a lifetime. do you really think his tales are all true?" "i certainly do. i am sure captain jim could not tell a lie; and besides, all the people about here say that everything happened as he relates it. there used to be plenty of his old shipmates alive to corroborate him. he's one of the last of the old type of p.e. island sea-captains. they are almost extinct now." chapter 25 the writing of the book owen ford came over to the little house the next morning in a state of great excitement. "mrs. blythe, this is a wonderful book--absolutely wonderful. if i could take it and use the material for a book i feel certain i could make the novel of the year out of it. do you suppose captain jim would let me do it?" "let you! i'm sure he would be delighted," cried anne. "i admit that it was what was in my head when i took you down last night. captain jim has always been wishing he could get somebody to write his life-book properly for him." "will you go down to the point with me this evening, mrs. blythe? i'll ask him about that life-book myself, but i want you to tell him that you told me the story of lost margaret and ask him if he will let me use it as a thread of romance with which to weave the stories of the life-book into a harmonious whole." captain jim was more excited than ever when owen ford told him of his plan. at last his cherished dream was to be realized and his "life-book" given to the world. he was also pleased that the story of lost margaret should be woven into it. "it will keep her name from being forgotten," he said wistfully. "that's why i want it put in." "we'll collaborate," cried owen delightedly. "you will give the soul and i the body. oh, we'll write a famous book between us, captain jim. and we'll get right to work." "and to think my book is to be writ by the schoolmaster's grandson!" exclaimed captain jim. "lad, your grandfather was my dearest friend. i thought there was nobody like him. i see now why i had to wait so long. it couldn't be writ till the right man come. you belong here--you've got the soul of this old north shore in you--you're the only one who could write it." it was arranged that the tiny room off the living room at the lighthouse should be given over to owen for a workshop. it was necessary that captain jim should be near him as he wrote, for consultation upon many matters of sea-faring and gulf lore of which owen was quite ignorant. he began work on the book the very next morning, and flung himself into it heart and soul. as for captain jim, he was a happy man that summer. he looked upon the little room where owen worked as a sacred shrine. owen talked everything over with captain jim, but he would not let him see the manuscript. "you must wait until it is published," he said. "then you'll get it all at once in its best shape." he delved into the treasures of the life-book and used them freely. he dreamed and brooded over lost margaret until she became a vivid reality to him and lived in his pages. as the book progressed it took possession of him and he worked at it with feverish eagerness. he let anne and leslie read the manuscript and criticise it; and the concluding chapter of the book, which the critics, later on, were pleased to call idyllic, was modelled upon a suggestion of leslie's. anne fairly hugged herself with delight over the success of her idea. "i knew when i looked at owen ford that he was the very man for it," she told gilbert. "both humor and passion were in his face, and that, together with the art of expression, was just what was necessary for the writing of such a book. as mrs. rachel would say, he was predestined for the part." owen ford wrote in the mornings. the afternoons were generally spent in some merry outing with the blythes. leslie often went, too, for captain jim took charge of dick frequently, in order to set her free. they went boating on the harbor and up the three pretty rivers that flowed into it; they had clambakes on the bar and mussel-bakes on the rocks; they picked strawberries on the sand-dunes; they went out cod-fishing with captain jim; they shot plover in the shore fields and wild ducks in the cove--at least, the men did. in the evenings they rambled in the low-lying, daisied, shore fields under a golden moon, or they sat in the living room at the little house where often the coolness of the sea breeze justified a driftwood fire, and talked of the thousand and one things which happy, eager, clever young people can find to talk about. ever since the day on which she had made her confession to anne leslie had been a changed creature. there was no trace of her old coldness and reserve, no shadow of her old bitterness. the girlhood of which she had been cheated seemed to come back to her with the ripeness of womanhood; she expanded like a flower of flame and perfume; no laugh was readier than hers, no wit quicker, in the twilight circles of that enchanted summer. when she could not be with them all felt that some exquisite savor was lacking in their intercourse. her beauty was illumined by the awakened soul within, as some rosy lamp might shine through a flawless vase of alabaster. there were hours when anne's eyes seemed to ache with the splendor of her. as for owen ford, the "margaret" of his book, although she had the soft brown hair and elfin face of the real girl who had vanished so long ago, "pillowed where lost atlantis sleeps," had the personality of leslie moore, as it was revealed to him in those halcyon days at four winds harbor. all in all, it was a never-to-be-forgotten summer--one of those summers which come seldom into any life, but leave a rich heritage of beautiful memories in their going--one of those summers which, in a fortunate combination of delightful weather, delightful friends and delightful doings, come as near to perfection as anything can come in this world. "too good to last," anne told herself with a little sigh, on the september day when a certain nip in the wind and a certain shade of intense blue on the gulf water said that autumn was hard by. that evening owen ford told them that he had finished his book and that his vacation must come to an end. "i have a good deal to do to it yet--revising and pruning and so forth," he said, "but in the main it's done. i wrote the last sentence this morning. if i can find a publisher for it it will probably be out next summer or fall." owen had not much doubt that he would find a publisher. he knew that he had written a great book--a book that would score a wonderful success--a book that would live. he knew that it would bring him both fame and fortune; but when he had written the last line of it he had bowed his head on the manuscript and so sat for a long time. and his thoughts were not of the good work he had done. chapter 26 owen ford's confession "i'm so sorry gilbert is away," said anne. "he had to go--allan lyons at the glen has met with a serious accident. he will not likely be home till very late. but he told me to tell you he'd be up and over early enough in the morning to see you before you left. it's too provoking. susan and i had planned such a nice little jamboree for your last night here." she was sitting beside the garden brook on the little rustic seat gilbert had built. owen ford stood before her, leaning against the bronze column of a yellow birch. he was very pale and his face bore the marks of the preceding sleepless night. anne, glancing up at him, wondered if, after all, his summer had brought him the strength it should. had he worked too hard over his book? she remembered that for a week he had not been looking well. "i'm rather glad the doctor is away," said owen slowly. "i wanted to see you alone, mrs. blythe. there is something i must tell somebody, or i think it will drive me mad. i've been trying for a week to look it in the face--and i can't. i know i can trust you--and, besides, you will understand. a woman with eyes like yours always understands. you are one of the folks people instinctively tell things to. mrs. blythe, i love leslie. love her! that seems too weak a word!" his voice suddenly broke with the suppressed passion of his utterance. he turned his head away and hid his face on his arm. his whole form shook. anne sat looking at him, pale and aghast. she had never thought of this! and yet--how was it she had never thought of it? it now seemed a natural and inevitable thing. she wondered at her own blindness. but--but--things like this did not happen in four winds. elsewhere in the world human passions might set at defiance human conventions and laws--but not here, surely. leslie had kept summer boarders off and on for ten years, and nothing like this had happened. but perhaps they had not been like owen ford; and the vivid, living leslie of this summer was not the cold, sullen girl of other years. oh, somebody should have thought of this! why hadn't miss cornelia thought of it? miss cornelia was always ready enough to sound the alarm where men were concerned. anne felt an unreasonable resentment against miss cornelia. then she gave a little inward groan. no matter who was to blame the mischief was done. and leslie--what of leslie? it was for leslie anne felt most concerned. "does leslie know this, mr. ford?" she asked quietly. "no--no,--unless she has guessed it. you surely don't think i'd be cad and scoundrel enough to tell her, mrs. blythe. i couldn't help loving her--that's all--and my misery is greater than i can bear." "does she care?" asked anne. the moment the question crossed her lips she felt that she should not have asked it. owen ford answered it with overeager protest. "no--no, of course not. but i could make her care if she were free--i know i could." "she does care--and he knows it," thought anne. aloud she said, sympathetically but decidedly: "but she is not free, mr. ford. and the only thing you can do is to go away in silence and leave her to her own life." "i know--i know," groaned owen. he sat down on the grassy bank and stared moodily into the amber water beneath him. "i know there's nothing to do--nothing but to say conventionally, 'good-bye, mrs. moore. thank you for all your kindness to me this summer,' just as i would have said it to the sonsy, bustling, keen-eyed housewife i expected her to be when i came. then i'll pay my board money like any honest boarder and go! oh, it's very simple. no doubt--no perplexity--a straight road to the end of the world! "and i'll walk it--you needn't fear that i won't, mrs. blythe. but it would be easier to walk over red-hot ploughshares." anne flinched with the pain of his voice. and there was so little she could say that would be adequate to the situation. blame was out of the question--advice was not needed--sympathy was mocked by the man's stark agony. she could only feel with him in a maze of compassion and regret. her heart ached for leslie! had not that poor girl suffered enough without this? "it wouldn't be so hard to go and leave her if she were only happy," resumed owen passionately. "but to think of her living death--to realise what it is to which i do leave her! that is the worst of all. i would give my life to make her happy--and i can do nothing even to help her--nothing. she is bound forever to that poor wretch--with nothing to look forward to but growing old in a succession of empty, meaningless, barren years. it drives me mad to think of it. but i must go through my life, never seeing her, but always knowing what she is enduring. it's hideous--hideous!" "it is very hard," said anne sorrowfully. "we--her friends here--all know how hard it is for her." "and she is so richly fitted for life," said owen rebelliously. "her beauty is the least of her dower--and she is the most beautiful woman i've ever known. that laugh of hers! i've angled all summer to evoke that laugh, just for the delight of hearing it. and her eyes--they are as deep and blue as the gulf out there. i never saw such blueness--and gold! did you ever see her hair down, mrs. blythe?" "no." "i did--once. i had gone down to the point to go fishing with captain jim but it was too rough to go out, so i came back. she had taken the opportunity of what she expected to be an afternoon alone to wash her hair, and she was standing on the veranda in the sunshine to dry it. it fell all about her to her feet in a fountain of living gold. when she saw me she hurried in, and the wind caught her hair and swirled it all around her--danae in her cloud. somehow, just then the knowledge that i loved her came home to me--and realised that i had loved her from the moment i first saw her standing against the darkness in that glow of light. and she must live on here--petting and soothing dick, pinching and saving for a mere existence, while i spend my life longing vainly for her, and debarred, by that very fact, from even giving her the little help a friend might. i walked the shore last night, almost till dawn, and thrashed it all out over and over again. and yet, in spite of everything, i can't find it in my heart to be sorry that i came to four winds. it seems to me that, bad as everything is, it would be still worse never to have known leslie. it's burning, searing pain to love her and leave her--but not to have loved her is unthinkable. i suppose all this sounds very crazy--all these terrible emotions always do sound foolish when we put them into our inadequate words. they are not meant to be spoken--only felt and endured. i shouldn't have spoken--but it has helped--some. at least, it has given me strength to go away respectably tomorrow morning, without making a scene. you'll write me now and then, won't you, mrs. blythe, and give me what news there is to give of her?" "yes," said anne. "oh, i'm so sorry you are going--we'll miss you so--we've all been such friends! if it were not for this you could come back other summers. perhaps, even yet--by-and-by--when you've forgotten, perhaps--" "i shall never forget--and i shall never come back to four winds," said owen briefly. silence and twilight fell over the garden. far away the sea was lapping gently and monotonously on the bar. the wind of evening in the poplars sounded like some sad, weird, old rune--some broken dream of old memories. a slender shapely young aspen rose up before them against the fine maize and emerald and paling rose of the western sky, which brought out every leaf and twig in dark, tremulous, elfin loveliness. "isn't that beautiful?" said owen, pointing to it with the air of a man who puts a certain conversation behind him. "it's so beautiful that it hurts me," said anne softly. "perfect things like that always did hurt me--i remember i called it 'the queer ache' when i was a child. what is the reason that pain like this seems inseparable from perfection? is it the pain of finality--when we realise that there can be nothing beyond but retrogression?" "perhaps," said owen dreamily, "it is the prisoned infinite in us calling out to its kindred infinite as expressed in that visible perfection." "you seem to have a cold in the head. better rub some tallow on your nose when you go to bed," said miss cornelia, who had come in through the little gate between the firs in time to catch owen's last remark. miss cornelia liked owen; but it was a matter of principle with her to visit any "high-falutin" language from a man with a snub. miss cornelia personated the comedy that ever peeps around the corner at the tragedy of life. anne, whose nerves had been rather strained, laughed hysterically, and even owen smiled. certainly, sentiment and passion had a way of shrinking out of sight in miss cornelia's presence. and yet to anne nothing seemed quite as hopeless and dark and painful as it had seemed a few moments before. but sleep was far from her eyes that night. chapter 27 on the sand bar owen ford left four winds the next morning. in the evening anne went over to see leslie, but found nobody. the house was locked and there was no light in any window. it looked like a home left soulless. leslie did not run over on the following day--which anne thought a bad sign. gilbert having occasion to go in the evening to the fishing cove, anne drove with him to the point, intending to stay awhile with captain jim. but the great light, cutting its swathes through the fog of the autumn evening, was in care of alec boyd and captain jim was away. "what will you do?" asked gilbert. "come with me?" "i don't want to go to the cove--but i'll go over the channel with you, and roam about on the sand shore till you come back. the rock shore is too slippery and grim tonight." alone on the sands of the bar anne gave herself up to the eerie charm of the night. it was warm for september, and the late afternoon had been very foggy; but a full moon had in part lessened the fog and transformed the harbor and the gulf and the surrounding shores into a strange, fantastic, unreal world of pale silver mist, through which everything loomed phantom-like. captain josiah crawford's black schooner sailing down the channel, laden with potatoes for bluenose ports, was a spectral ship bound for a far uncharted land, ever receding, never to be reached. the calls of unseen gulls overhead were the cries of the souls of doomed seamen. the little curls of foam that blew across the sand were elfin things stealing up from the sea-caves. the big, round-shouldered sand-dunes were the sleeping giants of some old northern tale. the lights that glimmered palely across the harbor were the delusive beacons on some coast of fairyland. anne pleased herself with a hundred fancies as she wandered through the mist. it was delightful--romantic--mysterious to be roaming here alone on this enchanted shore. but was she alone? something loomed in the mist before her--took shape and form--suddenly moved towards her across the wave-rippled sand. "leslie!" exclaimed anne in amazement. "whatever are you doing--here--tonight?" "if it comes to that, whatever are you doing here?" said leslie, trying to laugh. the effort was a failure. she looked very pale and tired; but the love locks under her scarlet cap were curling about her face and eyes like little sparkling rings of gold. "i'm waiting for gilbert--he's over at the cove. i intended to stay at the light, but captain jim is away." "well, _i_ came here because i wanted to walk--and walk--and walk," said leslie restlessly. "i couldn't on the rock shore--the tide was too high and the rocks prisoned me. i had to come here--or i should have gone mad, i think. i rowed myself over the channel in captain jim's flat. i've been here for an hour. come--come--let us walk. i can't stand still. oh, anne!" "leslie, dearest, what is the trouble?" asked anne, though she knew too well already. "i can't tell you--don't ask me. i wouldn't mind your knowing--i wish you did know--but i can't tell you--i can't tell anyone. i've been such a fool, anne--and oh, it hurts so terribly to be a fool. there's nothing so painful in the world." she laughed bitterly. anne slipped her arm around her. "leslie, is it that you have learned to care for mr. ford?" leslie turned herself about passionately. "how did you know?" she cried. "anne, how did you know? oh, is it written in my face for everyone to see? is it as plain as that?" "no, no. i--i can't tell you how i knew. it just came into my mind, somehow. leslie, don't look at me like that!" "do you despise me?" demanded leslie in a fierce, low tone. "do you think i'm wicked--unwomanly? or do you think i'm just plain fool?" "i don't think you any of those things. come, dear, let's just talk it over sensibly, as we might talk over any other of the great crises of life. you've been brooding over it and let yourself drift into a morbid view of it. you know you have a little tendency to do that about everything that goes wrong, and you promised me that you would fight against it." "but--oh, it's so--so shameful," murmured leslie. "to love him--unsought--and when i'm not free to love anybody." "there's nothing shameful about it. but i'm very sorry that you have learned to care for owen, because, as things are, it will only make you more unhappy." "i didn't learn to care," said leslie, walking on and speaking passionately. "if it had been like that i could have prevented it. i never dreamed of such a thing until that day, a week ago, when he told me he had finished his book and must soon go away. then--then i knew. i felt as if someone had struck me a terrible blow. i didn't say anything--i couldn't speak--but i don't know what i looked like. i'm so afraid my face betrayed me. oh, i would die of shame if i thought he knew--or suspected." anne was miserably silent, hampered by her deductions from her conversation with owen. leslie went on feverishly, as if she found relief in speech. "i was so happy all this summer, anne--happier than i ever was in my life. i thought it was because everything had been made clear between you and me, and that it was our friendship which made life seem so beautiful and full once more. and it was, in part--but not all--oh, not nearly all. i know now why everything was so different. and now it's all over--and he has gone. how can i live, anne? when i turned back into the house this morning after he had gone the solitude struck me like a blow in the face." "it won't seem so hard by and by, dear," said anne, who always felt the pain of her friends so keenly that she could not speak easy, fluent words of comforting. besides, she remembered how well-meant speeches had hurt her in her own sorrow and was afraid. "oh, it seems to me it will grow harder all the time," said leslie miserably. "i've nothing to look forward to. morning will come after morning--and he will not come back--he will never come back. oh, when i think that i will never see him again i feel as if a great brutal hand had twisted itself among my heartstrings, and was wrenching them. once, long ago, i dreamed of love--and i thought it must be beautiful--and now--its like this. when he went away yesterday morning he was so cold and indifferent. he said 'good-bye, mrs. moore' in the coldest tone in the world--as if we had not even been friends--as if i meant absolutely nothing to him. i know i don't--i didn't want him to care--but he might have been a little kinder." "oh, i wish gilbert would come," thought anne. she was racked between her sympathy for leslie and the necessity of avoiding anything that would betray owen's confidence. she knew why his good-bye had been so cold--why it could not have the cordiality that their good-comradeship demanded--but she could not tell leslie. "i couldn't help it, anne--i couldn't help it," said poor leslie. "i know that." "do you blame me so very much?" "i don't blame you at all." "and you won't--you won't tell gilbert?" "leslie! do you think i would do such a thing?" "oh, i don't know--you and gilbert are such chums. i don't see how you could help telling him everything." "everything about my own concerns--yes. but not my friends' secrets." "i couldn't have him know. but i'm glad you know. i would feel guilty if there were anything i was ashamed to tell you. i hope miss cornelia won't find out. sometimes i feel as if those terrible, kind brown eyes of hers read my very soul. oh, i wish this mist would never lift--i wish i could just stay in it forever, hidden away from every living being. i don't see how i can go on with life. this summer has been so full. i never was lonely for a moment. before owen came there used to be horrible moments--when i had been with you and gilbert--and then had to leave you. you two would walk away together and i would walk away alone. after owen came he was always there to walk home with me--we would laugh and talk as you and gilbert were doing--there were no more lonely, envious moments for me. and now! oh, yes, i've been a fool. let's have done talking about my folly. i'll never bore you with it again." "here is gilbert, and you are coming back with us," said anne, who had no intention of leaving leslie to wander alone on the sand-bar on such a night and in such a mood. "there's plenty of room in our boat for three, and we'll tie the flat on behind." "oh, i suppose i must reconcile myself to being the odd one again," said poor leslie with another bitter laugh. "forgive me, anne--that was hateful. i ought to be thankful--and i am--that i have two good friends who are glad to count me in as a third. don't mind my hateful speeches. i just seem to be one great pain all over and everything hurts me." "leslie seemed very quiet tonight, didn't she?" said gilbert, when he and anne reached home. "what in the world was she doing over there on the bar alone?" "oh, she was tired--and you know she likes to go to the shore after one of dick's bad days." "what a pity she hadn't met and married a fellow like ford long ago," ruminated gilbert. "they'd have made an ideal couple, wouldn't they?" "for pity's sake, gilbert, don't develop into a match-maker. it's an abominable profession for a man," cried anne rather sharply, afraid that gilbert might blunder on the truth if he kept on in this strain. "bless us, anne-girl, i'm not matchmaking," protested gilbert, rather surprised at her tone. "i was only thinking of one of the might-have-beens." "well, don't. it's a waste of time," said anne. then she added suddenly: "oh, gilbert, i wish everybody could be as happy as we are." chapter 28 odds and ends "i've been reading obituary notices," said miss cornelia, laying down the daily enterprise and taking up her sewing. the harbor was lying black and sullen under a dour november sky; the wet, dead leaves clung drenched and sodden to the window sills; but the little house was gay with firelight and spring-like with anne's ferns and geraniums. "it's always summer here, anne," leslie had said one day; and all who were the guests of that house of dreams felt the same. "the enterprise seems to run to obituaries these days," quoth miss cornelia. "it always has a couple of columns of them, and i read every line. it's one of my forms of recreation, especially when there's some original poetry attached to them. here's a choice sample for you: she's gone to be with her maker, never more to roam. she used to play and sing with joy the song of home, sweet home. who says we haven't any poetical talent on the island! have you ever noticed what heaps of good people die, anne, dearie? it's kind of pitiful. here's ten obituaries, and every one of them saints and models, even the men. here's old peter stimson, who has 'left a large circle of friends to mourn his untimely loss.' lord, anne, dearie, that man was eighty, and everybody who knew him had been wishing him dead these thirty years. read obituaries when you're blue, anne, dearie--especially the ones of folks you know. if you've any sense of humor at all they'll cheer you up, believe me. i just wish _i_ had the writing of the obituaries of some people. isn't 'obituary' an awful ugly word? this very peter i've been speaking of had a face exactly like one. i never saw it but i thought of the word obituary then and there. there's only one uglier word that i know of, and that's relict. lord, anne, dearie, i may be an old maid, but there's this comfort in it--i'll never be any man's 'relict.'" "it is an ugly word," said anne, laughing. "avonlea graveyard was full of old tombstones 'sacred to the memory of so-and-so, relict of the late so-and-so.' it always made me think of something worn out and moth eaten. why is it that so many of the words connected with death are so disagreeable? i do wish that the custom of calling a dead body 'the remains' could be abolished. i positively shiver when i hear the undertaker say at a funeral, 'all who wish to see the remains please step this way.' it always gives me the horrible impression that i am about to view the scene of a cannibal feast." "well, all i hope," said miss cornelia calmly, "is that when i'm dead nobody will call me 'our departed sister.' i took a scunner at this sister-and-brothering business five years ago when there was a travelling evangelist holding meetings at the glen. i hadn't any use for him from the start. i felt in my bones that there was something wrong with him. and there was. mind you, he was pretending to be a presbyterian--presbytarian, he called it--and all the time he was a methodist. he brothered and sistered everybody. he had a large circle of relations, that man had. he clutched my hand fervently one night, and said imploringly, 'my dear sister bryant, are you a christian?' i just looked him over a bit, and then i said calmly, 'the only brother i ever had, mr. fiske, was buried fifteen years ago, and i haven't adopted any since. as for being a christian, i was that, i hope and believe, when you were crawling about the floor in petticoats.' that squelched him, believe me. mind you, anne dearie, i'm not down on all evangelists. we've had some real fine, earnest men, who did a lot of good and made the old sinners squirm. but this fiske-man wasn't one of them. i had a good laugh all to myself one evening. fiske had asked all who were christians to stand up. _i_ didn't, believe me! i never had any use for that sort of thing. but most of them did, and then he asked all who wanted to be christians to stand up. nobody stirred for a spell, so fiske started up a hymn at the top of his voice. just in front of me poor little ikey baker was sitting in the millison pew. he was a home boy, ten years old, and millison just about worked him to death. the poor little creature was always so tired he fell asleep right off whenever he went to church or anywhere he could sit still for a few minutes. he'd been sleeping all through the meeting, and i was thankful to see the poor child getting a rest, believe me. well, when fiske's voice went soaring skyward and the rest joined in, poor ikey wakened with a start. he thought it was just an ordinary singing and that everybody ought to stand up, so he scrambled to his feet mighty quick, knowing he'd get a combing down from maria millison for sleeping in meeting. fiske saw him, stopped and shouted, 'another soul saved! glory hallelujah!' and there was poor, frightened ikey, only half awake and yawning, never thinking about his soul at all. poor child, he never had time to think of anything but his tired, overworked little body. "leslie went one night and the fiske-man got right after her--oh, he was especially anxious about the souls of the nice-looking girls, believe me!--and he hurt her feelings so she never went again. and then he prayed every night after that, right in public, that the lord would soften her hard heart. finally i went to mr. leavitt, our minister then, and told him if he didn't make fiske stop that i'd just rise up the next night and throw my hymn book at him when he mentioned that 'beautiful but unrepentant young woman.' i'd have done it too, believe me. mr. leavitt did put a stop to it, but fiske kept on with his meetings until charley douglas put an end to his career in the glen. mrs. charley had been out in california all winter. she'd been real melancholy in the fall--religious melancholy--it ran in her family. her father worried so much over believing that he had committed the unpardonable sin that he died in the asylum. so when rose douglas got that way charley packed her off to visit her sister in los angeles. she got perfectly well and came home just when the fiske revival was in full swing. she stepped off the train at the glen, real smiling and chipper, and the first thing she saw staring her in the face on the black, gable-end of the freight shed, was the question, in big white letters, two feet high, 'whither goest thou--to heaven or hell?' that had been one of fiske's ideas, and he had got henry hammond to paint it. rose just gave a shriek and fainted; and when they got her home she was worse than ever. charley douglas went to mr. leavitt and told him that every douglas would leave the church if fiske was kept there any longer. mr. leavitt had to give in, for the douglases paid half his salary, so fiske departed, and we had to depend on our bibles once more for instructions on how to get to heaven. after he was gone mr. leavitt found out he was just a masquerading methodist, and he felt pretty sick, believe me. mr. leavitt fell short in some ways, but he was a good, sound presbyterian." "by the way, i had a letter from mr. ford yesterday," said anne. "he asked me to remember him kindly to you." "i don't want his remembrances," said miss cornelia, curtly. "why?" said anne, in astonishment. "i thought you liked him." "well, so i did, in a kind of way. but i'll never forgive him for what he done to leslie. there's that poor child eating her heart out about him--as if she hadn't had trouble enough--and him ranting round toronto, i've no doubt, enjoying himself same as ever. just like a man." "oh, miss cornelia, how did you find out?" "lord, anne, dearie, i've got eyes, haven't i? and i've known leslie since she was a baby. there's been a new kind of heartbreak in her eyes all the fall, and i know that writer-man was behind it somehow. i'll never forgive myself for being the means of bringing him here. but i never expected he'd be like he was. i thought he'd just be like the other men leslie had boarded--conceited young asses, every one of them, that she never had any use for. one of them did try to flirt with her once and she froze him out--so bad, i feel sure he's never got himself thawed since. so i never thought of any danger." "don't let leslie suspect you know her secret," said anne hurriedly. "i think it would hurt her." "trust me, anne, dearie. _i_ wasn't born yesterday. oh, a plague on all the men! one of them ruined leslie's life to begin with, and now another of the tribe comes and makes her still more wretched. anne, this world is an awful place, believe me." "there's something in the world amiss will be unriddled by and by," quoted anne dreamily. "if it is, it'll be in a world where there aren't any men," said miss cornelia gloomily. "what have the men been doing now?" asked gilbert, entering. "mischief--mischief! what else did they ever do?" "it was eve ate the apple, miss cornelia." "'twas a he-creature tempted her," retorted miss cornelia triumphantly. leslie, after her first anguish was over, found it possible to go on with life after all, as most of us do, no matter what our particular form of torment has been. it is even possible that she enjoyed moments of it, when she was one of the gay circle in the little house of dreams. but if anne ever hoped that she was forgetting owen ford she would have been undeceived by the furtive hunger in leslie's eyes whenever his name was mentioned. pitiful to that hunger, anne always contrived to tell captain jim or gilbert bits of news from owen's letters when leslie was with them. the girl's flush and pallor at such moments spoke all too eloquently of the emotion that filled her being. but she never spoke of him to anne, or mentioned that night on the sand-bar. one day her old dog died and she grieved bitterly over him. "he's been my friend so long," she said sorrowfully to anne. "he was dick's old dog, you know--dick had him for a year or so before we were married. he left him with me when he sailed on the four sisters. carlo got very fond of me--and his dog-love helped me through that first dreadful year after mother died, when i was alone. when i heard that dick was coming back i was afraid carlo wouldn't be so much mine. but he never seemed to care for dick, though he had been so fond of him once. he would snap and growl at him as if he were a stranger. i was glad. it was nice to have one thing whose love was all mine. that old dog has been such a comfort to me, anne. he got so feeble in the fall that i was afraid he couldn't live long--but i hoped i could nurse him through the winter. he seemed pretty well this morning. he was lying on the rug before the fire; then, all at once, he got up and crept over to me; he put his head on my lap and gave me one loving look out of his big, soft, dog eyes--and then he just shivered and died. i shall miss him so." "let me give you another dog, leslie," said anne. "i'm getting a lovely gordon setter for a christmas present for gilbert. let me give you one too." leslie shook her head. "not just now, thank you, anne. i don't feel like having another dog yet. i don't seem to have any affection left for another. perhaps--in time--i'll let you give me one. i really need one as a kind of protection. but there was something almost human about carlo--it wouldn't be decent to fill his place too hurriedly, dear old fellow." anne went to avonlea a week before christmas and stayed until after the holidays. gilbert came up for her, and there was a glad new year celebration at green gables, when barrys and blythes and wrights assembled to devour a dinner which had cost mrs. rachel and marilla much careful thought and preparation. when they went back to four winds the little house was almost drifted over, for the third storm of a winter that was to prove phenomenally stormy had whirled up the harbor and heaped huge snow mountains about everything it encountered. but captain jim had shovelled out doors and paths, and miss cornelia had come down and kindled the hearth-fire. "it's good to see you back, anne, dearie! but did you ever see such drifts? you can't see the moore place at all unless you go upstairs. leslie'll be so glad you're back. she's almost buried alive over there. fortunately dick can shovel snow, and thinks it's great fun. susan sent me word to tell you she would be on hand tomorrow. where are you off to now, captain?" "i reckon i'll plough up to the glen and sit a bit with old martin strong. he's not far from his end and he's lonesome. he hasn't many friends--been too busy all his life to make any. he's made heaps of money, though." "well, he thought that since he couldn't serve god and mammon he'd better stick to mammon," said miss cornelia crisply. "so he shouldn't complain if he doesn't find mammon very good company now." captain jim went out, but remembered something in the yard and turned back for a moment. "i'd a letter from mr. ford, mistress blythe, and he says the life-book is accepted and is going to be published next fall. i felt fair uplifted when i got the news. to think that i'm to see it in print at last." "that man is clean crazy on the subject of his life-book," said miss cornelia compassionately. "for my part, i think there's far too many books in the world now." chapter 29 gilbert and anne disagree gilbert laid down the ponderous medical tome over which he had been poring until the increasing dusk of the march evening made him desist. he leaned back in his chair and gazed meditatively out of the window. it was early spring--probably the ugliest time of the year. not even the sunset could redeem the dead, sodden landscape and rotten black harbor ice upon which he looked. no sign of life was visible, save a big black crow winging his solitary way across a leaden field. gilbert speculated idly concerning that crow. was he a family crow, with a black but comely crow wife awaiting him in the woods beyond the glen? or was he a glossy young buck of a crow on courting thoughts intent? or was he a cynical bachelor crow, believing that he travels the fastest who travels alone? whatever he was, he soon disappeared in congenial gloom and gilbert turned to the cheerier view indoors. the firelight flickered from point to point, gleaming on the white and green coats of gog and magog, on the sleek, brown head of the beautiful setter basking on the rug, on the picture frames on the walls, on the vaseful of daffodils from the window garden, on anne herself, sitting by her little table, with her sewing beside her and her hands clasped over her knee while she traced out pictures in the fire--castles in spain whose airy turrets pierced moonlit cloud and sunset bar-ships sailing from the haven of good hopes straight to four winds harbor with precious burthen. for anne was again a dreamer of dreams, albeit a grim shape of fear went with her night and day to shadow and darken her visions. gilbert was accustomed to refer to himself as "an old married man." but he still looked upon anne with the incredulous eyes of a lover. he couldn't wholly believe yet that she was really his. it might be only a dream after all, part and parcel of this magic house of dreams. his soul still went on tip-toe before her, lest the charm be shattered and the dream dispelled. "anne," he said slowly, "lend me your ears. i want to talk with you about something." anne looked across at him through the fire-lit gloom. "what is it?" she asked gaily. "you look fearfully solemn, gilbert. i really haven't done anything naughty today. ask susan." "it's not of you--or ourselves--i want to talk. it's about dick moore." "dick moore?" echoed anne, sitting up alertly. "why, what in the world have you to say about dick moore?" "i've been thinking a great deal about him lately. do you remember that time last summer i treated him for those carbuncles on his neck?" "yes--yes." "i took the opportunity to examine the scars on his head thoroughly. i've always thought dick was a very interesting case from a medical point of view. lately i've been studying the history of trephining and the cases where it has been employed. anne, i have come to the conclusion that if dick moore were taken to a good hospital and the operation of trephining performed on several places in his skull, his memory and faculties might be restored." "gilbert!" anne's voice was full of protest. "surely you don't mean it!" "i do, indeed. and i have decided that it is my duty to broach the subject to leslie." "gilbert blythe, you shall not do any such thing," cried anne vehemently. "oh, gilbert, you won't--you won't. you couldn't be so cruel. promise me you won't." "why, anne-girl, i didn't suppose you would take it like this. be reasonable--" "i won't be reasonable--i can't be reasonable--i am reasonable. it is you who are unreasonable. gilbert, have you ever once thought what it would mean for leslie if dick moore were to be restored to his right senses? just stop and think! she's unhappy enough now; but life as dick's nurse and attendant is a thousand times easier for her than life as dick's wife. i know--i know! it's unthinkable. don't you meddle with the matter. leave well enough alone." "i have thought over that aspect of the case thoroughly, anne. but i believe that a doctor is bound to set the sanctity of a patient's mind and body above all other considerations, no matter what the consequences may be. i believe it his duty to endeavor to restore health and sanity, if there is any hope whatever of it." "but dick isn't your patient in that respect," cried anne, taking another tack. "if leslie had asked you if anything could be done for him, then it might be your duty to tell her what you really thought. but you've no right to meddle." "i don't call it meddling. uncle dave told leslie twelve years ago that nothing could be done for dick. she believes that, of course." "and why did uncle dave tell her that, if it wasn't true?" cried anne, triumphantly. "doesn't he know as much about it as you?" "i think not--though it may sound conceited and presumptuous to say it. and you know as well as i that he is rather prejudiced against what he calls 'these new-fangled notions of cutting and carving.' he's even opposed to operating for appendicitis." "he's right," exclaimed anne, with a complete change of front. 'i believe myself that you modern doctors are entirely too fond of making experiments with human flesh and blood." "rhoda allonby would not be a living woman today if i had been afraid of making a certain experiment," argued gilbert. "i took the risk--and saved her life." "i'm sick and tired of hearing about rhoda allonby," cried anne--most unjustly, for gilbert had never mentioned mrs. allonby's name since the day he had told anne of his success in regard to her. and he could not be blamed for other people's discussion of it. gilbert felt rather hurt. "i had not expected you to look at the matter as you do, anne," he said a little stiffly, getting up and moving towards the office door. it was their first approach to a quarrel. but anne flew after him and dragged him back. "now, gilbert, you are not 'going off mad.' sit down here and i'll apologise bee-yew-ti-fully, i shouldn't have said that. but--oh, if you knew--" anne checked herself just in time. she had been on the very verge of betraying leslie's secret. "knew what a woman feels about it," she concluded lamely. "i think i do know. i've looked at the matter from every point of view--and i've been driven to the conclusion that it is my duty to tell leslie that i believe it is possible that dick can be restored to himself; there my responsibility ends. it will be for her to decide what she will do." "i don't think you've any right to put such a responsibility on her. she has enough to bear. she is poor--how could she afford such an operation?" "that is for her to decide," persisted gilbert stubbornly. "you say you think that dick can be cured. but are you sure of it?" "certainly not. nobody could be sure of such a thing. there may have been lesions of the brain itself, the effect of which can never be removed. but if, as i believe, his loss of memory and other faculties is due merely to the pressure on the brain centers of certain depressed areas of bone, then he can be cured." "but it's only a possibility!" insisted anne. "now, suppose you tell leslie and she decides to have the operation. it will cost a great deal. she will have to borrow the money, or sell her little property. and suppose the operation is a failure and dick remains the same. "how will she be able to pay back the money she borrows, or make a living for herself and that big helpless creature if she sells the farm?" "oh, i know--i know. but it is my duty to tell her. i can't get away from that conviction." "oh, i know the blythe stubbornness," groaned anne. "but don't do this solely on your own responsibility. consult doctor dave." "i have done so," said gilbert reluctantly. "and what did he say?" "in brief--as you say--leave well enough alone. apart from his prejudice against new-fangled surgery, i'm afraid he looks at the case from your point of view--don't do it, for leslie's sake." "there now," cried anne triumphantly. "i do think, gilbert, that you ought to abide by the judgment of a man nearly eighty, who has seen a great deal and saved scores of lives himself--surely his opinion ought to weigh more than a mere boy's." "thank you." "don't laugh. it's too serious." "that's just my point. it is serious. here is a man who is a helpless burden. he may be restored to reason and usefulness--" "he was so very useful before," interjected anne witheringly. "he may be given a chance to make good and redeem the past. his wife doesn't know this. i do. it is therefore my duty to tell her that there is such a possibility. that, boiled down, is my decision." "don't say 'decision' yet, gilbert. consult somebody else. ask captain jim what he thinks about it." "very well. but i'll not promise to abide by his opinion, anne. "this is something a man must decide for himself. my conscience would never be easy if i kept silent on the subject." "oh, your conscience!" moaned anne. "i suppose that uncle dave has a conscience too, hasn't he?" "yes. but i am not the keeper of his conscience. come, anne, if this affair did not concern leslie--if it were a purely abstract case, you would agree with me,--you know you would." "i wouldn't," vowed anne, trying to believe it herself. "oh, you can argue all night, gilbert, but you won't convince me. just you ask miss cornelia what she thinks of it." "you're driven to the last ditch, anne, when you bring up miss cornelia as a reinforcement. she will say, 'just like a man,' and rage furiously. no matter. this is no affair for miss cornelia to settle. leslie alone must decide it." "you know very well how she will decide it," said anne, almost in tears. "she has ideals of duty, too. i don't see how you can take such a responsibility on your shoulders. _i_ couldn't." "'because right is right to follow right were wisdom in the scorn of consequence,'" quoted gilbert. "oh, you think a couplet of poetry a convincing argument!" scoffed anne. "that is so like a man." and then she laughed in spite of herself. it sounded so like an echo of miss cornelia. "well, if you won't accept tennyson as an authority, perhaps you will believe the words of a greater than he," said gilbert seriously. "'ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.' i believe that, anne, with all my heart. it's the greatest and grandest verse in the bible--or in any literature--and the truest, if there are comparative degrees of trueness. and it's the first duty of a man to tell the truth, as he sees it and believes it." "in this case the truth won't make poor leslie free," sighed anne. "it will probably end in still more bitter bondage for her. oh, gilbert, i can't think you are right." chapter 30 leslie decides a sudden outbreak of a virulent type of influenza at the glen and down at the fishing village kept gilbert so busy for the next fortnight that he had no time to pay the promised visit to captain jim. anne hoped against hope that he had abandoned the idea about dick moore, and, resolving to let sleeping dogs lie, she said no more about the subject. but she thought of it incessantly. "i wonder if it would be right for me to tell him that leslie cares for owen," she thought. "he would never let her suspect that he knew, so her pride would not suffer, and it might convince him that he should let dick moore alone. shall i--shall i? no, after all, i cannot. a promise is sacred, and i've no right to betray leslie's secret. but oh, i never felt so worried over anything in my life as i do over this. it's spoiling the spring--it's spoiling everything." one evening gilbert abruptly proposed that they go down and see captain jim. with a sinking heart anne agreed, and they set forth. two weeks of kind sunshine had wrought a miracle in the bleak landscape over which gilbert's crow had flown. the hills and fields were dry and brown and warm, ready to break into bud and blossom; the harbor was laughter-shaken again; the long harbor road was like a gleaming red ribbon; down on the dunes a crowd of boys, who were out smelt fishing, were burning the thick, dry sandhill grass of the preceding summer. the flames swept over the dunes rosily, flinging their cardinal banners against the dark gulf beyond, and illuminating the channel and the fishing village. it was a picturesque scene which would at other times have delighted anne's eyes; but she was not enjoying this walk. neither was gilbert. their usual good-comradeship and josephian community of taste and viewpoint were sadly lacking. anne's disapproval of the whole project showed itself in the haughty uplift of her head and the studied politeness of her remarks. gilbert's mouth was set in all the blythe obstinacy, but his eyes were troubled. he meant to do what he believed to be his duty; but to be at outs with anne was a high price to pay. altogether, both were glad when they reached the light--and remorseful that they should be glad. captain jim put away the fishing net upon which he was working, and welcomed them joyfully. in the searching light of the spring evening he looked older than anne had ever seen him. his hair had grown much grayer, and the strong old hand shook a little. but his blue eyes were clear and steady, and the staunch soul looked out through them gallant and unafraid. captain jim listened in amazed silence while gilbert said what he had come to say. anne, who knew how the old man worshipped leslie, felt quite sure that he would side with her, although she had not much hope that this would influence gilbert. she was therefore surprised beyond measure when captain jim, slowly and sorrowfully, but unhesitatingly, gave it as his opinion that leslie should be told. "oh, captain jim, i didn't think you'd say that," she exclaimed reproachfully. "i thought you wouldn't want to make more trouble for her." captain jim shook his head. "i don't want to. i know how you feel about it, mistress blythe--just as i feel meself. but it ain't our feelings we have to steer by through life--no, no, we'd make shipwreck mighty often if we did that. there's only the one safe compass and we've got to set our course by that--what it's right to do. i agree with the doctor. if there's a chance for dick, leslie should be told of it. there's no two sides to that, in my opinion." "well," said anne, giving up in despair, "wait until miss cornelia gets after you two men." "cornelia'll rake us fore and aft, no doubt," assented captain jim. "you women are lovely critters, mistress blythe, but you're just a mite illogical. you're a highly eddicated lady and cornelia isn't, but you're like as two peas when it comes to that. i dunno's you're any the worse for it. logic is a sort of hard, merciless thing, i reckon. now, i'll brew a cup of tea and we'll drink it and talk of pleasant things, jest to calm our minds a bit." at least, captain jim's tea and conversation calmed anne's mind to such an extent that she did not make gilbert suffer so acutely on the way home as she had deliberately intended to do. she did not refer to the burning question at all, but she chatted amiably of other matters, and gilbert understood that he was forgiven under protest. "captain jim seems very frail and bent this spring. the winter has aged him," said anne sadly. "i am afraid that he will soon be going to seek lost margaret. i can't bear to think of it." "four winds won't be the same place when captain jim 'sets out to sea,'" agreed gilbert. the following evening he went to the house up the brook. anne wandered dismally around until his return. "well, what did leslie say?" she demanded when he came in. "very little. i think she felt rather dazed." "and is she going to have the operation?" "she is going to think it over and decide very soon." gilbert flung himself wearily into the easy chair before the fire. he looked tired. it had not been an easy thing for him to tell leslie. and the terror that had sprung into her eyes when the meaning of what he told her came home to her was not a pleasant thing to remember. now, when the die was cast, he was beset with doubts of his own wisdom. anne looked at him remorsefully; then she slipped down on the rug beside him and laid her glossy red head on his arm. "gilbert, i've been rather hateful over this. i won't be any more. please just call me red-headed and forgive me." by which gilbert understood that, no matter what came of it, there would be no i-told-you-so's. but he was not wholly comforted. duty in the abstract is one thing; duty in the concrete is quite another, especially when the doer is confronted by a woman's stricken eyes. some instinct made anne keep away from leslie for the next three days. on the third evening leslie came down to the little house and told gilbert that she had made up her mind; she would take dick to montreal and have the operation. she was very pale and seemed to have wrapped herself in her old mantle of aloofness. but her eyes had lost the look which had haunted gilbert; they were cold and bright; and she proceeded to discuss details with him in a crisp, business-like way. there were plans to be made and many things to be thought over. when leslie had got the information she wanted she went home. anne wanted to walk part of the way with her. "better not," said leslie curtly. "today's rain has made the ground damp. good-night." "have i lost my friend?" said anne with a sigh. "if the operation is successful and dick moore finds himself again leslie will retreat into some remote fastness of her soul where none of us can ever find her." "perhaps she will leave him," said gilbert. "leslie would never do that, gilbert. her sense of duty is very strong. she told me once that her grandmother west always impressed upon her the fact that when she assumed any responsibility she must never shirk it, no matter what the consequences might be. that is one of her cardinal rules. i suppose it's very old-fashioned." "don't be bitter, anne-girl. you know you don't think it old-fashioned--you know you have the very same idea of sacredness of assumed responsibilities yourself. and you are right. shirking responsibilities is the curse of our modern life--the secret of all the unrest and discontent that is seething in the world." "thus saith the preacher," mocked anne. but under the mockery she felt that he was right; and she was very sick at heart for leslie. a week later miss cornelia descended like an avalanche upon the little house. gilbert was away and anne was compelled to bear the shock of the impact alone. miss cornelia hardly waited to get her hat off before she began. "anne, do you mean to tell me it's true what i've heard--that dr. blythe has told leslie dick can be cured, and that she is going to take him to montreal to have him operated on?" "yes, it is quite true, miss cornelia," said anne bravely. "well, it's inhuman cruelty, that's what it is," said miss cornelia, violently agitated. "i did think dr. blythe was a decent man. i didn't think he could have been guilty of this." "dr. blythe thought it was his duty to tell leslie that there was a chance for dick," said anne with spirit, "and," she added, loyalty to gilbert getting the better of her, "i agree with him." "oh, no, you don't, dearie," said miss cornelia. "no person with any bowels of compassion could." "captain jim does." "don't quote that old ninny to me," cried miss cornelia. "and i don't care who agrees with him. think--think what it means to that poor hunted, harried girl." "we do think of it. but gilbert believes that a doctor should put the welfare of a patient's mind and body before all other considerations." "that's just like a man. but i expected better things of you, anne," said miss cornelia, more in sorrow than in wrath; then she proceeded to bombard anne with precisely the same arguments with which the latter had attacked gilbert; and anne valiantly defended her husband with the weapons he had used for his own protection. long was the fray, but miss cornelia made an end at last. "it's an iniquitous shame," she declared, almost in tears. "that's just what it is--an iniquitous shame. poor, poor leslie!" "don't you think dick should be considered a little too?" pleaded anne. "dick! dick moore! he's happy enough. he's a better behaved and more reputable member of society now than he ever was before. "why, he was a drunkard and perhaps worse. are you going to set him loose again to roar and to devour?" "he may reform," said poor anne, beset by foe without and traitor within. "reform your grandmother!" retorted miss cornelia. "dick moore got the injuries that left him as he is in a drunken brawl. he deserves his fate. it was sent on him for a punishment. i don't believe the doctor has any business to tamper with the visitations of god." "nobody knows how dick was hurt, miss cornelia. it may not have been in a drunken brawl at all. he may have been waylaid and robbed." "pigs may whistle, but they've poor mouths for it," said miss cornelia. "well, the gist of what you tell me is that the thing is settled and there's no use in talking. if that's so i'll hold my tongue. i don't propose to wear my teeth out gnawing files. when a thing has to be i give in to it. but i like to make mighty sure first that it has to be. now, i'll devote my energies to comforting and sustaining leslie. and after all," added miss cornelia, brightening up hopefully, "perhaps nothing can be done for dick." chapter 31 the truth makes free leslie, having once made up her mind what to do, proceeded to do it with characteristic resolution and speed. house-cleaning must be finished with first, whatever issues of life and death might await beyond. the gray house up the brook was put into flawless order and cleanliness, with miss cornelia's ready assistance. miss cornelia, having said her say to anne, and later on to gilbert and captain jim--sparing neither of them, let it be assured--never spoke of the matter to leslie. she accepted the fact of dick's operation, referred to it when necessary in a business-like way, and ignored it when it was not. leslie never attempted to discuss it. she was very cold and quiet during these beautiful spring days. she seldom visited anne, and though she was invariably courteous and friendly, that very courtesy was as an icy barrier between her and the people of the little house. the old jokes and laughter and chumminess of common things could not reach her over it. anne refused to feel hurt. she knew that leslie was in the grip of a hideous dread--a dread that wrapped her away from all little glimpses of happiness and hours of pleasure. when one great passion seizes possession of the soul all other feelings are crowded aside. never in all her life had leslie moore shuddered away from the future with more intolerable terror. but she went forward as unswervingly in the path she had elected as the martyrs of old walked their chosen way, knowing the end of it to be the fiery agony of the stake. the financial question was settled with greater ease than anne had feared. leslie borrowed the necessary money from captain jim, and, at her insistence, he took a mortgage on the little farm. "so that is one thing off the poor girl's mind," miss cornelia told anne, "and off mine too. now, if dick gets well enough to work again he'll be able to earn enough to pay the interest on it; and if he doesn't i know captain jim'll manage someway that leslie won't have to. he said as much to me. 'i'm getting old, cornelia,' he said, 'and i've no chick or child of my own. leslie won't take a gift from a living man, but mebbe she will from a dead one.' so it will be all right as far as that goes. i wish everything else might be settled as satisfactorily. as for that wretch of a dick, he's been awful these last few days. the devil was in him, believe me! leslie and i couldn't get on with our work for the tricks he'd play. he chased all her ducks one day around the yard till most of them died. and not one thing would he do for us. sometimes, you know, he'll make himself quite handy, bringing in pails of water and wood. but this week if we sent him to the well he'd try to climb down into it. i thought once, 'if you'd only shoot down there head-first everything would be nicely settled.'" "oh, miss cornelia!" "now, you needn't miss cornelia me, anne, dearie. anybody would have thought the same. if the montreal doctors can make a rational creature out of dick moore they're wonders." leslie took dick to montreal early in may. gilbert went with her, to help her, and make the necessary arrangements for her. he came home with the report that the montreal surgeon whom they had consulted agreed with him that there was a good chance of dick's restoration. "very comforting," was miss cornelia's sarcastic comment. anne only sighed. leslie had been very distant at their parting. but she had promised to write. ten days after gilbert's return the letter came. leslie wrote that the operation had been successfully performed and that dick was making a good recovery. "what does she mean by 'successfully?'" asked anne. "does she mean that dick's memory is really restored?" "not likely--since she says nothing of it," said gilbert. "she uses the word 'successfully' from the surgeon's point of view. the operation has been performed and followed by normal results. but it is too soon to know whether dick's faculties will be eventually restored, wholly or in part. his memory would not be likely to return to him all at once. the process will be gradual, if it occurs at all. is that all she says?" "yes--there's her letter. it's very short. poor girl, she must be under a terrible strain. gilbert blythe, there are heaps of things i long to say to you, only it would be mean." "miss cornelia says them for you," said gilbert with a rueful smile. "she combs me down every time i encounter her. she makes it plain to me that she regards me as little better than a murderer, and that she thinks it a great pity that dr. dave ever let me step into his shoes. she even told me that the methodist doctor over the harbor was to be preferred before me. with miss cornelia the force of condemnation can no further go." "if cornelia bryant was sick, it would not be doctor dave or the methodist doctor she would send for," sniffed susan. "she would have you out of your hard-earned bed in the middle of the night, doctor, dear, if she took a spell of misery, that she would. and then she would likely say your bill was past all reason. but do not mind her, doctor, dear. it takes all kinds of people to make a world." no further word came from leslie for some time. the may days crept away in a sweet succession and the shores of four winds harbor greened and bloomed and purpled. one day in late may gilbert came home to be met by susan in the stable yard. "i am afraid something has upset mrs. doctor, doctor, dear," she said mysteriously. "she got a letter this afternoon and since then she has just been walking round the garden and talking to herself. you know it is not good for her to be on her feet so much, doctor, dear. she did not see fit to tell me what her news was, and i am no pry, doctor, dear, and never was, but it is plain something has upset her. and it is not good for her to be upset." gilbert hurried rather anxiously to the garden. had anything happened at green gables? but anne, sitting on the rustic seat by the brook, did not look troubled, though she was certainly much excited. her eyes were their grayest, and scarlet spots burned on her cheeks. "what has happened, anne?" anne gave a queer little laugh. "i think you'll hardly believe it when i tell you, gilbert. _i_ can't believe it yet. as susan said the other day, 'i feel like a fly coming to live in the sun--dazed-like.' it's all so incredible. i've read the letter a score of times and every time it's just the same--i can't believe my own eyes. oh, gilbert, you were right--so right. i can see that clearly enough now--and i'm so ashamed of myself--and will you ever really forgive me?" "anne, i'll shake you if you don't grow coherent. redmond would be ashamed of you. what has happened?" "you won't believe it--you won't believe it--" "i'm going to phone for uncle dave," said gilbert, pretending to start for the house. "sit down, gilbert. i'll try to tell you. i've had a letter, and oh, gilbert, it's all so amazing--so incredibly amazing--we never thought--not one of us ever dreamed--" "i suppose," said gilbert, sitting down with a resigned air, "the only thing to do in a case of this kind is to have patience and go at the matter categorically. whom is your letter from?" "leslie--and, oh, gilbert--" "leslie! whew! what has she to say? what's the news about dick?" anne lifted the letter and held it out, calmly dramatic in a moment. "there is no dick! the man we have thought dick moore--whom everybody in four winds has believed for twelve years to be dick moore--is his cousin, george moore, of nova scotia, who, it seems, always resembled him very strikingly. dick moore died of yellow fever thirteen years ago in cuba." chapter 32 miss cornelia discusses the affair "and do you mean to tell me, anne, dearie, that dick moore has turned out not to be dick moore at all but somebody else? is that what you phoned up to me today?" "yes, miss cornelia. it is very amazing, isn't it?" "it's--it's--just like a man," said miss cornelia helplessly. she took off her hat with trembling fingers. for once in her life miss cornelia was undeniably staggered. "i can't seem to sense it, anne," she said. "i've heard you say it--and i believe you--but i can't take it in. dick moore is dead--has been dead all these years--and leslie is free?" "yes. the truth has made her free. gilbert was right when he said that verse was the grandest in the bible." "tell me everything, anne, dearie. since i got your phone i've been in a regular muddle, believe me. cornelia bryant was never so kerflummuxed before." "there isn't a very great deal to tell. leslie's letter was short. she didn't go into particulars. this man--george moore--has recovered his memory and knows who he is. he says dick took yellow fever in cuba, and the four sisters had to sail without him. george stayed behind to nurse him. but he died very shortly afterwards. "george did not write leslie because he intended to come right home and tell her himself." "and why didn't he?" "i suppose his accident must have intervened. gilbert says it is quite likely that george moore remembers nothing of his accident, or what led to it, and may never remember it. it probably happened very soon after dick's death. we may find out more particulars when leslie writes again." "does she say what she is going to do? when is she coming home?" "she says she will stay with george moore until he can leave the hospital. she has written to his people in nova scotia. it seems that george's only near relative is a married sister much older than himself. she was living when george sailed on the four sisters, but of course we do not know what may have happened since. did you ever see george moore, miss cornelia?" "i did. it is all coming back to me. he was here visiting his uncle abner eighteen years ago, when he and dick would be about seventeen. they were double cousins, you see. their fathers were brothers and their mothers were twin sisters, and they did look a terrible lot alike. of course," added miss cornelia scornfully, "it wasn't one of those freak resemblances you read of in novels where two people are so much alike that they can fill each other's places and their nearest and dearest can't tell between them. in those days you could tell easy enough which was george and which was dick, if you saw them together and near at hand. apart, or some distance away, it wasn't so easy. they played lots of tricks on people and thought it great fun, the two scamps. george moore was a little taller and a good deal fatter than dick--though neither of them was what you would call fat--they were both of the lean kind. dick had higher color than george, and his hair was a shade lighter. but their features were just alike, and they both had that queer freak of eyes--one blue and one hazel. they weren't much alike in any other way, though. george was a real nice fellow, though he was a scalawag for mischief, and some said he had a liking for a glass even then. but everybody liked him better than dick. he spent about a month here. leslie never saw him; she was only about eight or nine then and i remember now that she spent that whole winter over harbor with her grandmother west. captain jim was away, too--that was the winter he was wrecked on the magdalens. i don't suppose either he or leslie had ever heard about the nova scotia cousin looking so much like dick. nobody ever thought of him when captain jim brought dick--george, i should say--home. of course, we all thought dick had changed considerable--he'd got so lumpish and fat. but we put that down to what had happened to him, and no doubt that was the reason, for, as i've said, george wasn't fat to begin with either. and there was no other way we could have guessed, for the man's senses were clean gone. i can't see that it is any wonder we were all deceived. but it's a staggering thing. and leslie has sacrificed the best years of her life to nursing a man who hadn't any claim on her! oh, drat the men! no matter what they do, it's the wrong thing. and no matter who they are, it's somebody they shouldn't be. they do exasperate me." "gilbert and captain jim are men, and it is through them that the truth has been discovered at last," said anne. "well, i admit that," conceded miss cornelia reluctantly. "i'm sorry i raked the doctor off so. it's the first time in my life i've ever felt ashamed of anything i said to a man. i don't know as i shall tell him so, though. he'll just have to take it for granted. well, anne, dearie, it's a mercy the lord doesn't answer all our prayers. i've been praying hard right along that the operation wouldn't cure dick. of course i didn't put it just quite so plain. but that was what was in the back of my mind, and i have no doubt the lord knew it." "well, he has answered the spirit of your prayer. you really wished that things shouldn't be made any harder for leslie. i'm afraid that in my secret heart i've been hoping the operation wouldn't succeed, and i am wholesomely ashamed of it." "how does leslie seem to take it?" "she writes like one dazed. i think that, like ourselves, she hardly realises it yet. she says, 'it all seems like a strange dream to me, anne.' that is the only reference she makes to herself." "poor child! i suppose when the chains are struck off a prisoner he'd feel queer and lost without them for a while. anne, dearie, here's a thought keeps coming into my mind. what about owen ford? we both know leslie was fond of him. did it ever occur to you that he was fond of her?" "it--did--once," admitted anne, feeling that she might say so much. "well, i hadn't any reason to think he was, but it just appeared to me he must be. now, anne, dearie, the lord knows i'm not a match-maker, and i scorn all such doings. but if i were you and writing to that ford man i'd just mention, casual-like, what has happened. that is what _i_'d do." "of course i will mention it when i write him," said anne, a trifle distantly. somehow, this was a thing she could not discuss with miss cornelia. and yet, she had to admit that the same thought had been lurking in her mind ever since she had heard of leslie's freedom. but she would not desecrate it by free speech. "of course there is no great rush, dearie. but dick moore's been dead for thirteen years and leslie has wasted enough of her life for him. we'll just see what comes of it. as for this george moore, who's gone and come back to life when everyone thought he was dead and done for, just like a man, i'm real sorry for him. he won't seem to fit in anywhere." "he is still a young man, and if he recovers completely, as seems likely, he will be able to make a place for himself again. it must be very strange for him, poor fellow. i suppose all these years since his accident will not exist for him." chapter 33 leslie returns a fortnight later leslie moore came home alone to the old house where she had spent so many bitter years. in the june twilight she went over the fields to anne's, and appeared with ghost-like suddenness in the scented garden. "leslie!" cried anne in amazement. "where have you sprung from? we never knew you were coming. why didn't you write? we would have met you." "i couldn't write somehow, anne. it seemed so futile to try to say anything with pen and ink. and i wanted to get back quietly and unobserved." anne put her arms about leslie and kissed her. leslie returned the kiss warmly. she looked pale and tired, and she gave a little sigh as she dropped down on the grasses beside a great bed of daffodils that were gleaming through the pale, silvery twilight like golden stars. "and you have come home alone, leslie?" "yes. george moore's sister came to montreal and took him home with her. poor fellow, he was sorry to part with me--though i was a stranger to him when his memory first came back. he clung to me in those first hard days when he was trying to realise that dick's death was not the thing of yesterday that it seemed to him. it was all very hard for him. i helped him all i could. when his sister came it was easier for him, because it seemed to him only the other day that he had seen her last. fortunately she had not changed much, and that helped him, too." "it is all so strange and wonderful, leslie. i think we none of us realise it yet." "i cannot. when i went into the house over there an hour ago, i felt that it must be a dream--that dick must be there, with his childish smile, as he had been for so long. anne, i seem stunned yet. i'm not glad or sorry--or anything. i feel as if something had been torn suddenly out of my life and left a terrible hole. i feel as if i couldn't be _i_--as if i must have changed into somebody else and couldn't get used to it. it gives me a horrible lonely, dazed, helpless feeling. it's good to see you again--it seems as if you were a sort of anchor for my drifting soul. oh, anne, i dread it all--the gossip and wonderment and questioning. when i think of that, i wish that i need not have come home at all. dr. dave was at the station when i came off the train--he brought me home. poor old man, he feels very badly because he told me years ago that nothing could be done for dick. 'i honestly thought so, leslie,' he said to me today. 'but i should have told you not to depend on my opinion--i should have told you to go to a specialist. if i had, you would have been saved many bitter years, and poor george moore many wasted ones. i blame myself very much, leslie.' i told him not to do that--he had done what he thought right. he has always been so kind to me--i couldn't bear to see him worrying over it." "and dick--george, i mean? is his memory fully restored?" "practically. of course, there are a great many details he can't recall yet--but he remembers more and more every day. he went out for a walk on the evening after dick was buried. he had dick's money and watch on him; he meant to bring them home to me, along with my letter. he admits he went to a place where the sailors resorted--and he remembers drinking--and nothing else. anne, i shall never forget the moment he remembered his own name. i saw him looking at me with an intelligent but puzzled expression. i said, 'do you know me, dick?' he answered, 'i never saw you before. who are you? and my name is not dick. i am george moore, and dick died of yellow fever yesterday! where am i? what has happened to me?' i--i fainted, anne. and ever since i have felt as if i were in a dream." "you will soon adjust yourself to this new state of things, leslie. and you are young--life is before you--you will have many beautiful years yet." "perhaps i shall be able to look at it in that way after a while, anne. just now i feel too tired and indifferent to think about the future. i'm--i'm--anne, i'm lonely. i miss dick. isn't it all very strange? do you know, i was really fond of poor dick--george, i suppose i should say--just as i would have been fond of a helpless child who depended on me for everything. i would never have admitted it--i was really ashamed of it--because, you see, i had hated and despised dick so much before he went away. when i heard that captain jim was bringing him home i expected i would just feel the same to him. but i never did--although i continued to loathe him as i remembered him before. from the time he came home i felt only pity--a pity that hurt and wrung me. i supposed then that it was just because his accident had made him so helpless and changed. but now i believe it was because there was really a different personality there. carlo knew it, anne--i know now that carlo knew it. i always thought it strange that carlo shouldn't have known dick. dogs are usually so faithful. but he knew it was not his master who had come back, although none of the rest of us did. i had never seen george moore, you know. i remember now that dick once mentioned casually that he had a cousin in nova scotia who looked as much like him as a twin; but the thing had gone out of my memory, and in any case i would never have thought it of any importance. you see, it never occurred to me to question dick's identity. any change in him seemed to me just the result of the accident. "oh, anne, that night in april when gilbert told me he thought dick might be cured! i can never forget it. it seemed to me that i had once been a prisoner in a hideous cage of torture, and then the door had been opened and i could get out. i was still chained to the cage but i was not in it. and that night i felt that a merciless hand was drawing me back into the cage--back to a torture even more terrible than it had once been. i didn't blame gilbert. i felt he was right. and he had been very good--he said that if, in view of the expense and uncertainty of the operation, i should decide not to risk it, he would not blame me in the least. but i knew how i ought to decide--and i couldn't face it. all night i walked the floor like a mad woman, trying to compel myself to face it. i couldn't, anne--i thought i couldn't--and when morning broke i set my teeth and resolved that i wouldn't. i would let things remain as they were. it was very wicked, i know. it would have been just punishment for such wickedness if i had just been left to abide by that decision. i kept to it all day. that afternoon i had to go up to the glen to do some shopping. it was one of dick's quiet, drowsy days, so i left him alone. i was gone a little longer than i had expected, and he missed me. he felt lonely. and when i got home, he ran to meet me just like a child, with such a pleased smile on his face. somehow, anne, i just gave way then. that smile on his poor vacant face was more than i could endure. i felt as if i were denying a child the chance to grow and develop. i knew that i must give him his chance, no matter what the consequences might be. so i came over and told gilbert. oh, anne, you must have thought me hateful in those weeks before i went away. i didn't mean to be--but i couldn't think of anything except what i had to do, and everything and everybody about me were like shadows." "i know--i understood, leslie. and now it is all over--your chain is broken--there is no cage." "there is no cage," repeated leslie absently, plucking at the fringing grasses with her slender, brown hands. "but--it doesn't seem as if there were anything else, anne. you--you remember what i told you of my folly that night on the sand-bar? i find one doesn't get over being a fool very quickly. sometimes i think there are people who are fools forever. and to be a fool--of that kind--is almost as bad as being a--a dog on a chain." "you will feel very differently after you get over being tired and bewildered," said anne, who, knowing a certain thing that leslie did not know, did not feel herself called upon to waste overmuch sympathy. leslie laid her splendid golden head against anne's knee. "anyhow, i have you," she said. "life can't be altogether empty with such a friend. anne, pat my head--just as if i were a little girl--mother me a bit--and let me tell you while my stubborn tongue is loosed a little just what you and your comradeship have meant to me since that night i met you on the rock shore." chapter 34 the ship o'dreams comes to harbor one morning, when a windy golden sunrise was billowing over the gulf in waves of light, a certain weary stork flew over the bar of four winds harbor on his way from the land of evening stars. under his wing was tucked a sleepy, starry-eyed, little creature. the stork was tired, and he looked wistfully about him. he knew he was somewhere near his destination, but he could not yet see it. the big, white light-house on the red sandstone cliff had its good points; but no stork possessed of any gumption would leave a new, velvet baby there. an old gray house, surrounded by willows, in a blossomy brook valley, looked more promising, but did not seem quite the thing either. the staring green abode further on was manifestly out of the question. then the stork brightened up. he had caught sight of the very place--a little white house nestled against a big, whispering firwood, with a spiral of blue smoke winding up from its kitchen chimney--a house which just looked as if it were meant for babies. the stork gave a sigh of satisfaction, and softly alighted on the ridge-pole. half an hour later gilbert ran down the hall and tapped on the spare-room door. a drowsy voice answered him and in a moment marilla's pale, scared face peeped out from behind the door. "marilla, anne has sent me to tell you that a certain young gentleman has arrived here. he hasn't brought much luggage with him, but he evidently means to stay." "for pity's sake!" said marilla blankly. "you don't mean to tell me, gilbert, that it's all over. why wasn't i called?" "anne wouldn't let us disturb you when there was no need. nobody was called until about two hours ago. there was no 'passage perilous' this time." "and--and--gilbert--will this baby live?" "he certainly will. he weighs ten pounds and--why, listen to him. nothing wrong with his lungs, is there? the nurse says his hair will be red. anne is furious with her, and i'm tickled to death." that was a wonderful day in the little house of dreams. "the best dream of all has come true," said anne, pale and rapturous. "oh, marilla, i hardly dare believe it, after that horrible day last summer. i have had a heartache ever since then--but it is gone now." "this baby will take joy's place," said marilla. "oh, no, no, no, marilla. he can't--nothing can ever do that. he has his own place, my dear, wee man-child. but little joy has hers, and always will have it. if she had lived she would have been over a year old. she would have been toddling around on her tiny feet and lisping a few words. i can see her so plainly, marilla. oh, i know now that captain jim was right when he said god would manage better than that my baby would seem a stranger to me when i found her beyond. i've learned that this past year. i've followed her development day by day and week by week--i always shall. i shall know just how she grows from year to year--and when i meet her again i'll know her--she won't be a stranger. oh, marilla, look at his dear, darling toes! isn't it strange they should be so perfect?" "it would be stranger if they weren't," said marilla crisply. now that all was safely over, marilla was herself again. "oh, i know--but it seems as if they couldn't be quite finished, you know--and they are, even to the tiny nails. and his hands--just look at his hands, marilla." "they appear to be a good deal like hands," marilla conceded. "see how he clings to my finger. i'm sure he knows me already. he cries when the nurse takes him away. oh, marilla, do you think--you don't think, do you--that his hair is going to be red?" "i don't see much hair of any color," said marilla. "i wouldn't worry about it, if i were you, until it becomes visible." "marilla, he has hair--look at that fine little down all over his head. anyway, nurse says his eyes will be hazel and his forehead is exactly like gilbert's." "and he has the nicest little ears, mrs. doctor, dear," said susan. "the first thing i did was to look at his ears. hair is deceitful and noses and eyes change, and you cannot tell what is going to come of them, but ears is ears from start to finish, and you always know where you are with them. just look at their shape--and they are set right back against his precious head. you will never need to be ashamed of his ears, mrs. doctor, dear." anne's convalescence was rapid and happy. folks came and worshipped the baby, as people have bowed before the kingship of the new-born since long before the wise men of the east knelt in homage to the royal babe of the bethlehem manger. leslie, slowly finding herself amid the new conditions of her life, hovered over it, like a beautiful, golden-crowned madonna. miss cornelia nursed it as knackily as could any mother in israel. captain jim held the small creature in his big brown hands and gazed tenderly at it, with eyes that saw the children who had never been born to him. "what are you going to call him?" asked miss cornelia. "anne has settled his name," answered gilbert. "james matthew--after the two finest gentlemen i've ever known--not even saving your presence," said anne with a saucy glance at gilbert. gilbert smiled. "i never knew matthew very well; he was so shy we boys couldn't get acquainted with him--but i quite agree with you that captain jim is one of the rarest and finest souls god ever clothed in clay. he is so delighted over the fact that we have given his name to our small lad. it seems he has no other namesake." "well, james matthew is a name that will wear well and not fade in the washing," said miss cornelia. "i'm glad you didn't load him down with some highfalutin, romantic name that he'd be ashamed of when he gets to be a grandfather. mrs. william drew at the glen has called her baby bertie shakespeare. quite a combination, isn't it? and i'm glad you haven't had much trouble picking on a name. some folks have an awful time. when the stanley flaggs' first boy was born there was so much rivalry as to who the child should be named for that the poor little soul had to go for two years without a name. then a brother came along and there it was--'big baby' and 'little baby.' finally they called big baby peter and little baby isaac, after the two grandfathers, and had them both christened together. and each tried to see if it couldn't howl the other down. you know that highland scotch family of macnabs back of the glen? they've got twelve boys and the oldest and the youngest are both called neil--big neil and little neil in the same family. well, i s'pose they ran out of names." "i have read somewhere," laughed anne, "that the first child is a poem but the tenth is very prosy prose. perhaps mrs. macnab thought that the twelfth was merely an old tale re-told." "well, there's something to be said for large families," said miss cornelia, with a sigh. "i was an only child for eight years and i did long for a brother and sister. mother told me to pray for one--and pray i did, believe me. well, one day aunt nellie came to me and said, 'cornelia, there is a little brother for you upstairs in your ma's room. you can go up and see him.' i was so excited and delighted i just flew upstairs. and old mrs. flagg lifted up the baby for me to see. lord, anne, dearie, i never was so disappointed in my life. you see, i'd been praying for a brother two years older than myself." "how long did it take you to get over your disappointment?" asked anne, amid her laughter. "well, i had a spite at providence for a good spell, and for weeks i wouldn't even look at the baby. nobody knew why, for i never told. then he began to get real cute, and held out his wee hands to me and i began to get fond of him. but i didn't get really reconciled to him until one day a school chum came to see him and said she thought he was awful small for his age. i just got boiling mad, and i sailed right into her, and told her she didn't know a nice baby when she saw one, and ours was the nicest baby in the world. and after that i just worshipped him. mother died before he was three years old and i was sister and mother to him both. poor little lad, he was never strong, and he died when he wasn't much over twenty. seems to me i'd have given anything on earth, anne, dearie, if he'd only lived." miss cornelia sighed. gilbert had gone down and leslie, who had been crooning over the small james matthew in the dormer window, laid him asleep in his basket and went her way. as soon as she was safely out of earshot, miss cornelia bent forward and said in a conspirator's whisper: "anne, dearie, i'd a letter from owen ford yesterday. he's in vancouver just now, but he wants to know if i can board him for a month later on. you know what that means. well, i hope we're doing right." "we've nothing to do with it--we couldn't prevent him from coming to four winds if he wanted to," said anne quickly. she did not like the feeling of match-making miss cornelia's whispers gave her; and then she weakly succumbed herself. "don't let leslie know he is coming until he is here," she said. "if she found out i feel sure she would go away at once. she intends to go in the fall anyhow--she told me so the other day. she is going to montreal to take up nursing and make what she can of her life." "oh, well, anne, dearie," said miss cornelia, nodding sagely "that is all as it may be. you and i have done our part and we must leave the rest to higher hands." chapter 35 politics at four winds when anne came downstairs again, the island, as well as all canada, was in the throes of a campaign preceding a general election. gilbert, who was an ardent conservative, found himself caught in the vortex, being much in demand for speech-making at the various county rallies. miss cornelia did not approve of his mixing up in politics and told anne so. "dr. dave never did it. dr. blythe will find he is making a mistake, believe me. politics is something no decent man should meddle with." "is the government of the country to be left solely to the rogues then?" asked anne. "yes--so long as it's conservative rogues," said miss cornelia, marching off with the honors of war. "men and politicians are all tarred with the same brush. the grits have it laid on thicker than the conservatives, that's all--considerably thicker. but grit or tory, my advice to dr. blythe is to steer clear of politics. first thing you know, he'll be running an election himself, and going off to ottawa for half the year and leaving his practice to go to the dogs." "ah, well, let's not borrow trouble," said anne. "the rate of interest is too high. instead, let's look at little jem. it should be spelled with a g. isn't he perfectly beautiful? just see the dimples in his elbows. we'll bring him up to be a good conservative, you and i, miss cornelia." "bring him up to be a good man," said miss cornelia. "they're scarce and valuable; though, mind you, i wouldn't like to see him a grit. as for the election, you and i may be thankful we don't live over harbor. the air there is blue these days. every elliott and crawford and macallister is on the warpath, loaded for bear. this side is peaceful and calm, seeing there's so few men. captain jim's a grit, but it's my opinion he's ashamed of it, for he never talks politics. there isn't any earthly doubt that the conservatives will be returned with a big majority again." miss cornelia was mistaken. on the morning after the election captain jim dropped in at the little house to tell the news. so virulent is the microbe of party politics, even in a peaceable old man, that captain jim's cheeks were flushed and his eyes were flashing with all his old-time fire. "mistress blythe, the liberals are in with a sweeping majority. after eighteen years of tory mismanagement this down-trodden country is going to have a chance at last." "i never heard you make such a bitter partisan speech before, captain jim. i didn't think you had so much political venom in you," laughed anne, who was not much excited over the tidings. little jem had said "wow-ga" that morning. what were principalities and powers, the rise and fall of dynasties, the overthrow of grit or tory, compared with that miraculous occurrence? "it's been accumulating for a long while," said captain jim, with a deprecating smile. "i thought i was only a moderate grit, but when the news came that we were in i found out how gritty i really was." "you know the doctor and i are conservatives." "ah, well, it's the only bad thing i know of either of you, mistress blythe. cornelia is a tory, too. i called in on my way from the glen to tell her the news." "didn't you know you took your life in your hands?" "yes, but i couldn't resist the temptation." "how did she take it?" "comparatively calm, mistress blythe, comparatively calm. she says, says she, 'well, providence sends seasons of humiliation to a country, same as to individuals. you grits have been cold and hungry for many a year. make haste to get warmed and fed, for you won't be in long.' 'well, now cornelia,' i says, 'mebbe providence thinks canada needs a real long spell of humiliation.' ah, susan, have you heard the news? the liberals are in." susan had just come in from the kitchen, attended by the odor of delectable dishes which always seemed to hover around her. "now, are they?" she said, with beautiful unconcern. "well, i never could see but that my bread rose just as light when grits were in as when they were not. and if any party, mrs. doctor, dear, will make it rain before the week is out, and save our kitchen garden from entire ruination, that is the party susan will vote for. in the meantime, will you just step out and give me your opinion on the meat for dinner? i am fearing that it is very tough, and i think that we had better change our butcher as well as our government." one evening, a week later, anne walked down to the point, to see if she could get some fresh fish from captain jim, leaving little jem for the first time. it was quite a tragedy. suppose he cried? suppose susan did not know just exactly what to do for him? susan was calm and serene. "i have had as much experience with him as you, mrs. doctor, dear, have i not?" "yes, with him--but not with other babies. why, i looked after three pairs of twins, when i was a child, susan. when they cried, i gave them peppermint or castor oil quite coolly. it's quite curious now to recall how lightly i took all those babies and their woes." "oh, well, if little jem cries, i will just clap a hot water bag on his little stomach," said susan. "not too hot, you know," said anne anxiously. oh, was it really wise to go? "do not you fret, mrs. doctor, dear. susan is not the woman to burn a wee man. bless him, he has no notion of crying." anne tore herself away finally and enjoyed her walk to the point after all, through the long shadows of the sun-setting. captain jim was not in the living room of the lighthouse, but another man was--a handsome, middle-aged man, with a strong, clean-shaven chin, who was unknown to anne. nevertheless, when she sat down, he began to talk to her with all the assurance of an old acquaintance. there was nothing amiss in what he said or the way he said it, but anne rather resented such a cool taking-for-granted in a complete stranger. her replies were frosty, and as few as decency required. nothing daunted, her companion talked on for several minutes, then excused himself and went away. anne could have sworn there was a twinkle in his eye and it annoyed her. who was the creature? there was something vaguely familiar about him but she was certain she had never seen him before. "captain jim, who was that who just went out?" she asked, as captain jim came in. "marshall elliott," answered the captain. "marshall elliott!" cried anne. "oh, captain jim--it wasn't--yes, it was his voice--oh, captain jim, i didn't know him--and i was quite insulting to him! why didn't he tell me? he must have seen i didn't know him." "he wouldn't say a word about it--he'd just enjoy the joke. don't worry over snubbing him--he'll think it fun. yes, marshall's shaved off his beard at last and cut his hair. his party is in, you know. i didn't know him myself first time i saw him. he was up in carter flagg's store at the glen the night after election day, along with a crowd of others, waiting for the news. about twelve the 'phone came through--the liberals were in. marshall just got up and walked out--he didn't cheer or shout--he left the others to do that, and they nearly lifted the roof off carter's store, i reckon. of course, all the tories were over in raymond russell's store. not much cheering there. marshall went straight down the street to the side door of augustus palmer's barber shop. augustus was in bed asleep, but marhall hammered on the door until he got up and come down, wanting to know what all the racket was about. "come into your shop and do the best job you ever did in your life, gus,' said marshall. 'the liberals are in and you're going to barber a good grit before the sun rises.' "gus was mad as hops--partly because he'd been dragged out of bed, but more because he's a tory. he vowed he wouldn't shave any man after twelve at night. "'you'll do what i want you to do, sonny,' said marshall, 'or i'll jest turn you over my knee and give you one of those spankings your mother forgot.' "he'd have done it, too, and gus knew it, for marshall is as strong as an ox and gus is only a midget of a man. so he gave in and towed marshall in to the shop and went to work. 'now,' says he, 'i'll barber you up, but if you say one word to me about the grits getting in while i'm doing it i'll cut your throat with this razor,' says he. you wouldn't have thought mild little gus could be so bloodthirsty, would you? shows what party politics will do for a man. marshall kept quiet and got his hair and beard disposed of and went home. when his old housekeeper heard him come upstairs she peeked out of her bedroom door to see whether 'twas him or the hired boy. and when she saw a strange man striding down the hall with a candle in his hand she screamed blue murder and fainted dead away. they had to send for the doctor before they could bring her to, and it was several days before she could look at marshall without shaking all over." captain jim had no fish. he seldom went out in his boat that summer, and his long tramping expeditions were over. he spent a great deal of his time sitting by his seaward window, looking out over the gulf, with his swiftly-whitening head leaning on his hand. he sat there tonight for many silent minutes, keeping some tryst with the past which anne would not disturb. presently he pointed to the iris of the west: "that's beautiful, isn't, it, mistress blythe? but i wish you could have seen the sunrise this morning. it was a wonderful thing--wonderful. i've seen all kinds of sunrises come over that gulf. i've been all over the world, mistress blythe, and take it all in all, i've never seen a finer sight than a summer sunrise over the gulf. a man can't pick his time for dying, mistress blythe--jest got to go when the great captain gives his sailing orders. but if i could i'd go out when the morning comes across that water. i've watched it many a time and thought what a thing it would be to pass out through that great white glory to whatever was waiting beyant, on a sea that ain't mapped out on any airthly chart. i think, mistress blythe, that i'd find lost margaret there." captain jim had often talked to anne of lost margaret since he had told her the old story. his love for her trembled in every tone--that love that had never grown faint or forgetful. "anyway, i hope when my time comes i'll go quick and easy. i don't think i'm a coward, mistress blythe--i've looked an ugly death in the face more than once without blenching. but the thought of a lingering death does give me a queer, sick feeling of horror." "don't talk about leaving us, dear, dear captain, jim," pleaded anne, in a choked voice, patting the old brown hand, once so strong, but now grown very feeble. "what would we do without you?" captain jim smiled beautifully. "oh, you'd get along nicely--nicely--but you wouldn't forget the old man altogether, mistress blythe--no, i don't think you'll ever quite forget him. the race of joseph always remembers one another. but it'll be a memory that won't hurt--i like to think that my memory won't hurt my friends--it'll always be kind of pleasant to them, i hope and believe. it won't be very long now before lost margaret calls me, for the last time. i'll be all ready to answer. i jest spoke of this because there's a little favor i want to ask you. here's this poor old matey of mine"--captain jim reached out a hand and poked the big, warm, velvety, golden ball on the sofa. the first mate uncoiled himself like a spring with a nice, throaty, comfortable sound, half purr, half meow, stretched his paws in air, turned over and coiled himself up again. "he'll miss me when i start on the v'yage. i can't bear to think of leaving the poor critter to starve, like he was left before. if anything happens to me will you give matey a bite and a corner, mistress blythe?" "indeed i will." "then that is all i had on my mind. your little jem is to have the few curious things i picked up--i've seen to that. and now i don't like to see tears in those pretty eyes, mistress blythe. i'll mebbe hang on for quite a spell yet. i heard you reading a piece of poetry one day last winter--one of tennyson's pieces. i'd sorter like to hear it again, if you could recite it for me." softly and clearly, while the seawind blew in on them, anne repeated the beautiful lines of tennyson's wonderful swan song--"crossing the bar." the old captain kept time gently with his sinewy hand. "yes, yes, mistress blythe," he said, when she had finished, "that's it, that's it. he wasn't a sailor, you tell me--i dunno how he could have put an old sailor's feelings into words like that, if he wasn't one. he didn't want any 'sadness o' farewells' and neither do i, mistress blythe--for all will be well with me and mine beyant the bar." chapter 36 beauty for ashes "any news from green gables, anne?" "nothing very especial," replied anne, folding up marilla's letter. "jake donnell has been there shingling the roof. he is a full-fledged carpenter now, so it seems he has had his own way in regard to the choice of a life-work. you remember his mother wanted him to be a college professor. i shall never forget the day she came to the school and rated me for failing to call him st. clair." "does anyone ever call him that now?" "evidently not. it seems that he has completely lived it down. even his mother has succumbed. i always thought that a boy with jake's chin and mouth would get his own way in the end. diana writes me that dora has a beau. just think of it--that child!" "dora is seventeen," said gilbert. "charlie sloane and i were both mad about you when you were seventeen, anne." "really, gilbert, we must be getting on in years," said anne, with a half-rueful smile, "when children who were six when we thought ourselves grown up are old enough now to have beaux. dora's is ralph andrews--jane's brother. i remember him as a little, round, fat, white-headed fellow who was always at the foot of his class. but i understand he is quite a fine-looking young man now." "dora will probably marry young. she's of the same type as charlotta the fourth--she'll never miss her first chance for fear she might not get another." "well; if she marries ralph i hope he will be a little more up-and-coming than his brother billy," mused anne. "for instance," said gilbert, laughing, "let us hope he will be able to propose on his own account. anne, would you have married billy if he had asked you himself, instead of getting jane to do it for him?" "i might have." anne went off into a shriek of laughter over the recollection of her first proposal. "the shock of the whole thing might have hypnotized me into some such rash and foolish act. let us be thankful he did it by proxy." "i had a letter from george moore yesterday," said leslie, from the corner where she was reading. "oh, how is he?" asked anne interestedly, yet with an unreal feeling that she was inquiring about some one whom she did not know. "he is well, but he finds it very hard to adapt himself to all the changes in his old home and friends. he is going to sea again in the spring. it's in his blood, he says, and he longs for it. but he told me something that made me glad for him, poor fellow. before he sailed on the four sisters he was engaged to a girl at home. he did not tell me anything about her in montreal, because he said he supposed she would have forgotten him and married someone else long ago, and with him, you see, his engagement and love was still a thing of the present. it was pretty hard on him, but when he got home he found she had never married and still cared for him. they are to be married this fall. i'm going to ask him to bring her over here for a little trip; he says he wants to come and see the place where he lived so many years without knowing it." "what a nice little romance," said anne, whose love for the romantic was immortal. "and to think," she added with a sigh of self-reproach, "that if i had had my way george moore would never have come up from the grave in which his identity was buried. how i did fight against gilbert's suggestion! well, i am punished: i shall never be able to have a different opinion from gilbert's again! if i try to have, he will squelch me by casting george moore's case up to me!" "as if even that would squelch a woman!" mocked gilbert. "at least do not become my echo, anne. a little opposition gives spice to life. i do not want a wife like john macallister's over the harbor. no matter what he says, she at once remarks in that drab, lifeless little voice of hers, 'that is very true, john, dear me!'" anne and leslie laughed. anne's laughter was silver and leslie's golden, and the combination of the two was as satisfactory as a perfect chord in music. susan, coming in on the heels of the laughter, echoed it with a resounding sigh. "why, susan, what is the matter?" asked gilbert. "there's nothing wrong with little jem, is there, susan?" cried anne, starting up in alarm. "no, no, calm yourself, mrs. doctor, dear. something has happened, though. dear me, everything has gone catawampus with me this week. i spoiled the bread, as you know too well--and i scorched the doctor's best shirt bosom--and i broke your big platter. and now, on the top of all this, comes word that my sister matilda has broken her leg and wants me to go and stay with her for a spell." "oh, i'm very sorry--sorry that your sister has met with such an accident, i mean," exclaimed anne. "ah, well, man was made to mourn, mrs. doctor, dear. that sounds as if it ought to be in the bible, but they tell me a person named burns wrote it. and there is no doubt that we are born to trouble as the sparks fly upward. as for matilda, i do not know what to think of her. none of our family ever broke their legs before. but whatever she has done she is still my sister, and i feel that it is my duty to go and wait on her, if you can spare me for a few weeks, mrs. doctor, dear." "of course, susan, of course. i can get someone to help me while you are gone." "if you cannot i will not go, mrs. doctor, dear, matilda's leg to the contrary notwithstanding. i will not have you worried, and that blessed child upset in consequence, for any number of legs." "oh, you must go to your sister at once, susan. i can get a girl from the cove, who will do for a time." "anne, will you let me come and stay with you while susan is away?" exclaimed leslie. "do! i'd love to--and it would be an act of charity on your part. i'm so horribly lonely over there in that big barn of a house. there's so little to do--and at night i'm worse than lonely--i'm frightened and nervous in spite of locked doors. there was a tramp around two days ago." anne joyfully agreed, and next day leslie was installed as an inmate of the little house of dreams. miss cornelia warmly approved of the arrangement. "it seems providential," she told anne in confidence. "i'm sorry for matilda clow, but since she had to break her leg it couldn't have happened at a better time. leslie will be here while owen ford is in four winds, and those old cats up at the glen won't get the chance to meow, as they would if she was living over there alone and owen going to see her. they are doing enough of it as it is, because she doesn't put on mourning. i said to one of them, 'if you mean she should put on mourning for george moore, it seems to me more like his resurrection than his funeral; and if it's dick you mean, i confess _i_ can't see the propriety of going into weeds for a man who died thirteen years ago and good riddance then!' and when old louisa baldwin remarked to me that she thought it very strange that leslie should never have suspected it wasn't her own husband _i_ said, 'you never suspected it wasn't dick moore, and you were next-door neighbor to him all his life, and by nature you're ten times as suspicious as leslie.' but you can't stop some people's tongues, anne, dearie, and i'm real thankful leslie will be under your roof while owen is courting her." owen ford came to the little house one august evening when leslie and anne were absorbed in worshipping the baby. he paused at the open door of the living room, unseen by the two within, gazing with greedy eyes at the beautiful picture. leslie sat on the floor with the baby in her lap, making ecstatic dabs at his fat little hands as he fluttered them in the air. "oh, you dear, beautiful, beloved baby," she mumbled, catching one wee hand and covering it with kisses. "isn't him ze darlingest itty sing," crooned anne, hanging over the arm of her chair adoringly. "dem itty wee pads are ze very tweetest handies in ze whole big world, isn't dey, you darling itty man." anne, in the months before little jem's coming, had pored diligently over several wise volumes, and pinned her faith to one in especial, "sir oracle on the care and training of children." sir oracle implored parents by all they held sacred never to talk "baby talk" to their children. infants should invariably be addressed in classical language from the moment of their birth. so should they learn to speak english undefiled from their earliest utterance. "how," demanded sir oracle, "can a mother reasonably expect her child to learn correct speech, when she continually accustoms its impressionable gray matter to such absurd expressions and distortions of our noble tongue as thoughtless mothers inflict every day on the helpless creatures committed to their care? can a child who is constantly called 'tweet itty wee singie' ever attain to any proper conception of his own being and possibilities and destiny?" anne was vastly impressed with this, and informed gilbert that she meant to make it an inflexible rule never, under any circumstances, to talk "baby talk" to her children. gilbert agreed with her, and they made a solemn compact on the subject--a compact which anne shamelessly violated the very first moment little jem was laid in her arms. "oh, the darling itty wee sing!" she had exclaimed. and she had continued to violate it ever since. when gilbert teased her she laughed sir oracle to scorn. "he never had any children of his own, gilbert--i am positive he hadn't or he would never have written such rubbish. you just can't help talking baby talk to a baby. it comes natural--and it's right. it would be inhuman to talk to those tiny, soft, velvety little creatures as we do to great big boys and girls. babies want love and cuddling and all the sweet baby talk they can get, and little jem is going to have it, bless his dear itty heartums." "but you're the worst i ever heard, anne," protested gilbert, who, not being a mother but only a father, was not wholly convinced yet that sir oracle was wrong. "i never heard anything like the way you talk to that child." "very likely you never did. go away--go away. didn't i bring up three pairs of hammond twins before i was eleven? you and sir oracle are nothing but cold-blooded theorists. gilbert, just look at him! he's smiling at me--he knows what we're talking about. and oo dest agwees wif evy word muzzer says, don't oo, angel-lover?" gilbert put his arm about them. "oh you mothers!" he said. "you mothers! god knew what he was about when he made you." so little jem was talked to and loved and cuddled; and he throve as became a child of the house of dreams. leslie was quite as foolish over him as anne was. when their work was done and gilbert was out of the way, they gave themselves over to shameless orgies of love-making and ecstasies of adoration, such as that in which owen ford had surprised them. leslie was the first to become aware of him. even in the twilight anne could see the sudden whiteness that swept over her beautiful face, blotting out the crimson of lip and cheeks. owen came forward, eagerly, blind for a moment to anne. "leslie!" he said, holding out his hand. it was the first time he had ever called her by her name; but the hand leslie gave him was cold; and she was very quiet all the evening, while anne and gilbert and owen laughed and talked together. before his call ended she excused herself and went upstairs. owen's gay spirits flagged and he went away soon after with a downcast air. gilbert looked at anne. "anne, what are you up to? there's something going on that i don't understand. the whole air here tonight has been charged with electricity. leslie sits like the muse of tragedy; owen ford jokes and laughs on the surface, and watches leslie with the eyes of his soul. you seem all the time to be bursting with some suppressed excitement. own up. what secret have you been keeping from your deceived husband?" "don't be a goose, gilbert," was anne's conjugal reply. "as for leslie, she is absurd and i'm going up to tell her so." anne found leslie at the dormer window of her room. the little place was filled with the rhythmic thunder of the sea. leslie sat with locked hands in the misty moonshine--a beautiful, accusing presence. "anne," she said in a low, reproachful voice, "did you know owen ford was coming to four winds?" "i did," said anne brazenly. "oh, you should have told me, anne," leslie cried passionately. "if i had known i would have gone away--i wouldn't have stayed here to meet him. you should have told me. it wasn't fair of you, anne--oh, it wasn't fair!" leslie's lips were trembling and her whole form was tense with emotion. but anne laughed heartlessly. she bent over and kissed leslie's upturned reproachful face. "leslie, you are an adorable goose. owen ford didn't rush from the pacific to the atlantic from a burning desire to see me. neither do i believe that he was inspired by any wild and frenzied passion for miss cornelia. take off your tragic airs, my dear friend, and fold them up and put them away in lavender. you'll never need them again. there are some people who can see through a grindstone when there is a hole in it, even if you cannot. i am not a prophetess, but i shall venture on a prediction. the bitterness of life is over for you. after this you are going to have the joys and hopes--and i daresay the sorrows, too--of a happy woman. the omen of the shadow of venus did come true for you, leslie. the year in which you saw it brought your life's best gift for you--your love for owen ford. now, go right to bed and have a good sleep." leslie obeyed orders in so far that she went to bed: but it may be questioned if she slept much. i do not think she dared to dream wakingly; life had been so hard for this poor leslie, the path on which she had had to walk had been so strait, that she could not whisper to her own heart the hopes that might wait on the future. but she watched the great revolving light bestarring the short hours of the summer night, and her eyes grew soft and bright and young once more. nor, when owen ford came next day, to ask her to go with him to the shore, did she say him nay. chapter 37 miss cornelia makes a startling announcement miss cornelia sailed down to the little house one drowsy afternoon, when the gulf was the faint, bleached blue of the august seas, and the orange lilies at the gate of anne's garden held up their imperial cups to be filled with the molten gold of august sunshine. not that miss cornelia concerned herself with painted oceans or sun-thirsty lilies. she sat in her favorite rocker in unusual idleness. she sewed not, neither did she spin. nor did she say a single derogatory word concerning any portion of mankind. in short, miss cornelia's conversation was singularly devoid of spice that day, and gilbert, who had stayed home to listen to her, instead of going a-fishing, as he had intended, felt himself aggrieved. what had come over miss cornelia? she did not look cast down or worried. on the contrary, there was a certain air of nervous exultation about her. "where is leslie?" she asked--not as if it mattered much either. "owen and she went raspberrying in the woods back of her farm," answered anne. "they won't be back before supper time--if then." "they don't seem to have any idea that there is such a thing as a clock," said gilbert. "i can't get to the bottom of that affair. i'm certain you women pulled strings. but anne, undutiful wife, won't tell me. will you, miss cornelia?" "no, i shall not. but," said miss cornelia, with the air of one determined to take the plunge and have it over, "i will tell you something else. i came today on purpose to tell it. i am going to be married." anne and gilbert were silent. if miss cornelia had announced her intention of going out to the channel and drowning herself the thing might have been believable. this was not. so they waited. of course miss cornelia had made a mistake. "well, you both look sort of kerflummexed," said miss cornelia, with a twinkle in her eyes. now that the awkward moment of revelation was over, miss cornelia was her own woman again. "do you think i'm too young and inexperienced for matrimony?" "you know--it is rather staggering," said gilbert, trying to gather his wits together. "i've heard you say a score of times that you wouldn't marry the best man in the world." "i'm not going to marry the best man in the world," retorted miss cornelia. "marshall elliott is a long way from being the best." "are you going to marry marshall elliott?" exclaimed anne, recovering her power of speech under this second shock. "yes. i could have had him any time these twenty years if i'd lifted my finger. but do you suppose i was going to walk into church beside a perambulating haystack like that?" "i am sure we are very glad--and we wish you all possible happiness," said anne, very flatly and inadequately, as she felt. she was not prepared for such an occasion. she had never imagined herself offering betrothal felicitations to miss cornelia. "thanks, i knew you would," said miss cornelia. "you are the first of my friends to know it." "we shall be so sorry to lose you, though, dear miss cornelia," said anne, beginning to be a little sad and sentimental. "oh, you won't lose me," said miss cornelia unsentimentally. "you don't suppose i would live over harbor with all those macallisters and elliotts and crawfords, do you? 'from the conceit of the elliotts, the pride of the macallisters and the vain-glory of the crawfords, good lord deliver us.' marshall is coming to live at my place. i'm sick and tired of hired men. that jim hastings i've got this summer is positively the worst of the species. he would drive anyone to getting married. what do you think? he upset the churn yesterday and spilled a big churning of cream over the yard. and not one whit concerned about it was he! just gave a foolish laugh and said cream was good for the land. wasn't that like a man? i told him i wasn't in the habit of fertilising my back yard with cream." "well, i wish you all manner of happiness too, miss cornelia," said gilbert, solemnly; "but," he added, unable to resist the temptation to tease miss cornelia, despite anne's imploring eyes, "i fear your day of independence is done. as you know, marshall elliott is a very determined man." "i like a man who can stick to a thing," retorted miss cornelia. "amos grant, who used to be after me long ago, couldn't. you never saw such a weather-vane. he jumped into the pond to drown himself once and then changed his mind and swum out again. wasn't that like a man? marshall would have stuck to it and drowned." "and he has a bit of a temper, they tell me," persisted gilbert. "he wouldn't be an elliott if he hadn't. i'm thankful he has. it will be real fun to make him mad. and you can generally do something with a tempery man when it comes to repenting time. but you can't do anything with a man who just keeps placid and aggravating." "you know he's a grit, miss cornelia." "yes, he is," admitted miss cornelia rather sadly. "and of course there is no hope of making a conservative of him. but at least he is a presbyterian. so i suppose i shall have to be satisfied with that." "would you marry him if he were a methodist, miss cornelia?" "no, i would not. politics is for this world, but religion is for both." "and you may be a 'relict' after all, miss cornelia." "not i. marshall will live me out. the elliotts are long-lived, and the bryants are not." "when are you to be married?" asked anne. "in about a month's time. my wedding dress is to be navy blue silk. and i want to ask you, anne, dearie, if you think it would be all right to wear a veil with a navy blue dress. i've always thought i'd like to wear a veil if i ever got married. marshall says to have it if i want to. isn't that like a man?" "why shouldn't you wear it if you want to?" asked anne. "well, one doesn't want to be different from other people," said miss cornelia, who was not noticeably like anyone else on the face of the earth. "as i say, i do fancy a veil. but maybe it shouldn't be worn with any dress but a white one. please tell me, anne, dearie, what you really think. i'll go by your advice." "i don't think veils are usually worn with any but white dresses," admitted anne, "but that is merely a convention; and i am like mr. elliott, miss cornelia. i don't see any good reason why you shouldn't have a veil if you want one." but miss cornelia, who made her calls in calico wrappers, shook her head. "if it isn't the proper thing i won't wear it," she said, with a sigh of regret for a lost dream. "since you are determined to be married, miss cornelia," said gilbert solemnly, "i shall give you the excellent rules for the management of a husband which my grandmother gave my mother when she married my father." "well, i reckon i can manage marshall elliott," said miss cornelia placidly. "but let us hear your rules." "the first one is, catch him." "he's caught. go on." "the second one is, feed him well." "with enough pie. what next?" "the third and fourth are--keep your eye on him." "i believe you," said miss cornelia emphatically. chapter 38 red roses the garden of the little house was a haunt beloved of bees and reddened by late roses that august. the little house folk lived much in it, and were given to taking picnic suppers in the grassy corner beyond the brook and sitting about in it through the twilights when great night moths sailed athwart the velvet gloom. one evening owen ford found leslie alone in it. anne and gilbert were away, and susan, who was expected back that night, had not yet returned. the northern sky was amber and pale green over the fir tops. the air was cool, for august was nearing september, and leslie wore a crimson scarf over her white dress. together they wandered through the little, friendly, flower-crowded paths in silence. owen must go soon. his holiday was nearly over. leslie found her heart beating wildly. she knew that this beloved garden was to be the scene of the binding words that must seal their as yet unworded understanding. "some evenings a strange odor blows down the air of this garden, like a phantom perfume," said owen. "i have never been able to discover from just what flower it comes. it is elusive and haunting and wonderfully sweet. i like to fancy it is the soul of grandmother selwyn passing on a little visit to the old spot she loved so well. there should be a lot of friendly ghosts about this little old house." "i have lived under its roof only a month," said leslie, "but i love it as i never loved the house over there where i have lived all my life." "this house was builded and consecrated by love," said owen. "such houses, must exert an influence over those who live in them. and this garden--it is over sixty years old and the history of a thousand hopes and joys is written in its blossoms. some of those flowers were actually set out by the schoolmaster's bride, and she has been dead for thirty years. yet they bloom on every summer. look at those red roses, leslie--how they queen it over everything else!" "i love the red roses," said leslie. "anne likes the pink ones best, and gilbert likes the white. but i want the crimson ones. they satisfy some craving in me as no other flower does." "these roses are very late--they bloom after all the others have gone--and they hold all the warmth and soul of the summer come to fruition," said owen, plucking some of the glowing, half-opened buds. "the rose is the flower of love--the world has acclaimed it so for centuries. the pink roses are love hopeful and expectant--the white roses are love dead or forsaken--but the red roses--ah, leslie, what are the red roses?" "love triumphant," said leslie in a low voice. "yes--love triumphant and perfect. leslie, you know--you understand. i have loved you from the first. and i know you love me--i don't need to ask you. but i want to hear you say it--my darling--my darling!" leslie said something in a very low and tremulous voice. their hands and lips met; it was life's supreme moment for them and as they stood there in the old garden, with its many years of love and delight and sorrow and glory, he crowned her shining hair with the red, red rose of a love triumphant. anne and gilbert returned presently, accompanied by captain jim. anne lighted a few sticks of driftwood in the fireplace, for love of the pixy flames, and they sat around it for an hour of good fellowship. "when i sit looking at a driftwood fire it's easy to believe i'm young again," said captain jim. "can you read futures in the fire, captain jim?" asked owen. captain jim looked at them all affectionately and then back again at leslie's vivid face and glowing eyes. "i don't need the fire to read your futures," he said. "i see happiness for all of you--all of you--for leslie and mr. ford--and the doctor here and mistress blythe--and little jem--and children that ain't born yet but will be. happiness for you all--though, mind you, i reckon you'll have your troubles and worries and sorrows, too. they're bound to come--and no house, whether it's a palace or a little house of dreams, can bar 'em out. but they won't get the better of you if you face 'em together with love and trust. you can weather any storm with them two for compass and pilot." the old man rose suddenly and placed one hand on leslie's head and one on anne's. "two good, sweet women," he said. "true and faithful and to be depended on. your husbands will have honor in the gates because of you--your children will rise up and call you blessed in the years to come." there was a strange solemnity about the little scene. anne and leslie bowed as those receiving a benediction. gilbert suddenly brushed his hand over his eyes; owen ford was rapt as one who can see visions. all were silent for a space. the little house of dreams added another poignant and unforgettable moment to its store of memories. "i must be going now," said captain jim slowly at last. he took up his hat and looked lingeringly about the room. "good night, all of you," he said, as he went out. anne, pierced by the unusual wistfulness of his farewell, ran to the door after him. "come back soon, captain jim," she called, as he passed through the little gate hung between the firs. "ay, ay," he called cheerily back to her. but captain jim had sat by the old fireside of the house of dreams for the last time. anne went slowly back to the others. "it's so--so pitiful to think of him going all alone down to that lonely point," she said. "and there is no one to welcome him there." "captain jim is such good company for others that one can't imagine him being anything but good company for himself," said owen. "but he must often be lonely. there was a touch of the seer about him tonight--he spoke as one to whom it had been given to speak. well, i must be going, too." anne and gilbert discreetly melted away; but when owen had gone anne returned, to find leslie standing by the hearth. "oh, leslie--i know--and i'm so glad, dear," she said, putting her arms about her. "anne, my happiness frightens me," whispered leslie. "it seems too great to be real--i'm afraid to speak of it--to think of it. it seems to me that it must just be another dream of this house of dreams and it will vanish when i leave here." "well, you are not going to leave here--until owen takes you. you are going to stay with me until that times comes. do you think i'd let you go over to that lonely, sad place again?" "thank you, dear. i meant to ask you if i might stay with you. i didn't want to go back there--it would seem like going back into the chill and dreariness of the old life again. anne, anne, what a friend you've been to me--'a good, sweet woman--true and faithful and to be depended on'--captain jim summed you up." "he said 'women,' not 'woman,'" smiled anne. "perhaps captain jim sees us both through the rose-colored spectacles of his love for us. but we can try to live up to his belief in us, at least." "do you remember, anne," said leslie slowly, "that i once said--that night we met on the shore--that i hated my good looks? i did--then. it always seemed to me that if i had been homely dick would never have thought of me. i hated my beauty because it had attracted him, but now--oh, i'm glad that i have it. it's all i have to offer owen,--his artist soul delights in it. i feel as if i do not come to him quite empty-handed." "owen loves your beauty, leslie. who would not? but it's foolish of you to say or think that that is all you bring him. he will tell you that--i needn't. and now i must lock up. i expected susan back tonight, but she has not come." "oh, yes, here i am, mrs. doctor, dear," said susan, entering unexpectedly from the kitchen, "and puffing like a hen drawing rails at that! it's quite a walk from the glen down here." "i'm glad to see you back, susan. how is your sister?" "she is able to sit up, but of course she cannot walk yet. however, she is very well able to get on without me now, for her daughter has come home for her vacation. and i am thankful to be back, mrs. doctor, dear. matilda's leg was broken and no mistake, but her tongue was not. she would talk the legs off an iron pot, that she would, mrs. doctor, dear, though i grieve to say it of my own sister. she was always a great talker and yet she was the first of our family to get married. she really did not care much about marrying james clow, but she could not bear to disoblige him. not but what james is a good man--the only fault i have to find with him is that he always starts in to say grace with such an unearthly groan, mrs. doctor, dear. it always frightens my appetite clear away. and speaking of getting married, mrs. doctor, dear, is it true that cornelia bryant is going to be married to marshall elliott?" "yes, quite true, susan." "well, mrs. doctor, dear, it does not seem to me fair. here is me, who never said a word against the men, and i cannot get married nohow. and there is cornelia bryant, who is never done abusing them, and all she has to do is to reach out her hand and pick one up, as it were. it is a very strange world, mrs. doctor, dear." "there's another world, you know, susan." "yes," said susan with a heavy sigh, "but, mrs. doctor, dear, there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage there." chapter 39 captain jim crosses the bar one day in late september owen ford's book came at last. captain jim had gone faithfully to the glen post office every day for a month, expecting it. this day he had not gone, and leslie brought his copy home with hers and anne's. "we'll take it down to him this evening," said anne, excited as a schoolgirl. the long walk to the point on that clear, beguiling evening along the red harbor road was very pleasant. then the sun dropped down behind the western hills into some valley that must have been full of lost sunsets, and at the same instant the big light flashed out on the white tower of the point. "captain jim is never late by the fraction of a second," said leslie. neither anne nor leslie ever forgot captain jim's face when they gave him the book--his book, transfigured and glorified. the cheeks that had been blanched of late suddenly flamed with the color of boyhood; his eyes glowed with all the fire of youth; but his hands trembled as he opened it. it was called simply the life-book of captain jim, and on the title page the names of owen ford and james boyd were printed as collaborators. the frontispiece was a photograph of captain jim himself, standing at the door of the lighthouse, looking across the gulf. owen ford had "snapped" him one day while the book was being written. captain jim had known this, but he had not known that the picture was to be in the book. "just think of it," he said, "the old sailor right there in a real printed book. this is the proudest day of my life. i'm like to bust, girls. there'll be no sleep for me tonight. i'll read my book clean through before sun-up." "we'll go right away and leave you free to begin it," said anne. captain jim had been handling the book in a kind of reverent rapture. now he decidedly closed it and laid it aside. "no, no, you're not going away before you take a cup of tea with the old man," he protested. "i couldn't hear to that--could you, matey? the life-book will keep, i reckon. i've waited for it this many a year. i can wait a little longer while i'm enjoying my friends." captain jim moved about getting his kettle on to boil, and setting out his bread and butter. despite his excitement he did not move with his old briskness. his movements were slow and halting. but the girls did not offer to help him. they knew it would hurt his feelings. "you just picked the right evening to visit me," he said, producing a cake from his cupboard. "leetle joe's mother sent me down a big basket full of cakes and pies today. a blessing on all good cooks, says i. look at this purty cake, all frosting and nuts. 'tain't often i can entertain in such style. set in, girls, set in! we'll 'tak a cup o' kindness yet for auld lang syne.'" the girls "set in" right merrily. the tea was up to captain jim's best brewing. little joe's mother's cake was the last word in cakes; captain jim was the prince of gracious hosts, never even permitting his eyes to wander to the corner where the life-book lay, in all its bravery of green and gold. but when his door finally closed behind anne and leslie they knew that he went straight to it, and as they walked home they pictured the delight of the old man poring over the printed pages wherein his own life was portrayed with all the charm and color of reality itself. "i wonder how he will like the ending--the ending i suggested," said leslie. she was never to know. early the next morning anne awakened to find gilbert bending over her, fully dressed, and with an expression of anxiety on his face. "are you called out?" she asked drowsily. "no. anne, i'm afraid there's something wrong at the point. it's an hour after sunrise now, and the light is still burning. you know it has always been a matter of pride with captain jim to start the light the moment the sun sets, and put it out the moment it rises." anne sat up in dismay. through her window she saw the light blinking palely against the blue skies of dawn. "perhaps he has fallen asleep over his life-book," she said anxiously, "or become so absorbed in it that he has forgotten the light." gilbert shook his head. "that wouldn't be like captain jim. anyway, i'm going down to see." "wait a minute and i'll go with you," exclaimed anne. "oh, yes, i must--little jem will sleep for an hour yet, and i'll call susan. you may need a woman's help if captain jim is ill." it was an exquisite morning, full of tints and sounds at once ripe and delicate. the harbor was sparkling and dimpling like a girl; white gulls were soaring over the dunes; beyond the bar was a shining, wonderful sea. the long fields by the shore were dewy and fresh in that first fine, purely-tinted light. the wind came dancing and whistling up the channel to replace the beautiful silence with a music more beautiful still. had it not been for the baleful star on the white tower that early walk would have been a delight to anne and gilbert. but they went softly with fear. their knock was not responded to. gilbert opened the door and they went in. the old room was very quiet. on the table were the remnants of the little evening feast. the lamp still burned on the corner stand. the first mate was asleep in a square of sunshine by the sofa. captain jim lay on the sofa, with his hands clasped over the life-book, open at the last page, lying on his breast. his eyes were closed and on his face was a look of the most perfect peace and happiness--the look of one who has long sought and found at last. "he is asleep?" whispered anne tremulously. gilbert went to the sofa and bent over him for a few moments. then he straightened up. "yes, he sleeps--well," he added quietly. "anne, captain jim has crossed the bar." they could not know precisely at what hour he had died, but anne always believed that he had had his wish, and went out when the morning came across the gulf. out on that shining tide his spirit drifted, over the sunrise sea of pearl and silver, to the haven where lost margaret waited, beyond the storms and calms. chapter 40 farewell to the house of dreams captain jim was buried in the little over-harbor graveyard, very near to the spot where the wee white lady slept. his relatives put up a very expensive, very ugly "monument"--a monument at which he would have poked sly fun had he seen it in life. but his real monument was in the hearts of those who knew him, and in the book that was to live for generations. leslie mourned that captain jim had not lived to see the amazing success of it. "how he would have delighted in the reviews--they are almost all so kindly. and to have seen his life-book heading the lists of the best sellers--oh, if he could just have lived to see it, anne!" but anne, despite her grief, was wiser. "it was the book itself he cared for, leslie--not what might be said of it--and he had it. he had read it all through. that last night must have been one of the greatest happiness for him--with the quick, painless ending he had hoped for in the morning. i am glad for owen's sake and yours that the book is such a success--but captain jim was satisfied--i know." the lighthouse star still kept a nightly vigil; a substitute keeper had been sent to the point, until such time as an all-wise government could decide which of many applicants was best fitted for the place--or had the strongest pull. the first mate was at home in the little house, beloved by anne and gilbert and leslie, and tolerated by a susan who had small liking for cats. "i can put up with him for the sake of captain jim, mrs. doctor, dear, for i liked the old man. and i will see that he gets bite and sup, and every mouse the traps account for. but do not ask me to do more than that, mrs. doctor, dear. cats is cats, and take my word for it, they will never be anything else. and at least, mrs. doctor, dear, do keep him away from the blessed wee man. picture to yourself how awful it would be if he was to suck the darling's breath." "that might be fitly called a cat-astrophe," said gilbert. "oh, you may laugh, doctor, dear, but it would be no laughing matter." "cats never suck babies' breaths," said gilbert. "that is only an old superstition, susan." "oh, well, it may be a superstition or it may not, doctor, dear. all that i know is, it has happened. my sister's husband's nephew's wife's cat sucked their baby's breath, and the poor innocent was all but gone when they found it. and superstition or not, if i find that yellow beast lurking near our baby i will whack him with the poker, mrs. doctor, dear." mr. and mrs. marshall elliott were living comfortably and harmoniously in the green house. leslie was busy with sewing, for she and owen were to be married at christmas. anne wondered what she would do when leslie was gone. "changes come all the time. just as soon as things get really nice they change," she said with a sigh. "the old morgan place up at the glen is for sale," said gilbert, apropos of nothing in especial. "is it?" asked anne indifferently. "yes. now that mr. morgan has gone, mrs. morgan wants to go to live with her children in vancouver. she will sell cheaply, for a big place like that in a small village like the glen will not be very easy to dispose of." "well, it's certainly a beautiful place, so it is likely she will find a purchaser," said anne, absently, wondering whether she should hemstitch or feather-stitch little jem's "short" dresses. he was to be shortened the next week, and anne felt ready to cry at the thought of it. "suppose we buy it, anne?" remarked gilbert quietly. anne dropped her sewing and stared at him. "you're not in earnest, gilbert?" "indeed i am, dear." "and leave this darling spot--our house of dreams?" said anne incredulously. "oh, gilbert, it's--it's unthinkable!" "listen patiently to me, dear. i know just how you feel about it. i feel the same. but we've always known we would have to move some day." "oh, but not so soon, gilbert--not just yet." "we may never get such a chance again. if we don't buy the morgan place someone else will--and there is no other house in the glen we would care to have, and no other really good site on which to build. this little house is--well, it is and has been what no other house can ever be to us, i admit, but you know it is out-of-the-way down here for a doctor. we have felt the inconvenience, though we've made the best of it. and it's a tight fit for us now. perhaps, in a few years, when jem wants a room of his own, it will be entirely too small." "oh, i know--i know," said anne, tears filling her eyes. "i know all that can be said against it, but i love it so--and it's so beautiful here." "you would find it very lonely here after leslie goes--and captain jim has gone too. the morgan place is beautiful, and in time we would love it. you know you have always admired it, anne." "oh, yes, but--but--this has all seemed to come up so suddenly, gilbert. i'm dizzy. ten minutes ago i had no thought of leaving this dear spot. i was planning what i meant to do for it in the spring--what i meant to do in the garden. and if we leave this place who will get it? it is out-of-the-way, so it's likely some poor, shiftless, wandering family will rent it--and over-run it--and oh, that would be desecration. it would hurt me horribly." "i know. but we cannot sacrifice our own interests to such considerations, anne-girl. the morgan place will suit us in every essential particular--we really can't afford to miss such a chance. think of that big lawn with those magnificent old trees; and of that splendid hardwood grove behind it--twelve acres of it. what a play place for our children! there's a fine orchard, too, and you've always admired that high brick wall around the garden with the door in it--you've thought it was so like a story-book garden. and there is almost as fine a view of the harbor and the dunes from the morgan place as from here." "you can't see the lighthouse star from it." "yes, you can see it from the attic window. there's another advantage, anne-girl--you love big garrets." "there's no brook in the garden." "well, no, but there is one running through the maple grove into the glen pond. and the pond itself isn't far away. you'll be able to fancy you have your own lake of shining waters again." "well, don't say anything more about it just now, gilbert. give me time to think--to get used to the idea." "all right. there is no great hurry, of course. only--if we decide to buy, it would be well to be moved in and settled before winter." gilbert went out, and anne put away little jem's short dresses with trembling hands. she could not sew any more that day. with tear-wet eyes she wandered over the little domain where she had reigned so happy a queen. the morgan place was all that gilbert claimed. the grounds were beautiful, the house old enough to have dignity and repose and traditions, and new enough to be comfortable and up-to-date. anne had always admired it; but admiring is not loving; and she loved this house of dreams so much. she loved everything about it--the garden she had tended, and which so many women had tended before her--the gleam and sparkle of the little brook that crept so roguishly across the corner--the gate between the creaking fir trees--the old red sandstone step--the stately lombardies--the two tiny quaint glass cupboards over the chimney-piece in the living-room--the crooked pantry door in the kitchen--the two funny dormer windows upstairs--the little jog in the staircase--why, these things were a part of her! how could she leave them? and how this little house, consecrated aforetime by love and joy, had been re-consecrated for her by her happiness and sorrow! here she had spent her bridal moon; here wee joyce had lived her one brief day; here the sweetness of motherhood had come again with little jem; here she had heard the exquisite music of her baby's cooing laughter; here beloved friends had sat by her fireside. joy and grief, birth and death, had made sacred forever this little house of dreams. and now she must leave it. she knew that, even while she had contended against the idea to gilbert. the little house was outgrown. gilbert's interests made the change necessary; his work, successful though it had been, was hampered by his location. anne realised that the end of their life in this dear place drew nigh, and that she must face the fact bravely. but how her heart ached! "it will be just like tearing something out of my life," she sobbed. "and oh, if i could hope that some nice folk would come here in our place--or even that it would be left vacant. that itself would be better than having it overrun with some horde who know nothing of the geography of dreamland, and nothing of the history that has given this house its soul and its identity. and if such a tribe come here the place will go to rack and ruin in no time--an old place goes down so quickly if it is not carefully attended to. they'll tear up my garden--and let the lombardies get ragged--and the paling will come to look like a mouth with half the teeth missing--and the roof will leak--and the plaster fall--and they'll stuff pillows and rags in broken window panes--and everything will be out-at-elbows." anne's imagination pictured forth so vividly the coming degeneration of her dear little house that it hurt her as severely as if it had already been an accomplished fact. she sat down on the stairs and had a long, bitter cry. susan found her there and enquired with much concern what the trouble was. "you have not quarrelled with the doctor, have you now, mrs. doctor, dear? but if you have, do not worry. it is a thing quite likely to happen to married couples, i am told, although i have had no experience that way myself. he will be sorry, and you can soon make it up." "no, no, susan, we haven't quarrelled. it's only--gilbert is going to buy the morgan place, and we'll have to go and live at the glen. and it will break my heart." susan did not enter into anne's feelings at all. she was, indeed, quite rejoiced over the prospect of living at the glen. her one grievance against her place in the little house was its lonesome location. "why, mrs. doctor, dear, it will be splendid. the morgan house is such a fine, big one." "i hate big houses," sobbed anne. "oh, well, you will not hate them by the time you have half a dozen children," remarked susan calmly. "and this house is too small already for us. we have no spare room, since mrs. moore is here, and that pantry is the most aggravating place i ever tried to work in. there is a corner every way you turn. besides, it is out-of-the-world down here. there is really nothing at all but scenery." "out of your world perhaps, susan--but not out of mine," said anne with a faint smile. "i do not quite understand you, mrs. doctor, dear, but of course i am not well educated. but if dr. blythe buys the morgan place he will make no mistake, and that you may tie to. they have water in it, and the pantries and closets are beautiful, and there is not another such cellar in p. e. island, so i have been told. why, the cellar here, mrs. doctor, dear, has been a heart-break to me, as well you know." "oh, go away, susan, go away," said anne forlornly. "cellars and pantries and closets don't make a home. why don't you weep with those who weep?" "well, i never was much hand for weeping, mrs. doctor, dear. i would rather fall to and cheer people up than weep with them. now, do not you cry and spoil your pretty eyes. this house is very well and has served your turn, but it is high time you had a better." susan's point of view seemed to be that of most people. leslie was the only one who sympathised understandingly with anne. she had a good cry, too, when she heard the news. then they both dried their tears and went to work at the preparations for moving. "since we must go let us go as soon as we can and have it over," said poor anne with bitter resignation. "you know you will like that lovely old place at the glen after you have lived in it long enough to have dear memories woven about it," said leslie. "friends will come there, as they have come here--happiness will glorify it for you. now, it's just a house to you--but the years will make it a home." anne and leslie had another cry the next week when they shortened little jem. anne felt the tragedy of it until evening when in his long nightie she found her own dear baby again. "but it will be rompers next--and then trousers--and in no time he will be grown-up," she sighed. "well, you would not want him to stay a baby always, mrs. doctor, dear, would you?" said susan. "bless his innocent heart, he looks too sweet for anything in his little short dresses, with his dear feet sticking out. and think of the save in the ironing, mrs. doctor, dear." "anne, i have just had a letter from owen," said leslie, entering with a bright face. "and, oh! i have such good news. he writes me that he is going to buy this place from the church trustees and keep it to spend our summer vacations in. anne, are you not glad?" "oh, leslie, 'glad' isn't the word for it! it seems almost too good to be true. i sha'n't feel half so badly now that i know this dear spot will never be desecrated by a vandal tribe, or left to tumble down in decay. why, it's lovely! it's lovely!" one october morning anne wakened to the realisation that she had slept for the last time under the roof of her little house. the day was too busy to indulge regret and when evening came the house was stripped and bare. anne and gilbert were alone in it to say farewell. leslie and susan and little jem had gone to the glen with the last load of furniture. the sunset light streamed in through the curtainless windows. "it has all such a heart-broken, reproachful look, hasn't it?" said anne. "oh, i shall be so homesick at the glen tonight!" "we have been very happy here, haven't we, anne-girl?" said gilbert, his voice full of feeling. anne choked, unable to answer. gilbert waited for her at the fir-tree gate, while she went over the house and said farewell to every room. she was going away; but the old house would still be there, looking seaward through its quaint windows. the autumn winds would blow around it mournfully, and the gray rain would beat upon it and the white mists would come in from the sea to enfold it; and the moonlight would fall over it and light up the old paths where the schoolmaster and his bride had walked. there on that old harbor shore the charm of story would linger; the wind would still whistle alluringly over the silver sand-dunes; the waves would still call from the red rock-coves. "but we will be gone," said anne through her tears. she went out, closing and locking the door behind her. gilbert was waiting for her with a smile. the lighthouse star was gleaming northward. the little garden, where only marigolds still bloomed, was already hooding itself in shadows. anne knelt down and kissed the worn old step which she had crossed as a bride. "good-bye, dear little house of dreams," she said. rilla of ingleside by lucy maud montgomery contents i glen "notes" and other matters ii dew of morning iii moonlit mirth iv the piper pipes v "the sound of a going" vi susan, rilla, and dog monday make a resolution vii a war-baby and a soup tureen viii rilla decides ix doc has a misadventure x the troubles of rilla xi dark and bright xii in the days of langemarck xiii a slice of humble pie xiv the valley of decision xv until the day break xvi realism and romance xvii the weeks wear by xviii a war-wedding xix "they shall not pass" xx norman douglas speaks out in meeting xxi "love affairs are horrible" xxii little dog monday knows xxiii "and so, goodnight" xxiv mary is just in time xxv shirley goes xxvi susan has a proposal of marriage xxvii waiting xxviii black sunday xxix "wounded and missing" xxx the turning of the tide xxxi mrs. matilda pittman xxxii word from jem xxxiii victory! xxxiv mr. hyde goes to his own place and susan takes a honeymoon xxxv "rilla-my-rilla!" chapter i glen "notes" and other matters it was a warm, golden-cloudy, lovable afternoon. in the big living-room at ingleside susan baker sat down with a certain grim satisfaction hovering about her like an aura; it was four o'clock and susan, who had been working incessantly since six that morning, felt that she had fairly earned an hour of repose and gossip. susan just then was perfectly happy; everything had gone almost uncannily well in the kitchen that day. dr. jekyll had not been mr. hyde and so had not grated on her nerves; from where she sat she could see the pride of her heart--the bed of peonies of her own planting and culture, blooming as no other peony plot in glen st. mary ever did or could bloom, with peonies crimson, peonies silvery pink, peonies white as drifts of winter snow. susan had on a new black silk blouse, quite as elaborate as anything mrs. marshall elliott ever wore, and a white starched apron, trimmed with complicated crocheted lace fully five inches wide, not to mention insertion to match. therefore susan had all the comfortable consciousness of a well-dressed woman as she opened her copy of the daily enterprise and prepared to read the glen "notes" which, as miss cornelia had just informed her, filled half a column of it and mentioned almost everybody at ingleside. there was a big, black headline on the front page of the enterprise, stating that some archduke ferdinand or other had been assassinated at a place bearing the weird name of sarajevo, but susan tarried not over uninteresting, immaterial stuff like that; she was in quest of something really vital. oh, here it was--"jottings from glen st. mary." susan settled down keenly, reading each one over aloud to extract all possible gratification from it. mrs. blythe and her visitor, miss cornelia--alias mrs. marshall elliott--were chatting together near the open door that led to the veranda, through which a cool, delicious breeze was blowing, bringing whiffs of phantom perfume from the garden, and charming gay echoes from the vine-hung corner where rilla and miss oliver and walter were laughing and talking. wherever rilla blythe was, there was laughter. there was another occupant of the living-room, curled up on a couch, who must not be overlooked, since he was a creature of marked individuality, and, moreover, had the distinction of being the only living thing whom susan really hated. all cats are mysterious but dr. jekyll-and-mr. hyde--"doc" for short--was trebly so. he was a cat of double personality--or else, as susan vowed, he was possessed by the devil. to begin with, there had been something uncanny about the very dawn of his existence. four years previously rilla blythe had had a treasured darling of a kitten, white as snow, with a saucy black tip to its tail, which she called jack frost. susan disliked jack frost, though she could not or would not give any valid reason therefor. "take my word for it, mrs. dr. dear," she was wont to say ominously, "that cat will come to no good." "but why do you think so?" mrs. blythe would ask. "i do not think--i know," was all the answer susan would vouchsafe. with the rest of the ingleside folk jack frost was a favourite; he was so very clean and well groomed, and never allowed a spot or stain to be seen on his beautiful white suit; he had endearing ways of purring and snuggling; he was scrupulously honest. and then a domestic tragedy took place at ingleside. jack frost had kittens! it would be vain to try to picture susan's triumph. had she not always insisted that that cat would turn out to be a delusion and a snare? now they could see for themselves! rilla kept one of the kittens, a very pretty one, with peculiarly sleek glossy fur of a dark yellow crossed by orange stripes, and large, satiny, golden ears. she called it goldie and the name seemed appropriate enough to the little frolicsome creature which, during its kittenhood, gave no indication of the sinister nature it really possessed. susan, of course, warned the family that no good could be expected from any offspring of that diabolical jack frost; but susan's cassandra-like croakings were unheeded. the blythes had been so accustomed to regard jack frost as a member of the male sex that they could not get out of the habit. so they continually used the masculine pronoun, although the result was ludicrous. visitors used to be quite electrified when rilla referred casually to "jack and his kitten," or told goldie sternly, "go to your mother and get him to wash your fur." "it is not decent, mrs. dr. dear," poor susan would say bitterly. she herself compromised by always referring to jack as "it" or "the white beast," and one heart at least did not ache when "it" was accidentally poisoned the following winter. in a year's time "goldie" became so manifestly an inadequate name for the orange kitten that walter, who was just then reading stevenson's story, changed it to dr. jekyll-and-mr. hyde. in his dr. jekyll mood the cat was a drowsy, affectionate, domestic, cushion-loving puss, who liked petting and gloried in being nursed and patted. especially did he love to lie on his back and have his sleek, cream-coloured throat stroked gently while he purred in somnolent satisfaction. he was a notable purrer; never had there been an ingleside cat who purred so constantly and so ecstatically. "the only thing i envy a cat is its purr," remarked dr. blythe once, listening to doc's resonant melody. "it is the most contented sound in the world." doc was very handsome; his every movement was grace; his poses magnificent. when he folded his long, dusky-ringed tail about his feet and sat him down on the veranda to gaze steadily into space for long intervals the blythes felt that an egyptian sphinx could not have made a more fitting deity of the portal. when the mr. hyde mood came upon him--which it invariably did before rain, or wind--he was a wild thing with changed eyes. the transformation always came suddenly. he would spring fiercely from a reverie with a savage snarl and bite at any restraining or caressing hand. his fur seemed to grow darker and his eyes gleamed with a diabolical light. there was really an unearthly beauty about him. if the change happened in the twilight all the ingleside folk felt a certain terror of him. at such times he was a fearsome beast and only rilla defended him, asserting that he was "such a nice prowly cat." certainly he prowled. dr. jekyll loved new milk; mr. hyde would not touch milk and growled over his meat. dr. jekyll came down the stairs so silently that no one could hear him. mr. hyde made his tread as heavy as a man's. several evenings, when susan was alone in the house, he "scared her stiff," as she declared, by doing this. he would sit in the middle of the kitchen floor, with his terrible eyes fixed unwinkingly upon hers for an hour at a time. this played havoc with her nerves, but poor susan really held him in too much awe to try to drive him out. once she had dared to throw a stick at him and he had promptly made a savage leap towards her. susan rushed out of doors and never attempted to meddle with mr. hyde again--though she visited his misdeeds upon the innocent dr. jekyll, chasing him ignominiously out of her domain whenever he dared to poke his nose in and denying him certain savoury tidbits for which he yearned. "'the many friends of miss faith meredith, gerald meredith and james blythe,'" read susan, rolling the names like sweet morsels under her tongue, "'were very much pleased to welcome them home a few weeks ago from redmond college. james blythe, who was graduated in arts in 1913, had just completed his first year in medicine.'" "faith meredith has really got to be the most handsomest creature i ever saw," commented miss cornelia above her filet crochet. "it's amazing how those children came on after rosemary west went to the manse. people have almost forgotten what imps of mischief they were once. anne, dearie, will you ever forget the way they used to carry on? it's really surprising how well rosemary got on with them. she's more like a chum than a step-mother. they all love her and una adores her. as for that little bruce, una just makes a perfect slave of herself to him. of course, he is a darling. but did you ever see any child look as much like an aunt as he looks like his aunt ellen? he's just as dark and just as emphatic. i can't see a feature of rosemary in him. norman douglas always vows at the top of his voice that the stork meant bruce for him and ellen and took him to the manse by mistake." "bruce adores jem," said mrs blythe. "when he comes over here he follows jem about silently like a faithful little dog, looking up at him from under his black brows. he would do anything for jem, i verily believe." "are jem and faith going to make a match of it?" mrs. blythe smiled. it was well known that miss cornelia, who had been such a virulent man-hater at one time, had actually taken to match-making in her declining years. "they are only good friends yet, miss cornelia." "very good friends, believe me," said miss cornelia emphatically. "i hear all about the doings of the young fry." "i have no doubt that mary vance sees that you do, mrs. marshall elliott," said susan significantly, "but i think it is a shame to talk about children making matches." "children! jem is twenty-one and faith is nineteen," retorted miss cornelia. "you must not forget, susan, that we old folks are not the only grown-up people in the world." outraged susan, who detested any reference to her age--not from vanity but from a haunting dread that people might come to think her too old to work--returned to her "notes." "'carl meredith and shirley blythe came home last friday evening from queen's academy. we understand that carl will be in charge of the school at harbour head next year and we are sure he will be a popular and successful teacher.'" "he will teach the children all there is to know about bugs, anyhow," said miss cornelia. "he is through with queen's now and mr. meredith and rosemary wanted him to go right on to redmond in the fall, but carl has a very independent streak in him and means to earn part of his own way through college. he'll be all the better for it." "'walter blythe, who has been teaching for the past two years at lowbridge, has resigned,'" read susan. "'he intends going to redmond this fall.'" "is walter quite strong enough for redmond yet?" queried miss cornelia anxiously. "we hope that he will be by the fall," said mrs. blythe. "an idle summer in the open air and sunshine will do a great deal for him." "typhoid is a hard thing to get over," said miss cornelia emphatically, "especially when one has had such a close shave as walter had. i think he'd do well to stay out of college another year. but then he's so ambitious. are di and nan going too?" "yes. they both wanted to teach another year but gilbert thinks they had better go to redmond this fall." "i'm glad of that. they'll keep an eye on walter and see that he doesn't study too hard. i suppose," continued miss cornelia, with a side glance at susan, "that after the snub i got a few minutes ago it will not be safe for me to suggest that jerry meredith is making sheep's eyes at nan." susan ignored this and mrs. blythe laughed again. "dear miss cornelia, i have my hands full, haven't i?--with all these boys and girls sweethearting around me? if i took it seriously it would quite crush me. but i don't--it is too hard yet to realize that they're grown up. when i look at those two tall sons of mine i wonder if they can possibly be the fat, sweet, dimpled babies i kissed and cuddled and sang to slumber the other day--only the other day, miss cornelia. wasn't jem the dearest baby in the old house of dreams? and now he's a b.a. and accused of courting." "we're all growing older," sighed miss cornelia. "the only part of me that feels old," said mrs. blythe, "is the ankle i broke when josie pye dared me to walk the barry ridge-pole in the green gables days. i have an ache in it when the wind is east. i won't admit that it is rheumatism, but it does ache. as for the children, they and the merediths are planning a gay summer before they have to go back to studies in the fall. they are such a fun-loving little crowd. they keep this house in a perpetual whirl of merriment." "is rilla going to queen's when shirley goes back?" "it isn't decided yet. i rather fancy not. her father thinks she is not quite strong enough--she has rather outgrown her strength--she's really absurdly tall for a girl not yet fifteen. i am not anxious to have her go--why, it would be terrible not to have a single one of my babies home with me next winter. susan and i would fall to fighting with each other to break the monotony." susan smiled at this pleasantry. the idea of her fighting with "mrs. dr. dear!" "does rilla herself want to go?" asked miss cornelia. "no. the truth is, rilla is the only one of my flock who isn't ambitious. i really wish she had a little more ambition. she has no serious ideals at all--her sole aspiration seems to be to have a good time." "and why should she not have it, mrs. dr. dear?" cried susan, who could not bear to hear a single word against anyone of the ingleside folk, even from one of themselves. "a young girl should have a good time, and that i will maintain. there will be time enough for her to think of latin and greek." "i should like to see a little sense of responsibility in her, susan. and you know yourself that she is abominably vain." "she has something to be vain about," retorted susan. "she is the prettiest girl in glen st. mary. do you think that all those over-harbour macallisters and crawfords and elliotts could scare up a skin like rilla's in four generations? they could not. no, mrs. dr. dear, i know my place but i cannot allow you to run down rilla. listen to this, mrs. marshall elliott." susan had found a chance to get square with miss cornelia for her digs at the children's love affairs. she read the item with gusto. "'miller douglas has decided not to go west. he says old p.e.i. is good enough for him and he will continue to farm for his aunt, mrs. alec davis.'" susan looked keenly at miss cornelia. "i have heard, mrs. marshall elliott, that miller is courting mary vance." this shot pierced miss cornelia's armour. her sonsy face flushed. "i won't have miller douglas hanging round mary," she said crisply. "he comes of a low family. his father was a sort of outcast from the douglases--they never really counted him in--and his mother was one of those terrible dillons from the harbour head." "i think i have heard, mrs. marshall elliott, that mary vance's own parents were not what you could call aristocratic." "mary vance has had a good bringing up and she is a smart, clever, capable girl," retorted miss cornelia. "she is not going to throw herself away on miller douglas, believe me! she knows my opinion on the matter and mary has never disobeyed me yet." "well, i do not think you need worry, mrs. marshall elliott, for mrs. alec davis is as much against it as you could be, and says no nephew of hers is ever going to marry a nameless nobody like mary vance." susan returned to her mutton, feeling that she had got the best of it in this passage of arms, and read another "note." "'we are pleased to hear that miss oliver has been engaged as teacher for another year. miss oliver will spend her well-earned vacation at her home in lowbridge.'" "i'm so glad gertrude is going to stay," said mrs. blythe. "we would miss her horribly. and she has an excellent influence over rilla who worships her. they are chums, in spite of the difference in their ages." "i thought i heard she was going to be married?" "i believe it was talked of but i understand it is postponed for a year." "who is the young man?" "robert grant. he is a young lawyer in charlottetown. i hope gertrude will be happy. she has had a sad life, with much bitterness in it, and she feels things with a terrible keenness. her first youth is gone and she is practically alone in the world. this new love that has come into her life seems such a wonderful thing to her that i think she hardly dares believe in its permanence. when her marriage had to be put off she was quite in despair--though it certainly wasn't mr. grant's fault. there were complications in the settlement of his father's estate--his father died last winter--and he could not marry till the tangles were unravelled. but i think gertrude felt it was a bad omen and that her happiness would somehow elude her yet." "it does not do, mrs. dr. dear, to set your affections too much on a man," remarked susan solemnly. "mr. grant is quite as much in love with gertrude as she is with him, susan. it is not he whom she distrusts--it is fate. she has a little mystic streak in her--i suppose some people would call her superstitious. she has an odd belief in dreams and we have not been able to laugh it out of her. i must own, too, that some of her dreams--but there, it would not do to let gilbert hear me hinting such heresy. what have you found of much interest, susan?" susan had given an exclamation. "listen to this, mrs. dr. dear. 'mrs. sophia crawford has given up her house at lowbridge and will make her home in future with her niece, mrs. albert crawford.' why that is my own cousin sophia, mrs. dr. dear. we quarrelled when we were children over who should get a sunday-school card with the words 'god is love,' wreathed in rosebuds, on it, and have never spoken to each other since. and now she is coming to live right across the road from us." "you will have to make up the old quarrel, susan. it will never do to be at outs with your neighbours." "cousin sophia began the quarrel, so she can begin the making up also, mrs. dr. dear," said susan loftily. "if she does i hope i am a good enough christian to meet her half-way. she is not a cheerful person and has been a wet blanket all her life. the last time i saw her, her face had a thousand wrinkles--maybe more, maybe less--from worrying and foreboding. she howled dreadful at her first husband's funeral but she married again in less than a year. the next note, i see, describes the special service in our church last sunday night and says the decorations were very beautiful." "speaking of that reminds me that mr. pryor strongly disapproves of flowers in church," said miss cornelia. "i always said there would be trouble when that man moved here from lowbridge. he should never have been put in as elder--it was a mistake and we shall live to rue it, believe me! i have heard that he has said that if the girls continue to 'mess up the pulpit with weeds' that he will not go to church." "the church got on very well before old whiskers-on-the-moon came to the glen and it is my opinion it will get on without him after he is gone," said susan. "who in the world ever gave him that ridiculous nickname?" asked mrs. blythe. "why, the lowbridge boys have called him that ever since i can remember, mrs. dr. dear--i suppose because his face is so round and red, with that fringe of sandy whisker about it. it does not do for anyone to call him that in his hearing, though, and that you may tie to. but worse than his whiskers, mrs. dr. dear, he is a very unreasonable man and has a great many queer ideas. he is an elder now and they say he is very religious; but i can well remember the time, mrs. dr. dear, twenty years ago, when he was caught pasturing his cow in the lowbridge graveyard. yes, indeed, i have not forgotten that, and i always think of it when he is praying in meeting. well, that is all the notes and there is not much else in the paper of any importance. i never take much interest in foreign parts. who is this archduke man who has been murdered?" "what does it matter to us?" asked miss cornelia, unaware of the hideous answer to her question which destiny was even then preparing. "somebody is always murdering or being murdered in those balkan states. it's their normal condition and i don't really think that our papers ought to print such shocking things. the enterprise is getting far too sensational with its big headlines. well, i must be getting home. no, anne dearie, it's no use asking me to stay to supper. marshall has got to thinking that if i'm not home for a meal it's not worth eating--just like a man. so off i go. merciful goodness, anne dearie, what is the matter with that cat? is he having a fit?"--this, as doc suddenly bounded to the rug at miss cornelia's feet, laid back his ears, swore at her, and then disappeared with one fierce leap through the window. "oh, no. he's merely turning into mr. hyde--which means that we shall have rain or high wind before morning. doc is as good as a barometer." "well, i am thankful he has gone on the rampage outside this time and not into my kitchen," said susan. "and i am going out to see about supper. with such a crowd as we have at ingleside now it behooves us to think about our meals betimes." chapter ii dew of morning outside, the ingleside lawn was full of golden pools of sunshine and plots of alluring shadows. rilla blythe was swinging in the hammock under the big scotch pine, gertrude oliver sat at its roots beside her, and walter was stretched at full length on the grass, lost in a romance of chivalry wherein old heroes and beauties of dead and gone centuries lived vividly again for him. rilla was the "baby" of the blythe family and was in a chronic state of secret indignation because nobody believed she was grown up. she was so nearly fifteen that she called herself that, and she was quite as tall as di and nan; also, she was nearly as pretty as susan believed her to be. she had great, dreamy, hazel eyes, a milky skin dappled with little golden freckles, and delicately arched eyebrows, giving her a demure, questioning look which made people, especially lads in their teens, want to answer it. her hair was ripely, ruddily brown and a little dent in her upper lip looked as if some good fairy had pressed it in with her finger at rilla's christening. rilla, whose best friends could not deny her share of vanity, thought her face would do very well, but worried over her figure, and wished her mother could be prevailed upon to let her wear longer dresses. she, who had been so plump and roly-poly in the old rainbow valley days, was incredibly slim now, in the arms-and-legs period. jem and shirley harrowed her soul by calling her "spider." yet she somehow escaped awkwardness. there was something in her movements that made you think she never walked but always danced. she had been much petted and was a wee bit spoiled, but still the general opinion was that rilla blythe was a very sweet girl, even if she were not so clever as nan and di. miss oliver, who was going home that night for vacation, had boarded for a year at ingleside. the blythes had taken her to please rilla who was fathoms deep in love with her teacher and was even willing to share her room, since no other was available. gertrude oliver was twenty-eight and life had been a struggle for her. she was a striking-looking girl, with rather sad, almond-shaped brown eyes, a clever, rather mocking mouth, and enormous masses of black hair twisted about her head. she was not pretty but there was a certain charm of interest and mystery in her face, and rilla found her fascinating. even her occasional moods of gloom and cynicism had allurement for rilla. these moods came only when miss oliver was tired. at all other times she was a stimulating companion, and the gay set at ingleside never remembered that she was so much older than themselves. walter and rilla were her favourites and she was the confidante of the secret wishes and aspirations of both. she knew that rilla longed to be "out"--to go to parties as nan and di did, and to have dainty evening dresses and--yes, there is no mincing matters--beaux! in the plural, at that! as for walter, miss oliver knew that he had written a sequence of sonnets "to rosamond"--i.e., faith meredith--and that he aimed at a professorship of english literature in some big college. she knew his passionate love of beauty and his equally passionate hatred of ugliness; she knew his strength and his weakness. walter was, as ever, the handsomest of the ingleside boys. miss oliver found pleasure in looking at him for his good looks--he was so exactly like what she would have liked her own son to be. glossy black hair, brilliant dark grey eyes, faultless features. and a poet to his fingertips! that sonnet sequence was really a remarkable thing for a lad of twenty to write. miss oliver was no partial critic and she knew that walter blythe had a wonderful gift. rilla loved walter with all her heart. he never teased her as jem and shirley did. he never called her "spider." his pet name for her was "rilla-my-rilla"--a little pun on her real name, marilla. she had been named after aunt marilla of green gables, but aunt marilla had died before rilla was old enough to know her very well, and rilla detested the name as being horribly old-fashioned and prim. why couldn't they have called her by her first name, bertha, which was beautiful and dignified, instead of that silly "rilla"? she did not mind walter's version, but nobody else was allowed to call her that, except miss oliver now and then. "rilla-my-rilla" in walter's musical voice sounded very beautiful to her--like the lilt and ripple of some silvery brook. she would have died for walter if it would have done him any good, so she told miss oliver. rilla was as fond of italics as most girls of fifteen are--and the bitterest drop in her cup was her suspicion that he told di more of his secrets than he told her. "he thinks i'm not grown up enough to understand," she had once lamented rebelliously to miss oliver, "but i am! and i would never tell them to a single soul--not even to you, miss oliver. i tell you all my own--i just couldn't be happy if i had any secret from you, dearest--but i would never betray his. i tell him everything--i even show him my diary. and it hurts me dreadfully when he doesn't tell me things. he shows me all his poems, though--they are marvellous, miss oliver. oh, i just live in the hope that some day i shall be to walter what wordsworth's sister dorothy was to him. wordsworth never wrote anything like walter's poems--nor tennyson, either." "i wouldn't say just that. both of them wrote a great deal of trash," said miss oliver dryly. then, repenting, as she saw a hurt look in rilla's eye, she added hastily, "but i believe walter will be a great poet, too--some day--and you will have more of his confidence as you grow older." "when walter was in the hospital with typhoid last year i was almost crazy," sighed rilla, a little importantly. "they never told me how ill he really was until it was all over--father wouldn't let them. i'm glad i didn't know--i couldn't have borne it. i cried myself to sleep every night as it was. but sometimes," concluded rilla bitterly--she liked to speak bitterly now and then in imitation of miss oliver--"sometimes i think walter cares more for dog monday than he does for me." dog monday was the ingleside dog, so called because he had come into the family on a monday when walter had been reading robinson crusoe. he really belonged to jem but was much attached to walter also. he was lying beside walter now with nose snuggled against his arm, thumping his tail rapturously whenever walter gave him an absent pat. monday was not a collie or a setter or a hound or a newfoundland. he was just, as jem said, "plain dog"--very plain dog, uncharitable people added. certainly, monday's looks were not his strong point. black spots were scattered at random over his yellow carcass, one of them, apparently, blotting out an eye. his ears were in tatters, for monday was never successful in affairs of honour. but he possessed one talisman. he knew that not all dogs could be handsome or eloquent or victorious, but that every dog could love. inside his homely hide beat the most affectionate, loyal, faithful heart of any dog since dogs were; and something looked out of his brown eyes that was nearer akin to a soul than any theologian would allow. everybody at ingleside was fond of him, even susan, although his one unfortunate propensity of sneaking into the spare room and going to sleep on the bed tried her affection sorely. on this particular afternoon rilla had no quarrel on hand with existing conditions. "hasn't june been a delightful month?" she asked, looking dreamily afar at the little quiet silvery clouds hanging so peacefully over rainbow valley. "we've had such lovely times--and such lovely weather. it has just been perfect every way." "i don't half like that," said miss oliver, with a sigh. "it's ominous--somehow. a perfect thing is a gift of the gods--a sort of compensation for what is coming afterwards. i've seen that so often that i don't care to hear people say they've had a perfect time. june has been delightful, though." "of course, it hasn't been very exciting," said rilla. "the only exciting thing that has happened in the glen for a year was old miss mead fainting in church. sometimes i wish something dramatic would happen once in a while." "don't wish it. dramatic things always have a bitterness for some one. what a nice summer all you gay creatures will have! and me moping at lowbridge!" "you'll be over often, won't you? i think there's going to be lots of fun this summer, though i'll just be on the fringe of things as usual, i suppose. isn't it horrid when people think you're a little girl when you're not?" "there's plenty of time for you to be grown up, rilla. don't wish your youth away. it goes too quickly. you'll begin to taste life soon enough." "taste life! i want to eat it," cried rilla, laughing. "i want everything--everything a girl can have. i'll be fifteen in another month, and then nobody can say i'm a child any longer. i heard someone say once that the years from fifteen to nineteen are the best years in a girl's life. i'm going to make them perfectly splendid--just fill them with fun." "there's no use thinking about what you're going to do--you are tolerably sure not to do it." "oh, but you do get a lot of fun out of the thinking," cried rilla. "you think of nothing but fun, you monkey," said miss oliver indulgently, reflecting that rilla's chin was really the last word in chins. "well, what else is fifteen for? but have you any notion of going to college this fall?" "no--nor any other fall. i don't want to. i never cared for all those ologies and isms nan and di are so crazy about. and there's five of us going to college already. surely that's enough. there's bound to be one dunce in every family. i'm quite willing to be a dunce if i can be a pretty, popular, delightful one. i can't be clever. i have no talent at all, and you can't imagine how comfortable it is. nobody expects me to do anything so i'm never pestered to do it. and i can't be a housewifely, cookly creature, either. i hate sewing and dusting, and when susan couldn't teach me to make biscuits nobody could. father says i toil not neither do i spin. therefore, i must be a lily of the field," concluded rilla, with another laugh. "you are too young to give up your studies altogether, rilla." "oh, mother will put me through a course of reading next winter. it will polish up her b.a. degree. luckily i like reading. don't look at me so sorrowfully and so disapprovingly, dearest. i can't be sober and serious--everything looks so rosy and rainbowy to me. next month i'll be fifteen--and next year sixteen--and the year after that seventeen. could anything be more enchanting?" "rap wood," said gertrude oliver, half laughingly, half seriously. "rap wood, rilla-my-rilla." chapter iii moonlit mirth rilla, who still buttoned up her eyes when she went to sleep so that she always looked as if she were laughing in her slumber, yawned, stretched, and smiled at gertrude oliver. the latter had come over from lowbridge the previous evening and had been prevailed upon to remain for the dance at the four winds lighthouse the next night. "the new day is knocking at the window. what will it bring us, i wonder." miss oliver shivered a little. she never greeted the days with rilla's enthusiasm. she had lived long enough to know that a day may bring a terrible thing. "i think the nicest thing about days is their unexpectedness," went on rilla. "it's jolly to wake up like this on a golden-fine morning and wonder what surprise packet the day will hand you. i always day-dream for ten minutes before i get up, imagining the heaps of splendid things that may happen before night." "i hope something very unexpected will happen today," said gertrude. "i hope the mail will bring us news that war has been averted between germany and france." "oh--yes," said rilla vaguely. "it will be dreadful if it isn't, i suppose. but it won't really matter much to us, will it? i think a war would be so exciting. the boer war was, they say, but i don't remember anything about it, of course. miss oliver, shall i wear my white dress tonight or my new green one? the green one is by far the prettier, of course, but i'm almost afraid to wear it to a shore dance for fear something will happen to it. and will you do my hair the new way? none of the other girls in the glen wear it yet and it will make such a sensation." "how did you induce your mother to let you go to the dance?" "oh, walter coaxed her over. he knew i would be heart-broken if i didn't go. it's my first really-truly grown-up party, miss oliver, and i've just lain awake at nights for a week thinking it over. when i saw the sun shining this morning i wanted to whoop for joy. it would be simply terrible if it rained tonight. i think i'll wear the green dress and risk it. i want to look my nicest at my first party. besides, it's an inch longer than my white one. and i'll wear my silver slippers too. mrs. ford sent them to me last christmas and i've never had a chance to wear them yet. they're the dearest things. oh, miss oliver, i do hope some of the boys will ask me to dance. i shall die of mortification--truly i will, if nobody does and i have to sit stuck up against the wall all the evening. of course carl and jerry can't dance because they're the minister's sons, or else i could depend on them to save me from utter disgrace." "you'll have plenty of partners--all the over-harbour boys are coming--there'll be far more boys than girls." "i'm glad i'm not a minister's daughter," laughed rilla. "poor faith is so furious because she won't dare to dance tonight. una doesn't care, of course. she has never hankered after dancing. somebody told faith there would be a taffy-pull in the kitchen for those who didn't dance and you should have seen the face she made. she and jem will sit out on the rocks most of the evening, i suppose. did you know that we are all to walk down as far as that little creek below the old house of dreams and then sail to the lighthouse? won't it just be absolutely divine?" "when i was fifteen i talked in italics and superlatives too," said miss oliver sarcastically. "i think the party promises to be pleasant for young fry. i expect to be bored. none of those boys will bother dancing with an old maid like me. jem and walter will take me out once out of charity. so you can't expect me to look forward to it with your touching young rapture." "didn't you have a good time at your first party, though, miss oliver?" "no. i had a hateful time. i was shabby and homely and nobody asked me to dance except one boy, homelier and shabbier than myself. he was so awkward i hated him--and even he didn't ask me again. i had no real girlhood, rilla. it's a sad loss. that's why i want you to have a splendid, happy girlhood. and i hope your first party will be one you'll remember all your life with pleasure." "i dreamed last night i was at the dance and right in the middle of things i discovered i was dressed in my kimono and bedroom shoes," sighed rilla. "i woke up with a gasp of horror." "speaking of dreams--i had an odd one," said miss oliver absently. "it was one of those vivid dreams i sometimes have--they are not the vague jumble of ordinary dreams--they are as clear cut and real as life." "what was your dream?" "i was standing on the veranda steps, here at ingleside, looking down over the fields of the glen. all at once, far in the distance, i saw a long, silvery, glistening wave breaking over them. it came nearer and nearer--just a succession of little white waves like those that break on the sandshore sometimes. the glen was being swallowed up. i thought, 'surely the waves will not come near ingleside'--but they came nearer and nearer--so rapidly--before i could move or call they were breaking right at my feet--and everything was gone--there was nothing but a waste of stormy water where the glen had been. i tried to draw back--and i saw that the edge of my dress was wet with blood--and i woke--shivering. i don't like the dream. there was some sinister significance in it. that kind of vivid dream always 'comes true' with me." "i hope it doesn't mean there's a storm coming up from the east to spoil the party," murmured rilla. "incorrigible fifteen!" said miss oliver dryly. "no, rilla-my-rilla, i don't think there is any danger that it foretells anything so awful as that." there had been an undercurrent of tension in the ingleside existence for several days. only rilla, absorbed in her own budding life, was unaware of it. dr. blythe had taken to looking grave and saying little over the daily paper. jem and walter were keenly interested in the news it brought. jem sought walter out in excitement that evening. "oh, boy, germany has declared war on france. this means that england will fight too, probably--and if she does--well, the piper of your old fancy will have come at last." "it wasn't a fancy," said walter slowly. "it was a presentiment--a vision--jem, i really saw him for a moment that evening long ago. suppose england does fight?" "why, we'll all have to turn in and help her," cried jem gaily. "we couldn't let the 'old grey mother of the northern sea' fight it out alone, could we? but you can't go--the typhoid has done you out of that. sort of a shame, eh?" walter did not say whether it was a shame or not. he looked silently over the glen to the dimpling blue harbour beyond. "we're the cubs--we've got to pitch in tooth and claw if it comes to a family row," jem went on cheerfully, rumpling up his red curls with a strong, lean, sensitive brown hand--the hand of the born surgeon, his father often thought. "what an adventure it would be! but i suppose grey or some of those wary old chaps will patch matters up at the eleventh hour. it'll be a rotten shame if they leave france in the lurch, though. if they don't, we'll see some fun. well, i suppose it's time to get ready for the spree at the light." jem departed whistling "wi' a hundred pipers and a' and a'," and walter stood for a long time where he was. there was a little frown on his forehead. this had all come up with the blackness and suddenness of a thundercloud. a few days ago nobody had even thought of such a thing. it was absurd to think of it now. some way out would be found. war was a hellish, horrible, hideous thing--too horrible and hideous to happen in the twentieth century between civilized nations. the mere thought of it was hideous, and made walter unhappy in its threat to the beauty of life. he would not think of it--he would resolutely put it out of his mind. how beautiful the old glen was, in its august ripeness, with its chain of bowery old homesteads, tilled meadows and quiet gardens. the western sky was like a great golden pearl. far down the harbour was frosted with a dawning moonlight. the air was full of exquisite sounds--sleepy robin whistles, wonderful, mournful, soft murmurs of wind in the twilit trees, rustle of aspen poplars talking in silvery whispers and shaking their dainty, heart-shaped leaves, lilting young laughter from the windows of rooms where the girls were making ready for the dance. the world was steeped in maddening loveliness of sound and colour. he would think only of these things and of the deep, subtle joy they gave him. "anyhow, no one will expect me to go," he thought. "as jem says, typhoid has seen to that." rilla was leaning out of her room window, dressed for the dance. a yellow pansy slipped from her hair and fell out over the sill like a falling star of gold. she caught at it vainly--but there were enough left. miss oliver had woven a little wreath of them for her pet's hair. "it's so beautifully calm--isn't that splendid? we'll have a perfect night. listen, miss oliver--i can hear those old bells in rainbow valley quite clearly. they've been hanging there for over ten years." "their wind chime always makes me think of the aerial, celestial music adam and eve heard in milton's eden," responded miss oliver. "we used to have such fun in rainbow valley when we were children," said rilla dreamily. nobody ever played in rainbow valley now. it was very silent on summer evenings. walter liked to go there to read. jem and faith trysted there considerably; jerry and nan went there to pursue uninterruptedly the ceaseless wrangles and arguments on profound subjects that seemed to be their preferred method of sweethearting. and rilla had a beloved little sylvan dell of her own there where she liked to sit and dream. "i must run down to the kitchen before i go and show myself off to susan. she would never forgive me if i didn't." rilla whirled into the shadowy kitchen at ingleside, where susan was prosaically darning socks, and lighted it up with her beauty. she wore her green dress with its little pink daisy garlands, her silk stockings and silver slippers. she had golden pansies in her hair and at her creamy throat. she was so pretty and young and glowing that even cousin sophia crawford was compelled to admire her--and cousin sophia crawford admired few transient earthly things. cousin sophia and susan had made up, or ignored, their old feud since the former had come to live in the glen, and cousin sophia often came across in the evenings to make a neighbourly call. susan did not always welcome her rapturously for cousin sophia was not what could be called an exhilarating companion. "some calls are visits and some are visitations, mrs. dr. dear," susan said once, and left it to be inferred that cousin sophia's were the latter. cousin sophia had a long, pale, wrinkled face, a long, thin nose, a long, thin mouth, and very long, thin, pale hands, generally folded resignedly on her black calico lap. everything about her seemed long and thin and pale. she looked mournfully upon rilla blythe and said sadly, "is your hair all your own?" "of course it is," cried rilla indignantly. "ah, well!" cousin sophia sighed. "it might be better for you if it wasn't! such a lot of hair takes from a person's strength. it's a sign of consumption, i've heard, but i hope it won't turn out like that in your case. i s'pose you'll all be dancing tonight--even the minister's boys most likely. i s'pose his girls won't go that far. ah, well, i never held with dancing. i knew a girl once who dropped dead while she was dancing. how any one could ever dance aga' after a judgment like that i cannot comprehend." "did she ever dance again?" asked rilla pertly. "i told you she dropped dead. of course she never danced again, poor creature. she was a kirke from lowbridge. you ain't a-going off like that with nothing on your bare neck, are you?" "it's a hot evening," protested rilla. "but i'll put on a scarf when we go on the water." "i knew of a boat load of young folks who went sailing on that harbour forty years ago just such a night as this--just exactly such a night as this," said cousin sophia lugubriously, "and they were upset and drowned--every last one of them. i hope nothing like that'll happen to you tonight. do you ever try anything for the freckles? i used to find plantain juice real good." "you certainly should be a judge of freckles, cousin sophia," said susan, rushing to rilla's defence. "you were more speckled than any toad when you was a girl. rilla's only come in summer but yours stayed put, season in and season out; and you had not a ground colour like hers behind them neither. you look real nice, rilla, and that way of fixing your hair is becoming. but you are not going to walk to the harbour in those slippers, are you?" "oh, no. we'll all wear our old shoes to the harbour and carry our slippers. do you like my dress, susan?" "it minds me of a dress i wore when i was a girl," sighed cousin sophia before susan could reply. "it was green with pink posies on it, too, and it was flounced from the waist to the hem. we didn't wear the skimpy things girls wear nowadays. ah me, times has changed and not for the better i'm afraid. i tore a big hole in it that night and someone spilled a cup of tea all over it. ruined it completely. but i hope nothing will happen to your dress. it orter to be a bit longer i'm thinking--your legs are so terrible long and thin." "mrs. dr. blythe does not approve of little girls dressing like grown-up ones," said susan stiffly, intending merely a snub to cousin sophia. but rilla felt insulted. a little girl indeed! she whisked out of the kitchen in high dudgeon. another time she wouldn't go down to show herself off to susan--susan, who thought nobody was grown up until she was sixty! and that horrid cousin sophia with her digs about freckles and legs! what business had an old--an old beanpole like that to talk of anybody else being long and thin? rilla felt all her pleasure in herself and her evening clouded and spoiled. the very teeth of her soul were set on edge and she could have sat down and cried. but later on her spirits rose again when she found herself one of the gay crowd bound for the four winds light. the blythes left ingleside to the melancholy music of howls from dog monday, who was locked up in the barn lest he make an uninvited guest at the light. they picked up the merediths in the village, and others joined them as they walked down the old harbour road. mary vance, resplendent in blue crepe, with lace overdress, came out of miss cornelia's gate and attached herself to rilla and miss oliver who were walking together and who did not welcome her over-warmly. rilla was not very fond of mary vance. she had never forgotten the humiliating day when mary had chased her through the village with a dried codfish. mary vance, to tell the truth, was not exactly popular with any of her set. still, they enjoyed her society--she had such a biting tongue that it was stimulating. "mary vance is a habit of ours--we can't do without her even when we are furious with her," di blythe had once said. most of the little crowd were paired off after a fashion. jem walked with faith meredith, of course, and jerry meredith with nan blythe. di and walter were together, deep in confidential conversation which rilla envied. carl meredith was walking with miranda pryor, more to torment joe milgrave than for any other reason. joe was known to have a strong hankering for the said miranda, which shyness prevented him from indulging on all occasions. joe might summon enough courage to amble up beside miranda if the night were dark, but here, in this moonlit dusk, he simply could not do it. so he trailed along after the procession and thought things not lawful to be uttered of carl meredith. miranda was the daughter of whiskers-on-the-moon; she did not share her father's unpopularity but she was not much run after, being a pale, neutral little creature, somewhat addicted to nervous giggling. she had silvery blonde hair and her eyes were big china blue orbs that looked as if she had been badly frightened when she was little and had never got over it. she would much rather have walked with joe than with carl, with whom she did not feel in the least at home. yet it was something of an honour, too, to have a college boy beside her, and a son of the manse at that. shirley blythe was with una meredith and both were rather silent because such was their nature. shirley was a lad of sixteen, sedate, sensible, thoughtful, full of a quiet humour. he was susan's "little brown boy" yet, with his brown hair, brown eyes, and clear brown skin. he liked to walk with una meredith because she never tried to make him talk or badgered him with chatter. una was as sweet and shy as she had been in the rainbow valley days, and her large, dark-blue eyes were as dreamy and wistful. she had a secret, carefully-hidden fancy for walter blythe that nobody but rilla ever suspected. rilla sympathized with it and wished walter would return it. she liked una better than faith, whose beauty and aplomb rather overshadowed other girls--and rilla did not enjoy being overshadowed. but just now she was very happy. it was so delightful to be tripping with her friends down that dark, gleaming road sprinkled with its little spruces and firs, whose balsam made all the air resinous around them. meadows of sunset afterlight were behind the westerning hills. before them was the shining harbour. a bell was ringing in the little church over-harbour and the lingering dream-notes died around the dim, amethystine points. the gulf beyond was still silvery blue in the afterlight. oh, it was all glorious--the clear air with its salt tang, the balsam of the firs, the laughter of her friends. rilla loved life--its bloom and brilliance; she loved the ripple of music, the hum of merry conversation; she wanted to walk on forever over this road of silver and shadow. it was her first party and she was going to have a splendid time. there was nothing in the world to worry about--not even freckles and over-long legs--nothing except one little haunting fear that nobody would ask her to dance. it was beautiful and satisfying just to be alive--to be fifteen--to be pretty. rilla drew a long breath of rapture--and caught it midway rather sharply. jem was telling some story to faith--something that had happened in the balkan war. "the doctor lost both his legs--they were smashed to pulp--and he was left on the field to die. and he crawled about from man to man, to all the wounded men round him, as long as he could, and did everything possible to relieve their sufferings--never thinking of himself--he was tying a bit of bandage round another man's leg when he went under. they found them there, the doctor's dead hands still held the bandage tight, the bleeding was stopped and the other man's life was saved. some hero, wasn't he, faith? i tell you when i read that--" jem and faith moved on out of hearing. gertrude oliver suddenly shivered. rilla pressed her arm sympathetically. "wasn't it dreadful, miss oliver? i don't know why jem tells such gruesome things at a time like this when we're all out for fun." "do you think it dreadful, rilla? i thought it wonderful--beautiful. such a story makes one ashamed of ever doubting human nature. that man's action was godlike. and how humanity responds to the ideal of self-sacrifice. as for my shiver, i don't know what caused it. the evening is certainly warm enough. perhaps someone is walking over the dark, starshiny spot that is to be my grave. that is the explanation the old superstition would give. well, i won't think of that on this lovely night. do you know, rilla, that when night-time comes i'm always glad i live in the country. we know the real charm of night here as town dwellers never do. every night is beautiful in the country--even the stormy ones. i love a wild night storm on this old gulf shore. as for a night like this, it is almost too beautiful--it belongs to youth and dreamland and i'm half afraid of it." "i feel as if i were part of it," said rilla. "ah yes, you're young enough not to be afraid of perfect things. well, here we are at the house of dreams. it seems lonely this summer. the fords didn't come?" "mr. and mrs. ford and persis didn't. kenneth did--but he stayed with his mother's people over-harbour. we haven't seen a great deal of him this summer. he's a little lame, so didn't go about very much." "lame? what happened to him?" "he broke his ankle in a football game last fall and was laid up most of the winter. he has limped a little ever since but it is getting better all the time and he expects it will be all right before long. he has been up to ingleside only twice." "ethel reese is simply crazy about him," said mary vance. "she hasn't got the sense she was born with where he is concerned. he walked home with her from the over-harbour church last prayer-meeting night and the airs she has put on since would really make you weary of life. as if a toronto boy like ken ford would ever really think of a country girl like ethel!" rilla flushed. it did not matter to her if kenneth ford walked home with ethel reese a dozen times--it did not! nothing that he did mattered to her. he was ages older than she was. he chummed with nan and di and faith, and looked upon her, rilla, as a child whom he never noticed except to tease. and she detested ethel reese and ethel reese hated her--always had hated her since walter had pummelled dan so notoriously in rainbow valley days; but why need she be thought beneath kenneth ford's notice because she was a country girl, pray? as for mary vance, she was getting to be an out-and-out gossip and thought of nothing but who walked home with people! there was a little pier on the harbour shore below the house of dreams, and two boats were moored there. one boat was skippered by jem blythe, the other by joe milgrave, who knew all about boats and was nothing loth to let miranda pryor see it. they raced down the harbour and joe's boat won. more boats were coming down from the harbour head and across the harbour from the western side. everywhere there was laughter. the big white tower on four winds point was overflowing with light, while its revolving beacon flashed overhead. a family from charlottetown, relatives of the light's keeper, were summering at the light, and they were giving the party to which all the young people of four winds and glen st. mary and over-harbour had been invited. as jem's boat swung in below the lighthouse rilla desperately snatched off her shoes and donned her silver slippers behind miss oliver's screening back. a glance had told her that the rock-cut steps climbing up to the light were lined with boys, and lighted by chinese lanterns, and she was determined she would not walk up those steps in the heavy shoes her mother had insisted on her wearing for the road. the slippers pinched abominably, but nobody would have suspected it as rilla tripped smilingly up the steps, her soft dark eyes glowing and questioning, her colour deepening richly on her round, creamy cheeks. the very minute she reached the top of the steps an over-harbour boy asked her to dance and the next moment they were in the pavilion that had been built seaward of the lighthouse for dances. it was a delightful spot, roofed over with fir-boughs and hung with lanterns. beyond was the sea in a radiance that glowed and shimmered, to the left the moonlit crests and hollows of the sand-dunes, to the right the rocky shore with its inky shadows and its crystalline coves. rilla and her partner swung in among the dancers; she drew a long breath of delight; what witching music ned burr of the upper glen was coaxing from his fiddle--it was really like the magical pipes of the old tale which compelled all who heard them to dance. how cool and fresh the gulf breeze blew; how white and wonderful the moonlight was over everything! this was life--enchanting life. rilla felt as if her feet and her soul both had wings. chapter iv the piper pipes rilla's first party was a triumph--or so it seemed at first. she had so many partners that she had to split her dances. her silver slippers seemed verily to dance of themselves and though they continued to pinch her toes and blister her heels that did not interfere with her enjoyment in the least. ethel reese gave her a bad ten minutes by beckoning her mysteriously out of the pavilion and whispering, with a reese-like smirk, that her dress gaped behind and that there was a stain on the flounce. rilla rushed miserably to the room in the lighthouse which was fitted up for a temporary ladies' dressing-room, and discovered that the stain was merely a tiny grass smear and that the gap was equally tiny where a hook had pulled loose. irene howard fastened it up for her and gave her some over-sweet, condescending compliments. rilla felt flattered by irene's condescension. she was an upper glen girl of nineteen who seemed to like the society of the younger girls--spiteful friends said because she could queen it over them without rivalry. but rilla thought irene quite wonderful and loved her for her patronage. irene was pretty and stylish; she sang divinely and spent every winter in charlottetown taking music lessons. she had an aunt in montreal who sent her wonderful things to wear; she was reported to have had a sad love affair--nobody knew just what, but its very mystery allured. rilla felt that irene's compliments crowned her evening. she ran gaily back to the pavilion and lingered for a moment in the glow of the lanterns at the entrance looking at the dancers. a momentary break in the whirling throng gave her a glimpse of kenneth ford standing at the other side. rilla's heart skipped a beat--or, if that be a physiological impossibility, she thought it did. so he was here, after all. she had concluded he was not coming--not that it mattered in the least. would he see her? would he take any notice of her? of course, he wouldn't ask her to dance--that couldn't be hoped for. he thought her just a mere child. he had called her "spider" not three weeks ago when he had been at ingleside one evening. she had cried about it upstairs afterwards and hated him. but her heart skipped a beat when she saw that he was edging his way round the side of the pavilion towards her. was he coming to her--was he?--was he?--yes, he was! he was looking for her--he was here beside her--he was gazing down at her with something in his dark grey eyes that rilla had never seen in them. oh, it was almost too much to bear! and everything was going on as before--the dancers were spinning round, the boys who couldn't get partners were hanging about the pavilion, canoodling couples were sitting out on the rocks--nobody seemed to realize what a stupendous thing had happened. kenneth was a tall lad, very good looking, with a certain careless grace of bearing that somehow made all the other boys seem stiff and awkward by contrast. he was reported to be awesomely clever, with the glamour of a far-away city and a big university hanging around him. he had also the reputation of being a bit of a lady-killer. but that probably accrued to him from his possession of a laughing, velvety voice which no girl could hear without a heartbeat, and a dangerous way of listening as if she were saying something that he had longed all his life to hear. "is this rilla-my-rilla?" he asked in a low tone. "yeth," said rilla, and immediately wished she could throw herself headlong down the lighthouse rock or otherwise vanish from a jeering world. rilla had lisped in early childhood; but she had grown out of it. only on occasions of stress and strain did the tendency re-assert itself. she hadn't lisped for a year; and now at this very moment, when she was so especially desirous of appearing grown up and sophisticated, she must go and lisp like a baby! it was too mortifying; she felt as if tears were going to come into her eyes; the next minute she would be--blubbering--yes, just blubbering--she wished kenneth would go away--she wished he had never come. the party was spoiled. everything had turned to dust and ashes. and he had called her "rilla-my-rilla"--not "spider" or "kid" or "puss," as he had been used to call her when he took any notice whatever of her. she did not at all resent his using walter's pet name for her; it sounded beautifully in his low caressing tones, with just the faintest suggestion of emphasis on the "my." it would have been so nice if she had not made a fool of herself. she dared not look up lest she should see laughter in his eyes. so she looked down; and as her lashes were very long and dark and her lids very thick and creamy, the effect was quite charming and provocative, and kenneth reflected that rilla blythe was going to be the beauty of the ingleside girls after all. he wanted to make her look up--to catch again that little, demure, questioning glance. she was the prettiest thing at the party, there was no doubt of that. what was he saying? rilla could hardly believe her ears. "can we have a dance?" "yes," said rilla. she said it with such a fierce determination not to lisp that she fairly blurted the word out. then she writhed in spirit again. it sounded so bold--so eager--as if she were fairly jumping at him! what would he think of her? oh, why did dreadful things like this happen, just when a girl wanted to appear at her best? kenneth drew her in among the dancers. "i think this game ankle of mine is good for one hop around, at least," he said. "how is your ankle?" said rilla. oh, why couldn't she think of something else to say? she knew he was sick of inquiries about his ankle. she had heard him say so at ingleside--heard him tell di he was going to wear a placard on his breast announcing to all and sundry that the ankle was improving, etc. and now she must go and ask this stale question again. kenneth was tired of inquiries about his ankle. but then he had not often been asked about it by lips with such an adorable kissable dent just above them. perhaps that was why he answered very patiently that it was getting on well and didn't trouble him much, if he didn't walk or stand too long at a time. "they tell me it will be as strong as ever in time, but i'll have to cut football out this fall." they danced together and rilla knew every girl in sight envied her. after the dance they went down the rock steps and kenneth found a little flat and they rowed across the moonlit channel to the sand-shore; they walked on the sand till kenneth's ankle made protest and then they sat down among the dunes. kenneth talked to her as he had talked to nan and di. rilla, overcome with a shyness she did not understand, could not talk much, and thought he would think her frightfully stupid; but in spite of this it was all very wonderful--the exquisite moonlit night, the shining sea, the tiny little wavelets swishing on the sand, the cool and freakish wind of night crooning in the stiff grasses on the crest of the dunes, the music sounding faintly and sweetly over the channel. "'a merry lilt o' moonlight for mermaiden revelry,'" quoted kenneth softly from one of walter's poems. and just he and she alone together in the glamour of sound and sight! if only her slippers didn't bite so! and if only she could talk cleverly like miss oliver--nay, if she could only talk as she did herself to other boys! but words would not come, she could only listen and murmur little commonplace sentences now and again. but perhaps her dreamy eyes and her dented lip and her slender throat talked eloquently for her. at any rate kenneth seemed in no hurry to suggest going back and when they did go back supper was in progress. he found a seat for her near the window of the lighthouse kitchen and sat on the sill beside her while she ate her ices and cake. rilla looked about her and thought how lovely her first party had been. she would never forget it. the room re-echoed to laughter and jest. beautiful young eyes sparkled and shone. from the pavilion outside came the lilt of the fiddle and the rhythmic steps of the dancers. there was a little disturbance among a group of boys crowded about the door; a young fellow pushed through and halted on the threshold, looking about him rather sombrely. it was jack elliott from over-harbour--a mcgill medical student, a quiet chap not much addicted to social doings. he had been invited to the party but had not been expected to come since he had to go to charlottetown that day and could not be back until late. yet here he was--and he carried a folded paper in his hand. gertrude oliver looked at him from her corner and shivered again. she had enjoyed the party herself, after all, for she had foregathered with a charlottetown acquaintance who, being a stranger and much older than most of the guests, felt himself rather out of it, and had been glad to fall in with this clever girl who could talk of world doings and outside events with the zest and vigour of a man. in the pleasure of his society she had forgotten some of her misgivings of the day. now they suddenly returned to her. what news did jack elliott bring? lines from an old poem flashed unbidden into her mind--"there was a sound of revelry by night"--"hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell"--why should she think of that now? why didn't jack elliott speak--if he had anything to tell? why did he just stand there, glowering importantly? "ask him--ask him," she said feverishly to allan daly. but somebody else had already asked him. the room grew very silent all at once. outside the fiddler had stopped for a rest and there was silence there too. afar off they heard the low moan of the gulf--the presage of a storm already on its way up the atlantic. a girl's laugh drifted up from the rocks and died away as if frightened out of existence by the sudden stillness. "england declared war on germany today," said jack elliott slowly. "the news came by wire just as i left town." "god help us," whispered gertrude oliver under her breath. "my dream--my dream! the first wave has broken." she looked at allan daly and tried to smile. "is this armageddon?" she asked. "i am afraid so," he said gravely. a chorus of exclamations had arisen round them--light surprise and idle interest for the most part. few there realized the import of the message--fewer still realized that it meant anything to them. before long the dancing was on again and the hum of pleasure was as loud as ever. gertrude and allan daly talked the news over in low, troubled tones. walter blythe had turned pale and left the room. outside he met jem, hurrying up the rock steps. "have you heard the news, jem?" "yes. the piper has come. hurrah! i knew england wouldn't leave france in the lurch. i've been trying to get captain josiah to hoist the flag but he says it isn't the proper caper till sunrise. jack says they'll be calling for volunteers tomorrow." "what a fuss to make over nothing," said mary vance disdainfully as jem dashed off. she was sitting out with miller douglas on a lobster trap which was not only an unromantic but an uncomfortable seat. but mary and miller were both supremely happy on it. miller douglas was a big, strapping, uncouth lad, who thought mary vance's tongue uncommonly gifted and mary vance's white eyes stars of the first magnitude; and neither of them had the least inkling why jem blythe wanted to hoist the lighthouse flag. "what does it matter if there's going to be a war over there in europe? i'm sure it doesn't concern us." walter looked at her and had one of his odd visitations of prophecy. "before this war is over," he said--or something said through his lips--"every man and woman and child in canada will feel it--you, mary, will feel it--feel it to your heart's core. you will weep tears of blood over it. the piper has come--and he will pipe until every corner of the world has heard his awful and irresistible music. it will be years before the dance of death is over--years, mary. and in those years millions of hearts will break." "fancy now!" said mary who always said that when she couldn't think of anything else to say. she didn't know what walter meant but she felt uncomfortable. walter blythe was always saying odd things. that old piper of his--she hadn't heard anything about him since their playdays in rainbow valley--and now here he was bobbing up again. she didn't like it, and that was the long and short of it. "aren't you painting it rather strong, walter?" asked harvey crawford, coming up just then. "this war won't last for years--it'll be over in a month or two. england will just wipe germany off the map in no time." "do you think a war for which germany has been preparing for twenty years will be over in a few weeks?" said walter passionately. "this isn't a paltry struggle in a balkan corner, harvey. it is a death grapple. germany comes to conquer or to die. and do you know what will happen if she conquers? canada will be a german colony." "well, i guess a few things will happen before that," said harvey shrugging his shoulders. "the british navy would have to be licked for one; and for another, miller here, now, and i, we'd raise a dust, wouldn't we, miller? no germans need apply for this old country, eh?" harvey ran down the steps laughing. "i declare, i think all you boys talk the craziest stuff," said mary vance in disgust. she got up and dragged miller off to the rock-shore. it didn't happen often that they had a chance for a talk together; mary was determined that this one shouldn't be spoiled by walter blythe's silly blather about pipers and germans and such like absurd things. they left walter standing alone on the rock steps, looking out over the beauty of four winds with brooding eyes that saw it not. the best of the evening was over for rilla, too. ever since jack elliott's announcement, she had sensed that kenneth was no longer thinking about her. she felt suddenly lonely and unhappy. it was worse than if he had never noticed her at all. was life like this--something delightful happening and then, just as you were revelling in it, slipping away from you? rilla told herself pathetically that she felt years older than when she had left home that evening. perhaps she did--perhaps she was. who knows? it does not do to laugh at the pangs of youth. they are very terrible because youth has not yet learned that "this, too, will pass away." rilla sighed and wished she were home, in bed, crying into her pillow. "tired?" said kenneth, gently but absently--oh, so absently. he really didn't care a bit whether she were tired or not, she thought. "kenneth," she ventured timidly, "you don't think this war will matter much to us in canada, do you?" "matter? of course it will matter to the lucky fellows who will be able to take a hand. i won't--thanks to this confounded ankle. rotten luck, i call it." "i don't see why we should fight england's battles," cried rilla. "she's quite able to fight them herself." "that isn't the point. we are part of the british empire. it's a family affair. we've got to stand by each other. the worst of it is, it will be over before i can be of any use." "do you mean that you would really volunteer to go if it wasn't for your ankle? asked rilla incredulously. "sure i would. you see they'll go by thousands. jem'll be off, i'll bet a cent--walter won't be strong enough yet, i suppose. and jerry meredith--he'll go! and i was worrying about being out of football this year!" rilla was too startled to say anything. jem--and jerry! nonsense! why father and mr. meredith wouldn't allow it. they weren't through college. oh, why hadn't jack elliott kept his horrid news to himself? mark warren came up and asked her to dance. rilla went, knowing kenneth didn't care whether she went or stayed. an hour ago on the sand-shore he had been looking at her as if she were the only being of any importance in the world. and now she was nobody. his thoughts were full of this great game which was to be played out on bloodstained fields with empires for stakes--a game in which womenkind could have no part. women, thought rilla miserably, just had to sit and cry at home. but all this was foolishness. kenneth couldn't go--he admitted that himself--and walter couldn't--thank goodness for that--and jem and jerry would have more sense. she wouldn't worry--she would enjoy herself. but how awkward mark warren was! how he bungled his steps! why, for mercy's sake, did boys try to dance who didn't know the first thing about dancing; and who had feet as big as boats? there, he had bumped her into somebody! she would never dance with him again! she danced with others, though the zest was gone out of the performance and she had begun to realize that her slippers hurt her badly. kenneth seemed to have gone--at least nothing was to be seen of him. her first party was spoiled, though it had seemed so beautiful at one time. her head ached--her toes burned. and worse was yet to come. she had gone down with some over-harbour friends to the rock-shore where they all lingered as dance after dance went on above them. it was cool and pleasant and they were tired. rilla sat silent, taking no part in the gay conversation. she was glad when someone called down that the over-harbour boats were leaving. a laughing scramble up the lighthouse rock followed. a few couples still whirled about in the pavilion but the crowd had thinned out. rilla looked about her for the glen group. she could not see one of them. she ran into the lighthouse. still, no sign of anybody. in dismay she ran to the rock steps, down which the over-harbour guests were hurrying. she could see the boats below--where was jem's--where was joe's? "why, rilla blythe, i thought you'd be gone home long ago," said mary vance, who was waving her scarf at a boat skimming up the channel, skippered by miller douglas. "where are the rest?" gasped rilla. "why, they're gone--jem went an hour ago--una had a headache. and the rest went with joe about fifteen minutes ago. see--they're just going around birch point. i didn't go because it's getting rough and i knew i'd be seasick. i don't mind walking home from here. it's only a mile and a half. i s'posed you'd gone. where were you?" "down on the rocks with jem and mollie crawford. oh, why didn't they look for me?" "they did--but you couldn't be found. then they concluded you must have gone in the other boat. don't worry. you can stay all night with me and we'll 'phone up to ingleside where you are." rilla realized that there was nothing else to do. her lips trembled and tears came into her eyes. she blinked savagely--she would not let mary vance see her crying. but to be forgotten like this! to think nobody had thought it worth while to make sure where she was--not even walter. then she had a sudden dismayed recollection. "my shoes," she exclaimed. "i left them in the boat." "well, i never," said mary. "you're the most thoughtless kid i ever saw. you'll have to ask hazel lewison to lend you a pair of shoes." "i won't." cried rilla, who didn't like the said hazel. "i'll go barefoot first." mary shrugged her shoulders. "just as you like. pride must suffer pain. it'll teach you to be more careful. well, let's hike." accordingly they hiked. but to "hike" along a deep-rutted, pebbly lane in frail, silver-hued slippers with high french heels, is not an exhilarating performance. rilla managed to limp and totter along until they reached the harbour road; but she could go no farther in those detestable slippers. she took them and her dear silk stockings off and started barefoot. that was not pleasant either; her feet were very tender and the pebbles and ruts of the road hurt them. her blistered heels smarted. but physical pain was almost forgotten in the sting of humiliation. this was a nice predicament! if kenneth ford could see her now, limping along like a little girl with a stone bruise! oh, what a horrid way for her lovely party to end! she just had to cry--it was too terrible. nobody cared for her--nobody bothered about her at all. well, if she caught cold from walking home barefoot on a dew-wet road and went into a decline perhaps they would be sorry. she furtively wiped her tears away with her scarf--handkerchiefs seemed to have vanished like shoes!--but she could not help sniffling. worse and worse! "you've got a cold, i see," said mary. "you ought to have known you would, sitting down in the wind on those rocks. your mother won't let you go out again in a hurry i can tell you. it's certainly been something of a party. the lewisons know how to do things, i'll say that for them, though hazel lewison is no choice of mine. my, how black she looked when she saw you dancing with ken ford. and so did that little hussy of an ethel reese. what a flirt he is!" "i don't think he's a flirt," said rilla as defiantly as two desperate sniffs would let her. "you'll know more about men when you're as old as i am," said mary patronizingly. "mind you, it doesn't do to believe all they tell you. don't let ken ford think that all he has to do to get you on a string is to drop his handkerchief. have more spirit than that, child." to be thus hectored and patronized by mary vance was unendurable! and it was unendurable to walk on stony roads with blistered heels and bare feet! and it was unendurable to be crying and have no handkerchief and not to be able to stop crying! "i'm not thinking"--sniff--"about kenneth"--sniff--"ford"--two sniffs--"at all," cried tortured rilla. "there's no need to fly off the handle, child. you ought to be willing to take advice from older people. i saw how you slipped over to the sands with ken and stayed there ever so long with him. your mother wouldn't like it if she knew." "i'll tell my mother all about it--and miss oliver--and walter," rilla gasped between sniffs. "you sat for hours with miller douglas on that lobster trap, mary vance! what would mrs. elliott say to that if she knew?" "oh, i'm not going to quarrel with you," said mary, suddenly retreating to high and lofty ground. "all i say is, you should wait until you're grown-up before you do things like that." rilla gave up trying to hide the fact that she was crying. everything was spoiled--even that beautiful, dreamy, romantic, moonlit hour with kenneth on the sands was vulgarized and cheapened. she loathed mary vance. "why, whatever's wrong?" cried mystified mary. "what are you crying for?" "my feet--hurt so--" sobbed rilla clinging to the last shred of her pride. it was less humiliating to admit crying because of your feet than because--because somebody had been amusing himself with you, and your friends had forgotten you, and other people patronized you. "i daresay they do," said mary, not unkindly. "never mind. i know where there's a pot of goose-grease in cornelia's tidy pantry and it beats all the fancy cold creams in the world. i'll put some on your heels before you go to bed." goose-grease on your heels! so this was what your first party and your first beau and your first moonlit romance ended in! rilla gave over crying in sheer disgust at the futility of tears and went to sleep in mary vance's bed in the calm of despair. outside, the dawn came greyly in on wings of storm; captain josiah, true to his word, ran up the union jack at the four winds light and it streamed on the fierce wind against the clouded sky like a gallant unquenchable beacon. chapter v "the sound of a going" rilla ran down through the sunlit glory of the maple grove behind ingleside, to her favourite nook in rainbow valley. she sat down on a green-mossed stone among the fern, propped her chin on her hands and stared unseeingly at the dazzling blue sky of the august afternoon--so blue, so peaceful, so unchanged, just as it had arched over the valley in the mellow days of late summer ever since she could remember. she wanted to be alone--to think things out--to adjust herself, if it were possible, to the new world into which she seemed to have been transplanted with a suddenness and completeness that left her half bewildered as to her own identity. was she--could she be--the same rilla blythe who had danced at four winds light six days ago--only six days ago? it seemed to rilla that she had lived as much in those six days as in all her previous life--and if it be true that we should count time by heart-throbs she had. that evening, with its hopes and fears and triumphs and humiliations, seemed like ancient history now. could she really ever have cried just because she had been forgotten and had to walk home with mary vance? ah, thought rilla sadly, how trivial and absurd such a cause of tears now appeared to her. she could cry now with a right good will--but she would not--she must not. what was it mother had said, looking, with her white lips and stricken eyes, as rilla had never seen her mother look before, "when our women fail in courage, shall our men be fearless still?" yes, that was it. she must be brave--like mother--and nan--and faith--faith, who had cried with flashing eyes, "oh, if i were only a man, to go too!" only, when her eyes ached and her throat burned like this she had to hide herself in rainbow valley for a little, just to think things out and remember that she wasn't a child any longer--she was grown-up and women had to face things like this. but it was--nice--to get away alone now and then, where nobody could see her and where she needn't feel that people thought her a little coward if some tears came in spite of her. how sweet and woodsey the ferns smelled! how softly the great feathery boughs of the firs waved and murmured over her! how elfinly rang the bells of the "tree lovers"--just a tinkle now and then as the breeze swept by! how purple and elusive the haze where incense was being offered on many an altar of the hills! how the maple leaves whitened in the wind until the grove seemed covered with pale silvery blossoms! everything was just the same as she had seen it hundreds of times; and yet the whole face of the world seemed changed. "how wicked i was to wish that something dramatic would happen!" she thought. "oh, if we could only have those dear, monotonous, pleasant days back again! i would never, never grumble about them again." rilla's world had tumbled to pieces the very day after the party. as they lingered around the dinner table at ingleside, talking of the war, the telephone had rung. it was a long-distance call from charlottetown for jem. when he had finished talking he hung up the receiver and turned around, with a flushed face and glowing eyes. before he had said a word his mother and nan and di had turned pale. as for rilla, for the first time in her life she felt that every one must hear her heart beating and that something had clutched at her throat. "they are calling for volunteers in town, father," said jem. "scores have joined up already. i'm going in tonight to enlist." "oh--little jem," cried mrs. blythe brokenly. she had not called him that for many years--not since the day he had rebelled against it. "oh--no--no--little jem." "i must, mother. i'm right--am i not, father?" said jem. dr. blythe had risen. he was very pale, too, and his voice was husky. but he did not hesitate. "yes, jem, yes--if you feel that way, yes--" mrs. blythe covered her face. walter stared moodily at his plate. nan and di clasped each others' hands. shirley tried to look unconcerned. susan sat as if paralysed, her piece of pie half-eaten on her plate. susan never did finish that piece of pie--a fact which bore eloquent testimony to the upheaval in her inner woman for susan considered it a cardinal offence against civilized society to begin to eat anything and not finish it. that was wilful waste, hens to the contrary notwithstanding. jem turned to the phone again. "i must ring the manse. jerry will want to go, too." at this nan had cried out "oh!" as if a knife had been thrust into her, and rushed from the room. di followed her. rilla turned to walter for comfort but walter was lost to her in some reverie she could not share. "all right," jem was saying, as coolly as if he were arranging the details of a picnic. "i thought you would--yes, tonight--the seven o'clock--meet me at the station. so long." "mrs. dr. dear," said susan. "i wish you would wake me up. am i dreaming--or am i awake? does that blessed boy realize what he is saying? does he mean that he is going to enlist as a soldier? you do not mean to tell me that they want children like him! it is an outrage. surely you and the doctor will not permit it." "we can't stop him," said mrs. blythe, chokingly. "oh, gilbert!" dr. blythe came up behind his wife and took her hand gently, looking down into the sweet grey eyes that he had only once before seen filled with such imploring anguish as now. they both thought of that other time--the day years ago in the house of dreams when little joyce had died. "would you have him stay, anne--when the others are going--when he thinks it his duty--would you have him so selfish and small-souled?" "no--no! but--oh--our first-born son--he's only a lad--gilbert--i'll try to be brave after a while--just now i can't. it's all come so suddenly. give me time." the doctor and his wife went out of the room. jem had gone--walter had gone--shirley got up to go. rilla and susan remained staring at each other across the deserted table. rilla had not yet cried--she was too stunned for tears. then she saw that susan was crying--susan, whom she had never seen shed a tear before. "oh, susan, will he really go?" she asked. "it--it--it is just ridiculous, that is what it is," said susan. she wiped away her tears, gulped resolutely and got up. "i am going to wash the dishes. that has to be done, even if everybody has gone crazy. there now, dearie, do not you cry. jem will go, most likely--but the war will be over long before he gets anywhere near it. let us take a brace and not worry your poor mother." "in the enterprise today it was reported that lord kitchener says the war will last three years," said rilla dubiously. "i am not acquainted with lord kitchener," said susan, composedly, "but i dare say he makes mistakes as often as other people. your father says it will be over in a few months and i have as much faith in his opinion as i have in lord anybody's. so just let us be calm and trust in the almighty and get this place tidied up. i am done with crying which is a waste of time and discourages everybody." jem and jerry went to charlottetown that night and two days later they came back in khaki. the glen hummed with excitement over it. life at ingleside had suddenly become a tense, strained, thrilling thing. mrs. blythe and nan were brave and smiling and wonderful. already mrs. blythe and miss cornelia were organizing a red cross. the doctor and mr. meredith were rounding up the men for a patriotic society. rilla, after the first shock, reacted to the romance of it all, in spite of her heartache. jem certainly looked magnificent in his uniform. it was splendid to think of the lads of canada answering so speedily and fearlessly and uncalculatingly to the call of their country. rilla carried her head high among the girls whose brothers had not so responded. in her diary she wrote: "he goes to do what i had done had douglas's daughter been his son," and was sure she meant it. if she were a boy of course she would go, too! she hadn't the least doubt of that. she wondered if it was very dreadful of her to feel glad that walter hadn't got strong as soon as they had wished after the fever. "i couldn't bear to have walter go," she wrote. "i love jem ever so much but walter means more to me than anyone in the world and i would die if he had to go. he seems so changed these days. he hardly ever talks to me. i suppose he wants to go, too, and feels badly because he can't. he doesn't go about with jem and jerry at all. i shall never forget susan's face when jem came home in his khaki. it worked and twisted as if she were going to cry, but all she said was, 'you look almost like a man in that, jem.' jem laughed. he never minds because susan thinks him just a child still. everybody seems busy but me. i wish there was something i could do but there doesn't seem to be anything. mother and nan and di are busy all the time and i just wander about like a lonely ghost. what hurts me terribly, though, is that mother's smiles, and nan's, just seem put on from the outside. mother's eyes never laugh now. it makes me feel that i shouldn't laugh either--that it's wicked to feel laughy. and it's so hard for me to keep from laughing, even if jem is going to be a soldier. but when i laugh i don't enjoy it either, as i used to do. there's something behind it all that keeps hurting me--especially when i wake up in the night. then i cry because i am afraid that kitchener of khartoum is right and the war will last for years and jem may be--but no, i won't write it. it would make me feel as if it were really going to happen. the other day nan said, 'nothing can ever be quite the same for any of us again.' it made me feel rebellious. why shouldn't things be the same again--when everything is over and jem and jerry are back? we'll all be happy and jolly again and these days will seem just like a bad dream. "the coming of the mail is the most exciting event of every day now. father just snatches the paper--i never saw father snatch before--and the rest of us crowd round and look at the headlines over his shoulder. susan vows she does not and will not believe a word the papers say but she always comes to the kitchen door, and listens and then goes back, shaking her head. she is terribly indignant all the time, but she cooks up all the things jem likes especially, and she did not make a single bit of fuss when she found monday asleep on the spare-room bed yesterday right on top of mrs. rachel lynde's apple-leaf spread. 'the almighty only knows where your master will be having to sleep before long, you poor dumb beast,' she said as she put him quite gently out. but she never relents towards doc. she says the minute he saw jem in khaki he turned into mr. hyde then and there and she thinks that ought to be proof enough of what he really is. susan is funny, but she is an old dear. shirley says she is one half angel and the other half good cook. but then shirley is the only one of us she never scolds. "faith meredith is wonderful. i think she and jem are really engaged now. she goes about with a shining light in her eyes, but her smiles are a little stiff and starched, just like mother's. i wonder if i could be as brave as she is if i had a lover and he was going to the war. it is bad enough when it is your brother. bruce meredith cried all night, mrs. meredith says, when he heard jem and jerry were going. and he wanted to know if the 'k of k.' his father talked about was the king of kings. he is the dearest kiddy. i just love him--though i don't really care much for children. i don't like babies one bit--though when i say so people look at me as if i had said something perfectly shocking. well, i don't, and i've got to be honest about it. i don't mind looking at a nice clean baby if somebody else holds it--but i wouldn't touch it for anything and i don't feel a single real spark of interest in it. gertrude oliver says she just feels the same. (she is the most honest person i know. she never pretends anything.) she says babies bore her until they are old enough to talk and then she likes them--but still a good ways off. mother and nan and di all adore babies and seem to think i'm unnatural because i don't. "i haven't seen kenneth since the night of the party. he was here one evening after jem came back but i happened to be away. i don't think he mentioned me at all--at least nobody told me he did and i was determined i wouldn't ask--but i don't care in the least. all that matters absolutely nothing to me now. the only thing that does matter is that jem has volunteered for active service and will be going to valcartier in a few more days--my big, splendid brother jem. oh, i'm so proud of him! "i suppose kenneth would enlist too if it weren't for his ankle. i think that is quite providential. he is his mother's only son and how dreadful she would feel if he went. only sons should never think of going!" walter came wandering through the valley as rilla sat there, with his head bent and his hands clasped behind him. when he saw rilla he turned abruptly away; then as abruptly he turned and came back to her. "rilla-my-rilla, what are you thinking of?" "everything is so changed, walter," said rilla wistfully. "even you--you're changed. a week ago we were all so happy--and--and--now i just can't find myself at all. i'm lost." walter sat down on a neighbouring stone and took rilla's little appealing hand. "i'm afraid our old world has come to an end, rilla. we've got to face that fact." "it's so terrible to think of jem," pleaded rilla. "sometimes i forget for a little while what it really means and feel excited and proud--and then it comes over me again like a cold wind." "i envy jem!" said walter moodily. "envy jem! oh, walter you--you don't want to go too." "no," said walter, gazing straight before him down the emerald vistas of the valley, "no, i don't want to go. that's just the trouble. rilla, i'm afraid to go. i'm a coward." "you're not!" rilla burst out angrily. "why, anybody would be afraid to go. you might be--why, you might be killed." "i wouldn't mind that if it didn't hurt," muttered walter. "i don't think i'm afraid of death itself--it's of the pain that might come before death--it wouldn't be so bad to die and have it over--but to keep on dying! rilla, i've always been afraid of pain--you know that. i can't help it--i shudder when i think of the possibility of being mangled or--or blinded. rilla, i cannot face that thought. to be blind--never to see the beauty of the world again--moonlight on four winds--the stars twinkling through the fir-trees--mist on the gulf. i ought to go--i ought to want to go--but i don't--i hate the thought of it--i'm ashamed--ashamed." "but, walter, you couldn't go anyhow," said rilla piteously. she was sick with a new terror that walter would go after all. "you're not strong enough." "i am. i've felt as fit as ever i did this last month. i'd pass any examination--i know it. everybody thinks i'm not strong yet--and i'm skulking behind that belief. i--i should have been a girl," walter concluded in a burst of passionate bitterness. "even if you were strong enough, you oughtn't to go," sobbed rilla. "what would mother do? she's breaking her heart over jem. it would kill her to see you both go." "oh, i'm not going--don't worry. i tell you i'm afraid to go--afraid. i don't mince the matter to myself. it's a relief to own up even to you, rilla. i wouldn't confess it to anybody else--nan and di would despise me. but i hate the whole thing--the horror, the pain, the ugliness. war isn't a khaki uniform or a drill parade--everything i've read in old histories haunts me. i lie awake at night and see things that have happened--see the blood and filth and misery of it all. and a bayonet charge! if i could face the other things i could never face that. it turns me sick to think of it--sicker even to think of giving it than receiving it--to think of thrusting a bayonet through another man." walter writhed and shuddered. "i think of these things all the time--and it doesn't seem to me that jem and jerry ever think of them. they laugh and talk about 'potting huns'! but it maddens me to see them in the khaki. and they think i'm grumpy because i'm not fit to go." walter laughed bitterly. "it is not a nice thing to feel yourself a coward." but rilla got her arms about him and cuddled her head on his shoulder. she was so glad he didn't want to go--for just one minute she had been horribly frightened. and it was so nice to have walter confiding his troubles to her--to her, not di. she didn't feel so lonely and superfluous any longer. "don't you despise me, rilla-my-rilla?" asked walter wistfully. somehow, it hurt him to think rilla might despise him--hurt him as much as if it had been di. he realized suddenly how very fond he was of this adoring kid sister with her appealing eyes and troubled, girlish face. "no, i don't. why, walter, hundreds of people feel just as you do. you know what that verse of shakespeare in the old fifth reader says--'the brave man is not he who feels no fear.'" "no--but it is 'he whose noble soul its fear subdues.' i don't do that. we can't gloss it over, rilla. i'm a coward." "you're not. think of how you fought dan reese long ago." "one spurt of courage isn't enough for a lifetime." "walter, one time i heard father say that the trouble with you was a sensitive nature and a vivid imagination. you feel things before they really come--feel them all alone when there isn't anything to help you bear them--to take away from them. it isn't anything to be ashamed of. when you and jem got your hands burned when the grass was fired on the sand-hills two years ago jem made twice the fuss over the pain that you did. as for this horrid old war, there'll be plenty to go without you. it won't last long." "i wish i could believe it. well, it's supper-time, rilla. you'd better run. i don't want anything." "neither do i. i couldn't eat a mouthful. let me stay here with you, walter. it's such a comfort to talk things over with someone. the rest all think that i'm too much of a baby to understand." so they two sat there in the old valley until the evening star shone through a pale-grey, gauzy cloud over the maple grove, and a fragrant dewy darkness filled their little sylvan dell. it was one of the evenings rilla was to treasure in remembrance all her life--the first one on which walter had ever talked to her as if she were a woman and not a child. they comforted and strengthened each other. walter felt, for the time being at least, that it was not such a despicable thing after all to dread the horror of war; and rilla was glad to be made the confidante of his struggles--to sympathize with and encourage him. she was of importance to somebody. when they went back to ingleside they found callers sitting on the veranda. mr. and mrs. meredith had come over from the manse, and mr. and mrs. norman douglas had come up from the farm. cousin sophia was there also, sitting with susan in the shadowy background. mrs. blythe and nan and di were away, but dr. blythe was home and so was dr. jekyll, sitting in golden majesty on the top step. and of course they were all talking of the war, except dr. jekyll who kept his own counsel and looked contempt as only a cat can. when two people foregathered in those days they talked of the war; and old highland sandy of the harbour head talked of it when he was alone and hurled anathemas at the kaiser across all the acres of his farm. walter slipped away, not caring to see or be seen, but rilla sat down on the steps, where the garden mint was dewy and pungent. it was a very calm evening with a dim, golden afterlight irradiating the glen. she felt happier than at any time in the dreadful week that had passed. she was no longer haunted by the fear that walter would go. "i'd go myself if i was twenty years younger," norman douglas was shouting. norman always shouted when he was excited. "i'd show the kaiser a thing or two! did i ever say there wasn't a hell? of course there's a hell--dozens of hells--hundreds of hells--where the kaiser and all his brood are bound for." "i knew this war was coming," said mrs. norman triumphantly. "i saw it coming right along. i could have told all those stupid englishmen what was ahead of them. i told you, john meredith, years ago what the kaiser was up to but you wouldn't believe it. you said he would never plunge the world in war. who was right about the kaiser, john? you--or i? tell me that." "you were, i admit," said mr. meredith. "it's too late to admit it now," said mrs. norman, shaking her head, as if to intimate that if john meredith had admitted it sooner there might have been no war. "thank god, england's navy is ready," said the doctor. "amen to that," nodded mrs. norman. "bat-blind as most of them were somebody had foresight enough to see to that." "maybe england'll manage not to get into trouble over it," said cousin sophia plaintively. "i dunno. but i'm much afraid." "one would suppose that england was in trouble over it already, up to her neck, sophia crawford," said susan. "but your ways of thinking are beyond me and always were. it is my opinion that the british navy will settle germany in a jiffy and that we are all getting worked up over nothing." susan spat out the words as if she wanted to convince herself more than anybody else. she had her little store of homely philosophies to guide her through life, but she had nothing to buckler her against the thunderbolts of the week that had just passed. what had an honest, hard-working, presbyterian old maid of glen st. mary to do with a war thousands of miles away? susan felt that it was indecent that she should have to be disturbed by it. "the british army will settle germany," shouted norman. "just wait till it gets into line and the kaiser will find that real war is a different thing from parading round berlin with your moustaches cocked up." "britain hasn't got an army," said mrs. norman emphatically. "you needn't glare at me, norman. glaring won't make soldiers out of timothy stalks. a hundred thousand men will just be a mouthful for germany's millions." "there'll be some tough chewing in the mouthful, i reckon," persisted norman valiantly. "germany'll break her teeth on it. don't you tell me one britisher isn't a match for ten foreigners. i could polish off a dozen of 'em myself with both hands tied behind my back!" "i am told," said susan, "that old mr. pryor does not believe in this war. i am told that he says england went into it just because she was jealous of germany and that she did not really care in the least what happened to belgium." "i believe he's been talking some such rot," said norman. "i haven't heard him. when i do, whiskers-on-the-moon won't know what happened to him. that precious relative of mine, kitty alec, holds forth to the same effect, i understand. not before me, though--somehow, folks don't indulge in that kind of conversation in my presence. lord love you, they've a kind of presentiment, so to speak, that it wouldn't be healthy for their complaint." "i am much afraid that this war has been sent as a punishment for our sins," said cousin sophia, unclasping her pale hands from her lap and reclasping them solemnly over her stomach. "'the world is very evil--the times are waxing late.'" "parson here's got something of the same idea," chuckled norman. "haven't you, parson? that's why you preached t'other night on the text 'without shedding of blood there is no remission of sins.' i didn't agree with you--wanted to get up in the pew and shout out that there wasn't a word of sense in what you were saying, but ellen, here, she held me down. i never have any fun sassing parsons since i got married." "without shedding of blood there is no anything," said mr. meredith, in the gentle dreamy way which had an unexpected trick of convincing his hearers. "everything, it seems to me, has to be purchased by self-sacrifice. our race has marked every step of its painful ascent with blood. and now torrents of it must flow again. no, mrs. crawford, i don't think the war has been sent as a punishment for sin. i think it is the price humanity must pay for some blessing--some advance great enough to be worth the price--which we may not live to see but which our children's children will inherit." "if jerry is killed will you feel so fine about it?" demanded norman, who had been saying things like that all his life and never could be made to see any reason why he shouldn't. "now, never mind kicking me in the shins, ellen. i want to see if parson meant what he said or if it was just a pulpit frill." mr. meredith's face quivered. he had had a terrible hour alone in his study on the night jem and jerry had gone to town. but he answered quietly. "whatever i felt, it could not alter my belief--my assurance that a country whose sons are ready to lay down their lives in her defence will win a new vision because of their sacrifice." "you do mean it, parson. i can always tell when people mean what they say. it's a gift that was born in me. makes me a terror to most parsons, that! but i've never caught you yet saying anything you didn't mean. i'm always hoping i will--that's what reconciles me to going to church. it'd be such a comfort to me--such a weapon to batter ellen here with when she tries to civilize me. well, i'm off over the road to see ab. crawford a minute. the gods be good to you all." "the old pagan!" muttered susan, as norman strode away. she did not care if ellen douglas did hear her. susan could never understand why fire did not descend from heaven upon norman douglas when he insulted ministers the way he did. but the astonishing thing was mr. meredith seemed really to like his brother-in-law. rilla wished they would talk of something besides war. she had heard nothing else for a week and she was really a little tired of it. now that she was relieved from her haunting fear that walter would want to go it made her quite impatient. but she supposed--with a sigh--that there would be three or four months of it yet. chapter vi susan, rilla, and dog monday make a resolution the big living-room at ingleside was snowed over with drifts of white cotton. word had come from red cross headquarters that sheets and bandages would be required. nan and di and rilla were hard at work. mrs. blythe and susan were upstairs in the boys' room, engaged in a more personal task. with dry, anguished eyes they were packing up jem's belongings. he must leave for valcartier the next morning. they had been expecting the word but it was none the less dreadful when it came. rilla was basting the hem of a sheet for the first time in her life. when the word had come that jem must go she had her cry out among the pines in rainbow valley and then she had gone to her mother. "mother, i want to do something. i'm only a girl--i can't do anything to win the war--but i must do something to help at home." "the cotton has come up for the sheets," said mrs. blythe. "you can help nan and di make them up. and rilla, don't you think you could organize a junior red cross among the young girls? i think they would like it better and do better work by themselves than if mixed up with the older people." "but, mother--i've never done anything like that." "we will all have to do a great many things in the months ahead of us that we have never done before, rilla." "well"--rilla took the plunge--"i'll try, mother--if you'll tell me how to begin. i have been thinking it all over and i have decided that i must be as brave and heroic and unselfish as i can possibly be." mrs. blythe did not smile at rilla's italics. perhaps she did not feel like smiling or perhaps she detected a real grain of serious purpose behind rilla's romantic pose. so here was rilla hemming sheets and organizing a junior red cross in her thoughts as she hemmed; moreover, she was enjoying it--the organizing that is, not the hemming. it was interesting and rilla discovered a certain aptitude in herself for it that surprised her. who would be president? not she. the older girls would not like that. irene howard? no, somehow irene was not quite as popular as she deserved to be. marjorie drew? no, marjorie hadn't enough backbone. she was too prone to agree with the last speaker. betty mead--calm, capable, tactful betty--the very one! and una meredith for treasurer; and, if they were very insistent, they might make her, rilla, secretary. as for the various committees, they must be chosen after the juniors were organized, but rilla knew just who should be put on which. they would meet around--and there must be no eats--rilla knew she would have a pitched battle with olive kirk over that--and everything should be strictly business-like and constitutional. her minute book should be covered in white with a red cross on the cover--and wouldn't it be nice to have some kind of uniform which they could all wear at the concerts they would have to get up to raise money--something simple but smart? "you have basted the top hem of that sheet on one side and the bottom hem on the other," said di. rilla picked out her stitches and reflected that she hated sewing. running the junior reds would be much more interesting. mrs. blythe was saying upstairs, "susan, do you remember that first day jem lifted up his little arms to me and called me 'mo'er'--the very first word he ever tried to say?" "you could not mention anything about that blessed baby that i do not and will not remember till my dying day," said susan drearily. "susan, i keep thinking today of once when he cried for me in the night. he was just a few months old. gilbert didn't want me to go to him--he said the child was well and warm and that it would be fostering bad habits in him. but i went--and took him up--i can feel that tight clinging of his little arms round my neck yet. susan, if i hadn't gone that night, twenty-one years ago, and taken my baby up when he cried for me i couldn't face tomorrow morning." "i do not know how we are going to face it anyhow, mrs. dr. dear. but do not tell me that it will be the final farewell. he will be back on leave before he goes overseas, will he not?" "we hope so but we are not very sure. i am making up my mind that he will not, so that there will be no disappointment to bear. susan, i am determined that i will send my boy off tomorrow with a smile. he shall not carry away with him the remembrance of a weak mother who had not the courage to send when he had the courage to go. i hope none of us will cry." "i am not going to cry, mrs. dr. dear, and that you may tie to, but whether i shall manage to smile or not will be as providence ordains and as the pit of my stomach feels. have you room there for this fruit-cake? and the shortbread? and the mince-pie? that blessed boy shall not starve, whether they have anything to eat in that quebec place or not. everything seems to be changing all at once, does it not? even the old cat at the manse has passed away. he breathed his last at a quarter to ten last night and bruce is quite heart-broken, they tell me." "it's time that pussy went where good cats go. he must be at least fifteen years old. he has seemed so lonely since aunt martha died." "i should not have lamented, mrs. dr. dear, if that hyde-beast had died also. he has been mr. hyde most of the time since jem came home in khaki, and that has a meaning i will maintain. i do not know what monday will do when jem is gone. the creature just goes about with a human look in his eyes that takes all the good out of me when i see it. ellen west used to be always railing at the kaiser and we thought her crazy, but now i see that there was a method in her madness. this tray is packed, mrs. dr. dear, and i will go down and put in my best licks preparing supper. i wish i knew when i would cook another supper for jem but such things are hidden from our eyes." jem blythe and jerry meredith left next morning. it was a dull day, threatening rain, and the clouds lay in heavy grey rolls over the sky; but almost everybody in the glen and four winds and harbour head and upper glen and over-harbour--except whiskers-on-the-moon--was there to see them off. the blythe family and the meredith family were all smiling. even susan, as providence did ordain, wore a smile, though the effect was somewhat more painful than tears would have been. faith and nan were very pale and very gallant. rilla thought she would get on very well if something in her throat didn't choke her, and if her lips didn't take such spells of trembling. dog monday was there, too. jem had tried to say good-bye to him at ingleside but monday implored so eloquently that jem relented and let him go to the station. he kept close to jem's legs and watched every movement of his beloved master. "i can't bear that dog's eyes," said mrs. meredith. "the beast has more sense than most humans," said mary vance. "well, did we any of us ever think we'd live to see this day? i bawled all night to think of jem and jerry going like this. i think they're plumb deranged. miller got a maggot in his head about going but i soon talked him out of it--likewise his aunt said a few touching things. for once in our lives kitty alec and i agree. it's a miracle that isn't likely to happen again. there's ken, rilla." rilla knew kenneth was there. she had been acutely conscious of it from the moment he had sprung from leo west's buggy. now he came up to her smiling. "doing the brave-smiling-sister-stunt, i see. what a crowd for the glen to muster! well, i'm off home in a few days myself." a queer little wind of desolation that even jem's going had not caused blew over rilla's spirit. "why? you have another month of vacation." "yes--but i can't hang around four winds and enjoy myself when the world's on fire like this. it's me for little old toronto where i'll find some way of helping in spite of this bally ankle. i'm not looking at jem and jerry--makes me too sick with envy. you girls are great--no crying, no grim endurance. the boys'll go off with a good taste in their mouths. i hope persis and mother will be as game when my turn comes." "oh, kenneth--the war will be over before your turn cometh." there! she had lisped again. another great moment of life spoiled! well, it was her fate. and anyhow, nothing mattered. kenneth was off already--he was talking to ethel reese, who was dressed, at seven in the morning, in the gown she had worn to the dance, and was crying. what on earth had ethel to cry about? none of the reeses were in khaki. rilla wanted to cry, too--but she would not. what was that horrid old mrs. drew saying to mother, in that melancholy whine of hers? "i don't know how you can stand this, mrs. blythe. i couldn't if it was my pore boy." and mother--oh, mother could always be depended on! how her grey eyes flashed in her pale face. "it might have been worse, mrs. drew. i might have had to urge him to go." mrs. drew did not understand but rilla did. she flung up her head. her brother did not have to be urged to go. rilla found herself standing alone and listening to disconnected scraps of talk as people walked up and down past her. "i told mark to wait and see if they asked for a second lot of men. if they did i'd let him go--but they won't," said mrs. palmer burr. "i think i'll have it made with a crush girdle of velvet," said bessie clow. "i'm frightened to look at my husband's face for fear i'll see in it that he wants to go too," said a little over-harbour bride. "i'm scared stiff," said whimsical mrs. jim howard. "i'm scared jim will enlist--and i'm scared he won't." "the war will be over by christmas," said joe vickers. "let them european nations fight it out between them," said abner reese. "when he was a boy i gave him many a good trouncing," shouted norman douglas, who seemed to be referring to some one high in military circles in charlottetown. "yes, sir, i walloped him well, big gun as he is now." "the existence of the british empire is at stake," said the methodist minister. "there's certainly something about uniforms," sighed irene howard. "it's a commercial war when all is said and done and not worth one drop of good canadian blood," said a stranger from the shore hotel. "the blythe family are taking it easy," said kate drew. "them young fools are just going for adventure," growled nathan crawford. "i have absolute confidence in kitchener," said the over-harbour doctor. in these ten minutes rilla passed through a dizzying succession of anger, laughter, contempt, depression and inspiration. oh, people were--funny! how little they understood. "taking it easy," indeed--when even susan hadn't slept a wink all night! kate drew always was a minx. rilla felt as if she were in some fantastic nightmare. were these the people who, three weeks ago, were talking of crops and prices and local gossip? there--the train was coming--mother was holding jem's hand--dog monday was licking it--everybody was saying good-bye--the train was in! jem kissed faith before everybody--old mrs. drew whooped hysterically--the men, led by kenneth, cheered--rilla felt jem seize her hand--"good-bye, spider"--somebody kissed her cheek--she believed it was jerry but never was sure--they were off--the train was pulling out--jem and jerry were waving to everybody--everybody was waving back--mother and nan were smiling still, but as if they had just forgotten to take the smile off--monday was howling dismally and being forcibly restrained by the methodist minister from tearing after the train--susan was waving her best bonnet and hurrahing like a man--had she gone crazy?--the train rounded a curve. they had gone. rilla came to herself with a gasp. there was a sudden quiet. nothing to do now but to go home--and wait. the doctor and mrs. blythe walked off together--so did nan and faith--so did john meredith and rosemary. walter and una and shirley and di and carl and rilla went in a group. susan had put her bonnet back on her head, hindside foremost, and stalked grimly off alone. nobody missed dog monday at first. when they did shirley went back for him. he found dog monday curled up in one of the shipping-sheds near the station and tried to coax him home. dog monday would not move. he wagged his tail to show he had no hard feelings but no blandishments availed to budge him. "guess monday has made up his mind to wait there till jem comes back," said shirley, trying to laugh as he rejoined the rest. this was exactly what dog monday had done. his dear master had gone--he, monday, had been deliberately and of malice aforethought prevented from going with him by a demon disguised in the garb of a methodist minister. wherefore, he, monday, would wait there until the smoking, snorting monster, which had carried his hero off, carried him back. ay, wait there, little faithful dog with the soft, wistful, puzzled eyes. but it will be many a long bitter day before your boyish comrade comes back to you. the doctor was away on a case that night and susan stalked into mrs. blythe's room on her way to bed to see if her adored mrs. dr. dear were "comfortable and composed." she paused solemnly at the foot of the bed and solemnly declared, "mrs. dr. dear, i have made up my mind to be a heroine." "mrs. dr. dear" found herself violently inclined to laugh--which was manifestly unfair, since she had not laughed when rilla had announced a similar heroic determination. to be sure, rilla was a slim, white-robed thing, with a flower-like face and starry young eyes aglow with feeling; whereas susan was arrayed in a grey flannel nightgown of strait simplicity, and had a strip of red woollen worsted tied around her grey hair as a charm against neuralgia. but that should not make any vital difference. was it not the spirit that counted? yet mrs. blythe was hard put to it not to laugh. "i am not," proceeded susan firmly, "going to lament or whine or question the wisdom of the almighty any more as i have been doing lately. whining and shirking and blaming providence do not get us anywhere. we have just got to grapple with whatever we have to do whether it is weeding the onion patch, or running the government. i shall grapple. those blessed boys have gone to war; and we women, mrs. dr. dear, must tarry by the stuff and keep a stiff upper lip." chapter vii a war-baby and a soup tureen "liege and namur--and now brussels!" the doctor shook his head. "i don't like it--i don't like it." "do not you lose heart, dr. dear; they were just defended by foreigners," said susan superbly. "wait you till the germans come against the british; there will be a very different story to tell and that you may tie to." the doctor shook his head again, but a little less gravely; perhaps they all shared subconsciously in susan's belief that "the thin grey line" was unbreakable, even by the victorious rush of germany's ready millions. at any rate, when the terrible day came--the first of many terrible days--with the news that the british army was driven back they stared at each other in blank dismay. "it--it can't be true," gasped nan, taking a brief refuge in temporary incredulity. "i felt that there was to be bad news today," said susan, "for that cat-creature turned into mr. hyde this morning without rhyme or reason for it, and that was no good omen." "'a broken, a beaten, but not a demoralized, army,'" muttered the doctor, from a london dispatch. "can it be england's army of which such a thing is said?" "it will be a long time now before the war is ended," said mrs. blythe despairingly. susan's faith, which had for a moment been temporarily submerged, now reappeared triumphantly. "remember, mrs. dr. dear, that the british army is not the british navy. never forget that. and the russians are on their way, too, though russians are people i do not know much about and consequently will not tie to." "the russians will not be in time to save paris," said walter gloomily. "paris is the heart of france--and the road to it is open. oh, i wish"--he stopped abruptly and went out. after a paralysed day the ingleside folk found it was possible to "carry on" even in the face of ever-darkening bad news. susan worked fiercely in her kitchen, the doctor went out on his round of visits, nan and di returned to their red cross activities; mrs. blythe went to charlottetown to attend a red cross convention; rilla after relieving her feelings by a stormy fit of tears in rainbow valley and an outburst in her diary, remembered that she had elected to be brave and heroic. and, she thought, it really was heroic to volunteer to drive about the glen and four winds one day, collecting promised red cross supplies with abner crawford's old grey horse. one of the ingleside horses was lame and the doctor needed the other, so there was nothing for it but the crawford nag, a placid, unhasting, thick-skinned creature with an amiable habit of stopping every few yards to kick a fly off one leg with the foot of the other. rilla felt that this, coupled with the fact that the germans were only fifty miles from paris, was hardly to be endured. but she started off gallantly on an errand fraught with amazing results. late in the afternoon she found herself, with a buggy full of parcels, at the entrance to a grassy, deep-rutted lane leading to the harbour shore, wondering whether it was worth while to call down at the anderson house. the andersons were desperately poor and it was not likely mrs. anderson had anything to give. on the other hand, her husband, who was an englishman by birth and who had been working in kingsport when the war broke out, had promptly sailed for england to enlist there, without, it may be said, coming home or sending much hard cash to represent him. so possibly mrs. anderson might feel hurt if she were overlooked. rilla decided to call. there were times afterwards when she wished she hadn't, but in the long run she was very thankful that she did. the anderson house was a small and tumbledown affair, crouching in a grove of battered spruces near the shore as if rather ashamed of itself and anxious to hide. rilla tied her grey nag to the rickety fence and went to the door. it was open; and the sight she saw bereft her temporarily of the power of speech or motion. through the open door of the small bedroom opposite her, rilla saw mrs. anderson lying on the untidy bed; and mrs. anderson was dead. there was no doubt of that; neither was there any doubt that the big, frowzy, red-headed, red-faced, over-fat woman sitting near the door-way, smoking a pipe quite comfortably, was very much alive. she rocked idly back and forth amid her surroundings of squalid disorder, and paid no attention whatever to the piercing wails proceeding from a cradle in the middle of the room. rilla knew the woman by sight and reputation. her name was mrs. conover; she lived down at the fishing village; she was a great-aunt of mrs. anderson; and she drank as well as smoked. rilla's first impulse was to turn and flee. but that would never do. perhaps this woman, repulsive as she was, needed help--though she certainly did not look as if she were worrying over the lack of it. "come in," said mrs. conover, removing her pipe and staring at rilla with her little, rat-like eyes. "is--is mrs. anderson really dead?" asked rilla timidly, as she stepped over the sill. "dead as a door nail," responded mrs. conover cheerfully. "kicked the bucket half an hour ago. i've sent jen conover to 'phone for the undertaker and get some help up from the shore. you're the doctor's miss, ain't ye? have a cheer?" rilla did not see any chair which was not cluttered with something. she remained standing. "wasn't it--very sudden?" "well, she's been a-pining ever since that worthless jim lit out for england--which i say it's a pity as he ever left. it's my belief she was took for death when she heard the news. that young un there was born a fortnight ago and since then she's just gone down and today she up and died, without a soul expecting it." "is there anything i can do to--to help?" hesitated rilla. "bless yez, no--unless ye've a knack with kids. i haven't. that young un there never lets up squalling, day or night. i've just got that i take no notice of it." rilla tiptoed gingerly over to the cradle and more gingerly still pulled down the dirty blanket. she had no intention of touching the baby--she had no "knack with kids" either. she saw an ugly midget with a red, distorted little face, rolled up in a piece of dingy old flannel. she had never seen an uglier baby. yet a feeling of pity for the desolate, orphaned mite which had "come out of the everywhere" into such a dubious "here", took sudden possession of her. "what is going to become of the baby?" she asked. "lord knows," said mrs. conover candidly. "min worried awful over that before she died. she kept on a-saying 'oh, what will become of my pore baby' till it really got on my nerves. i ain't a-going to trouble myself with it, i can tell yez. i brung up a boy that my sister left and he skinned out as soon as he got to be some good and won't give me a mite o' help in my old age, ungrateful whelp as he is. i told min it'd have to be sent to an orphan asylum till we'd see if jim ever came back to look after it. would yez believe it, she didn't relish the idee. but that's the long and short of it." "but who will look after it until it can be taken to the asylum?" persisted rilla. somehow the baby's fate worried her. "s'pose i'll have to," grunted mrs. conover. she put away her pipe and took an unblushing swig from a black bottle she produced from a shelf near her. "it's my opinion the kid won't live long. it's sickly. min never had no gimp and i guess it hain't either. likely it won't trouble any one long and good riddance, sez i." rilla drew the blanket down a little farther. "why, the baby isn't dressed!" she exclaimed, in a shocked tone. "who was to dress him i'd like to know," demanded mrs. conover truculently. "i hadn't time--took me all the time there was looking after min. 'sides, as i told yez, i don't know nithing about kids. old mrs. billy crawford, she was here when it was born and she washed it and rolled it up in that flannel, and jen she's tended it a bit since. the critter is warm enough. this weather would melt a brass monkey." rilla was silent, looking down at the crying baby. she had never encountered any of the tragedies of life before and this one smote her to the core of her heart. the thought of the poor mother going down into the valley of the shadow alone, fretting about her baby, with no one near but this abominable old woman, hurt her terribly. if she had only come a little sooner! yet what could she have done--what could she do now? she didn't know, but she must do something. she hated babies--but she simply could not go away and leave that poor little creature with mrs. conover--who was applying herself again to her black bottle and would probably be helplessly drunk before anybody came. "i can't stay," thought rilla. "mr. crawford said i must be home by supper-time because he wanted the pony this evening himself. oh, what can i do?" she made a sudden, desperate, impulsive resolution. "i'll take the baby home with me," she said. "can i?" "sure, if yez wants to," said mrs. conover amiably. "i hain't any objection. take it and welcome." "i--i can't carry it," said rilla. "i have to drive the horse and i'd be afraid i'd drop it. is there a--a basket anywhere that i could put it in?" "not as i knows on. there ain't much here of anything, i kin tell yez. min was pore and as shiftless as jim. ef ye opens that drawer over there yez'll find a few baby clo'es. best take them along." rilla got the clothes--the cheap, sleazy garments the poor mother had made ready as best she could. but this did not solve the pressing problem of the baby's transportation. rilla looked helplessly round. oh, for mother--or susan! her eyes fell on an enormous blue soup tureen at the back of the dresser. "may i have this to--to lay him in?" she asked. "well, 'tain't mine but i guess yez kin take it. don't smash it if yez can help--jim might make a fuss about it if he comes back alive--which he sure will, seein' he ain't any good. he brung that old tureen out from england with him--said it'd always been in the family. him and min never used it--never had enough soup to put in it--but jim thought the world of it. he was mighty perticuler about some things but didn't worry him none that there weren't much in the way o' eatables to put in the dishes." for the first time in her life rilla blythe touched a baby--lifted it--rolled it in a blanket, trembling with nervousness lest she drop it or--or--break it. then she put it in the soup tureen. "is there any fear of it smothering?" she asked anxiously. "not much odds if it do," said mrs. conover. horrified rilla loosened the blanket round the baby's face a little. the mite had stopped crying and was blinking up at her. it had big dark eyes in its ugly little face. "better not let the wind blow on it," admonished mrs. conover. "take its breath if it do." rilla wrapped the tattered little quilt around the soup tureen. "will you hand this to me after i get into the buggy, please?" "sure i will," said mrs. conover, getting up with a grunt. and so it was that rilla blythe, who had driven to the anderson house a self-confessed hater of babies, drove away from it carrying one in a soup tureen on her lap! rilla thought she would never get to ingleside. in the soup tureen there was an uncanny silence. in one way she was thankful the baby did not cry but she wished it would give an occasional squeak to prove that it was alive. suppose it were smothered! rilla dared not unwrap it to see, lest the wind, which was now blowing a hurricane, should "take its breath," whatever dreadful thing that might be. she was a thankful girl when at last she reached harbour at ingleside. rilla carried the soup tureen to the kitchen, and set it on the table under susan's eyes. susan looked into the tureen and for once in her life was so completely floored that she had not a word to say. "what in the world is this?" asked the doctor, coming in. rilla poured out her story. "i just had to bring it, father," she concluded. "i couldn't leave it there." "what are you going to do with it?" asked the doctor coolly. rilla hadn't exactly expected this kind of question. "we--we can keep it here for awhile--can't we--until something can be arranged?" she stammered confusedly. dr. blythe walked up and down the kitchen for a moment or two while the baby stared at the white walls of the soup tureen and susan showed signs of returning animation. presently the doctor confronted rilla. "a young baby means a great deal of additional work and trouble in a household, rilla. nan and di are leaving for redmond next week and neither your mother nor susan is able to assume so much extra care under present conditions. if you want to keep that baby here you must attend to it yourself." "me!" rilla was dismayed into being ungrammatical. "why--father--i--i couldn't!" "younger girls than you have had to look after babies. my advice and susan's is at your disposal. if you cannot, then the baby must go back to meg conover. its lease of life will be short if it does for it is evident that it is a delicate child and requires particular care. i doubt if it would survive even if sent to an orphans' home. but i cannot have your mother and susan over-taxed." the doctor walked out of the kitchen, looking very stern and immovable. in his heart he knew quite well that the small inhabitant of the big soup tureen would remain at ingleside, but he meant to see if rilla could not be induced to rise to the occasion. rilla sat looking blankly at the baby. it was absurd to think she could take care of it. but--that poor little, frail, dead mother who had worried about it--that dreadful old meg conover. "susan, what must be done for a baby?" she asked dolefully. "you must keep it warm and dry and wash it every day, and be sure the water is neither too hot nor too cold, and feed it every two hours. if it has colic, you put hot things on its stomach," said susan, rather feebly and flatly for her. the baby began to cry again. "it must be hungry--it has to be fed anyhow," said rilla desperately. "tell me what to get for it, susan, and i'll get it." under susan's directions a ration of milk and water was prepared, and a bottle obtained from the doctor's office. then rilla lifted the baby out of the soup tureen and fed it. she brought down the old basket of her own infancy from the attic and laid the now sleeping baby in it. she put the soup tureen away in the pantry. then she sat down to think things over. the result of her thinking things over was that she went to susan when the baby woke. "i'm going to see what i can do, susan. i can't let that poor little thing go back to mrs. conover. tell me how to wash and dress it." under susan's supervision rilla bathed the baby. susan dared not help, other than by suggestion, for the doctor was in the living-room and might pop in at any moment. susan had learned by experience that when dr. blythe put his foot down and said a thing must be, that thing was. rilla set her teeth and went ahead. in the name of goodness, how many wrinkles and kinks did a baby have? why, there wasn't enough of it to take hold of. oh, suppose she let it slip into the water--it was so wobbly! if it would only stop howling like that! how could such a tiny morsel make such an enormous noise. its shrieks could be heard over ingleside from cellar to attic. "am i really hurting it much, susan, do you suppose?" she asked piteously. "no, dearie. most new babies hate like poison to be washed. you are real knacky for a beginner. keep your hand under its back, whatever you do, and keep cool." keep cool! rilla was oozing perspiration at every pore. when the baby was dried and dressed and temporarily quieted with another bottle she was as limp as a rag. "what must i do with it tonight, susan?" a baby by day was dreadful enough; a baby by night was unthinkable. "set the basket on a chair by your bed and keep it covered. you will have to feed it once or twice in the night, so you would better take the oil heater upstairs. if you cannot manage it call me and i will go, doctor or no doctor." "but, susan, if it cries?" the baby, however, did not cry. it was surprisingly good--perhaps because its poor little stomach was filled with proper food. it slept most of the night but rilla did not. she was afraid to go to sleep for fear something would happen to the baby. she prepared its three o'clock ration with a grim determination that she would not call susan. oh, was she dreaming? was it really she, rilla blythe, who had got into this absurd predicament? she did not care if the germans were near paris--she did not care if they were in paris--if only the baby wouldn't cry or choke or smother or have convulsions. babies did have convulsions, didn't they? oh, why had she forgotten to ask susan what she must do if the baby had convulsions? she reflected rather bitterly that father was very considerate of mother's and susan's health, but what about hers? did he think she could continue to exist if she never got any sleep? but she was not going to back down now--not she. she would look after this detestable little animal if it killed her. she would get a book on baby hygiene and be beholden to nobody. she would never go to father for advice--she wouldn't bother mother--and she would only condescend to susan in dire extremity. they would all see! thus it came about that mrs. blythe, when she returned home two nights later and asked susan where rilla was, was electrified by susan's composed reply. "she's upstairs, mrs. dr. dear, putting her baby to bed." chapter viii rilla decides families and individuals alike soon become used to new conditions and accept them unquestioningly. by the time a week had elapsed it seemed as it the anderson baby had always been at ingleside. after the first three distracted nights rilla began to sleep again, waking automatically to attend to her charge on schedule time. she bathed and fed and dressed it as skilfully as if she had been doing it all her life. she liked neither her job nor the baby any the better; she still handled it as gingerly as if it were some kind of a small lizard, and a breakable lizard at that; but she did her work thoroughly and there was not a cleaner, better-cared-for infant in glen st. mary. she even took to weighing the creature every day and jotting the result down in her diary; but sometimes she asked herself pathetically why unkind destiny had ever led her down the anderson lane on that fatal day. shirley, nan, and di did not tease her as much as she had expected. they all seemed rather stunned by the mere fact of rilla adopting a war-baby; perhaps, too, the doctor had issued instructions. walter, of course, never had teased her over anything; one day he told her she was a brick. "it took more courage for you to tackle that five pounds of new infant, rilla-my-rilla, than it would be for jem to face a mile of germans. i wish i had half your pluck," he said ruefully. rilla was very proud of walter's approval; nevertheless, she wrote gloomily in her diary that night:-"i wish i could like the baby a little bit. it would make things easier. but i don't. i've heard people say that when you took care of a baby you got fond of it--but you don't--i don't, anyway. and it's a nuisance--it interferes with everything. it just ties me down--and now of all times when i'm trying to get the junior reds started. and i couldn't go to alice clow's party last night and i was just dying to. of course father isn't really unreasonable and i can always get an hour or two off in the evening when it's necessary; but i knew he wouldn't stand for my being out half the night and leaving susan or mother to see to the baby. i suppose it was just as well, because the thing did take colic--or something--about one o'clock. it didn't kick or stiffen out, so i knew that, according to morgan, it wasn't crying for temper; and it wasn't hungry and no pins were sticking in it. it screamed till it was black in the face; i got up and heated water and put the hot-water bottle on its stomach, and it howled worse than ever and drew up its poor wee thin legs. i was afraid i had burnt it but i don't believe i did. then i walked the floor with it although 'morgan on infants' says that should never be done. i walked miles, and oh, i was so tired and discouraged and mad--yes, i was. i could have shaken the creature if it had been big enough to shake, but it wasn't. father was out on a case, and mother had had a headache and susan is squiffy because when she and morgan differ i insist upon going by what morgan says, so i was determined i wouldn't call her unless i had to. "finally, miss oliver came in. she has rooms with nan now, not me, all because of the baby, and i am broken-hearted about it. i miss our long talks after we went to bed, so much. it was the only time i ever had her to myself. i hated to think the baby's yells had wakened her up, for she has so much to bear now. mr. grant is at valcartier, too, and miss oliver feels it dreadfully, though she is splendid about it. she thinks he will never come back and her eyes just break my heart--they are so tragic. she said it wasn't the baby that woke her--she hadn't been able to sleep because the germans are so near paris; she took the little wretch and laid it flat on its stomach across her knee and thumped its back gently a few times, and it stopped shrieking and went right off to sleep and slept like a lamb the rest of the night. i didn't--i was too worn out. "i'm having a perfectly dreadful time getting the junior reds started. i succeeded in getting betty mead as president, and i am secretary, but they put jen vickers in as treasurer and i despise her. she is the sort of girl who calls any clever, handsome, or distinguished people she knows slightly by their first names--behind their backs. and she is sly and two-faced. una doesn't mind, of course. she is willing to do anything that comes to hand and never minds whether she has an office or not. she is just a perfect angel, while i am only angelic in spots and demonic in other spots. i wish walter would take a fancy to her, but he never seems to think about her in that way, although i heard him say once she was like a tea rose. she is too. and she gets imposed upon, just because she is so sweet and willing; but i don't allow people to impose on rilla blythe and 'that you may tie to,' as susan says. "just as i expected, olive was determined we should have lunch served at our meetings. we had a battle royal over it. the majority was against eats and now the minority is sulking. irene howard was on the eats side and she has been very cool to me ever since and it makes me feel miserable. i wonder if mother and mrs. elliott have problems in the senior society too. i suppose they have, but they just go on calmly in spite of everything. i go on--but not calmly--i rage and cry--but i do it all in private and blow off steam in this diary; and when it's over i vow i'll show them. i never sulk. i detest people who sulk. anyhow, we've got the society started and we're to meet once a week, and we're all going to learn to knit. "shirley and i went down to the station again to try to induce dog monday to come home but we failed. all the family have tried and failed. three days after jem had gone walter went down and brought monday home by main force in the buggy and shut him up for three days. then monday went on a hunger strike and howled like a banshee night and day. we had to let him out or he would have starved to death. "so we have decided to let him alone and father has arranged with the butcher near the station to feed him with bones and scraps. besides, one of us goes down nearly every day to take him something. he just lies curled up in the shipping-shed, and every time a train comes in he will rush over to the platform, wagging his tail expectantly, and tear around to every one who comes off the train. and then, when the train goes and he realizes that jem has not come, he creeps dejectedly back to his shed, with his disappointed eyes, and lies down patiently to wait for the next train. mr. gray, the station master, says there are times when he can hardly help crying from sheer sympathy. one day some boys threw stones at monday and old johnny mead, who never was known to take notice of anything before, snatched up a meat axe in the butcher's shop and chased them through the village. nobody has molested monday since. "kenneth ford has gone back to toronto. he came up two evenings ago to say good-bye. i wasn't home--some clothes had to be made for the baby and mrs. meredith offered to help me, so i was over at the manse, and i didn't see kenneth. not that it matters; he told nan to say good-bye to spider for him and tell me not to forget him wholly in my absorbing maternal duties. if he could leave such a frivolous, insulting message as that for me it shows plainly that our beautiful hour on the sandshore meant nothing to him and i am not going to think about him or it again. "fred arnold was at the manse and walked home with me. he is the new methodist minister's son and very nice and clever, and would be quite handsome if it were not for his nose. it is a really dreadful nose. when he talks of commonplace things it does not matter so much, but when he talks of poetry and ideals the contrast between his nose and his conversation is too much for me and i want to shriek with laughter. it is really not fair, because everything he said was perfectly charming and if somebody like kenneth had said it i would have been enraptured. when i listened to him with my eyes cast down i was quite fascinated; but as soon as i looked up and saw his nose the spell was broken. he wants to enlist, too, but can't because he is only seventeen. mrs. elliott met us as we were walking through the village and could not have looked more horrified if she caught me walking with the kaiser himself. mrs. elliott detests the methodists and all their works. father says it is an obsession with her." about 1st september there was an exodus from ingleside and the manse. faith, nan, di and walter left for redmond; carl betook himself to his harbour head school and shirley was off to queen's. rilla was left alone at ingleside and would have been very lonely if she had had time to be. she missed walter keenly; since their talk in rainbow valley they had grown very near together and rilla discussed problems with walter which she never mentioned to others. but she was so busy with the junior reds and her baby that there was rarely a spare minute for loneliness; sometimes, after she went to bed, she cried a little in her pillow over walter's absence and jem at valcartier and kenneth's unromantic farewell message, but she was generally asleep before the tears got fairly started. "shall i make arrangements to have the baby sent to hopetown?" the doctor asked one day two weeks after the baby's arrival at ingleside. for a moment rilla was tempted to say "yes." the baby could be sent to hopetown--it would be decently looked after--she could have her free days and untrammelled nights back again. but--but--that poor young mother who hadn't wanted it to go to the asylum! rilla couldn't get that out of her thoughts. and that very morning she discovered that the baby had gained eight ounces since its coming to ingleside. rilla had felt such a thrill of pride over this. "you--you said it mightn't live if it went to hopetown," she said. "it mightn't. somehow, institutional care, no matter how good it may be, doesn't always succeed with delicate babies. but you know what it means if you want it kept here, rilla." "i've taken care of it for a fortnight--and it has gained half a pound," cried rilla. "i think we'd better wait until we hear from its father anyhow. he mightn't want to have it sent to an orphan asylum, when he is fighting the battles of his country." the doctor and mrs. blythe exchanged amused, satisfied smiles behind rilla's back; and nothing more was said about hopetown. then the smile faded from the doctor's face; the germans were twenty miles from paris. horrible tales were beginning to appear in the papers of deeds done in martyred belgium. life was very tense at ingleside for the older people. "we eat up the war news," gertrude oliver told mrs. meredith, trying to laugh and failing. "we study the maps and nip the whole hun army in a few well-directed strategic moves. but papa joffre hasn't the benefit of our advice--and so paris--must--fall." "will they reach it--will not some mighty hand yet intervene?" murmured john meredith. "i teach school like one in a dream," continued gertrude; "then i come home and shut myself in my room and walk the floor. i am wearing a path right across nan's carpet. we are so horribly near this war." "them german men are at senlis. nothing nor nobody can save paris now," wailed cousin sophia. cousin sophia had taken to reading the newspapers and had learned more about the geography of northern france, if not about the pronunciation of french names, in her seventy-first year than she had ever known in her schooldays. "i have not such a poor opinion of the almighty, or of kitchener," said susan stubbornly. "i see there is a bernstoff man in the states who says that the war is over and germany has won--and they tell me whiskers-on-the-moon says the same thing and is quite pleased about it, but i could tell them both that it is chancy work counting chickens even the day before they are hatched, and bears have been known to live long after their skins were sold." "why ain't the british navy doing more?" persisted cousin sophia. "even the british navy cannot sail on dry land, sophia crawford. i have not given up hope, and i shall not, tomascow and mobbage and all such barbarous names to the contrary notwithstanding. mrs. dr. dear, can you tell me if r-h-e-i-m-s is rimes or reems or rames or rems?" "i believe it's really more like 'rhangs,' susan." "oh, those french names," groaned susan. "they tell me the germans has about ruined the church there," sighed cousin sophia. "i always thought the germans was christians." "a church is bad enough but their doings in belgium are far worse," said susan grimly. "when i heard the doctor reading about them bayonetting the babies, mrs. dr. dear, i just thought, 'oh, what if it were our little jem!' i was stirring the soup when that thought came to me and i just felt that if i could have lifted that saucepan full of that boiling soup and thrown it at the kaiser i would not have lived in vain." "tomorrow--tomorrow--will bring the news that the germans are in paris," said gertrude oliver, through her tense lips. she had one of those souls that are always tied to the stake, burning in the suffering of the world around them. apart from her own personal interest in the war, she was racked by the thought of paris falling into the ruthless hands of the hordes who had burned louvain and ruined the wonder of rheims. but on the morrow and the next morrow came the news of the miracle of the marne. rilla rushed madly home from the office waving the enterprise with its big red headlines. susan ran out with trembling hands to hoist the flag. the doctor stalked about muttering "thank god." mrs. blythe cried and laughed and cried again. "god just put out his hand and touched them--'thus far--no farther'," said mr. meredith that evening. rilla was singing upstairs as she put the baby to bed. paris was saved--the war was over--germany had lost--there would soon be an end now--jem and jerry would be back. the black clouds had rolled by. "don't you dare have colic this joyful night," she told the baby. "if you do i'll clap you back into your soup tureen and ship you off to hopetown--by freight--on the early train. you have got beautiful eyes--and you're not quite as red and wrinkled as you were--but you haven't a speck of hair--and your hands are like little claws--and i don't like you a bit better than i ever did. but i hope your poor little white mother knows that you're tucked in a soft basket with a bottle of milk as rich as morgan allows instead of perishing by inches with old meg conover. and i hope she doesn't know that i nearly drowned you that first morning when susan wasn't there and i let you slip right out of my hands into the water. why will you be so slippery? no, i don't like you and i never will but for all that i'm going to make a decent, upstanding infant of you. you are going to get as fat as a self-respecting child should be, for one thing. i am not going to have people saying 'what a puny little thing that baby of rilla blythe's is' as old mrs. drew said at the senior red cross yesterday. if i can't love you i mean to be proud of you at least." chapter ix doc has a misadventure "the war will not be over before next spring now," said dr. blythe, when it became apparent that the long battle of the aisne had resulted in a stalemate. rilla was murmuring "knit four, purl one" under her breath, and rocking the baby's cradle with one foot. morgan disapproved of cradles for babies but susan did not, and it was worth while to make some slight sacrifice of principle to keep susan in good humour. she laid down her knitting for a moment and said, "oh, how can we bear it so long?"--then picked up her sock and went on. the rilla of two months before would have rushed off to rainbow valley and cried. miss oliver sighed and mrs. blythe clasped her hands for a moment. then susan said briskly, "well, we must just gird up our loins and pitch in. business as usual is england's motto, they tell me, mrs. dr. dear, and i have taken it for mine, not thinking i could easily find a better. i shall make the same kind of pudding today i always make on saturday. it is a good deal of trouble to make, and that is well, for it will employ my thoughts. i will remember that kitchener is at the helm and joffer is doing very well for a frenchman. i shall get that box of cake off to little jem and finish that pair of socks today likewise. a sock a day is my allowance. old mrs. albert mead of harbour head manages a pair and a half a day but she has nothing to do but knit. you know, mrs. dr. dear, she has been bed-rid for years and she has been worrying terrible because she was no good to anybody and a dreadful expense, and yet could not die and be out of the way. and now they tell me she is quite chirked up and resigned to living because there is something she can do, and she knits for the soldiers from daylight to dark. even cousin sophia has taken to knitting, mrs. dr. dear, and it is a good thing, for she cannot think of quite so many doleful speeches to make when her hands are busy with her needles instead of being folded on her stomach. she thinks we will all be germans this time next year but i tell her it will take more than a year to make a german out of me. do you know that rick macallister has enlisted, mrs. dr. dear? and they say joe milgrave would too, only he is afraid that if he does that whiskers-on-the-moon will not let him have miranda. whiskers says that he will believe the stories of german atrocities when he sees them, and that it is a good thing that rangs cathedral has been destroyed because it was a roman catholic church. now, i am not a roman catholic, mrs. dr. dear, being born and bred a good presbyterian and meaning to live and die one, but i maintain that the catholics have as good a right to their churches as we have to ours and that the huns had no kind of business to destroy them. just think, mrs. dr. dear," concluded susan pathetically, "how we would feel if a german shell knocked down the spire of our church here in the glen, and i'm sure it is every bit as bad to think of rangs cathedral being hammered to pieces." and, meanwhile, everywhere, the lads of the world rich and poor, low and high, white and brown, were following the piper's call. "even billy andrews' boy is going--and jane's only son--and diana's little jack," said mrs. blythe. "priscilla's son has gone from japan and stella's from vancouver--and both the rev. jo's boys. philippa writes that her boys 'went right away, not being afflicted with her indecision.'" "jem says that he thinks they will be leaving very soon now, and that he will not be able to get leave to come so far before they go, as they will have to start at a few hours' notice," said the doctor, passing the letter to his wife. "that is not fair," said susan indignantly. "has sir sam hughes no regard for our feelings? the idea of whisking that blessed boy away to europe without letting us even have a last glimpse of him! if i were you, doctor dear, i would write to the papers about it." "perhaps it is as well," said the disappointed mother. "i don't believe i could bear another parting from him--now that i know the war will not be over as soon as we hoped when he left first. oh, if only--but no, i won't say it! like susan and rilla," concluded mrs. blythe, achieving a laugh, "i am determined to be a heroine." "you're all good stuff," said the doctor, "i'm proud of my women folk. even rilla here, my 'lily of the field,' is running a red cross society full blast and saving a little life for canada. that's a good piece of work. rilla, daughter of anne, what are you going to call your war-baby?" "i'm waiting to hear from jim anderson," said rilla. "he may want to name his own child." but as the autumn weeks went by no word came from jim anderson, who had never been heard from since he sailed from halifax, and to whom the fate of wife and child seemed a matter of indifference. eventually rilla decided to call the baby james, and susan opined that kitchener should be added thereto. so james kitchener anderson became the possessor of a name somewhat more imposing than himself. the ingleside family promptly shortened it to jims, but susan obstinately called him "little kitchener" and nothing else. "jims is no name for a christian child, mrs. dr. dear," she said disapprovingly. "cousin sophia says it is too flippant, and for once i consider she utters sense, though i would not please her by openly agreeing with her. as for the child, he is beginning to look something like a baby, and i must admit that rilla is wonderful with him, though i would not pamper pride by saying so to her face. mrs. dr. dear, i shall never, no never, forget the first sight i had of that infant, lying in that big soup tureen, rolled up in dirty flannel. it is not often that susan baker is flabbergasted, but flabbergasted i was then, and that you may tie to. for one awful moment i thought my mind had given way and that i was seeing visions. then thinks i, 'no, i never heard of anyone having a vision of a soup tureen, so it must be real at least,' and i plucked up confidence. when i heard the doctor tell rilla that she must take care of the baby i thought he was joking, for i did not believe for a minute she would or could do it. but you see what has happened and it is making a woman of her. when we have to do a thing, mrs. dr. dear, we can do it." susan added another proof to this concluding dictum of hers one day in october. the doctor and his wife were away. rilla was presiding over jims' afternoon siesta upstairs, purling four and knitting one with ceaseless vim. susan was seated on the back veranda, shelling beans, and cousin sophia was helping her. peace and tranquility brooded over the glen; the sky was fleeced over with silvery, shining clouds. rainbow valley lay in a soft, autumnal haze of fairy purple. the maple grove was a burning bush of colour and the hedge of sweet-briar around the kitchen yard was a thing of wonder in its subtle tintings. it did not seem that strife could be in the world, and susan's faithful heart was lulled into a brief forgetfulness, although she had lain awake most of the preceding night thinking of little jem far out on the atlantic, where the great fleet was carrying canada's first army across the ocean. even cousin sophia looked less melancholy than usual and admitted that there was not much fault to be found in the day, although there was no doubt it was a weather-breeder and there would be an awful storm on its heels. "things is too calm to last," she said. as if in confirmation of her assertion, a most unearthly din suddenly arose behind them. it was quite impossible to describe the confused medley of bangs and rattles and muffled shrieks and yowls that proceeded from the kitchen, accompanied by occasional crashes. susan and cousin sophia stared at each other in dismay. "what upon airth has bruk loose in there?" gasped cousin sophia. "it must be that hyde-cat gone clean mad at last," muttered susan. "i have always expected it." rilla came flying out of the side door of the living-room. "what has happened?" she demanded. "it is beyond me to say, but that possessed beast of yours is evidently at the bottom of it," said susan. "do not go near him, at least. i will open the door and peep in. there goes some more of the crockery. i have always said that the devil was in him and that i will tie to." "it is my opinion that the cat has hydrophobia," said cousin sophia solemnly. "i once heard of a cat that went mad and bit three people--and they all died a most terrible death, and turned black as ink." undismayed by this, susan opened the door and looked in. the floor was littered with fragments of broken dishes, for it seemed that the fatal tragedy had taken place on the long dresser where susan's array of cooking bowls had been marshalled in shining state. around the kitchen tore a frantic cat, with his head wedged tightly in an old salmon can. blindly he careered about with shrieks and profanity commingled, now banging the can madly against anything he encountered, now trying vainly to wrench it off with his paws. the sight was so funny that rilla doubled up with laughter. susan looked at her reproachfully. "i see nothing to laugh at. that beast has broken your ma's big blue mixing-bowl that she brought from green gables when she was married. that is no small calamity, in my opinion. but the thing to consider now is how to get that can off hyde's head." "don't you dast go touching it," exclaimed cousin sophia, galvanized into animation. "it might be your death. shut the kitchen up and send for albert." "i am not in the habit of sending for albert during family difficulties," said susan loftily. "that beast is in torment, and whatever my opinion of him may be, i cannot endure to see him suffering pain. you keep away, rilla, for little kitchener's sake, and i will see what i can do." susan stalked undauntedly into the kitchen, seized an old storm coat of the doctor's and after a wild pursuit and several fruitless dashes and pounces, managed to throw it over the cat and can. then she proceeded to saw the can loose with a can-opener, while rilla held the squirming animal, rolled in the coat. anything like doc's shrieks while the process was going on was never heard at ingleside. susan was in mortal dread that the albert crawfords would hear it and conclude she was torturing the creature to death. doc was a wrathful and indignant cat when he was freed. evidently he thought the whole thing was a put-up job to bring him low. he gave susan a baleful glance by way of gratitude and rushed out of the kitchen to take sanctuary in the jungle of the sweet-briar hedge, where he sulked for the rest of the day. susan swept up her broken dishes grimly. "the huns themselves couldn't have worked more havoc here," she said bitterly. "but when people will keep a satanic animal like that, in spite of all warnings, they cannot complain when their wedding bowls get broken. things have come to a pretty pass when an honest woman cannot leave her kitchen for a few minutes without a fiend of a cat rampaging through it with his head in a salmon can." chapter x the troubles of rilla october passed out and the dreary days of november and december dragged by. the world shook with the thunder of contending armies; antwerp fell--turkey declared war--gallant little serbia gathered herself together and struck a deadly blow at her oppressor; and in quiet, hill-girdled glen st. mary, thousands of miles away, hearts beat with hope and fear over the varying dispatches from day to day. "a few months ago," said miss oliver, "we thought and talked in terms of glen st. mary. now, we think and talk in terms of military tactics and diplomatic intrigue." there was just one great event every day--the coming of the mail. even susan admitted that from the time the mail-courier's buggy rumbled over the little bridge between the station and the village until the papers were brought home and read, she could not work properly. "i must take up my knitting then and knit hard till the papers come, mrs. dr. dear. knitting is something you can do, even when your heart is going like a trip-hammer and the pit of your stomach feels all gone and your thoughts are catawampus. then when i see the headlines, be they good or be they bad, i calm down and am able to go about my business again. it is an unfortunate thing that the mail comes in just when our dinner rush is on, and i think the government could arrange things better. but the drive on calais has failed, as i felt perfectly sure it would, and the kaiser will not eat his christmas dinner in london this year. do you know, mrs. dr. dear,"--susan's voice lowered as a token that she was going to impart a very shocking piece of information,--"i have been told on good authority--or else you may be sure i would not be repeating it when it concerns a minster--that the rev. mr. arnold goes to charlottetown every week and takes a turkish bath for his rheumatism. the idea of him doing that when we are at war with turkey? one of his own deacons has always insisted that mr. arnold's theology was not sound and i am beginning to believe that there is some reason to fear it. well, i must bestir myself this afternoon and get little jem's christmas cake packed up for him. he will enjoy it, if the blessed boy is not drowned in mud before that time." jem was in camp on salisbury plain and was writing gay, cheery letters home in spite of the mud. walter was at redmond and his letters to rilla were anything but cheerful. she never opened one without a dread tugging at her heart that it would tell her he had enlisted. his unhappiness made her unhappy. she wanted to put her arm round him and comfort him, as she had done that day in rainbow valley. she hated everybody who was responsible for walter's unhappiness. "he will go yet," she murmured miserably to herself one afternoon, as she sat alone in rainbow valley, reading a letter from him, "he will go yet--and if he does i just can't bear it." walter wrote that some one had sent him an envelope containing a white feather. "i deserved it, rilla. i felt that i ought to put it on and wear it--proclaiming myself to all redmond the coward i know i am. the boys of my year are going--going. every day two or three of them join up. some days i almost make up my mind to do it--and then i see myself thrusting a bayonet through another man--some woman's husband or sweetheart or son--perhaps the father of little children--i see myself lying alone torn and mangled, burning with thirst on a cold, wet field, surrounded by dead and dying men--and i know i never can. i can't face even the thought of it. how could i face the reality? there are times when i wish i had never been born. life has always seemed such a beautiful thing to me--and now it is a hideous thing. rilla-my-rilla, if it weren't for your letters--your dear, bright, merry, funny, comical, believing letters--i think i'd give up. and una's! una is really a little brick, isn't she? there's a wonderful fineness and firmness under all that shy, wistful girlishness of her. she hasn't your knack of writing laugh-provoking epistles, but there's something in her letters--i don't know what--that makes me feel at least while i'm reading them, that i could even go to the front. not that she ever says a word about my going--or hints that i ought to go--she isn't that kind. it's just the spirit of them--the personality that is in them. well, i can't go. you have a brother and una has a friend who is a coward." "oh, i wish walter wouldn't write such things," sighed rilla. "it hurts me. he isn't a coward--he isn't--he isn't!" she looked wistfully about her--at the little woodland valley and the grey, lonely fallows beyond. how everything reminded her of walter! the red leaves still clung to the wild sweet-briars that overhung a curve of the brook; their stems were gemmed with the pearls of the gentle rain that had fallen a little while before. walter had once written a poem describing them. the wind was sighing and rustling among the frosted brown bracken ferns, then lessening sorrowfully away down the brook. walter had said once that he loved the melancholy of the autumn wind on a november day. the old tree lovers still clasped each other in a faithful embrace, and the white lady, now a great white-branched tree, stood out beautifully fine, against the grey velvet sky. walter had named them long ago; and last november, when he had walked with her and miss oliver in the valley, he had said, looking at the leafless lady, with a young silver moon hanging over her, "a white birch is a beautiful pagan maiden who has never lost the eden secret of being naked and unashamed." miss oliver had said, "put that into a poem, walter," and he had done so, and read it to them the next day--just a short thing with goblin imagination in every line of it. oh, how happy they had been then! well--rilla scrambled to her feet--time was up. jims would soon be awake--his lunch had to be prepared--his little slips had to be ironed--there was a committee meeting of the junior reds that night--there was her new knitting bag to finish--it would be the handsomest bag in the junior society--handsomer even than irene howard's--she must get home and get to work. she was busy these days from morning till night. that little monkey of a jims took so much time. but he was growing--he was certainly growing. and there were times when rilla felt sure that it was not merely a pious hope but an absolute fact that he was getting decidedly better looking. sometimes she felt quite proud of him; and sometimes she yearned to spank him. but she never kissed him or wanted to kiss him. "the germans captured lodz today," said miss oliver, one december evening, when she, mrs. blythe, and susan were busy sewing or knitting in the cosy living-room. "this war is at least extending my knowledge of geography. schoolma'am though i am, three months ago i didn't know there was such a place in the world such as lodz. had i heard it mentioned i would have known nothing about it and cared as little. i know all about it now--its size, its standing, its military significance. yesterday the news that the germans have captured it in their second rush to warsaw made my heart sink into my boots. i woke up in the night and worried over it. i don't wonder babies always cry when they wake up in the night. everything presses on my soul then and no cloud has a silver lining." "when i wake up in the night and cannot go to sleep again," remarked susan, who was knitting and reading at the same time, "i pass the moments by torturing the kaiser to death. last night i fried him in boiling oil and a great comfort it was to me, remembering those belgian babies." "if the kaiser were here and had a pain in his shoulder you'd be the first to run for the liniment bottle to rub him down," laughed miss oliver. "would i?" cried outraged susan. "would i, miss oliver? i would rub him down with coal oil, miss oliver--and leave it to blister. that is what i would do and that you may tie to. a pain in his shoulder, indeed! he will have pains all over him before he is through with what he has started." "we are told to love our enemies, susan," said the doctor solemnly. "yes, our enemies, but not king george's enemies, doctor dear," retorted susan crushingly. she was so well pleased with herself over this flattening out of the doctor completely that she even smiled as she polished her glasses. susan had never given in to glasses before, but she had done so at last in order to be able to read the war news--and not a dispatch got by her. "can you tell me, miss oliver, how to pronounce m-l-a-w-a and b-z-u-r-a and p-r-z-e-m-y-s-l?" "that last is a conundrum which nobody seems to have solved yet, susan. and i can make only a guess at the others." "these foreign names are far from being decent, in my opinion," said disgusted susan. "i dare say the austrians and russians would think saskatchewan and musquodoboit about as bad, susan," said miss oliver. "the serbians have done wonderfully of late. they have captured belgrade." "and sent the austrian creatures packing across the danube with a flea in their ear," said susan with a relish, as she settled down to examine a map of eastern europe, prodding each locality with the knitting needle to brand it on her memory. "cousin sophia said awhile ago that serbia was done for, but i told her there was still such a thing as an over-ruling providence, doubt it who might. it says here that the slaughter was terrible. for all they were foreigners it is awful to think of so many men being killed, mrs. dr. dear--for they are scarce enough as it is." rilla was upstairs relieving her over-charged feelings by writing in her diary. "things have all 'gone catawampus,' as susan says, with me this week. part of it was my own fault and part of it wasn't, and i seem to be equally unhappy over both parts. "i went to town the other day to buy a new winter hat. it was the first time nobody insisted on coming with me to help me select it, and i felt that mother had really given up thinking of me as a child. and i found the dearest hat--it was simply bewitching. it was a velvet hat, of the very shade of rich green that was made for me. it just goes with my hair and complexion beautifully, bringing out the red-brown shades and what miss oliver calls my 'creaminess' so well. only once before in my life have i come across that precise shade of green. when i was twelve i had a little beaver hat of it, and all the girls in school were wild over it. well, as soon as i saw this hat i felt that i simply must have it--and have it i did. the price was dreadful. i will not put it down here because i don't want my descendants to know i was guilty of paying so much for a hat, in war-time, too, when everybody is--or should be--trying to be economical. "when i got home and tried on the hat again in my room i was assailed by qualms. of course, it was very becoming; but somehow it seemed too elaborate and fussy for church going and our quiet little doings in the glen--too conspicuous, in short. it hadn't seemed so at the milliner's but here in my little white room it did. and that dreadful price tag! and the starving belgians! when mother saw the hat and the tag she just looked at me. mother is some expert at looking. father says she looked him into love with her years ago in avonlea school and i can well believe it--though i have heard a weird tale of her banging him over the head with a slate at the very beginning of their acquaintance. mother was a limb when she was a little girl, i understand, and even up to the time when jem went away she was full of ginger. but let me return to my mutton--that is to say, my new green velvet hat. "'do you think, rilla,' mother said quietly--far too quietly--'that it was right to spend so much for a hat, especially when the need of the world is so great?' "'i paid for it out of my own allowance, mother,' i exclaimed. "'that is not the point. your allowance is based on the principle of a reasonable amount for each thing you need. if you pay too much for one thing you must cut off somewhere else and that is not satisfactory. but if you think you did right, rilla, i have no more to say. i leave it to your conscience.' "i wish mother would not leave things to my conscience! and anyway, what was i to do? i couldn't take that hat back--i had worn it to a concert in town--i had to keep it! i was so uncomfortable that i flew into a temper--a cold, calm, deadly temper. "'mother,' i said haughtily, 'i am sorry you disapprove of my hat--' "'not of the hat exactly,' said mother, 'though i consider it in doubtful taste for so young a girl--but of the price you paid for it.' "being interrupted didn't improve my temper, so i went on, colder and calmer and deadlier than ever, just as if mother had not spoken. "'--but i have to keep it now. however, i promise you that i will not get another hat for three years or for the duration of the war, if it lasts longer than that. even you'--oh, the sarcasm i put into the 'you'--'cannot say that what i paid was too much when spread over at least three years.' "'you will be very tired of that hat before three years, rilla,' said mother, with a provoking grin, which, being interpreted, meant that i wouldn't stick it out. "'tired or not, i will wear it that long,' i said: and then i marched upstairs and cried to think that i had been sarcastic to mother. "i hate that hat already. but three years or the duration of the war, i said, and three years or the duration of the war it shall be. i vowed and i shall keep my vow, cost what it will. "that is one of the 'catawampus' things. the other is that i have quarrelled with irene howard--or she quarrelled with me--or, no, we both quarrelled. "the junior red cross met here yesterday. the hour of meeting was half-past two but irene came at half-past one, because she got the chance of a drive down from the upper glen. irene hasn't been a bit nice to me since the fuss about the eats; and besides i feel sure she resents not being president. but i have been determined that things should go smoothly, so i have never taken any notice, and when she came yesterday she seemed so nice and sweet again that i hoped she had got over her huffiness and we could be the chums we used to be. "but as soon as we sat down irene began to rub me the wrong way. i saw her cast a look at my new knitting-bag. all the girls have always said irene was jealous-minded and i would never believe them before. but now i feel that perhaps she is. "the first thing she did was to pounce on jims--irene pretends to adore babies--pick him out of his cradle and kiss him all over his face. now, irene knows perfectly well that i don't like to have jims kissed like that. it is not hygienic. after she had worried him till he began to fuss, she looked at me and gave quite a nasty little laugh but she said, oh, so sweetly, "'why, rilla, darling, you look as if you thought i was poisoning the baby.' "'oh, no, i don't, irene,' i said--every bit as sweetly, 'but you know morgan says that the only place a baby should be kissed is on its forehead, for fear of germs, and that is my rule with jims.' "'dear me, am i so full of germs?' said irene plaintively. i knew she was making fun of me and i began to boil inside--but outside no sign of a simmer. i was determined i would not scrap with irene. "then she began to bounce jims. now, morgan says bouncing is almost the worst thing that can be done to a baby. i never allow jims to be bounced. but irene bounced him and that exasperating child liked it. he smiled--for the very first time. he is four months old and he has never smiled once before. not even mother or susan have been able to coax that thing to smile, try as they would. and here he was smiling because irene howard bounced him! talk of gratitude! "i admit that smile made a big difference in him. two of the dearest dimples came out in his cheeks and his big brown eyes seemed full of laughter. the way irene raved over those dimples was silly, i consider. you would have supposed she thought she had really brought them into existence. but i sewed steadily and did not enthuse, and soon irene got tired of bouncing jims and put him back in his cradle. he did not like that after being played with, and he began to cry and was fussy the rest of the afternoon, whereas if irene had only left him alone he would not have been a bit of trouble. "irene looked at him and said, 'does he often cry like that?' as if she had never heard a baby crying before. "i explained patiently that children have to cry so many minutes per day in order to expand their lungs. morgan says so. "'if jims didn't cry at all i'd have to make him cry for at least twenty minutes,' i said. "'oh, indeed!' said irene, laughing as if she didn't believe me. 'morgan on the care of infants' was upstairs or i would soon have convinced her. then she said jims didn't have much hair--she had never seen a four months' old baby so bald. "of course, i knew jims hadn't much hair--yet; but irene said it in a tone that seemed to imply it was my fault that he hadn't any hair. i said i had seen dozens of babies every bit as bald as jims, and irene said, oh very well, she hadn't meant to offend me--when i wasn't offended. "it went on like that the rest of the hour--irene kept giving me little digs all the time. the girls have always said she was revengeful like that if she were peeved about anything; but i never believed it before; i used to think irene just perfect, and it hurt me dreadfully to find she could stoop to this. but i corked up my feelings and sewed away for dear life on a belgian child's nightgown. "then irene told me the meanest, most contemptible thing that someone had said about walter. i won't write it down--i can't. of course, she said it made her furious to hear it and all that--but there was no need for her to tell me such a thing even if she did hear it. she simply did it to hurt me. "i just exploded. 'how dare you come here and repeat such a thing about my brother, irene howard?' i exclaimed. 'i shall never forgive you--never. your brother hasn't enlisted--hasn't any idea of enlisting.' "'why rilla, dear, i didn't say it,' said irene. 'i told you it was mrs. george burr. and i told her--' "'i don't want to hear what you told her. don't you ever speak to me again, irene howard.' "oh course, i shouldn't have said that. but it just seemed to say itself. then the other girls all came in a bunch and i had to calm down and act the hostess' part as well as i could. irene paired off with olive kirk all the rest of the afternoon and went away without so much as a look. so i suppose she means to take me at my word and i don't care, for i do not want to be friends with a girl who could repeat such a falsehood about walter. but i feel unhappy over it for all that. we've always been such good chums and until lately irene was lovely to me; and now another illusion has been stripped from my eyes and i feel as if there wasn't such a thing as real true friendship in the world. "father got old joe mead to build a kennel for dog monday in the corner of the shipping-shed today. we thought perhaps monday would come home when the cold weather came but he wouldn't. no earthly influence can coax monday away from that shed even for a few minutes. there he stays and meets every train. so we had to do something to make him comfortable. joe built the kennel so that monday could lie in it and still see the platform, so we hope he will occupy it. "monday has become quite famous. a reporter of the enterprise came out from town and photographed him and wrote up the whole story of his faithful vigil. it was published in the enterprise and copied all over canada. but that doesn't matter to poor little monday, jem has gone away--monday doesn't know where or why--but he will wait until he comes back. somehow it comforts me: it's foolish, i suppose, but it gives me a feeling that jem will come back or else monday wouldn't keep on waiting for him. "jims is snoring beside me in his cradle. it is just a cold that makes him snore--not adenoids. irene had a cold yesterday and i know she gave it to him, kissing him. he is not quite such a nuisance as he was; he has got some backbone and can sit up quite nicely, and he loves his bath now and splashes unsmilingly in the water instead of twisting and shrieking. oh, shall i ever forget those first two months! i don't know how i lived through them. but here i am and here is jims and we both are going to 'carry on.' i tickled him a little bit tonight when i undressed him--i wouldn't bounce him but morgan doesn't mention tickling--just to see if he would smile for me as well as irene. and he did--and out popped the dimples. what a pity his mother couldn't have seen them! "i finished my sixth pair of socks today. with the first three i got susan to set the heel for me. then i thought that was a bit of shirking, so i learned to do it myself. i hate it--but i have done so many things i hate since 4th of august that one more or less doesn't matter. i just think of jem joking about the mud on salisbury plain and i go at them." chapter xi dark and bright at christmas the college boys and girls came home and for a little while ingleside was gay again. but all were not there--for the first time one was missing from the circle round the christmas table. jem, of the steady lips and fearless eyes, was far away, and rilla felt that the sight of his vacant chair was more than she could endure. susan had taken a stubborn freak and insisted on setting out jem's place for him as usual, with the twisted little napkin ring he had always had since a boy, and the odd, high green gables goblet that aunt marilla had once given him and from which he always insisted on drinking. "that blessed boy shall have his place, mrs. dr. dear," said susan firmly, "and do not you feel over it, for you may be sure he is here in spirit and next christmas he will be here in the body. wait you till the big push comes in the spring and the war will be over in a jiffy." they tried to think so, but a shadow stalked in the background of their determined merrymaking. walter, too, was quiet and dull, all through the holidays. he showed rilla a cruel, anonymous letter he had received at redmond--a letter far more conspicuous for malice than for patriotic indignation. "nevertheless, all it says is true, rilla." rilla had caught it from him and thrown it into the fire. "there isn't one word of truth in it," she declared hotly. "walter, you've got morbid--as miss oliver says she gets when she broods too long over one thing." "i can't get away from it at redmond, rilla. the whole college is aflame over the war. a perfectly fit fellow, of military age, who doesn't join up is looked upon as a shirker and treated accordingly. dr. milne, the english professor, who has always made a special pet of me, has two sons in khaki; and i can feel the change in his manner towards me." "it's not fair--you're not fit." "physically i am. sound as a bell. the unfitness is in the soul and it's a taint and a disgrace. there, don't cry, rilla. i'm not going if that's what you're afraid of. the piper's music rings in my ears day and night--but i cannot follow." "you would break mother's heart and mine if you did," sobbed rilla. "oh, walter, one is enough for any family." the holidays were an unhappy time for her. still, having nan and di and walter and shirley home helped in the enduring of things. a letter and book came for her from kenneth ford, too; some sentences in the letter made her cheeks burn and her heart beat--until the last paragraph, which sent an icy chill over everything. "my ankle is about as good as new. i'll be fit to join up in a couple of months more, rilla-my-rilla. it will be some feeling to get into khaki all right. little ken will be able to look the whole world in the face then and owe not any man. it's been rotten lately, since i've been able to walk without limping. people who don't know look at me as much as to say 'slacker!' well, they won't have the chance to look it much longer." "i hate this war," said rilla bitterly, as she gazed out into the maple grove that was a chill glory of pink and gold in the winter sunset. "nineteen-fourteen has gone," said dr. blythe on new year's day. "its sun, which rose fairly, has set in blood. what will nineteen-fifteen bring?" "victory!" said susan, for once laconic. "do you really believe we'll win the war, susan?" said miss oliver drearily. she had come over from lowbridge to spend the day and see walter and the girls before they went back to redmond. she was in a rather blue and cynical mood and inclined to look on the dark side. "'believe' we'll win the war!" exclaimed susan. "no, miss oliver, dear, i do not believe--i know. that does not worry me. what does worry me is the trouble and expense of it all. but then you cannot make omelets without breaking eggs, so we must just trust in god and make big guns." "sometimes i think the big guns are better to trust in than god," said miss oliver defiantly. "no, no, dear, you do not. the germans had the big guns at the marne, had they not? but providence settled them. do not ever forget that. just hold on to that when you feel inclined to doubt. clutch hold of the sides of your chair and sit tight and keep saying, 'big guns are good but the almighty is better, and he is on our side, no matter what the kaiser says about it.' i would have gone crazy many a day lately, miss oliver, dear, if i had not sat tight and repeated that to myself. my cousin sophia is, like you, somewhat inclined to despond. 'oh, dear me, what will we do if the germans ever get here,' she wailed to me yesterday. 'bury them,' said i, just as off-hand as that. 'there is plenty of room for the graves.' cousin sophia said that i was flippant but i was not flippant, miss oliver, dear, only calm and confident in the british navy and our canadian boys. i am like old mr. william pollock of the harbour head. he is very old and has been ill for a long time, and one night last week he was so low that his daughter-in-law whispered to some one that she thought he was dead. 'darn it, i ain't,' he called right out--only, miss oliver, dear, he did not use so mild a word as 'darn'--'darn it, i ain't, and i don't mean to die until the kaiser is well licked.' now, that, miss oliver, dear," concluded susan, "is the kind of spirit i admire." "i admire it but i can't emulate it," sighed gertrude. "before this, i have always been able to escape from the hard things of life for a little while by going into dreamland, and coming back like a giant refreshed. but i can't escape from this." "nor i," said mrs. blythe. "i hate going to bed now. all my life i've liked going to bed, to have a gay, mad, splendid half-hour of imagining things before sleeping. now i imagine them still. but such different things." "i am rather glad when the time comes to go to bed," said miss oliver. "i like the darkness because i can be myself in it--i needn't smile or talk bravely. but sometimes my imagination gets out of hand, too, and i see what you do--terrible things--terrible years to come." "i am very thankful that i never had any imagination to speak of," said susan. "i have been spared that. i see by this paper that the crown prince is killed again. do you suppose there is any hope of his staying dead this time? and i also see that woodrow wilson is going to write another note. i wonder," concluded susan, with the bitter irony she had of late begun to use when referring to the poor president, "if that man's schoolmaster is alive." in january jims was five months old and rilla celebrated the anniversary by shortening him. "he weighs fourteen pounds," she announced jubilantly. "just exactly what he should weigh at five months, according to morgan." there was no longer any doubt in anybody's mind that jims was getting positively pretty. his little cheeks were round and firm and faintly pink, his eyes were big and bright, his tiny paws had dimples at the root of every finger. he had even begun to grow hair, much to rilla's unspoken relief. there was a pale golden fuzz all over his head that was distinctly visible in some lights. he was a good infant, generally sleeping and digesting as morgan decreed. occasionally he smiled but he had never laughed, in spite of all efforts to make him. this worried rilla also, because morgan said that babies usually laughed aloud from the third to the fifth month. jims was five months and had no notion of laughing. why hadn't he? wasn't he normal? one night rilla came home late from a recruiting meeting at the glen where she had been giving patriotic recitations. rilla had never been willing to recite in public before. she was afraid of her tendency to lisp, which had a habit of reviving if she were doing anything that made her nervous. when she had first been asked to recite at the upper glen meeting she had refused. then she began to worry over her refusal. was it cowardly? what would jem think if he knew? after two days of worry rilla phoned to the president of the patriotic society that she would recite. she did, and lisped several times, and lay awake most of the night in an agony of wounded vanity. then two nights after she recited again at harbour head. she had been at lowbridge and over-harbour since then and had become resigned to an occasional lisp. nobody except herself seemed to mind it. and she was so earnest and appealing and shining-eyed! more than one recruit joined up because rilla's eyes seemed to look right at him when she passionately demanded how could men die better than fighting for the ashes of their fathers and the temples of their gods, or assured her audience with thrilling intensity that one crowded hour of glorious life was worth an age without a name. even stolid miller douglas was so fired one night that it took mary vance a good hour to talk him back to sense. mary vance said bitterly that if rilla blythe felt as bad as she had pretended to feel over jem's going to the front she wouldn't be urging other girls' brothers and friends to go. on this particular night rilla was tired and cold and very thankful to creep into her warm nest and cuddle down between her blankets, though as usual with a sorrowful wonder how jem and jerry were faring. she was just getting warm and drowsy when jims suddenly began to cry--and kept on crying. rilla curled herself up in her bed and determined she would let him cry. she had morgan behind her for justification. jims was warm, physically comfortable--his cry wasn't the cry of pain--and had his little tummy as full as was good for him. under such circumstances it would be simply spoiling him to fuss over him, and she wasn't going to do it. he could cry until he got good and tired and ready to go to sleep again. then rilla's imagination began to torment her. suppose, she thought, i was a tiny, helpless creature only five months old, with my father somewhere in france and my poor little mother, who had been so worried about me, in the graveyard. suppose i was lying in a basket in a big, black room, without one speck of light, and nobody within miles of me, for all i could see or know. suppose there wasn't a human being anywhere who loved me--for a father who had never seen me couldn't love me very much, especially when he had never written a word to or about me. wouldn't i cry, too? wouldn't i feel just so lonely and forsaken and frightened that i'd have to cry? rilla hopped out. she picked jims out of his basket and took him into her own bed. his hands were cold, poor mite. but he had promptly ceased to cry. and then, as she held him close to her in the darkness, suddenly jims laughed--a real, gurgly, chuckly, delighted, delightful laugh. "oh, you dear little thing!" exclaimed rilla. "are you so pleased at finding you're not all alone, lost in a huge, big, black room?" then she knew she wanted to kiss him and she did. she kissed his silky, scented little head, she kissed his chubby little cheek, she kissed his little cold hands. she wanted to squeeze him--to cuddle him, just as she used to squeeze and cuddle her kittens. something delightful and yearning and brooding seemed to have taken possession of her. she had never felt like this before. in a few minutes jims was sound asleep; and, as rilla listened to his soft, regular breathing and felt the little body warm and contented against her, she realized that--at last--she loved her war-baby. "he has got to be--such--a--darling," she thought drowsily, as she drifted off to slumberland herself. in february jem and jerry and robert grant were in the trenches and a little more tension and dread was added to the ingleside life. in march "yiprez," as susan called it, had come to have a bitter significance. the daily list of casualties had begun to appear in the papers and no one at ingleside ever answered the telephone without a horrible cold shrinking--for it might be the station-master phoning up to say a telegram had come from overseas. no one at ingleside ever got up in the morning without a sudden piercing wonder over what the day might bring. "and i used to welcome the mornings so," thought rilla. yet the round of life and duty went steadily on and every week or so one of the glen lads who had just the other day been a rollicking schoolboy went into khaki. "it is bitter cold out tonight, mrs. dr. dear," said susan, coming in out of the clear starlit crispness of the canadian winter twilight. "i wonder if the boys in the trenches are warm." "how everything comes back to this war," cried gertrude oliver. "we can't get away from it--not even when we talk of the weather. i never go out these dark cold nights myself without thinking of the men in the trenches--not only our men but everybody's men. i would feel the same if there were nobody i knew at the front. when i snuggle down in my comfortable bed i am ashamed of being comfortable. it seems as if it were wicked of me to be so when many are not." "i saw mrs. meredith down at the store," said susan, "and she tells me that they are really troubled over bruce, he takes things so much to heart. he has cried himself to sleep for a week, over the starving belgians. 'oh, mother,' he will say to her, so beseeching-like, 'surely the babies are never hungry--oh, not the babies, mother! just say the babies are not hungry, mother.' and she cannot say it because it would not be true, and she is at her wits' end. they try to keep such things from him but he finds them out and then they cannot comfort him. it breaks my heart to read about them myself, mrs. dr. dear, and i cannot console myself with the thought that the tales are not true. when i read a novel that makes me want to weep i just say severely to myself, 'now, susan baker, you know that is all a pack of lies.' but we must carry on. jack crawford says he is going to the war because he is tired of farming. i hope he will find it a pleasant change. and mrs. richard elliott over-harbour is worrying herself sick because she used to be always scolding her husband about smoking up the parlour curtains. now that he has enlisted she wishes she had never said a word to him. you know josiah cooper and william daley, mrs. dr. dear. they used to be fast friends but they quarrelled twenty years ago and have never spoken since. well, the other day josiah went to william and said right out, 'let us be friends. 'tain't any time to be holding grudges.' william was real glad and held out his hand, and they sat down for a good talk. and in less than half an hour they had quarrelled again, over how the war ought to be fought, josiah holding that the dardanelles expedition was rank folly and william maintaining that it was the one sensible thing the allies had done. and now they are madder at each other than ever and william says josiah is as bad a pro-german as whiskers-on-the-moon. whiskers-on-the-moon vows he is no pro-german but calls himself a pacifist, whatever that may be. it is nothing proper or whiskers would not be it and that you may tie to. he says that the big british victory at new chapelle cost more than it was worth and he has forbid joe milgrave to come near the house because joe ran up his father's flag when the news came. have you noticed, mrs. dr. dear, that the czar has changed that prish name to premysl, which proves that the man had good sense, russian though he is? joe vickers told me in the store that he saw a very queer looking thing in the sky tonight over lowbridge way. do you suppose it could have been a zeppelin, mrs. dr. dear?" "i do not think it very likely, susan." "well, i would feel easier about it if whiskers-on-the-moon were not living in the glen. they say he was seen going through strange manoeuvres with a lantern in his back yard one night lately. some people think he was signalling." "to whom--or what?" "ah, that is the mystery, mrs. dr. dear. in my opinion the government would do well to keep an eye on that man if it does not want us to be all murdered in our beds some night. now i shall just look over the papers a minute before going to write a letter to little jem. two things i never did, mrs. dr. dear, were write letters and read politics. yet here i am doing both regular and i find there is something in politics after all. whatever woodrow wilson means i cannot fathom but i am hoping i will puzzle it out yet." susan, in her pursuit of wilson and politics, presently came upon something that disturbed her and exclaimed in a tone of bitter disappointment, "that devilish kaiser has only a boil after all." "don't swear, susan," said dr. blythe, pulling a long face. "'devilish' is not swearing, doctor, dear. i have always understood that swearing was taking the name of the almighty in vain?" "well, it isn't--ahem--refined," said the doctor, winking at miss oliver. "no, doctor, dear, the devil and the kaiser--if so be that they are really two different people--are not refined. and you cannot refer to them in a refined way. so i abide by what i said, although you may notice that i am careful not to use such expressions when young rilla is about. and i maintain that the papers have no right to say that the kaiser has pneumonia and raise people's hopes, and then come out and say he has nothing but a boil. a boil, indeed! i wish he was covered with them." susan stalked out to the kitchen and settled down to write to jem; deeming him in need of some home comfort from certain passages in his letter that day. "we're in an old wine cellar tonight, dad," he wrote, "in water to our knees. rats everywhere--no fire--a drizzling rain coming down--rather dismal. but it might be worse. i got susan's box today and everything was in tip-top order and we had a feast. jerry is up the line somewhere and he says the rations are rather worse than aunt martha's ditto used to be. but here they're not bad--only monotonous. tell susan i'd give a year's pay for a good batch of her monkey-faces; but don't let that inspire her to send any for they wouldn't keep. "we have been under fire since the last week in february. one boy--he was a nova scotian--was killed right beside me yesterday. a shell burst near us and when the mess cleared away he was lying dead--not mangled at all--he just looked a little startled. it was the first time i'd been close to anything like that and it was a nasty sensation, but one soon gets used to horrors here. we're in an absolutely different world. the only things that are the same are the stars--and they are never in their right places, somehow. "tell mother not to worry--i'm all right--fit as a fiddle--and glad i came. there's something across from us here that has got to be wiped out of the world, that's all--an emanation of evil that would otherwise poison life for ever. it's got to be done, dad, however long it takes, and whatever it costs, and you tell the glen people this for me. they don't realize yet what it is has broken loose--i didn't when i first joined up. i thought it was fun. well, it isn't! but i'm in the right place all right--make no mistake about that. when i saw what had been done here to homes and gardens and people--well, dad, i seemed to see a gang of huns marching through rainbow valley and the glen, and the garden at ingleside. there were gardens over here--beautiful gardens with the beauty of centuries--and what are they now? mangled, desecrated things! we are fighting to make those dear old places where we had played as children, safe for other boys and girls--fighting for the preservation and safety of all sweet, wholesome things. "whenever any of you go to the station be sure to give dog monday a double pat for me. fancy the faithful little beggar waiting there for me like that! honestly, dad, on some of these dark cold nights in the trenches, it heartens and braces me up no end to think that thousands of miles away at the old glen station there is a small spotted dog sharing my vigil. "tell rilla i'm glad her war-baby is turning out so well, and tell susan that i'm fighting a good fight against both huns and cooties." "mrs. dr. dear," whispered susan solemnly, "what are cooties?" mrs. blythe whispered back and then said in reply to susan's horrified ejaculations, "it's always like that in the trenches, susan." susan shook her head and went away in grim silence to re-open a parcel she had sewed up for jem and slip in a fine tooth comb. chapter xii in the days of langemarck "how can spring come and be beautiful in such a horror," wrote rilla in her diary. "when the sun shines and the fluffy yellow catkins are coming out on the willow-trees down by the brook, and the garden is beginning to be beautiful i can't realize that such dreadful things are happening in flanders. but they are! "this past week has been terrible for us all, since the news came of the fighting around ypres and the battles of langemarck and st. julien. our canadian boys have done splendidly--general french says they 'saved the situation,' when the germans had all but broken through. but i can't feel pride or exultation or anything but a gnawing anxiety over jem and jerry and mr. grant. the casualty lists are coming out in the papers every day--oh, there are so many of them. i can't bear to read them for fear i'd find jem's name--for there have been cases where people have seen their boys' names in the casualty lists before the official telegram came. as for the telephone, for a day or two i just refused to answer it, because i thought i could not endure the horrible moment that came between saying 'hello' and hearing the response. that moment seemed a hundred years long, for i was always dreading to hear 'there is a telegram for dr. blythe.' then, when i had shirked for a while, i was ashamed of leaving it all for mother or susan, and now i make myself go. but it never gets any easier. gertrude teaches school and reads compositions and sets examination papers just as she always has done, but i know her thoughts are over in flanders all the time. her eyes haunt me. "and kenneth is in khaki now, too. he has got a lieutenant's commission and expects to go overseas in midsummer, so he wrote me. there wasn't much else in the letter--he seemed to be thinking of nothing but going overseas. i shall not see him again before he goes--perhaps i will never see him again. sometimes i ask myself if that evening at four winds was all a dream. it might as well be--it seems as if it happened in another life lived years ago--and everybody has forgotten it but me. "walter and nan and di came home last night from redmond. when walter stepped off the train dog monday rushed to meet him, frantic with joy. i suppose he thought jem would be there, too. after the first moment, he paid no attention to walter and his pats, but just stood there, wagging his tail nervously and looking past walter at the other people coming out, with eyes that made me choke up, for i couldn't help thinking that, for all we knew, monday might never see jem come off that train again. then, when all the people were out, monday looked up at walter, gave his hand a little lick as if to say, 'i know it isn't your fault he didn't come--excuse me for feeling disappointed,' and then he trotted back to his shed, with that funny little sidelong waggle of his that always makes it seem that his hind legs are travelling directly away from the point at which his forelegs are aiming. "we tried to coax him home with us--di even got down and kissed him between the eyes and said, 'monday, old duck, won't you come up with us just for the evening?' and monday said--he did!--'i am very sorry but i can't. i've got a date to meet jem here, you know, and there's a train goes through at eight.' "it's lovely to have walter back again though he seems quiet and sad, just as he was at christmas. but i'm going to love him hard and cheer him up and make him laugh as he used to. it seems to me that every day of my life walter means more to me. "the other evening susan happened to say that the mayflowers were out in rainbow valley. i chanced to be looking at mother when susan spoke. her face changed and she gave a queer little choked cry. most of the time mother is so spunky and gay you would never guess what she feels inside; but now and then some little thing is too much for her and we see under the surface. 'mayflowers!' she said. 'jem brought me mayflowers last year!' and she got up and went out of the room. i would have rushed off to rainbow valley and brought her an armful of mayflowers, but i knew that wasn't what she wanted. and after walter got home last night he slipped away to the valley and brought mother home all the mayflowers he could find. nobody had said a word to him about it--he just remembered himself that jem used to bring mother the first mayflowers and so he brought them in jem's place. it shows how tender and thoughtful he is. and yet there are people who send him cruel letters! "it seems strange that we can go in with ordinary life just as if nothing were happening overseas that concerned us, just as if any day might not bring us awful news. but we can and do. susan is putting in the garden, and mother and she are housecleaning, and we junior reds are getting up a concert in aid of the belgians. we have been practising for a month and having no end of trouble and bother with cranky people. miranda pryor promised to help with a dialogue and when she had her part all learnt her father put his foot down and refused to allow her to help at all. i am not blaming miranda exactly, but i do think she might have a little more spunk sometimes. if she put her foot down once in a while she might bring her father to terms, for she is all the housekeeper he has and what would he do if she 'struck'? if i were in miranda's shoes i'd find some way of managing whiskers-on-the-moon. i would horse-whip him, or bite him, if nothing else would serve. but miranda is a meek and obedient daughter whose days should be long in the land. "i couldn't get anyone else to take the part, because nobody liked it, so finally i had to take it myself. olive kirk is on the concert committee and goes against me in every single thing. but i got my way in asking mrs. channing to come out from town and sing for us, anyhow. she is a beautiful singer and will draw such a crowd that we will make more than we will have to pay her. olive kirk thought our local talent good enough and minnie clow won't sing at all now in the choruses because she would be so nervous before mrs. channing. and minnie is the only good alto we have! there are times when i am so exasperated that i feel tempted to wash my hands of the whole affair; but after i dance round my room a few times in sheer rage i cool down and have another whack at it. just at present i am racked with worry for fear the isaac reeses are taking whooping-cough. they have all got a dreadful cold and there are five of them who have important parts in the programme and if they go and develop whooping-cough what shall i do? dick reese's violin solo is to be one of our titbits and kit reese is in every tableau and the three small girls have the cutest flag-drill. i've been toiling for weeks to train them in it, and now it seems likely that all my trouble will go for nothing. "jims cut his first tooth today. i am very glad, for he is nearly nine months old and mary vance has been insinuating that he is awfully backward about cutting his teeth. he has begun to creep but doesn't crawl as most babies do. he trots about on all fours and carries things in his mouth like a little dog. nobody can say he isn't up to schedule time in the matter of creeping anyway--away ahead of it indeed, since ten months is morgan's average for creeping. he is so cute, it will be a shame if his dad never sees him. his hair is coming on nicely too, and i am not without hope that it will be curly. "just for a few minutes, while i've been writing of jims and the concert, i've forgotten ypres and the poison gas and the casualty lists. now it all rushes back, worse than ever. oh, if we could just know that jem is all right! i used to be so furious with jem when he called me spider. and now, if he would just come whistling through the hall and call out, 'hello, spider,' as he used to do, i would think it the loveliest name in the world." rilla put away her diary and went out to the garden. the spring evening was very lovely. the long, green, seaward-looking glen was filled with dusk, and beyond it were meadows of sunset. the harbour was radiant, purple here, azure there, opal elsewhere. the maple grove was beginning to be misty green. rilla looked about her with wistful eyes. who said that spring was the joy of the year? it was the heart-break of the year. and the pale-purply mornings and the daffodil stars and the wind in the old pine were so many separate pangs of the heart-break. would life ever be free from dread again? "it's good to see p.e.i. twilight once more," said walter, joining her. "i didn't really remember that the sea was so blue and the roads so red and the wood nooks so wild and fairy haunted. yes, the fairies still abide here. i vow i could find scores of them under the violets in rainbow valley." rilla was momentarily happy. this sounded like the walter of yore. she hoped he was forgetting certain things that had troubled him. "and isn't the sky blue over rainbow valley?" she said, responding to his mood. "blue--blue--you'd have to say 'blue' a hundred times before you could express how blue it is." susan wandered by, her head tied up with a shawl, her hands full of garden implements. doc, stealthy and wild-eyed, was shadowing her steps among the spirea bushes. "the sky may be blue," said susan, "but that cat has been hyde all day so we will likely have rain tonight and by the same token i have rheumatism in my shoulder." "it may rain--but don't think rheumatism, susan--think violets," said walter gaily--rather too gaily, rilla thought. susan considered him unsympathetic. "indeed, walter dear, i do not know what you mean by thinking violets," she responded stiffly, "and rheumatism is not a thing to be joked about, as you may some day realize for yourself. i hope i am not of the kind that is always complaining of their aches and pains, especially now when the news is so terrible. rheumatism is bad enough but i realize, and none better, that it is not to be compared to being gassed by the huns." "oh, my god, no!" exclaimed walter passionately. he turned and went back to the house. susan shook her head. she disapproved entirely of such ejaculations. "i hope he will not let his mother hear him talking like that," she thought as she stacked the hoes and rake away. rilla was standing among the budding daffodils with tear-filled eyes. her evening was spoiled; she detested susan, who had somehow hurt walter; and jem--had jem been gassed? had he died in torture? "i can't endure this suspense any longer," said rilla desperately. but she endured it as the others did for another week. then a letter came from jem. he was all right. "i've come through without a scratch, dad. don't know how i or any of us did it. you'll have seen all about it in the papers--i can't write of it. but the huns haven't got through--they won't get through. jerry was knocked stiff by a shell one time, but it was only the shock. he was all right in a few days. grant is safe, too." nan had a letter from jerry meredith. "i came back to consciousness at dawn," he wrote. "couldn't tell what had happened to me but thought that i was done for. i was all alone and afraid--terribly afraid. dead men were all around me, lying on the horrible grey, slimy fields. i was woefully thirsty--and i thought of david and the bethlehem water--and of the old spring in rainbow valley under the maples. i seemed to see it just before me--and you standing laughing on the other side of it--and i thought it was all over with me. and i didn't care. honestly, i didn't care. i just felt a dreadful childish fear of loneliness and of those dead men around me, and a sort of wonder how this could have happened to me. then they found me and carted me off and before long i discovered that there wasn't really anything wrong with me. i'm going back to the trenches tomorrow. every man is needed there that can be got." "laughter is gone out of the world," said faith meredith, who had come over to report on her letters. "i remember telling old mrs. taylor long ago that the world was a world of laughter. but it isn't so any longer." "it's a shriek of anguish," said gertrude oliver. "we must keep a little laughter, girls," said mrs. blythe. "a good laugh is as good as a prayer sometimes--only sometimes," she added under her breath. she had found it very hard to laugh during the three weeks she had just lived through--she, anne blythe, to whom laughter had always come so easily and freshly. and what hurt most was that rilla's laughter had grown so rare--rilla whom she used to think laughed over-much. was all the child's girlhood to be so clouded? yet how strong and clever and womanly she was growing! how patiently she knitted and sewed and manipulated those uncertain junior reds! and how wonderful she was with jims. "she really could not do better for that child than if she had raised a baker's dozen, mrs. dr. dear," susan had avowed solemnly. "little did i ever expect it of her on the day she landed here with that soup tureen." chapter xiii a slice of humble pie "i am very much afraid, mrs. dr. dear," said susan, who had been on a pilgrimage to the station with some choice bones for dog monday, "that something terrible has happened. whiskers-on-the-moon came off the train from charlottetown and he was looking pleased. i do not remember that i ever saw him with a smile on in public before. of course he may have just been getting the better of somebody in a cattle deal but i have an awful presentiment that the huns have broken through somewhere." perhaps susan was unjust in connecting mr. pryor's smile with the sinking of the lusitania, news of which circulated an hour later when the mail was distributed. but the glen boys turned out that night in a body and broke all his windows in a fine frenzy of indignation over the kaiser's doings. "i do not say they did right and i do not say they did wrong," said susan, when she heard of it. "but i will say that i wouldn't have minded throwing a few stones myself. one thing is certain--whiskers-on-the-moon said in the post office the day the news came, in the presence of witnesses, that folks who could not stay home after they had been warned deserved no better fate. norman douglas is fairly foaming at the mouth over it all. 'if the devil doesn't get those men who sunk the lusitania then there is no use in there being a devil,' he was shouting in carter's store last night. norman douglas always has believed that anybody who opposed him was on the side of the devil, but a man like that is bound to be right once in a while. bruce meredith is worrying over the babies who were drowned. and it seems he prayed for something very special last friday night and didn't get it, and was feeling quite disgruntled over it. but when he heard about the lusitania he told his mother that he understood now why god didn't answer his prayer--he was too busy attending to the souls of all the people who went down on the lusitania. that child's brain is a hundred years older than his body, mrs. dr. dear. as for the lusitania, it is an awful occurrence, whatever way you look at it. but woodrow wilson is going to write a note about it, so why worry? a pretty president!" and susan banged her pots about wrathfully. president wilson was rapidly becoming anathema in susan's kitchen. mary vance dropped in one evening to tell the ingleside folks that she had withdrawn all opposition to miller douglas's enlisting. "this lusitania business was too much for me," said mary brusquely. "when the kaiser takes to drowning innocent babies it's high time somebody told him where he gets off at. this thing must be fought to a finish. it's been soaking into my mind slow but i'm on now. so i up and told miller he could go as far as i was concerned. old kitty alec won't be converted though. if every ship in the world was submarined and every baby drowned, kitty wouldn't turn a hair. but i flatter myself that it was me kept miller back all along and not the fair kitty. i may have deceived myself--but we shall see." they did see. the next sunday miller douglas walked into the glen church beside mary vance in khaki. and mary was so proud of him that her white eyes fairly blazed. joe milgrave, back under the gallery, looked at miller and mary and then at miranda pryor, and sighed so heavily that every one within a radius of three pews heard him and knew what his trouble was. walter blythe did not sigh. but rilla, scanning his face anxiously, saw a look that cut into her heart. it haunted her for the next week and made an undercurrent of soreness in her soul, which was externally being harrowed up by the near approach of the red cross concert and the worries connected therewith. the reese cold had not developed into whooping-cough, so that tangle was straightened out. but other things were hanging in the balance; and on the very day before the concert came a regretful letter from mrs. channing saying that she could not come to sing. her son, who was in kingsport with his regiment, was seriously ill with pneumonia, and she must go to him at once. the members of the concert committee looked at each other in blank dismay. what was to be done? "this comes of depending on outside help," said olive kirk, disagreeably. "we must do something," said rilla, too desperate to care for olive's manner. "we've advertised the concert everywhere--and crowds are coming--there's even a big party coming out from town--and we were short enough of music as it was. we must get some one to sing in mrs. channing's place." "i don't know who you can get at this late date," said olive. "irene howard could do it; but it is not likely she will after the way she was insulted by our society." "how did our society insult her?" asked rilla, in what she called her 'cold-pale tone.' its coldness and pallor did not daunt olive. "you insulted her," she answered sharply. "irene told me all about it--she was literally heart-broken. you told her never to speak to you again--and irene told me she simply could not imagine what she had said or done to deserve such treatment. that was why she never came to our meetings again but joined in with the lowbridge red cross. i do not blame her in the least, and i, for one, will not ask her to lower herself by helping us out of this scrape." "you don't expect me to ask her?" giggled amy macallister, the other member of the committee. "irene and i haven't spoken for a hundred years. irene is always getting 'insulted' by somebody. but she is a lovely singer, i'll admit that, and people would just as soon hear her as mrs. channing." "it wouldn't do any good if you did ask her," said olive significantly. "soon after we began planning this concert, back in april, i met irene in town one day and asked her if she wouldn't help us out. she said she'd love to but she really didn't see how she could when rilla blythe was running the programme, after the strange way rilla had behaved to her. so there it is and here we are, and a nice failure our concert will be." rilla went home and shut herself up in her room, her soul in a turmoil. she would not humiliate herself by apologizing to irene howard! irene had been as much in the wrong as she had been; and she had told such mean, distorted versions of their quarrel everywhere, posing as a puzzled, injured martyr. rilla could never bring herself to tell her side of it. the fact that a slur at walter was mixed up in it tied her tongue. so most people believed that irene had been badly used, except a few girls who had never liked her and sided with rilla. and yet--the concert over which she had worked so hard was going to be a failure. mrs. channing's four solos were the feature of the whole programme. "miss oliver, what do you think about it?" she asked in desperation. "i think irene is the one who should apologize," said miss oliver. "but unfortunately my opinion will not fill the blanks in your programme." "if i went and apologized meekly to irene she would sing, i am sure," sighed rilla. "she really loves to sing in public. but i know she'll be nasty about it--i feel i'd rather do anything than go. i suppose i should go--if jem and jerry can face the huns surely i can face irene howard, and swallow my pride to ask a favour of her for the good of the belgians. just at present i feel that i cannot do it but for all that i have a presentiment that after supper you'll see me meekly trotting through rainbow valley on my way to the upper glen road." rilla's presentiment proved correct. after supper she dressed herself carefully in her blue, beaded crepe--for vanity is harder to quell than pride and irene always saw any flaw or shortcoming in another girl's appearance. besides, as rilla had told her mother one day when she was nine years old, "it is easier to behave nicely when you have your good clothes on." rilla did her hair very becomingly and donned a long raincoat for fear of a shower. but all the while her thoughts were concerned with the coming distasteful interview, and she kept rehearsing mentally her part in it. she wished it were over--she wished she had never tried to get up a belgian relief concert--she wished she had not quarreled with irene. after all, disdainful silence would have been much more effective in meeting the slur upon walter. it was foolish and childish to fly out as she had done--well, she would be wiser in the future, but meanwhile a large and very unpalatable slice of humble pie had to be eaten, and rilla blythe was no fonder of that wholesome article of diet than the rest of us. by sunset she was at the door of the howard house--a pretentious abode, with white scroll-work round the eaves and an eruption of bay-windows on all its sides. mrs. howard, a plump, voluble dame, met rilla gushingly and left her in the parlour while she went to call irene. rilla threw off her rain-coat and looked at herself critically in the mirror over the mantel. hair, hat, and dress were satisfactory--nothing there for miss irene to make fun of. rilla remembered how clever and amusing she used to think irene's biting little comments about other girls. well, it had come home to her now. presently, irene skimmed down, elegantly gowned, with her pale, straw-coloured hair done in the latest and most extreme fashion, and an over-luscious atmosphere of perfume enveloping her. "why how do you do, miss blythe?" she said sweetly. "this is a very unexpected pleasure." rilla had risen to take irene's chilly finger-tips and now, as she sat down again, she saw something that temporarily stunned her. irene saw it too, as she sat down, and a little amused, impertinent smile appeared on her lips and hovered there during the rest of the interview. on one of rilla's feet was a smart little steel-buckled shoe and a filmy blue silk stocking. the other was clad in a stout and rather shabby boot and black lisle! poor rilla! she had changed, or begun to change her boots and stockings after she had put on her dress. this was the result of doing one thing with your hands and another with your brain. oh, what a ridiculous position to be in--and before irene howard of all people--irene, who was staring at rilla's feet as if she had never seen feet before! and once she had thought irene's manner perfection! everything that rilla had prepared to say vanished from her memory. vainly trying to tuck her unlucky foot under her chair, she blurted out a blunt statement. "i have come to athk a favour of you, irene." there--lisping! oh, she had been prepared for humiliation but not to this extent! really, there were limits! "yes?" said irene in a cool, questioning tone, lifting her shallowly-set, insolent eyes to rilla's crimson face for a moment and then dropping them again as if she could not tear them from their fascinated gaze at the shabby boot and the gallant shoe. rilla gathered herself together. she would not lisp--she would be calm and composed. "mrs. channing cannot come because her son is ill in kingsport, and i have come on behalf of the committee to ask you if you will be so kind as to sing for us in her place." rilla enunciated every word so precisely and carefully that she seemed to be reciting a lesson. "it's something of a fiddler's invitation, isn't it?" said irene, with one of her disagreeable smiles. "olive kirk asked you to help when we first thought of the concert and you refused," said rilla. "why, i could hardly help--then--could i?" asked irene plaintively. "after you ordered me never to speak to you again? it would have been very awkward for us both, don't you think?" now for the humble pie. "i want to apologize to you for saying that, irene." said rilla steadily. "i should not have said it and i have been very sorry ever since. will you forgive me?" "and sing at your concert?" said irene sweetly and insultingly. "if you mean," said rilla miserably, "that i would not be apologizing to you if it were not for the concert perhaps that is true. but it is also true that i have felt ever since it happened that i should not have said what i did and that i have been sorry for it all winter. that is all i can say. if you feel you can't forgive me i suppose there is nothing more to be said." "oh, rilla dear, don't snap me up like that," pleaded irene. "of course i'll forgive you--though i did feel awfully about it--how awfully i hope you'll never know. i cried for weeks over it. and i hadn't said or done a thing!" rilla choked back a retort. after all, there was no use in arguing with irene, and the belgians were starving. "don't you think you can help us with the concert," she forced herself to say. oh, if only irene would stop looking at that boot! rilla could just hear her giving olive kirk an account of it. "i don't see how i really can at the last moment like this," protested irene. "there isn't time to learn anything new." "oh, you have lots of lovely songs that nobody in the glen ever heard before," said rilla, who knew irene had been going to town all winter for lessons and that this was only a pretext. "they will all be new down there." "but i have no accompanist," protested irene. "una meredith can accompany you," said rilla. "oh, i couldn't ask her," sighed irene. "we haven't spoken since last fall. she was so hateful to me the time of our sunday-school concert that i simply had to give her up." dear, dear, was irene at feud with everybody? as for una meredith being hateful to anybody, the idea was so farcical that rilla had much ado to keep from laughing in irene's very face. "miss oliver is a beautiful pianist and can play any accompaniment at sight," said rilla desperately. "she will play for you and you could run over your songs easily tomorrow evening at ingleside before the concert." "but i haven't anything to wear. my new evening-dress isn't home from charlottetown yet, and i simply cannot wear my old one at such a big affair. it is too shabby and old-fashioned." "our concert," said rilla slowly, "is in aid of belgian children who are starving to death. don't you think you could wear a shabby dress once for their sake, irene?" "oh, don't you think those accounts we get of the conditions of the belgians are very much exaggerated?" said irene. "i'm sure they can't be actually starving you know, in the twentieth century. the newspapers always colour things so highly." rilla concluded that she had humiliated herself enough. there was such a thing as self-respect. no more coaxing, concert or no concert. she got up, boot and all. "i am sorry you can't help us, irene, but since you cannot we must do the best we can." now this did not suit irene at all. she desired exceedingly to sing at that concert, and all her hesitations were merely by way of enhancing the boon of her final consent. besides, she really wanted to be friends with rilla again. rilla's whole-hearted, ungrudging adoration had been very sweet incense to her. and ingleside was a very charming house to visit, especially when a handsome college student like walter was home. she stopped looking at rilla's feet. "rilla, darling, don't be so abrupt. i really want to help you, if i can manage it. just sit down and let's talk it over." "i'm sorry, but i can't. i have to be home soon--jims has to be settled for the night, you know." "oh, yes--the baby you are bringing up by the book. it's perfectly sweet of you to do it when you hate children so. how cross you were just because i kissed him! but we'll forget all that and be chums again, won't we? now, about the concert--i dare say i can run into town on the morning train after my dress, and out again on the afternoon one in plenty of time for the concert, if you'll ask miss oliver to play for me. i couldn't--she's so dreadfully haughty and supercilious that she simply paralyses poor little me." rilla did not waste time or breath defending miss oliver. she coolly thanked irene, who had suddenly become very amiable and gushing, and got away. she was very thankful the interview was over. but she knew now that she and irene could never be the friends they had been. friendly, yes--but friends, no. nor did she wish it. all winter she had felt under her other and more serious worries, a little feeling of regret for her lost chum. now it was suddenly gone. irene was not as mrs. elliott would say, of the race that knew joseph. rilla did not say or think that she had outgrown irene. had the thought occurred to her she would have considered it absurd when she was not yet seventeen and irene was twenty. but it was the truth. irene was just what she had been a year ago--just what she would always be. rilla blythe's nature in that year had changed and matured and deepened. she found herself seeing through irene with a disconcerting clearness--discerning under all her superficial sweetness, her pettiness, her vindictiveness, her insincerity, her essential cheapness. irene had lost for ever her faithful worshipper. but not until rilla had traversed the upper glen road and found herself in the moon-dappled solitude of rainbow valley did she fully recover her composure of spirit. then she stopped under a tall wild plum that was ghostly white and fair in its misty spring bloom and laughed. "there is only one thing of importance just now--and that is that the allies win the war," she said aloud. "therefore, it follows without dispute that the fact that i went to see irene howard with odd shoes and stockings on is of no importance whatever. nevertheless, i, bertha marilla blythe, swear solemnly with the moon as witness"--rilla lifted her hand dramatically to the said moon--"that i will never leave my room again without looking carefully at both my feet." chapter xiv the valley of decision susan kept the flag flying at ingleside all the next day, in honour of italy's declaration of war. "and not before it was time, mrs. dr. dear, considering the way things have begun to go on the russian front. say what you will, those russians are kittle cattle, the grand duke nicholas to the contrary notwithstanding. it is a fortunate thing for italy that she has come in on the right side, but whether it is as fortunate for the allies i will not predict until i know more about italians than i do now. however, she will give that old reprobate of a francis joseph something to think about. a pretty emperor indeed--with one foot in the grave and yet plotting wholesale murder"--and susan thumped and kneaded her bread with as much vicious energy as she could have expended in punching francis joseph himself if he had been so unlucky as to fall into her clutches. walter had gone to town on the early train, and nan offered to look after jims for the day and so set rilla free. rilla was wildly busy all day, helping to decorate the glen hall and seeing to a hundred last things. the evening was beautiful, in spite of the fact that mr. pryor was reported to have said that he "hoped it would rain pitch forks points down," and to have wantonly kicked miranda's dog as he said it. rilla, rushing home from the hall, dressed hurriedly. everything had gone surprisingly well at the last; irene was even then downstairs practising her songs with miss oliver; rilla was excited and happy, forgetful even of the western front for the moment. it gave her a sense of achievement and victory to have brought her efforts of weeks to such a successful conclusion. she knew that there had not lacked people who thought and hinted that rilla blythe had not the tact or patience to engineer a concert programme. she had shown them! little snatches of song bubbled up from her lips as she dressed. she thought she was looking very well. excitement brought a faint, becoming pink into her round creamy cheeks, quite drowning out her few freckles, and her hair gleamed with red-brown lustre. should she wear crab-apple blossoms in it, or her little fillet of pearls? after some agonised wavering she decided on the crab-apple blossoms and tucked the white waxen cluster behind her left ear. now for a final look at her feet. yes, both slippers were on. she gave the sleeping jims a kiss--what a dear little warm, rosy, satin face he had--and hurried down the hill to the hall. already it was filling--soon it was crowded. her concert was going to be a brilliant success. the first three numbers were successfully over. rilla was in the little dressing-room behind the platform, looking out on the moonlit harbour and rehearsing her own recitations. she was alone, the rest of the performers being in the larger room on the other side. suddenly she felt two soft bare arms slipping round her waist, then irene howard dropped a light kiss on her cheek. "rilla, you sweet thing, you're looking simply angelic to-night. you have spunk--i thought you would feel so badly over walter's enlisting that you'd hardly be able to bear up at all, and here you are as cool as a cucumber. i wish i had half your nerve." rilla stood perfectly still. she felt no emotion whatever--she felt nothing. the world of feeling had just gone blank. "walter--enlisting"--she heard herself saying--then she heard irene's affected little laugh. "why, didn't you know? i thought you did of course, or i wouldn't have mentioned it. i am always putting my foot in it, aren't i? yes, that is what he went to town for to-day--he told me coming out on the train to-night, i was the first person he told. he isn't in khaki yet--they were out of uniforms--but he will be in a day or two. i always said walter had as much pluck as anybody. i assure you i felt proud of him, rilla, when he told me what he'd done. oh, there's an end of rick macallister's reading. i must fly. i promised i'd play for the next chorus--alice clow has such a headache." she was gone--oh, thank god, she was gone! rilla was alone again, staring out at the unchanged, dream-like beauty of moonlit four winds. feeling was coming back to her--a pang of agony so acute as to be almost physical seemed to rend her apart. "i cannot bear it," she said. and then came the awful thought that perhaps she could bear it and that there might be years of this hideous suffering before her. she must get away--she must rush home--she must be alone. she could not go out there and play for drills and give readings and take part in dialogues now. it would spoil half the concert; but that did not matter--nothing mattered. was this she, rilla blythe--this tortured thing, who had been quite happy a few minutes ago? outside, a quartette was singing "we'll never let the old flag fall"--the music seemed to be coming from some remote distance. why couldn't she cry, as she had cried when jem told them he must go? if she could cry perhaps this horrible something that seemed to have seized on her very life might let go. but no tears came! where were her scarf and coat? she must get away and hide herself like an animal hurt to the death. was it a coward's part to run away like this? the question came to her suddenly as if someone else had asked it. she thought of the shambles of the flanders front--she thought of her brother and her playmate helping to hold those fire-swept trenches. what would they think of her if she shirked her little duty here--the humble duty of carrying the programme through for her red cross? but she couldn't stay--she couldn't--yet what was it mother had said when jem went: "when our women fail in courage shall our men be fearless still?" but this--this was unbearable. still, she stopped half-way to the door and went back to the window. irene was singing now; her beautiful voice--the only real thing about her--soared clear and sweet through the building. rilla knew that the girls' fairy drill came next. could she go out there and play for it? her head was aching now--her throat was burning. oh, why had irene told her just then, when telling could do no good? irene had been very cruel. rilla remembered now that more than once that day she had caught her mother looking at her with an odd expression. she had been too busy to wonder what it meant. she understood now. mother had known why walter went to town but wouldn't tell her until the concert was over. what spirit and endurance mother had! "i must stay here and see things through," said rilla, clasping her cold hands together. the rest of the evening always seemed like a fevered dream to her. her body was crowded by people but her soul was alone in a torture-chamber of its own. yet she played steadily for the drills and gave her readings without faltering. she even put on a grotesque old irish woman's costume and acted the part in the dialogue which miranda pryor had not taken. but she did not give her "brogue" the inimitable twist she had given it in the practices, and her readings lacked their usual fire and appeal. as she stood before the audience she saw one face only--that of the handsome, dark-haired lad sitting beside her mother--and she saw that same face in the trenches--saw it lying cold and dead under the stars--saw it pining in prison--saw the light of its eyes blotted out--saw a hundred horrible things as she stood there on the beflagged platform of the glen hall with her own face whiter than the milky crab-blossoms in her hair. between her numbers she walked restlessly up and down the little dressing-room. would the concert never end! it ended at last. olive kirk rushed up and told her exultantly that they had made a hundred dollars. "that's good," rilla said mechanically. then she was away from them all--oh, thank god, she was away from them all--walter was waiting for her at the door. he put his arm through hers silently and they went together down the moonlit road. the frogs were singing in the marshes, the dim, ensilvered fields of home lay all around them. the spring night was lovely and appealing. rilla felt that its beauty was an insult to her pain. she would hate moonlight for ever. "you know?" said walter. "yes. irene told me," answered rilla chokingly. "we didn't want you to know till the evening was over. i knew when you came out for the drill that you had heard. little sister, i had to do it. i couldn't live any longer on such terms with myself as i have been since the lusitania was sunk. when i pictured those dead women and children floating about in that pitiless, ice-cold water--well, at first i just felt a sort of nausea with life. i wanted to get out of the world where such a thing could happen--shake its accursed dust from my feet for ever. then i knew i had to go." "there are--plenty--without you." "that isn't the point, rilla-my-rilla. i'm going for my own sake--to save my soul alive. it will shrink to something small and mean and lifeless if i don't go. that would be worse than blindness or mutilation or any of the things i've feared." "you may--be--killed," rilla hated herself for saying it--she knew it was a weak and cowardly thing to say--but she had rather gone to pieces after the tension of the evening. "'comes he slow or comes he fast it is but death who comes at last.'" quoted walter. "it's not death i fear--i told you that long ago. one can pay too high a price for mere life, little sister. there's so much hideousness in this war--i've got to go and help wipe it out of the world. i'm going to fight for the beauty of life, rilla-my-rilla--that is my duty. there may be a higher duty, perhaps--but that is mine. i owe life and canada that, and i've got to pay it. rilla, tonight for the first time since jem left i've got back my self-respect. i could write poetry," walter laughed. "i've never been able to write a line since last august. tonight i'm full of it. little sister, be brave--you were so plucky when jem went." "this--is--different," rilla had to stop after every word to fight down a wild outburst of sobs. "i loved--jem--of course--but--when--he went--away--we thought--the war--would soon--be over--and you are--everything to me, walter." "you must be brave to help me, rilla-my-rilla. i'm exalted tonight--drunk with the excitement of victory over myself--but there will be other times when it won't be like this--i'll need your help then." "when--do--you--go?" she must know the worst at once. "not for a week--then we go to kingsport for training. i suppose we'll go overseas about the middle of july--we don't know." one week--only one week more with walter! the eyes of youth did not see how she was to go on living. when they turned in at the ingleside gate walter stopped in the shadows of the old pines and drew rilla close to him. "rilla-my-rilla, there were girls as sweet and pure as you in belgium and flanders. you--even you--know what their fate was. we must make it impossible for such things to happen again while the world lasts. you'll help me, won't you?" "i'll try, walter," she said. "oh, i will try." as she clung to him with her face pressed against his shoulder she knew that it had to be. she accepted the fact then and there. he must go--her beautiful walter with his beautiful soul and dreams and ideals. and she had known all along that it would come sooner or later. she had seen it coming to her--coming--coming--as one sees the shadow of a cloud drawing near over a sunny field, swiftly and inescapably. amid all her pain she was conscious of an odd feeling of relief in some hidden part of her soul, where a little dull, unacknowledged soreness had been lurking all winter. no one--no one could ever call walter a slacker now. rilla did not sleep that night. perhaps no one at ingleside did except jims. the body grows slowly and steadily, but the soul grows by leaps and bounds. it may come to its full stature in an hour. from that night rilla blythe's soul was the soul of a woman in its capacity for suffering, for strength, for endurance. when the bitter dawn came she rose and went to her window. below her was a big apple-tree, a great swelling cone of rosy blossom. walter had planted it years ago when he was a little boy. beyond rainbow valley there was a cloudy shore of morning with little ripples of sunrise breaking over it. the far, cold beauty of a lingering star shone above it. why, in this world of springtime loveliness, must hearts break? rilla felt arms go about her lovingly, protectingly. it was mother--pale, large-eyed mother. "oh, mother, how can you bear it?" she cried wildly. "rilla, dear, i've known for several days that walter meant to go. i've had time to--to rebel and grow reconciled. we must give him up. there is a call greater and more insistent than the call of our love--he has listened to it. we must not add to the bitterness of his sacrifice." "our sacrifice is greater than his," cried rilla passionately. "our boys give only themselves. we give them." before mrs. blythe could reply susan stuck her head in at the door, never troubling over such frills of etiquette as knocking. her eyes were suspiciously red but all she said was, "will i bring up your breakfast, mrs. dr. dear." "no, no, susan. we will all be down presently. do you know--that walter has joined up." "yes, mrs. dr. dear. the doctor told me last night. i suppose the almighty has his own reasons for allowing such things. we must submit and endeavour to look on the bright side. it may cure him of being a poet, at least"--susan still persisted in thinking that poets and tramps were tarred with the same brush--"and that would be something. but thank god," she muttered in a lower tone, "that shirley is not old enough to go." "isn't that the same thing as thanking him that some other woman's son has to go in shirley's place?" asked the doctor, pausing on the threshold. "no, it is not, doctor dear," said susan defiantly, as she picked up jims, who was opening his big dark eyes and stretching up his dimpled paws. "do not you put words in my mouth that i would never dream of uttering. i am a plain woman and cannot argue with you, but i do not thank god that anybody has to go. i only know that it seems they do have to go, unless we all want to be kaiserised--for i can assure you that the monroe doctrine, whatever it is, is nothing to tie to, with woodrow wilson behind it. the huns, dr. dear, will never be brought to book by notes. and now," concluded susan, tucking jims in the crook of her gaunt arms and marching downstairs, "having cried my cry and said my say i shall take a brace, and if i cannot look pleasant i will look as pleasant as i can." chapter xv until the day break "the germans have recaptured premysl," said susan despairingly, looking up from her newspaper, "and now i suppose we will have to begin calling it by that uncivilised name again. cousin sophia was in when the mail came and when she heard the news she hove a sigh up from the depths of her stomach, mrs. dr. dear, and said, 'ah yes, and they will get petrograd next i have no doubt.' i said to her, 'my knowledge of geography is not so profound as i wish it was but i have an idea that it is quite a walk from premysl to petrograd.' cousin sophia sighed again and said, 'the grand duke nicholas is not the man i took him to be.' 'do not let him know that,' said i. 'it might hurt his feelings and he has likely enough to worry him as it is. but you cannot cheer cousin sophia up, no matter how sarcastic you are, mrs. dr. dear. she sighed for the third time and groaned out, 'but the russians are retreating fast,' and i said, 'well, what of it? they have plenty of room for retreating, have they not?' but all the same, mrs. dr. dear, though i would never admit it to cousin sophia, i do not like the situation on the eastern front." nobody else liked it either; but all summer the russian retreat went on--a long-drawn-out agony. "i wonder if i shall ever again be able to await the coming of the mail with feelings of composure--never to speak of pleasure," said gertrude oliver. "the thought that haunts me night and day is--will the germans smash russia completely and then hurl their eastern army, flushed with victory, against the western front?" "they will not, miss oliver dear," said susan, assuming the role of prophetess. "in the first place, the almighty will not allow it, in the second, grand duke nicholas, though he may have been a disappointment to us in some respects, knows how to run away decently and in order, and that is a very useful knowledge when germans are chasing you. norman douglas declares he is just luring them on and killing ten of them to one he loses. but i am of the opinion he cannot help himself and is just doing the best he can under the circumstances, the same as the rest of us. so do not go so far afield to borrow trouble, miss oliver dear, when there is plenty of it already camping on our very doorstep." walter had gone to kingsport the first of june. nan, di and faith had gone also to do red cross work in their vacation. in mid-july walter came home for a week's leave before going overseas. rilla had lived through the days of his absence on the hope of that week, and now that it had come she drank every minute of it thirstily, hating even the hours she had to spend in sleep, they seemed such a waste of precious moments. in spite of its sadness, it was a beautiful week, full of poignant, unforgettable hours, when she and walter had long walks and talks and silences together. he was all her own and she knew that he found strength and comfort in her sympathy and understanding. it was very wonderful to know she meant so much to him--the knowledge helped her through moments that would otherwise have been unendurable, and gave her power to smile--and even to laugh a little. when walter had gone she might indulge in the comfort of tears, but not while he was here. she would not even let herself cry at night, lest her eyes should betray her to him in the morning. on his last evening at home they went together to rainbow valley and sat down on the bank of the brook, under the white lady, where the gay revels of olden days had been held in the cloudless years. rainbow valley was roofed over with a sunset of unusual splendour that night; a wonderful grey dusk just touched with starlight followed it; and then came moonshine, hinting, hiding, revealing, lighting up little dells and hollows here, leaving others in dark, velvet shadow. "when i am 'somewhere in france,'" said walter, looking around him with eager eyes on all the beauty his soul loved, "i shall remember these still, dewy, moon-drenched places. the balsam of the fir-trees; the peace of those white pools of moonshine; the 'strength of the hills'--what a beautiful old biblical phrase that is. rilla! look at those old hills around us--the hills we looked up at as children, wondering what lay for us in the great world beyond them. how calm and strong they are--how patient and changeless--like the heart of a good woman. rilla-my-rilla, do you know what you have been to me the past year? i want to tell you before i go. i could not have lived through it if it had not been for you, little loving, believing heart." rilla dared not try to speak. she slipped her hand into walter's and pressed it hard. "and when i'm over there, rilla, in that hell upon earth which men who have forgotten god have made, it will be the thought of you that will help me most. i know you'll be as plucky and patient as you have shown yourself to be this past year--i'm not afraid for you. i know that no matter what happens, you'll be rilla-my-rilla--no matter what happens." rilla repressed tear and sigh, but she could not repress a little shiver, and walter knew that he had said enough. after a moment of silence, in which each made an unworded promise to each other, he said, "now we won't be sober any more. we'll look beyond the years--to the time when the war will be over and jem and jerry and i will come marching home and we'll all be happy again." "we won't be--happy--in the same way," said rilla. "no, not in the same way. nobody whom this war has touched will ever be happy again in quite the same way. but it will be a better happiness, i think, little sister--a happiness we've earned. we were very happy before the war, weren't we? with a home like ingleside, and a father and mother like ours we couldn't help being happy. but that happiness was a gift from life and love; it wasn't really ours--life could take it back at any time. it can never take away the happiness we win for ourselves in the way of duty. i've realised that since i went into khaki. in spite of my occasional funks, when i fall to living over things beforehand, i've been happy since that night in may. rilla, be awfully good to mother while i'm away. it must be a horrible thing to be a mother in this war--the mothers and sisters and wives and sweethearts have the hardest times. rilla, you beautiful little thing, are you anybody's sweetheart? if you are, tell me before i go." "no," said rilla. then, impelled by a wish to be absolutely frank with walter in this talk that might be the last they would ever have, she added, blushing wildly in the moonlight, "but if--kenneth ford--wanted me to be--" "i see," said walter. "and ken's in khaki, too. poor little girlie, it's a bit hard for you all round. well, i'm not leaving any girl to break her heart about me--thank god for that." rilla glanced up at the manse on the hill. she could see a light in una meredith's window. she felt tempted to say something--then she knew she must not. it was not her secret: and, anyway, she did not know--she only suspected. walter looked about him lingeringly and lovingly. this spot had always been so dear to him. what fun they all had had here lang syne. phantoms of memory seemed to pace the dappled paths and peep merrily through the swinging boughs--jem and jerry, bare-legged, sunburned schoolboys, fishing in the brook and frying trout over the old stone fireplace; nan and di and faith, in their dimpled, fresh-eyed childish beauty; una the sweet and shy, carl, poring over ants and bugs, little slangy, sharp-tongued, good-hearted mary vance--the old walter that had been himself lying on the grass reading poetry or wandering through palaces of fancy. they were all there around him--he could see them almost as plainly as he saw rilla--as plainly as he had once seen the pied piper piping down the valley in a vanished twilight. and they said to him, those gay little ghosts of other days, "we were the children of yesterday, walter--fight a good fight for the children of to-day and to-morrow." "where are you, walter," cried rilla, laughing a little. "come back--come back." walter came back with a long breath. he stood up and looked about him at the beautiful valley of moonlight, as if to impress on his mind and heart every charm it possessed--the great dark plumes of the firs against the silvery sky, the stately white lady, the old magic of the dancing brook, the faithful tree lovers, the beckoning, tricksy paths. "i shall see it so in my dreams," he said, as he turned away. they went back to ingleside. mr. and mrs. meredith were there, with gertrude oliver, who had come from lowbridge to say good-bye. everybody was quite cheerful and bright, but nobody said much about the war being soon over, as they had said when jem went away. they did not talk about the war at all--and they thought of nothing else. at last they gathered around the piano and sang the grand old hymn: "oh god, our help in ages past our hope for years to come. our shelter from the stormy blast and our eternal home." "we all come back to god in these days of soul-sifting," said gertrude to john meredith. "there have been many days in the past when i didn't believe in god--not as god--only as the impersonal great first cause of the scientists. i believe in him now--i have to--there's nothing else to fall back on but god--humbly, starkly, unconditionally." "'our help in ages past'--'the same yesterday, to-day and for ever,'" said the minister gently. "when we forget god--he remembers us." there was no crowd at the glen station the next morning to see walter off. it was becoming a commonplace for a khaki clad boy to board that early morning train after his last leave. besides his own, only the manse folk were there, and mary vance. mary had sent her miller off the week before, with a determined grin, and now considered herself entitled to give expert opinion on how such partings should be conducted. "the main thing is to smile and act as if nothing was happening," she informed the ingleside group. "the boys all hate the sob act like poison. miller told me i wasn't to come near the station if i couldn't keep from bawling. so i got through with my crying beforehand, and at the last i said to him, 'good luck, miller, and if you come back you'll find i haven't changed any, and if you don't come back i'll always be proud you went, and in any case don't fall in love with a french girl.' miller swore he wouldn't, but you never can tell about those fascinating foreign hussies. anyhow, the last sight he had of me i was smiling to my limit. gee, all the rest of the day my face felt as if it had been starched and ironed into a smile." in spite of mary's advice and example mrs. blythe, who had sent jem off with a smile, could not quite manage one for walter. but at least no one cried. dog monday came out of his lair in the shipping-shed and sat down close to walter, thumping his tail vigorously on the boards of the platform whenever walter spoke to him, and looking up with confident eyes, as if to say, "i know you'll find jem and bring him back to me." "so long, old fellow," said carl meredith cheerfully, when the good-byes had to be said. "tell them over there to keep their spirits up--i am coming along presently." "me too," said shirley laconically, proffering a brown paw. susan heard him and her face turned very grey. una shook hands quietly, looking at him with wistful, sorrowful, dark-blue eyes. but then una's eyes had always been wistful. walter bent his handsome black head in its khaki cap and kissed her with the warm, comradely kiss of a brother. he had never kissed her before, and for a fleeting moment una's face betrayed her, if anyone had noticed. but nobody did; the conductor was shouting "all aboard"; everybody was trying to look very cheerful. walter turned to rilla; she held his hands and looked up at him. she would not see him again until the day broke and the shadows vanished--and she knew not if that daybreak would be on this side of the grave or beyond it. "good-bye," she said. on her lips it lost all the bitterness it had won through the ages of parting and bore instead all the sweetness of the old loves of all the women who had ever loved and prayed for the beloved. "write me often and bring jims up faithfully, according to the gospel of morgan," walter said lightly, having said all his serious things the night before in rainbow valley. but at the last moment he took her face between his hands and looked deep into her gallant eyes. "god bless you, rilla-my-rilla," he said softly and tenderly. after all it was not a hard thing to fight for a land that bore daughters like this. he stood on the rear platform and waved to them as the train pulled out. rilla was standing by herself, but una meredith came to her and the two girls who loved him most stood together and held each other's cold hands as the train rounded the curve of the wooded hill. rilla spent an hour in rainbow valley that morning about which she never said a word to anyone; she did not even write in her diary about it; when it was over she went home and made rompers for jims. in the evening she went to a junior red cross committee meeting and was severely businesslike. "you would never suppose," said irene howard to olive kirk afterwards, "that walter had left for the front only this morning. but some people really have no depth of feeling. i often wish i could take things as lightly as rilla blythe." chapter xvi realism and romance "warsaw has fallen," said dr. blythe with a resigned air, as he brought the mail in one warm august day. gertrude and mrs. blythe looked dismally at each other, and rilla, who was feeding jims a morganized diet from a carefully sterilized spoon, laid the said spoon down on his tray, utterly regardless of germs, and said, "oh, dear me," in as tragic a tone as if the news had come as a thunderbolt instead of being a foregone conclusion from the preceding week's dispatches. they had thought they were quite resigned to warsaw's fall but now they knew they had, as always, hoped against hope. "now, let us take a brace," said susan. "it is not the terrible thing we have been thinking. i read a dispatch three columns long in the montreal herald yesterday that proved that warsaw was not important from a military point of view at all. so let us take the military point of view, doctor dear." "i read that dispatch, too, and it has encouraged me immensely," said gertrude. "i knew then and i know now that it was a lie from beginning to end. but i am in that state of mind where even a lie is a comfort, providing it is a cheerful lie." "in that case, miss oliver dear, the german official reports ought to be all you need," said susan sarcastically. "i never read them now because they make me so mad i cannot put my thoughts properly on my work after a dose of them. even this news about warsaw has taken the edge off my afternoon's plans. misfortunes never come singly. i spoiled my baking of bread today--and now warsaw has fallen--and here is little kitchener bent on choking himself to death." jims was evidently trying to swallow his spoon, germs and all. rilla rescued him mechanically and was about to resume the operation of feeding him when a casual remark of her father's sent such a shock and thrill over her that for the second time she dropped that doomed spoon. "kenneth ford is down at martin west's over-harbour," the doctor was saying. "his regiment was on its way to the front but was held up in kingsport for some reason, and ken got leave of absence to come over to the island." "i hope he will come up to see us," exclaimed mrs. blythe. "he only has a day or two off, i believe," said the doctor absently. nobody noticed rilla's flushed face and trembling hands. even the most thoughtful and watchful of parents do not see everything that goes on under their very noses. rilla made a third attempt to give the long-suffering jims his dinner, but all she could think of was the question--would ken come to see her before he went away? she had not heard from him for a long while. had he forgotten her completely? if he did not come she would know that he had. perhaps there was even--some other girl back there in toronto. of course there was. she was a little fool to be thinking about him at all. she would not think about him. if he came, well and good. it would only be courteous of him to make a farewell call at ingleside where he had often been a guest. if he did not come--well and good, too. it did not matter very much. nobody was going to fret. that was all settled comfortably--she was quite indifferent--but meanwhile jims was being fed with a haste and recklessness that would have filled the soul of morgan with horror. jims himself didn't like it, being a methodical baby, accustomed to swallowing spoonfuls with a decent interval for breath between each. he protested, but his protests availed him nothing. rilla, as far as the care and feeding of infants was concerned, was utterly demoralized. then the telephone-bell rang. there was nothing unusual about the telephone ringing. it rang on an average every ten minutes at ingleside. but rilla dropped jims' spoon again--on the carpet this time--and flew to the 'phone as if life depended on her getting there before anybody else. jims, his patience exhausted, lifted up his voice and wept. "hello, is this ingleside?" "yes." "that you, rilla?" "yeth--yeth." oh, why couldn't jims stop howling for just one little minute? why didn't somebody come in and choke him? "know who's speaking?" oh, didn't she know! wouldn't she know that voice anywhere--at any time? "it's ken--isn't it?" "sure thing. i'm here for a look-in. can i come up to ingleside tonight and see you?" "of courthe." had he used "you" in the singular or plural sense? presently she would wring jims' neck--oh, what was ken saying? "see here, rilla, can you arrange that there won't be more than a few dozen people round? understand? i can't make my meaning clearer over this bally rural line. there are a dozen receivers down." did she understand! yes, she understood. "i'll try," she said. "i'll be up about eight then. by-by." rilla hung up the 'phone and flew to jims. but she did not wring that injured infant's neck. instead she snatched him bodily out of his chair, crushed him against her face, kissed him rapturously on his milky mouth, and danced wildly around the room with him in her arms. after this jims was relieved to find that she returned to sanity, gave him the rest of his dinner properly, and tucked him away for his afternoon nap with the little lullaby he loved best of all. she sewed at red cross shirts for the rest of the afternoon and built a crystal castle of dreams, all a-quiver with rainbows. ken wanted to see her--to see her alone. that could be easily managed. shirley wouldn't bother them, father and mother were going to the manse, miss oliver never played gooseberry, and jims always slept the clock round from seven to seven. she would entertain ken on the veranda--it would be moonlight--she would wear her white georgette dress and do her hair up--yes, she would--at least in a low knot at the nape of her neck. mother couldn't object to that, surely. oh, how wonderful and romantic it would be! would ken say anything--he must mean to say something or why should he be so particular about seeing her alone? what if it rained--susan had been complaining about mr. hyde that morning! what if some officious junior red called to discuss belgians and shirts? or, worst of all, what if fred arnold dropped in? he did occasionally. the evening came at last and was all that could be desired in an evening. the doctor and his wife went to the manse, shirley and miss oliver went they alone knew where, susan went to the store for household supplies, and jims went to dreamland. rilla put on her georgette gown, knotted up her hair and bound a little double string of pearls around it. then she tucked a cluster of pale pink baby roses at her belt. would ken ask her for a rose for a keepsake? she knew that jem had carried to the trenches in flanders a faded rose that faith meredith had kissed and given him the night before he left. rilla looked very sweet when she met ken in the mingled moonlight and vine shadows of the big veranda. the hand she gave him was cold and she was so desperately anxious not to lisp that her greeting was prim and precise. how handsome and tall kenneth looked in his lieutenant's uniform! it made him seem older, too--so much so that rilla felt rather foolish. hadn't it been the height of absurdity for her to suppose that this splendid young officer had anything special to say to her, little rilla blythe of glen st. mary? likely she hadn't understood him after all--he had only meant that he didn't want a mob of folks around making a fuss over him and trying to lionize him, as they had probably done over-harbour. yes, of course, that was all he meant--and she, little idiot, had gone and vainly imagined that he didn't want anybody but her. and he would think she had manoeuvred everybody away so that they could be alone together, and he would laugh to himself at her. "this is better luck than i hoped for," said ken, leaning back in his chair and looking at her with very unconcealed admiration in his eloquent eyes. "i was sure someone would be hanging about and it was just you i wanted to see, rilla-my-rilla." rilla's dream castle flashed into the landscape again. this was unmistakable enough certainly--not much doubt as to his meaning here. "there aren't--so many of us--to poke around as there used to be," she said softly. "no, that's so," said ken gently. "jem and walter and the girls away--it makes a big blank, doesn't it? but--" he leaned forward until his dark curls almost brushed her hair--"doesn't fred arnold try to fill the blank occasionally. i've been told so." at this moment, before rilla could make any reply, jims began to cry at the top of his voice in the room whose open window was just above them--jims, who hardly ever cried in the evening. moreover, he was crying, as rilla knew from experience, with a vim and energy that betokened that he had been already whimpering softly unheard for some time and was thoroughly exasperated. when jims started in crying like that he made a thorough job of it. rilla knew that there was no use to sit still and pretend to ignore him. he wouldn't stop; and conversation of any kind was out of the question when such shrieks and howls were floating over your head. besides, she was afraid kenneth would think she was utterly unfeeling if she sat still and let a baby cry like that. he was not likely acquainted with morgan's invaluable volume. she got up. "jims has had a nightmare, i think. he sometimes has one and he is always badly frightened by it. excuse me for a moment." rilla flew upstairs, wishing quite frankly that soup tureens had never been invented. but when jims, at sight of her, lifted his little arms entreatingly and swallowed several sobs, with tears rolling down his cheeks, resentment went out of her heart. after all, the poor darling was frightened. she picked him up gently and rocked him soothingly until his sobs ceased and his eyes closed. then she essayed to lay him down in his crib. jims opened his eyes and shrieked a protest. this performance was repeated twice. rilla grew desperate. she couldn't leave ken down there alone any longer--she had been away nearly half an hour already. with a resigned air she marched downstairs, carrying jims, and sat down on the veranda. it was, no doubt, a ridiculous thing to sit and cuddle a contrary war-baby when your best young man was making his farewell call, but there was nothing else to be done. jims was supremely happy. he kicked his little pink-soled feet rapturously out under his white nighty and gave one of his rare laughs. he was beginning to be a very pretty baby; his golden hair curled in silken ringlets all over his little round head and his eyes were beautiful. "he's a decorative kiddy all right, isn't he?" said ken. "his looks are very well," said rilla, bitterly, as if to imply that they were much the best of him. jims, being an astute infant, sensed trouble in the atmosphere and realized that it was up to him to clear it away. he turned his face up to rilla, smiled adorably and said, clearly and beguilingly, "will--will." it was the very first time he had spoken a word or tried to speak. rilla was so delighted that she forgot her grudge against him. she forgave him with a hug and kiss. jims, understanding that he was restored to favour, cuddled down against her just where a gleam of light from the lamp in the living-room struck across his hair and turned it into a halo of gold against her breast. kenneth sat very still and silent, looking at rilla--at the delicate, girlish silhouette of her, her long lashes, her dented lip, her adorable chin. in the dim moonlight, as she sat with her head bent a little over jims, the lamplight glinting on her pearls until they glistened like a slender nimbus, he thought she looked exactly like the madonna that hung over his mother's desk at home. he carried that picture of her in his heart to the horror of the battlefields of france. he had had a strong fancy for rilla blythe ever since the night of the four winds dance; but it was when he saw her there, with little jims in her arms, that he loved her and realized it. and all the while, poor rilla was sitting, disappointed and humiliated, feeling that her last evening with ken was spoiled and wondering why things always had to go so contrarily outside of books. she felt too absurd to try to talk. evidently ken was completely disgusted, too, since he was sitting there in such stony silence. hope revived momentarily when jims went so thoroughly asleep that she thought it would be safe to lay him down on the couch in the living-room. but when she came out again susan was sitting on the veranda, loosening her bonnet strings with the air of one who meant to stay where she was for some time. "have you got your baby to sleep?" she asked kindly. your baby! really, susan might have more tact. "yes," said rilla shortly. susan laid her parcels on the reed table, as one determined to do her duty. she was very tired but she must help rilla out. here was kenneth ford who had come to call on the family and they were all unfortunately out, and "the poor child" had had to entertain him alone. but susan had come to her rescue--susan would do her part no matter how tired she was. "dear me, how you have grown up," she said, looking at ken's six feet of khaki uniform without the least awe. susan had grown used to khaki now, and at sixty-four even a lieutenant's uniform is just clothes and nothing else. "it is an amazing thing how fast children do grow up. rilla here, now, is almost fifteen." "i'm going on seventeen, susan," cried rilla almost passionately. she was a whole month past sixteen. it was intolerable of susan. "it seems just the other day that you were all babies," said susan, ignoring rilla's protest. "you were really the prettiest baby i ever saw, ken, though your mother had an awful time trying to cure you of sucking your thumb. do you remember the day i spanked you?" "no," said ken. "oh well, i suppose you would be too young--you were only about four and you were here with your mother and you insisted on teasing nan until she cried. i had tried several ways of stopping you but none availed, and i saw that a spanking was the only thing that would serve. so i picked you up and laid you across my knee and lambasted you well. you howled at the top of your voice but you left nan alone after that." rilla was writhing. hadn't susan any realization that she was addressing an officer of the canadian army? apparently she had not. oh, what would ken think? "i suppose you do not remember the time your mother spanked you either," continued susan, who seemed to be bent on reviving tender reminiscences that evening. "i shall never, no never, forget it. she was up here one night with you when you were about three, and you and walter were playing out in the kitchen yard with a kitten. i had a big puncheon of rainwater by the spout which i was reserving for making soap. and you and walter began quarrelling over the kitten. walter was at one side of the puncheon standing on a chair, holding the kitten, and you were standing on a chair at the other side. you leaned across that puncheon and grabbed the kitten and pulled. you were always a great hand for taking what you wanted without too much ceremony. walter held on tight and the poor kitten yelled but you dragged walter and the kitten half over and then you both lost your balance and tumbled into that puncheon, kitten and all. if i had not been on the spot you would both have been drowned. i flew to the rescue and hauled you all three out before much harm was done, and your mother, who had seen it all from the upstairs window, came down and picked you up, dripping as you were, and gave you a beautiful spanking. ah," said susan with a sigh, "those were happy old days at ingleside." "must have been," said ken. his voice sounded queer and stiff. rilla supposed he was hopelessly enraged. the truth was he dared not trust his voice lest it betray his frantic desire to laugh. "rilla here, now," said susan, looking affectionately at that unhappy damsel, "never was much spanked. she was a real well-behaved child for the most part. but her father did spank her once. she got two bottles of pills out of his office and dared alice clow to see which of them could swallow all the pills first, and if her father had not happened in the nick of time those two children would have been corpses by night. as it was, they were both sick enough shortly after. but the doctor spanked rilla then and there and he made such a thorough job of it that she never meddled with anything in his office afterwards. we hear a great deal nowadays of something that is called 'moral persuasion,' but in my opinion a good spanking and no nagging afterwards is a much better thing." rilla wondered viciously whether susan meant to relate all the family spankings. but susan had finished with the subject and branched off to another cheerful one. "i remember little tod macallister over-harbour killed himself that very way, eating up a whole box of fruitatives because he thought they were candy. it was a very sad affair. he was," said susan earnestly, "the very cutest little corpse i ever laid my eyes on. it was very careless of his mother to leave the fruitatives where he could get them, but she was well-known to be a heedless creature. one day she found a nest of five eggs as she was going across the fields to church with a brand new blue silk dress on. so she put them in the pocket of her petticoat and when she got to church she forgot all about them and sat down on them and her dress was ruined, not to speak of the petticoat. let me see--would not tod be some relation of yours? your great grandmother west was a macallister. her brother amos was a macdonaldite in religion. i am told he used to take the jerks something fearful. but you look more like your great grandfather west than the macallisters. he died of a paralytic stroke quite early in life." "did you see anybody at the store?" asked rilla desperately, in the faint hope of directing susan's conversation into more agreeable channels. "nobody except mary vance," said susan, "and she was stepping round as brisk as the irishman's flea." what terrible similes susan used! would kenneth think she acquired them from the family! "to hear mary talk about miller douglas you would think he was the only glen boy who had enlisted," susan went on. "but of course she always did brag and she has some good qualities i am willing to admit, though i did not think so that time she chased rilla here through the village with a dried codfish till the poor child fell, heels over head, into the puddle before carter flagg's store." rilla went cold all over with wrath and shame. were there any more disgraceful scenes in her past that susan could rake up? as for ken, he could have howled over susan's speeches, but he would not so insult the duenna of his lady, so he sat with a preternaturally solemn face which seemed to poor rilla a haughty and offended one. "i paid eleven cents for a bottle of ink tonight," complained susan. "ink is twice as high as it was last year. perhaps it is because woodrow wilson has been writing so many notes. it must cost him considerable. my cousin sophia says woodrow wilson is not the man she expected him to be--but then no man ever was. being an old maid, i do not know much about men and have never pretended to, but my cousin sophia is very hard on them, although she married two of them, which you might think was a fair share. albert crawford's chimney blew down in that big gale we had last week, and when sophia heard the bricks clattering on the roof she thought it was a zeppelin raid and went into hysterics. and mrs. albert crawford says that of the two things she would have preferred the zeppelin raid." rilla sat limply in her chair like one hypnotized. she knew susan would stop talking when she was ready to stop and that no earthly power could make her stop any sooner. as a rule, she was very fond of susan but just now she hated her with a deadly hatred. it was ten o'clock. ken would soon have to go--the others would soon be home--and she had not even had a chance to explain to ken that fred arnold filled no blank in her life nor ever could. her rainbow castle lay in ruins round her. kenneth got up at last. he realized that susan was there to stay as long as he did, and it was a three mile walk to martin west's over-harbour. he wondered if rilla had put susan up to this, not wanting to be left alone with him, lest he say something fred arnold's sweetheart did not want to hear. rilla got up, too, and walked silently the length of the veranda with him. they stood there for a moment, ken on the lower step. the step was half sunk into the earth and mint grew thickly about and over its edge. often crushed by so many passing feet it gave out its essence freely, and the spicy odour hung round them like a soundless, invisible benediction. ken looked up at rilla, whose hair was shining in the moonlight and whose eyes were pools of allurement. all at once he felt sure there was nothing in that gossip about fred arnold. "rilla," he said in a sudden, intense whisper, "you are the sweetest thing." rilla flushed and looked at susan. ken looked, too, and saw that susan's back was turned. he put his arm about rilla and kissed her. it was the first time rilla had ever been kissed. she thought perhaps she ought to resent it but she didn't. instead, she glanced timidly into kenneth's seeking eyes and her glance was a kiss. "rilla-my-rilla," said ken, "will you promise that you won't let anyone else kiss you until i come back?" "yes," said rilla, trembling and thrilling. susan was turning round. ken loosened his hold and stepped to the walk. "good-bye," he said casually. rilla heard herself saying it just as casually. she stood and watched him down the walk, out of the gate, and down the road. when the fir wood hid him from her sight she suddenly said "oh," in a choked way and ran down to the gate, sweet blossomy things catching at her skirts as she ran. leaning over the gate she saw kenneth walking briskly down the road, over the bars of tree shadows and moonlight, his tall, erect figure grey in the white radiance. as he reached the turn he stopped and looked back and saw her standing amid the tall white lilies by the gate. he waved his hand--she waved hers--he was gone around the turn. rilla stood there for a little while, gazing across the fields of mist and silver. she had heard her mother say that she loved turns in roads--they were so provocative and alluring. rilla thought she hated them. she had seen jem and jerry vanish from her around a bend in the road--then walter--and now ken. brothers and playmate and sweetheart--they were all gone, never, it might be, to return. yet still the piper piped and the dance of death went on. when rilla walked slowly back to the house susan was still sitting by the veranda table and susan was sniffing suspiciously. "i have been thinking, rilla dear, of the old days in the house of dreams, when kenneth's mother and father were courting and jem was a little baby and you were not born or thought of. it was a very romantic affair and she and your mother were such chums. to think i should have lived to see her son going to the front. as if she had not had enough trouble in her early life without this coming upon her! but we must take a brace and see it through." all rilla's anger against susan had evaporated. with ken's kiss still burning on her lips, and the wonderful significance of the promise he had asked thrilling heart and soul, she could not be angry with anyone. she put her slim white hand into susan's brown, work-hardened one and gave it a squeeze. susan was a faithful old dear and would lay down her life for any one of them. "you are tired, rilla dear, and had better go to bed," susan said, patting her hand. "i noticed you were too tired to talk tonight. i am glad i came home in time to help you out. it is very tiresome trying to entertain young men when you are not accustomed to it." rilla carried jims upstairs and went to bed, but not before she had sat for a long time at her window reconstructing her rainbow castle, with several added domes and turrets. "i wonder," she said to herself, "if i am, or am not, engaged to kenneth ford." chapter xvii the weeks wear by rilla read her first love letter in her rainbow valley fir-shadowed nook, and a girl's first love letter, whatever blase, older people may think of it, is an event of tremendous importance in the teens. after kenneth's regiment had left kingsport there came a fortnight of dully-aching anxiety and when the congregation sang in church on sunday evenings, "oh, hear us when we cry to thee for those in peril on the sea," rilla's voice always failed her; for with the words came a horribly vivid mind picture of a submarined ship sinking beneath pitiless waves amid the struggles and cries of drowning men. then word came that kenneth's regiment had arrived safely in england; and now, at last, here was his letter. it began with something that made rilla supremely happy for the moment and ended with a paragraph that crimsoned her cheeks with the wonder and thrill and delight of it. between beginning and ending the letter was just such a jolly, newsy epistle as ken might have written to anyone; but for the sake of that beginning and ending rilla slept with the letter under her pillow for weeks, sometimes waking in the night to slip her fingers under and just touch it, and looked with secret pity on other girls whose sweethearts could never have written them anything half so wonderful and exquisite. kenneth was not the son of a famous novelist for nothing. he "had a way" of expressing things in a few poignant, significant words that seemed to suggest far more than they uttered, and never grew stale or flat or foolish with ever so many scores of readings. rilla went home from rainbow valley as if she flew rather than walked. but such moments of uplift were rare that autumn. to be sure, there was one day in september when great news came of a big allied victory in the west and susan ran out to hoist the flag--the first time she had hoisted it since the russian line broke and the last time she was to hoist it for many dismal moons. "likely the big push has begun at last, mrs. dr. dear," she exclaimed, "and we will soon see the finish of the huns. our boys will be home by christmas now. hurrah!" susan was ashamed of herself for hurrahing the minute she had done it, and apologized meekly for such an outburst of juvenility. "but indeed, mrs. dr. dear, this good news has gone to my head after this awful summer of russian slumps and gallipoli setbacks." "good news!" said miss oliver bitterly. "i wonder if the women whose men have been killed for it will call it good news. just because our own men are not on that part of the front we are rejoicing as if the victory had cost no lives." "now, miss oliver dear, do not take that view of it," deprecated susan. "we have not had much to rejoice over of late and yet men were being killed just the same. do not let yourself slump like poor cousin sophia. she said, when the word came, 'ah, it is nothing but a rift in the clouds. we are up this week but we will be down the next.' 'well, sophia crawford,' said i,--for i will never give in to her, mrs. dr. dear--'god himself cannot make two hills without a hollow between them, as i have heard it said, but that is no reason why we should not take the good of the hills when we are on them.' but cousin sophia moaned on. 'here is the gallipolly expedition a failure and the grand duke nicholas sent off, and everyone knows the czar of rooshia is a pro-german and the allies have no ammunition and bulgaria is going against us. and the end is not yet, for england and france must be punished for their deadly sins until they repent in sackcloth and ashes.' 'i think myself,' i said, 'that they will do their repenting in khaki and trench mud, and it seems to me that the huns should have a few sins to repent of also.' 'they are instruments in the hands of the almighty, to purge the garner,' said sophia. and then i got mad, mrs. dr. dear, and told her i did not and never would believe that the almighty ever took such dirty instruments in hand for any purpose whatever, and that i did not consider it decent for her to be using the words of holy writ as glibly as she was doing in ordinary conversation. she was not, i told her, a minister or even an elder. and for the time being i squelched her, mrs. dr. dear. cousin sophia has no spirit. she is very different from her niece, mrs. dean crawford over-harbour. you know the dean crawfords had five boys and now the new baby is another boy. all the connection and especially dean crawford were much disappointed because their hearts had been set on a girl; but mrs. dean just laughed and said, 'everywhere i went this summer i saw the sign "men wanted" staring me in the face. do you think i could go and have a girl under such circumstances?' there is spirit for you, mrs. dr. dear. but cousin sophia would say the child was just so much more cannon fodder." cousin sophia had full range for her pessimism that gloomy autumn, and even susan, incorrigible old optimist as she was, was hard put to it for cheer. when bulgaria lined up with germany susan only remarked scornfully, "one more nation anxious for a licking," but the greek tangle worried her beyond her powers of philosophy to endure calmly. "constantine of greece has a german wife, mrs. dr. dear, and that fact squelches hope. to think that i should have lived to care what kind of a wife constantine of greece had! the miserable creature is under his wife's thumb and that is a bad place for any man to be. i am an old maid and an old maid has to be independent or she will be squashed out. but if i had been a married woman, mrs. dr. dear, i would have been meek and humble. it is my opinion that this sophia of greece is a minx." susan was furious when the news came that venizelos had met with defeat. "i could spank constantine and skin him alive afterwards, that i could," she exclaimed bitterly. "oh, susan, i'm surprised at you," said the doctor, pulling a long face. "have you no regard for the proprieties? skin him alive by all means but omit the spanking." "if he had been well spanked in his younger days he might have more sense now," retorted susan. "but i suppose princes are never spanked, more is the pity. i see the allies have sent him an ultimatum. i could tell them that it will take more than ultimatums to skin a snake like constantine. perhaps the allied blockade will hammer sense into his head; but that will take some time i am thinking, and in the meantime what is to become of poor serbia?" they saw what became of serbia, and during the process susan was hardly to be lived with. in her exasperation she abused everything and everybody except kitchener, and she fell upon poor president wilson tooth and claw. "if he had done his duty and gone into the war long ago we should not have seen this mess in serbia," she avowed. "it would be a serious thing to plunge a great country like the united states, with its mixed population, into the war, susan," said the doctor, who sometimes came to the defence of the president, not because he thought wilson needed it especially, but from an unholy love of baiting susan. "maybe, doctor dear--maybe! but that makes me think of the old story of the girl who told her grandmother she was going to be married. 'it is a solemn thing to be married,' said the old lady. 'yes, but it is a solemner thing not to be,' said the girl. and i can testify to that out of my own experience, doctor dear. and i think it is a solemner thing for the yankees that they have kept out of the war than it would have been if they had gone into it. however, though i do not know much about them, i am of the opinion that we will see them starting something yet, woodrow wilson or no woodrow wilson, when they get it into their heads that this war is not a correspondence school. they will not," said susan, energetically waving a saucepan with one hand and a soup ladle with the other, "be too proud to fight then." on a pale-yellow, windy evening in october carl meredith went away. he had enlisted on his eighteenth birthday. john meredith saw him off with a set face. his two boys were gone--there was only little bruce left now. he loved bruce and bruce's mother dearly; but jerry and carl were the sons of the bride of his youth and carl was the only one of all his children who had cecilia's very eyes. as they looked lovingly out at him above carl's uniform the pale minister suddenly remembered the day when for the first and last time he had tried to whip carl for his prank with the eel. that was the first time he had realised how much carl's eyes were like cecilia's. now he realised it again once more. would he ever again see his dead wife's eyes looking at him from his son's face? what a bonny, clean, handsome lad he was! it was--hard--to see him go. john meredith seemed to be looking at a torn plain strewed with the bodies of "able-bodied men between the ages of eighteen and forty-five." only the other day carl had been a little scrap of a boy, hunting bugs in rainbow valley, taking lizards to bed with him, and scandalizing the glen by carrying frogs to sunday school. it seemed hardly--right--somehow that he should be an "able-bodied man" in khaki. yet john meredith had said no word to dissuade him when carl had told him he must go. rilla felt carl's going keenly. they had always been cronies and playmates. he was only a little older than she was and they had been children in rainbow valley together. she recalled all their old pranks and escapades as she walked slowly home alone. the full moon peeped through the scudding clouds with sudden floods of weird illumination, the telephone wires sang a shrill weird song in the wind, and the tall spikes of withered, grey-headed golden-rod in the fence corners swayed and beckoned wildly to her like groups of old witches weaving unholy spells. on such a night as this, long ago, carl would come over to ingleside and whistle her out to the gate. "let's go on a moon-spree, rilla," he would say, and the two of them would scamper off to rainbow valley. rilla had never been afraid of his beetles and bugs, though she drew a hard and fast line at snakes. they used to talk together of almost everything and were teased about each other at school; but one evening when they were about ten years of age they had solemnly promised, by the old spring in rainbow valley, that they would never marry each other. alice clow had "crossed out" their names on her slate in school that day, and it came out that "both married." they did not like the idea at all, hence the mutual vow in rainbow valley. there was nothing like an ounce of prevention. rilla laughed over the old memory--and then sighed. that very day a dispatch from some london paper had contained the cheerful announcement that "the present moment is the darkest since the war began." it was dark enough, and rilla wished desperately that she could do something besides waiting and serving at home, as day after day the glen boys she had known went away. if she were only a boy, speeding in khaki by carl's side to the western front! she had wished that in a burst of romance when jem had gone, without, perhaps, really meaning it. she meant it now. there were moments when waiting at home, in safety and comfort, seemed an unendurable thing. the moon burst triumphantly through an especially dark cloud and shadow and silver chased each other in waves over the glen. rilla remembered one moonlit evening of childhood when she had said to her mother, "the moon just looks like a sorry, sorry face." she thought it looked like that still--an agonised, care-worn face, as though it looked down on dreadful sights. what did it see on the western front? in broken serbia? on shell-swept gallipoli? "i am tired," miss oliver had said that day, in a rare outburst of impatience, "of this horrible rack of strained emotions, when every day brings a new horror or the dread of it. no, don't look reproachfully at me, mrs. blythe. there's nothing heroic about me today. i've slumped. i wish england had left belgium to her fate--i wish canada had never sent a man--i wish we'd tied our boys to our apron strings and not let one of them go. oh--i shall be ashamed of myself in half an hour--but at this very minute i mean every word of it. will the allies never strike?" "patience is a tired mare but she jogs on," said susan. "while the steeds of armageddon thunder, trampling over our hearts," retorted miss oliver. "susan, tell me--don't you ever--didn't you ever--take spells of feeling that you must scream--or swear--or smash something--just because your torture reaches a point when it becomes unbearable?" "i have never sworn or desired to swear, miss oliver dear, but i will admit," said susan, with the air of one determined to make a clean breast of it once and for all, "that i have experienced occasions when it was a relief to do considerable banging." "don't you think that is a kind of swearing, susan? what is the difference between slamming a door viciously and saying d----" "miss oliver dear," interrupted susan, desperately determined to save gertrude from herself, if human power could do it, "you are all tired out and unstrung--and no wonder, teaching those obstreperous youngsters all day and coming home to bad war news. but just you go upstairs and lie down and i will bring you up a cup of hot tea and a bite of toast and very soon you will not want to slam doors or swear." "susan, you're a good soul--a very pearl of susans! but, susan, it would be such a relief--to say just one soft, low, little tiny d---" "i will bring you a hot-water bottle for the soles of your feet, also," interposed susan resolutely, "and it would not be any relief to say that word you are thinking of, miss oliver, and that you may tie to." "well, i'll try the hot-water bottle first," said miss oliver, repenting herself on teasing susan and vanishing upstairs, to susan's intense relief. susan shook her head ominously as she filled the hot-water bottle. the war was certainly relaxing the standards of behaviour woefully. here was miss oliver admittedly on the point of profanity. "we must draw the blood from her brain," said susan, "and if this bottle is not effective i will see what can be done with a mustard plaster." gertrude rallied and carried on. lord kitchener went to greece, whereat susan foretold that constantine would soon experience a change of heart. lloyd george began to heckle the allies regarding equipment and guns and susan said you would hear more of lloyd george yet. the gallant anzacs withdrew from gallipoli and susan approved the step, with reservations. the siege of kut-el-amara began and susan pored over maps of mesopotamia and abused the turks. henry ford started for europe and susan flayed him with sarcasm. sir john french was superseded by sir douglas haig and susan dubiously opined that it was poor policy to swap horses crossing a stream, "though, to be sure, haig was a good name and french had a foreign sound, say what you might." not a move on the great chess-board of king or bishop or pawn escaped susan, who had once read only glen st. mary notes. "there was a time," she said sorrowfully, "when i did not care what happened outside of p.e. island, and now a king cannot have a toothache in russia or china but it worries me. it may be broadening to the mind, as the doctor said, but it is very painful to the feelings." when christmas came again susan did not set any vacant places at the festive board. two empty chairs were too much even for susan who had thought in september that there would not be one. "this is the first christmas that walter was not home," rilla wrote in her diary that night. "jem used to be away for christmases up in avonlea, but walter never was. i had letters from ken and him today. they are still in england but expect to be in the trenches very soon. and then--but i suppose we'll be able to endure it somehow. to me, the strangest of all the strange things since 1914 is how we have all learned to accept things we never thought we could--to go on with life as a matter of course. i know that jem and jerry are in the trenches--that ken and walter will be soon--that if one of them does not come back my heart will break--yet i go on and work and plan--yes, and even enjoy life by times. there are moments when we have real fun because, just for the moment, we don't think about things and then--we remember--and the remembering is worse than thinking of it all the time would have been. "today was dark and cloudy and tonight is wild enough, as gertrude says, to please any novelist in search of suitable matter for a murder or elopement. the raindrops streaming over the panes look like tears running down a face, and the wind is shrieking through the maple grove. "this hasn't been a nice christmas day in any way. nan had toothache and susan had red eyes, and assumed a weird and gruesome flippancy of manner to deceive us into thinking she hadn't; and jims had a bad cold all day and i'm afraid of croup. he has had croup twice since october. the first time i was nearly frightened to death, for father and mother were both away--father always is away, it seems to me, when any of this household gets sick. but susan was cool as a fish and knew just what to do, and by morning jims was all right. that child is a cross between a duck and an imp. he's a year and four months old, trots about everywhere, and says quite a few words. he has the cutest little way of calling me "willa-will." it always brings back that dreadful, ridiculous, delightful night when ken came to say good-bye, and i was so furious and happy. jims is pink and white and big-eyed and curly-haired and every now and then i discover a new dimple in him. i can never quite believe he is really the same creature as that scrawny, yellow, ugly little changeling i brought home in the soup tureen. nobody has ever heard a word from jim anderson. if he never comes back i shall keep jims always. everybody here worships and spoils him--or would spoil him if morgan and i didn't stand remorselessly in the way. susan says jims is the cleverest child she ever saw and can recognize old nick when he sees him--this because jims threw poor doc out of an upstairs window one day. doc turned into mr. hyde on his way down and landed in a currant bush, spitting and swearing. i tried to console his inner cat with a saucer of milk but he would have none of it, and remained mr. hyde the rest of the day. jims's latest exploit was to paint the cushion of the big arm-chair in the sun parlour with molasses; and before anybody found it out mrs. fred clow came in on red cross business and sat down on it. her new silk dress was ruined and nobody could blame her for being vexed. but she went into one of her tempers and said nasty things and gave me such slams about 'spoiling' jims that i nearly boiled over, too. but i kept the lid on till she had waddled away and then i exploded. "'the fat, clumsy, horrid old thing,' i said--and oh, what a satisfaction it was to say it. "'she has three sons at the front,' mother said rebukingly. "'i suppose that covers all her shortcomings in manners,' i retorted. but i was ashamed--for it is true that all her boys have gone and she was very plucky and loyal about it too; and she is a perfect tower of strength in the red cross. it's a little hard to remember all the heroines. just the same, it was her second new silk dress in one year and that when everybody is--or should be--trying to 'save and serve.' "i had to bring out my green velvet hat again lately and begin wearing it. i hung on to my blue straw sailor as long as i could. how i hate the green velvet hat! it is so elaborate and conspicuous. i don't see how i could ever have liked it. but i vowed to wear it and wear it i will. "shirley and i went down to the station this morning to take little dog monday a bang-up christmas dinner. dog monday waits and watches there still, with just as much hope and confidence as ever. sometimes he hangs around the station house and talks to people and the rest of his time he sits at his little kennel door and watches the track unwinkingly. we never try to coax him home now: we know it is of no use. when jem comes back, monday will come home with him; and if jem--never comes back--monday will wait there for him as long as his dear dog heart goes on beating. "fred arnold was here last night. he was eighteen in november and is going to enlist just as soon as his mother is over an operation she has to have. he has been coming here very often lately and though i like him so much it makes me uncomfortable, because i am afraid he is thinking that perhaps i could care something for him. i can't tell him about ken--because, after all, what is there to tell? and yet i don't like to behave coldly and distantly when he will be going away so soon. it is very perplexing. i remember i used to think it would be such fun to have dozens of beaux--and now i'm worried to death because two are too many. "i am learning to cook. susan is teaching me. i tried to learn long ago--but no, let me be honest--susan tried to teach me, which is a very different thing. i never seemed to succeed with anything and i got discouraged. but since the boys have gone away i wanted to be able to make cake and things for them myself and so i started in again and this time i'm getting on surprisingly well. susan says it is all in the way i hold my mouth and father says my subconscious mind is desirous of learning now, and i dare say they're both right. anyhow, i can make dandy short-bread and fruitcake. i got ambitious last week and attempted cream puffs, but made an awful failure of them. they came out of the oven flat as flukes. i thought maybe the cream would fill them up again and make them plump but it didn't. i think susan was secretly pleased. she is past mistress in the art of making cream puffs and it would break her heart if anyone else here could make them as well. i wonder if susan tampered--but no, i won't suspect her of such a thing. "miranda pryor spent an afternoon here a few days ago, helping me cut out certain red cross garments known by the charming name of 'vermin shirts.' susan thinks that name is not quite decent, so i suggested she call them 'cootie sarks,' which is old highland sandy's version of it. but she shook her head and i heard her telling mother later that, in her opinion, 'cooties' and 'sarks' were not proper subjects for young girls to talk about. she was especially horrified when jem wrote in his last letter to mother, 'tell susan i had a fine cootie hunt this morning and caught fifty-three!' susan positively turned pea-green. 'mrs. dr. dear,' she said, 'when i was young, if decent people were so unfortunate as to get--those insects--they kept it a secret if possible. i do not want to be narrow-minded, mrs. dr. dear, but i still think it is better not to mention such things.' "miranda grew confidential over our vermin shirts and told me all her troubles. she is desperately unhappy. she is engaged to joe milgrave and joe joined up in october and has been training in charlottetown ever since. her father was furious when he joined and forbade miranda ever to have any dealing or communication with him again. poor joe expects to go overseas any day and wants miranda to marry him before he goes, which shows that there have been 'communications' in spite of whiskers-on-the-moon. miranda wants to marry him but cannot, and she declares it will break her heart. "'why don't you run away and marry him?' i said. it didn't go against my conscience in the least to give her such advice. joe milgrave is a splendid fellow and mr. pryor fairly beamed on him until the war broke out and i know mr. pryor would forgive miranda very quickly, once it was over and he wanted his housekeeper back. but miranda shook her silvery head dolefully. "'joe wants me to but i can't. mother's last words to me, as she lay on her dying-bed, were, "never, never run away, miranda," and i promised.' "miranda's mother died two years ago, and it seems, according to miranda, that her mother and father actually ran away to be married themselves. to picture whiskers-on-the-moon as the hero of an elopement is beyond my power. but such was the case and mrs. pryor at least lived to repent it. she had a hard life of it with mr. pryor, and she thought it was a punishment on her for running away. so she made miranda promise she would never, for any reason whatever, do it. "of course, you cannot urge a girl to break a promise made to a dying mother, so i did not see what miranda could do unless she got joe to come to the house when her father was away and marry her there. but miranda said that couldn't be managed. her father seemed to suspect she might be up to something of the sort and he never went away for long at a time, and, of course, joe couldn't get leave of absence at an hour's notice. "'no, i shall just have to let joe go, and he will be killed--i know he will be killed--and my heart will break,' said miranda, her tears running down and copiously bedewing the vermin shirts! "i am not writing like this for lack of any real sympathy with poor miranda. i've just got into the habit of giving things a comical twist if i can, when i'm writing to jem and walter and ken, to make them laugh. i really felt sorry for miranda who is as much in love with joe as a china-blue girl can be with anyone and who is dreadfully ashamed of her father's pro-german sentiments. i think she understood that i did, for she said she had wanted to tell me all about her worries because i had grown so sympathetic this past year. i wonder if i have. i know i used to be a selfish, thoughtless creature--how selfish and thoughtless i am ashamed to remember now, so i can't be quite so bad as i was. "i wish i could help miranda. it would be very romantic to contrive a war-wedding and i should dearly love to get the better of whiskers-on-the-moon. but at present the oracle has not spoken." chapter xviii a war-wedding "i can tell you this dr. dear," said susan, pale with wrath, "that germany is getting to be perfectly ridiculous." they were all in the big ingleside kitchen. susan was mixing biscuits for supper. mrs. blythe was making shortbread for jem, and rilla was compounding candy for ken and walter--it had once been "walter and ken" in her thoughts but somehow, quite unconsciously, this had changed until ken's name came naturally first. cousin sophia was also there, knitting. all the boys were going to be killed in the long run, so cousin sophia felt in her bones, but they might better die with warm feet than cold ones, so cousin sophia knitted faithfully and gloomily. into this peaceful scene erupted the doctor, wrathful and excited over the burning of the parliament buildings in ottawa. and susan became automatically quite as wrathful and excited. "what will those huns do next?" she demanded. "coming over here and burning our parliament building! did anyone ever hear of such an outrage?" "we don't know that the germans are responsible for this," said the doctor--much as if he felt quite sure they were. "fires do start without their agency sometimes. and uncle mark macallister's barn was burnt last week. you can hardly accuse the germans of that, susan." "indeed, dr. dear, i do not know." susan nodded slowly and portentously. "whiskers-on-the-moon was there that very day. the fire broke out half an hour after he was gone. so much is a fact--but i shall not accuse a presbyterian elder of burning anybody's barn until i have proof. however, everybody knows, dr. dear, that both uncle mark's boys have enlisted, and that uncle mark himself makes speeches at all the recruiting meetings. so no doubt germany is anxious to get square with him." "i could never speak at a recruiting meeting," said cousin sophia solemnly. "i could never reconcile it to my conscience to ask another woman's son to go, to murder and be murdered." "could you not?" said susan. "well, sophia crawford, i felt as if i could ask anyone to go when i read last night that there were no children under eight years of age left alive in poland. think of that, sophia crawford"--susan shook a floury finger at sophia--"not--one--child--under--eight--years--of--age!" "i suppose the germans has et 'em all," sighed cousin sophia. "well, no-o-o," said susan reluctantly, as if she hated to admit that there was any crime the huns couldn't be accused of. "the germans have not turned cannibal yet--as far as i know. they have died of starvation and exposure, the poor little creatures. there is murdering for you, cousin sophia crawford. the thought of it poisons every bite and sup i take." "i see that fred carson of lowbridge has been awarded a distinguished conduct medal," remarked the doctor, over his local paper. "i heard that last week," said susan. "he is a battalion runner and he did something extra brave and daring. his letter, telling his folks about it, came when his old grandmother carson was on her dying-bed. she had only a few minutes more to live and the episcopal minister, who was there, asked her if she would not like him to pray. 'oh yes, yes, you can pray,' she said impatient-like--she was a dean, dr. dear, and the deans were always high-spirited--'you can pray, but for pity's sake pray low and don't disturb me. i want to think over this splendid news and i have not much time left to do it.' that was almira carson all over. fred was the apple of her eye. she was seventy-five years of age and had not a grey hair in her head, they tell me." "by the way, that reminds me--i found a grey hair this morning--my very first," said mrs. blythe. "i have noticed that grey hair for some time, mrs. dr. dear, but i did not speak of it. thought i to myself, 'she has enough to bear.' but now that you have discovered it let me remind you that grey hairs are honourable." "i must be getting old, gilbert." mrs. blythe laughed a trifle ruefully. "people are beginning to tell me i look so young. they never tell you that when you are young. but i shall not worry over my silver thread. i never liked red hair. gilbert, did i ever tell you of that time, years ago at green gables, when i dyed my hair? nobody but marilla and i knew about it." "was that the reason you came out once with your hair shingled to the bone?" "yes. i bought a bottle of dye from a german jew pedlar. i fondly expected it would turn my hair black--and it turned it green. so it had to be cut off." "you had a narrow escape, mrs. dr. dear," exclaimed susan. "of course you were too young then to know what a german was. it was a special mercy of providence that it was only green dye and not poison." "it seems hundreds of years since those green gables days," sighed mrs. blythe. "they belonged to another world altogether. life has been cut in two by the chasm of war. what is ahead i don't know--but it can't be a bit like the past. i wonder if those of us who have lived half our lives in the old world will ever feel wholly at home in the new." "have you noticed," asked miss oliver, glancing up from her book, "how everything written before the war seems so far away now, too? one feels as if one was reading something as ancient as the iliad. this poem of wordsworth's--the senior class have it in their entrance work--i've been glancing over it. its classic calm and repose and the beauty of the lines seem to belong to another planet, and to have as little to do with the present world-welter as the evening star." "the only thing that i find much comfort in reading nowadays is the bible," remarked susan, whisking her biscuits into the oven. "there are so many passages in it that seem to me exactly descriptive of the huns. old highland sandy declares that there is no doubt that the kaiser is the anti-christ spoken of in revelations, but i do not go as far as that. it would, in my humble opinion, mrs. dr. dear, be too great an honour for him." early one morning, several days later, miranda pryor slipped up to ingleside, ostensibly to get some red cross sewing, but in reality to talk over with sympathetic rilla troubles that were past bearing alone. she brought her dog with her--an over-fed, bandy-legged little animal very dear to her heart because joe milgrave had given it to her when it was a puppy. mr. pryor regarded all dogs with disfavour; but in those days he had looked kindly upon joe as a suitor for miranda's hand and so he had allowed her to keep the puppy. miranda was so grateful that she endeavoured to please her father by naming her dog after his political idol, the great liberal chieftain, sir wilfrid laurier--though his title was soon abbreviated to wilfy. sir wilfrid grew and flourished and waxed fat; but miranda spoiled him absurdly and nobody else liked him. rilla especially hated him because of his detestable trick of lying flat on his back and entreating you with waving paws to tickle his sleek stomach. when she saw that miranda's pale eyes bore unmistakable testimony of her having cried all night, rilla asked her to come up to her room, knowing miranda had a tale of woe to tell, but she ordered sir wilfrid to remain below. "oh, can't he come, too?" said miranda wistfully. "poor wilfy won't be any bother--and i wiped his paws so carefully before i brought him in. he is always so lonesome in a strange place without me--and very soon he'll be--all--i'll have left--to remind me--of joe." rilla yielded, and sir wilfrid, with his tail curled at a saucy angle over his brindled back, trotted triumphantly up the stairs before them. "oh, rilla," sobbed miranda, when they had reached sanctuary. "i'm so unhappy. i can't begin to tell you how unhappy i am. truly, my heart is breaking." rilla sat down on the lounge beside her. sir wilfrid squatted on his haunches before them, with his impertinent pink tongue stuck out, and listened. "what is the trouble, miranda?" "joe is coming home tonight on his last leave. i had a letter from him on saturday--he sends my letters in care of bob crawford, you know, because of father--and, oh, rilla, he will only have four days--he has to go away friday morning--and i may never see him again." "does he still want you to marry him?" asked rilla. "oh, yes. he implored me in his letter to run away and be married. but i cannot do that, rilla, not even for joe. my only comfort is that i will be able to see him for a little while tomorrow afternoon. father has to go to charlottetown on business. at least we will have one good farewell talk. but oh--afterwards--why, rilla, i know father won't even let me go to the station friday morning to see joe off." "why in the world don't you and joe get married tomorrow afternoon at home?" demanded rilla. miranda swallowed a sob in such amazement that she almost choked. "why--why--that is impossible, rilla." "why?" briefly demanded the organizer of the junior red cross and the transporter of babies in soup tureens. "why--why--we never thought of such a thing--joe hasn't a license--i have no dress--i couldn't be married in black--i--i--we--you--you--" miranda lost herself altogether and sir wilfrid, seeing that she was in dire distress threw back his head and emitted a melancholy yelp. rilla blythe thought hard and rapidly for a few minutes. then she said, "miranda, if you will put yourself into my hands i'll have you married to joe before four o'clock tomorrow afternoon." "oh, you couldn't." "i can and i will. but you'll have to do exactly as i tell you." "oh--i--don't think--oh, father will kill me--" "nonsense. he'll be very angry i suppose. but are you more afraid of your father's anger than you are of joe's never coming back to you?" "no," said miranda, with sudden firmness, "i'm not." "will you do as i tell you then?" "yes, i will." "then get joe on the long-distance at once and tell him to bring out a license and ring tonight." "oh, i couldn't," wailed the aghast miranda, "it--it would be so--so indelicate." rilla shut her little white teeth together with a snap. "heaven grant me patience," she said under her breath. "i'll do it then," she said aloud, "and meanwhile, you go home and make what preparations you can. when i 'phone down to you to come up and help me sew come at once." as soon as miranda, pallid, scared, but desperately resolved, had gone, rilla flew to the telephone and put in a long-distance call for charlottetown. she got through with such surprising quickness that she was convinced providence approved of her undertaking, but it was a good hour before she could get in touch with joe milgrave at his camp. meanwhile, she paced impatiently about, and prayed that when she did get joe there would be no listeners on the line to carry news to whiskers-on-the-moon. "is that you, joe? rilla blythe is speaking--rilla--rilla--oh, never mind. listen to this. before you come home tonight get a marriage license--a marriage license--yes, a marriage license--and a wedding-ring. did you get that? and will you do it? very well, be sure you do it--it is your only chance." flushed with triumph--for her only fear was that she might not be able to locate joe in time--rilla rang the pryor ring. this time she had not such good luck for she drew whiskers-on-the-moon. "is that miranda? oh--mr. pryor! well, mr. pryor, will you kindly ask miranda if she can come up this afternoon and help me with some sewing. it is very important, or i would not trouble her. oh--thank you." mr. pryor had consented somewhat grumpily, but he had consented--he did not want to offend dr. blythe, and he knew that if he refused to allow miranda to do any red cross work public opinion would make the glen too hot for comfort. rilla went out to the kitchen, shut all the doors with a mysterious expression which alarmed susan, and then said solemnly, "susan can you make a wedding-cake this afternoon?" "a wedding-cake!" susan stared. rilla had, without any warning, brought her a war-baby once upon a time. was she now, with equal suddenness, going to produce a husband? "yes, a wedding-cake--a scrumptious wedding-cake, susan--a beautiful, plummy, eggy, citron-peely wedding-cake. and we must make other things too. i'll help you in the morning. but i can't help you in the afternoon for i have to make a wedding-dress and time is the essence of the contract, susan." susan felt that she was really too old to be subjected to such shocks. "who are you going to marry, rilla?" she asked feebly. "susan, darling, i am not the happy bride. miranda pryor is going to marry joe milgrave tomorrow afternoon while her father is away in town. a war-wedding, susan--isn't that thrilling and romantic? i never was so excited in my life." the excitement soon spread over ingleside, infecting even mrs. blythe and susan. "i'll go to work on that cake at once," vowed susan, with a glance at the clock. "mrs. dr. dear, will you pick over the fruit and beat up the eggs? if you will i can have that cake ready for the oven by the evening. tomorrow morning we can make salads and other things. i will work all night if necessary to get the better of whiskers-on-the-moon." miranda arrived, tearful and breathless. "we must fix over my white dress for you to wear," said rilla. "it will fit you very nicely with a little alteration." to work went the two girls, ripping, fitting, basting, sewing for dear life. by dint of unceasing effort they got the dress done by seven o'clock and miranda tried it on in rilla's room. "it's very pretty--but oh, if i could just have a veil," sighed miranda. "i've always dreamed of being married in a lovely white veil." some good fairy evidently waits on the wishes of war-brides. the door opened and mrs. blythe came in, her arms full of a filmy burden. "miranda dear," she said, "i want you to wear my wedding-veil tomorrow. it is twenty-four years since i was a bride at old green gables--the happiest bride that ever was--and the wedding-veil of a happy bride brings good luck, they say." "oh, how sweet of you, mrs. blythe," said miranda, the ready tears starting to her eyes. the veil was tried on and draped. susan dropped in to approve but dared not linger. "i've got that cake in the oven," she said, "and i am pursuing a policy of watchful waiting. the evening news is that the grand duke has captured erzerum. that is a pill for the turks. i wish i had a chance to tell the czar just what a mistake he made when he turned nicholas down." susan disappeared downstairs to the kitchen, whence a dreadful thud and a piercing shriek presently sounded. everybody rushed to the kitchen--the doctor and miss oliver, mrs. blythe, rilla, miranda in her wedding-veil. susan was sitting flatly in the middle of the kitchen floor with a dazed, bewildered look on her face, while doc, evidently in his hyde incarnation, was standing on the dresser, with his back up, his eyes blazing, and his tail the size of three tails. "susan, what has happened?" cried mrs. blythe in alarm. "did you fall? are you hurt?" susan picked herself up. "no," she said grimly, "i am not hurt, though i am jarred all over. do not be alarmed. as for what has happened--i tried to kick that darned cat with both feet, that is what happened." everybody shrieked with laughter. the doctor was quite helpless. "oh, susan, susan," he gasped. "that i should live to hear you swear." "i am sorry," said susan in real distress, "that i used such an expression before two young girls. but i said that beast was darned, and darned it is. it belongs to old nick." "do you expect it will vanish some of these days with a bang and the odour of brimstone, susan?" "it will go to its own place in due time and that you may tie to," said susan dourly, shaking out her raddled bones and going to her oven. "i suppose my plunking down like that has shaken my cake so that it will be as heavy as lead." but the cake was not heavy. it was all a bride's cake should be, and susan iced it beautifully. next day she and rilla worked all the forenoon, making delicacies for the wedding-feast, and as soon as miranda phoned up that her father was safely off everything was packed in a big hamper and taken down to the pryor house. joe soon arrived in his uniform and a state of violent excitement, accompanied by his best man, sergeant malcolm crawford. there were quite a few guests, for all the manse and ingleside folk were there, and a dozen or so of joe's relatives, including his mother, "mrs. dead angus milgrave," so called, cheerfully, to distinguish her from another lady whose angus was living. mrs. dead angus wore a rather disapproving expression, not caring over-much for this alliance with the house of whiskers-on-the-moon. so miranda pryor was married to private joseph milgrave on his last leave. it should have been a romantic wedding but it was not. there were too many factors working against romance, as even rilla had to admit. in the first place, miranda, in spite of her dress and veil, was such a flat-faced, commonplace, uninteresting little bride. in the second place, joe cried bitterly all through the ceremony, and this vexed miranda unreasonably. long afterwards she told rilla, "i just felt like saying to him then and there, 'if you feel so bad over having to marry me you don't have to.' but it was just because he was thinking all the time of how soon he would have to leave me." in the third place, jims, who was usually so well-behaved in public, took a fit of shyness and contrariness combined and began to cry at the top of his voice for "willa." nobody wanted to take him out, because everybody wanted to see the marriage, so rilla who was a bridesmaid, had to take him and hold him during the ceremony. in the fourth place, sir wilfrid laurier took a fit. sir wilfrid was entrenched in a corner of the room behind miranda's piano. during his seizure he made the weirdest, most unearthly noises. he would begin with a series of choking, spasmodic sounds, continuing into a gruesome gurgle, and ending up with a strangled howl. nobody could hear a word mr. meredith was saying, except now and then, when sir wilfrid stopped for breath. nobody looked at the bride except susan, who never dragged her fascinated eyes from miranda's face--all the others were gazing at the dog. miranda had been trembling with nervousness but as soon as sir wilfrid began his performance she forgot it. all that she could think of was that her dear dog was dying and she could not go to him. she never remembered a word of the ceremony. rilla, who in spite of jims, had been trying her best to look rapt and romantic, as beseemed a war bridesmaid, gave up the hopeless attempt, and devoted her energies to choking down untimely merriment. she dared not look at anybody in the room, especially mrs. dead angus, for fear all her suppressed mirth should suddenly explode in a most un-young-ladylike yell of laughter. but married they were, and then they had a wedding-supper in the dining-room which was so lavish and bountiful that you would have thought it was the product of a month's labour. everybody had brought something. mrs. dead angus had brought a large apple-pie, which she placed on a chair in the dining-room and then absently sat down on it. neither her temper nor her black silk wedding garment was improved thereby, but the pie was never missed at the gay bridal feast. mrs. dead angus eventually took it home with her again. whiskers-on-the-moon's pacifist pig should not get it, anyhow. that evening mr. and mrs. joe, accompanied by the recovered sir wilfrid, departed for the four winds lighthouse, which was kept by joe's uncle and in which they meant to spend their brief honeymoon. una meredith and rilla and susan washed the dishes, tidied up, left a cold supper and miranda's pitiful little note on the table for mr. pryor, and walked home, while the mystic veil of dreamy, haunted winter twilight wrapped itself over the glen. "i would really not have minded being a war-bride myself," remarked susan sentimentally. but rilla felt rather flat--perhaps as a reaction to all the excitement and rush of the past thirty-six hours. she was disappointed somehow--the whole affair had been so ludicrous, and miranda and joe so lachrymose and commonplace. "if miranda hadn't given that wretched dog such an enormous dinner he wouldn't have had that fit," she said crossly. "i warned her--but she said she couldn't starve the poor dog--he would soon be all she had left, etc. i could have shaken her." "the best man was more excited than joe was," said susan. "he wished miranda many happy returns of the day. she did not look very happy, but perhaps you could not expect that under the circumstances." "anyhow," thought rilla, "i can write a perfectly killing account of it all to the boys. how jem will howl over sir wilfrid's part in it!" but if rilla was rather disappointed in the war wedding she found nothing lacking on friday morning when miranda said good-bye to her bridegroom at the glen station. the dawn was white as a pearl, clear as a diamond. behind the station the balsamy copse of young firs was frost-misted. the cold moon of dawn hung over the westering snow fields but the golden fleeces of sunrise shone above the maples up at ingleside. joe took his pale little bride in his arms and she lifted her face to his. rilla choked suddenly. it did not matter that miranda was insignificant and commonplace and flat-featured. it did not matter that she was the daughter of whiskers-on-the-moon. all that mattered was that rapt, sacrificial look in her eyes--that ever-burning, sacred fire of devotion and loyalty and fine courage that she was mutely promising joe she and thousands of other women would keep alive at home while their men held the western front. rilla walked away, realising that she must not spy on such a moment. she went down to the end of the platform where sir wilfrid and dog monday were sitting, looking at each other. sir wilfrid remarked condescendingly: "why do you haunt this old shed when you might lie on the hearthrug at ingleside and live on the fat of the land? is it a pose? or a fixed idea?" whereat dog monday, laconically: "i have a tryst to keep." when the train had gone rilla rejoined the little trembling miranda. "well, he's gone," said miranda, "and he may never come back--but i'm his wife, and i'm going to be worthy of him. i'm going home." "don't you think you had better come with me now?" asked rilla doubtfully. nobody knew yet how mr. pryor had taken the matter. "no. if joe can face the huns i guess i can face father," said miranda daringly. "a soldier's wife can't be a coward. come on, wilfy. i'll go straight home and meet the worst." there was nothing very dreadful to face, however. perhaps mr. pryor had reflected that housekeepers were hard to get and that there were many milgrave homes open to miranda--also, that there was such a thing as a separation allowance. at all events, though he told her grumpily that she had made a nice fool of herself, and would live to regret it, he said nothing worse, and mrs. joe put on her apron and went to work as usual, while sir wilfrid laurier, who had a poor opinion of lighthouses for winter residences, went to sleep in his pet nook behind the woodbox, a thankful dog that he was done with war-weddings. chapter xix "they shall not pass" one cold grey morning in february gertrude oliver wakened with a shiver, slipped into rilla's room, and crept in beside her. "rilla--i'm frightened--frightened as a baby--i've had another of my strange dreams. something terrible is before us--i know." "what was it?" asked rilla. "i was standing again on the veranda steps--just as i stood in that dream on the night before the lighthouse dance, and in the sky a huge black, menacing thunder cloud rolled up from the east. i could see its shadow racing before it and when it enveloped me i shivered with icy cold. then the storm broke--and it was a dreadful storm--blinding flash after flash and deafening peal after peal, driving torrents of rain. i turned in panic and tried to run for shelter, and as i did so a man--a soldier in the uniform of a french army officer--dashed up the steps and stood beside me on the threshold of the door. his clothes were soaked with blood from a wound in his breast, he seemed spent and exhausted; but his white face was set and his eyes blazed in his hollow face. 'they shall not pass,' he said, in low, passionate tones which i heard distinctly amid all the turmoil of the storm. then i awakened. rilla, i'm frightened--the spring will not bring the big push we've all been hoping for--instead it is going to bring some dreadful blow to france. i am sure of it. the germans will try to smash through somewhere." "but he told you that they would not pass," said rilla, seriously. she never laughed at gertrude's dreams as the doctor did. "i do not know if that was prophecy or desperation, rilla, the horror of that dream holds me yet in an icy grip. we shall need all our courage before long." dr. blythe did laugh at the breakfast table--but he never laughed at miss oliver's dreams again; for that day brought news of the opening of the verdun offensive, and thereafter through all the beautiful weeks of spring the ingleside family, one and all, lived in a trance of dread. there were days when they waited in despair for the end as foot by foot the germans crept nearer and nearer to the grim barrier of desperate france. susan's deeds were in her spotless kitchen at ingleside, but her thoughts were on the hills around verdun. "mrs. dr. dear," she would stick her head in at mrs. blythe's door the last thing at night to remark, "i do hope the french have hung onto the crow's wood today," and she woke at dawn to wonder if dead man's hill--surely named by some prophet--was still held by the "poyloos." susan could have drawn a map of the country around verdun that would have satisfied a chief of staff. "if the germans capture verdun the spirit of france will be broken," miss oliver said bitterly. "but they will not capture it," staunchly said susan, who could not eat her dinner that day for fear lest they do that very thing. "in the first place, you dreamed they would not--you dreamed the very thing the french are saying before they ever said it--'they shall not pass.' i declare to you, miss oliver, dear, when i read that in the paper, and remembered your dream, i went cold all over with awe. it seemed to me like biblical times when people dreamed things like that quite frequently. "i know--i know," said gertrude, walking restlessly about. "i cling to a persistent faith in my dream, too--but every time bad news comes it fails me. then i tell myself 'mere coincidence'--'subconscious memory' and so forth." "i do not see how any memory could remember a thing before it was ever said at all," persisted susan, "though of course i am not educated like you and the doctor. i would rather not be, if it makes anything as simple as that so hard to believe. but in any case we need not worry over verdun, even if the huns get it. joffre says it has no military significance." "that old sop of comfort has been served up too often already when reverses came," retorted gertrude. "it has lost its power to charm." "was there ever a battle like this in the world before?" said mr. meredith, one evening in mid-april. "it's such a titanic thing we can't grasp it," said the doctor. "what were the scraps of a few homeric handfuls compared to this? the whole trojan war might be fought around a verdun fort and a newspaper correspondent would give it no more than a sentence. i am not in the confidence of the occult powers"--the doctor threw gertrude a twinkle--"but i have a hunch that the fate of the whole war hangs on the issue of verdun. as susan and joffre say, it has no real military significance; but it has the tremendous significance of an idea. if germany wins there she will win the war. if she loses, the tide will set against her." "lose she will," said mr. meredith: emphatically. "the idea cannot be conquered. france is certainly very wonderful. it seems to me that in her i see the white form of civilization making a determined stand against the black powers of barbarism. i think our whole world realizes this and that is why we all await the issue so breathlessly. it isn't merely the question of a few forts changing hands or a few miles of blood-soaked ground lost and won." "i wonder," said gertrude dreamily, "if some great blessing, great enough for the price, will be the meed of all our pain? is the agony in which the world is shuddering the birth-pang of some wondrous new era? or is it merely a futile struggle of ants in the gleam of a million million of suns? we think very lightly, mr. meredith, of a calamity which destroys an ant-hill and half its inhabitants. does the power that runs the universe think us of more importance than we think ants?" "you forget," said mr. meredith, with a flash of his dark eyes, "that an infinite power must be infinitely little as well as infinitely great. we are neither, therefore there are things too little as well as too great for us to apprehend. to the infinitely little an ant is of as much importance as a mastodon. we are witnessing the birth-pangs of a new era--but it will be born a feeble, wailing life like everything else. i am not one of those who expect a new heaven and a new earth as the immediate result of this war. that is not the way god works. but work he does, miss oliver, and in the end his purpose will be fulfilled." "sound and orthodox--sound and orthodox," muttered susan approvingly in the kitchen. susan liked to see miss oliver sat upon by the minister now and then. susan was very fond of her but she thought miss oliver liked saying heretical things to ministers far too well, and deserved an occasional reminder that these matters were quite beyond her province. in may walter wrote home that he had been awarded a d.c. medal. he did not say what for, but the other boys took care that the glen should know the brave thing walter had done. "in any war but this," wrote jerry meredith, "it would have meant a v.c. but they can't make v.c.'s as common as the brave things done every day here." "he should have had the v.c.," said susan, and was very indignant over it. she was not quite sure who was to blame for his not getting it, but if it were general haig she began for the first time to entertain serious doubts as to his fitness for being commander-in-chief. rilla was beside herself with delight. it was her dear walter who had done this thing--walter, to whom someone had sent a white feather at redmond--it was walter who had dashed back from the safety of the trench to drag in a wounded comrade who had fallen on no-man's-land. oh, she could see his white beautiful face and wonderful eyes as he did it! what a thing to be the sister of such a hero! and he hadn't thought it worth while writing about. his letter was full of other things--little intimate things that they two had known and loved together in the dear old cloudless days of a century ago. "i've been thinking of the daffodils in the garden at ingleside," he wrote. "by the time you get this they will be out, blowing there under that lovely rosy sky. are they really as bright and golden as ever, rilla? it seems to me that they must be dyed red with blood--like our poppies here. and every whisper of spring will be falling as a violet in rainbow valley. "there is a young moon tonight--a slender, silver, lovely thing hanging over these pits of torment. will you see it tonight over the maple grove? "i'm enclosing a little scrap of verse, rilla. i wrote it one evening in my trench dug-out by the light of a bit of candle--or rather it came to me there--i didn't feel as if i were writing it--something seemed to use me as an instrument. i've had that feeling once or twice before, but very rarely and never so strongly as this time. that was why i sent it over to the london spectator. it printed it and the copy came today. i hope you'll like it. it's the only poem i've written since i came overseas." the poem was a short, poignant little thing. in a month it had carried walter's name to every corner of the globe. everywhere it was copied--in metropolitan dailies and little village weeklies--in profound reviews and "agony columns," in red cross appeals and government recruiting propaganda. mothers and sisters wept over it, young lads thrilled to it, the whole great heart of humanity caught it up as an epitome of all the pain and hope and pity and purpose of the mighty conflict, crystallized in three brief immortal verses. a canadian lad in the flanders trenches had written the one great poem of the war. "the piper," by pte. walter blythe, was a classic from its first printing. rilla copied it in her diary at the beginning of an entry in which she poured out the story of the hard week that had just passed. "it has been such a dreadful week," she wrote, "and even though it is over and we know that it was all a mistake that does not seem to do away with the bruises left by it. and yet it has in some ways been a very wonderful week and i have had some glimpses of things i never realized before--of how fine and brave people can be even in the midst of horrible suffering. i am sure i could never be as splendid as miss oliver was. "just a week ago today she had a letter from mr. grant's mother in charlottetown. and it told her that a cable had just come saying that major robert grant had been killed in action a few days before. "oh, poor gertrude! at first she was crushed. then after just a day she pulled herself together and went back to her school. she did not cry--i never saw her shed a tear--but oh, her face and her eyes! "'i must go on with my work,' she said. 'that is my duty just now.' "i could never have risen to such a height. "she never spoke bitterly except once, when susan said something about spring being here at last, and gertrude said, "'can the spring really come this year?' "then she laughed--such a dreadful little laugh, just as one might laugh in the face of death, i think, and said, "'observe my egotism. because i, gertrude oliver, have lost a friend, it is incredible that the spring can come as usual. the spring does not fail because of the million agonies of others--but for mine--oh, can the universe go on?' "'don't feel bitter with yourself, dear,' mother said gently. 'it is a very natural thing to feel as if things couldn't go on just the same when some great blow has changed the world for us. we all feel like that.' "then that horrid old cousin sophia of susan's piped up. she was sitting there, knitting and croaking like an old 'raven of bode and woe' as walter used to call her. "'you ain't as bad off as some, miss oliver,' she said, 'and you shouldn't take it so hard. there's some as has lost their husbands; that's a hard blow; and there's some as has lost their sons. you haven't lost either husband or son.' "'no,' said gertrude, more bitterly still. 'it's true i haven't lost a husband--i have only lost the man who would have been my husband. i have lost no son--only the sons and daughters who might have been born to me--who will never be born to me now.' "'it isn't ladylike to talk like that,' said cousin sophia in a shocked tone; and then gertrude laughed right out, so wildly that cousin sophia was really frightened. and when poor tortured gertrude, unable to endure it any longer, hurried out of the room, cousin sophia asked mother if the blow hadn't affected miss oliver's mind. "'i suffered the loss of two good kind partners,' she said, 'but it did not affect me like that.' "i should think it wouldn't! those poor men must have been thankful to die. "i heard gertrude walking up and down her room most of the night. she walked like that every night. but never so long as that night. and once i heard her give a dreadful sudden little cry as if she had been stabbed. i couldn't sleep for suffering with her; and i couldn't help her. i thought the night would never end. but it did; and then 'joy came in the morning' as the bible says. only it didn't come exactly in the morning but well along in the afternoon. the telephone rang and i answered it. it was old mrs. grant speaking from charlottetown, and her news was that it was all a mistake--robert wasn't killed at all; he had only been slightly wounded in the arm and was safe in the hospital out of harm's way for a time anyhow. they hadn't learned yet how the mistake had happened but supposed there must have been another robert grant. "i hung up the telephone and flew to rainbow valley. i'm sure i did fly--i can't remember my feet ever touching the ground. i met gertrude on her way home from school in the glade of spruces where we used to play, and i just gasped out the news to her. i ought to have had more sense, of course. but i was so crazy with joy and excitement that i never stopped to think. gertrude just dropped there among the golden young ferns as if she had been shot. the fright it gave me ought to make me sensible--in this respect at least--for the rest of my life. i thought i had killed her--i remembered that her mother had died very suddenly from heart failure when quite a young woman. it seemed years to me before i discovered that her heart was still beating. a pretty time i had! i never saw anybody faint before, and i knew there was nobody up at the house to help, because everybody else had gone to the station to meet di and nan coming home from redmond. but i knew--theoretically--how people in a faint should be treated, and now i know it practically. luckily the brook was handy, and after i had worked frantically over her for a while gertrude came back to life. she never said one word about my news and i didn't dare to refer to it again. i helped her walk up through the maple grove and up to her room, and then she said, 'rob--is--living,' as if the words were torn out of her, and flung herself on her bed and cried and cried and cried. i never saw anyone cry so before. all the tears that she hadn't shed all that week came then. she cried most of last night, i think, but her face this morning looked as if she had seen a vision of some kind, and we were all so happy that we were almost afraid. "di and nan are home for a couple of weeks. then they go back to red cross work in the training camp at kingsport. i envy them. father says i'm doing just as good work here, with jims and my junior reds. but it lacks the romance theirs must have. "kut has fallen. it was almost a relief when it did fall, we had been dreading it so long. it crushed us flat for a day and then we picked up and put it behind us. cousin sophia was as gloomy as usual and came over and groaned that the british were losing everywhere. "'they're good losers,' said susan grimly. 'when they lose a thing they keep on looking till they find it again! anyhow, my king and country need me now to cut potato sets for the back garden, so get you a knife and help me, sophia crawford. it will divert your thoughts and keep you from worrying over a campaign that you are not called upon to run.' "susan is an old brick, and the way she flattens out poor cousin sophia is beautiful to behold. "as for verdun, the battle goes on and on, and we see-saw between hope and fear. but i know that strange dream of miss oliver's foretold the victory of france. 'they shall not pass.'" chapter xx norman douglas speaks out in meeting "where are you wandering, anne o' mine?" asked the doctor, who even yet, after twenty-four years of marriage, occasionally addressed his wife thus when nobody was about. anne was sitting on the veranda steps, gazing absently over the wonderful bridal world of spring blossom, beyond the white orchard was a copse of dark young firs and creamy wild cherries, where the robins were whistling madly; for it was evening and the fire of early stars was burning over the maple grove. anne came back with a little sigh. "i was just taking relief from intolerable realities in a dream, gilbert--a dream that all our children were home again--and all small again--playing in rainbow valley. it is always so silent now--but i was imagining i heard clear voices and gay, childish sounds coming up as i used to. i could hear jem's whistle and walter's yodel, and the twins' laughter, and for just a few blessed minutes i forgot about the guns on the western front, and had a little false, sweet happiness." the doctor did not answer. sometimes his work tricked him into forgetting for a few moments the western front, but not often. there was a good deal of grey now in his still thick curls that had not been there two years ago. yet he smiled down into the starry eyes he loved--the eyes that had once been so full of laughter, and now seemed always full of unshed tears. susan wandered by with a hoe in her hand and her second best bonnet on her head. "i have just finished reading a piece in the enterprise which told of a couple being married in an aeroplane. do you think it would be legal, doctor dear?" she inquired anxiously. "i think so," said the doctor gravely. "well," said susan dubiously, "it seems to me that a wedding is too solemn for anything so giddy as an aeroplane. but nothing is the same as it used to be. well, it is half an hour yet before prayer-meeting time, so i am going around to the kitchen garden to have a little evening hate with the weeds. but all the time i am strafing them i will be thinking about this new worry in the trentino. i do not like this austrian caper, mrs. dr. dear." "nor i," said mrs. blythe ruefully. "all the forenoon i preserved rhubarb with my hands and waited for the war news with my soul. when it came i shrivelled. well, i suppose i must go and get ready for the prayer-meeting, too." every village has its own little unwritten history, handed down from lip to lip through the generations, of tragic, comic, and dramatic events. they are told at weddings and festivals, and rehearsed around winter firesides. and in these oral annals of glen st. mary the tale of the union prayer-meeting held that night in the methodist church was destined to fill an imperishable place. the union prayer-meeting was mr. arnold's idea. the county battalion, which had been training all winter in charlottetown, was to leave shortly for overseas. the four winds harbour boys belonging to it from the glen and over-harbour and harbour head and upper glen were all home on their last leave, and mr. arnold thought, properly enough, that it would be a fitting thing to hold a union prayer-meeting for them before they went away. mr. meredith having agreed, the meeting was announced to be held in the methodist church. glen prayer-meetings were not apt to be too well attended, but on this particular evening the methodist church was crowded. everybody who could go was there. even miss cornelia came--and it was the first time in her life that miss cornelia had ever set foot inside a methodist church. it took no less than a world conflict to bring that about. "i used to hate methodists," said miss cornelia calmly, when her husband expressed surprise over her going, "but i don't hate them now. there is no sense in hating methodists when there is a kaiser or a hindenburg in the world." so miss cornelia went. norman douglas and his wife went too. and whiskers-on-the-moon strutted up the aisle to a front pew, as if he fully realized what a distinction he conferred upon the building. people were somewhat surprised that he should be there, since he usually avoided all assemblages connected in any way with the war. but mr. meredith had said that he hoped his session would be well represented, and mr. pryor had evidently taken the request to heart. he wore his best black suit and white tie, his thick, tight, iron-grey curls were neatly arranged, and his broad, red round face looked, as susan most uncharitably thought, more "sanctimonious" than ever. "the minute i saw that man coming into the church, looking like that, i felt that mischief was brewing, mrs. dr. dear," she said afterwards. "what form it would take i could not tell, but i knew from face of him that he had come there for no good." the prayer-meeting opened conventionally and continued quietly. mr. meredith spoke first with his usual eloquence and feeling. mr. arnold followed with an address which even miss cornelia had to confess was irreproachable in taste and subject-matter. and then mr. arnold asked mr. pryor to lead in prayer. miss cornelia had always averred that mr. arnold had no gumption. miss cornelia was not apt to err on the side of charity in her judgment of methodist ministers, but in this case she did not greatly overshoot the mark. the rev. mr. arnold certainly did not have much of that desirable, indefinable quality known as gumption, or he would never have asked whiskers-on-the-moon to lead in prayer at a khaki prayer-meeting. he thought he was returning the compliment to mr. meredith, who, at the conclusion of his address, had asked a methodist deacon to lead. some people expected mr. pryor to refuse grumpily--and that would have made enough scandal. but mr. pryor bounded briskly to his feet, unctuously said, "let us pray," and forthwith prayed. in a sonorous voice which penetrated to every corner of the crowded building mr. pryor poured forth a flood of fluent words, and was well on in his prayer before his dazed and horrified audience awakened to the fact that they were listening to a pacifist appeal of the rankest sort. mr. pryor had at least the courage of his convictions; or perhaps, as people afterwards said, he thought he was safe in a church and that it was an excellent chance to air certain opinions he dared not voice elsewhere, for fear of being mobbed. he prayed that the unholy war might cease--that the deluded armies being driven to slaughter on the western front might have their eyes opened to their iniquity and repent while yet there was time--that the poor young men present in khaki, who had been hounded into a path of murder and militarism, should yet be rescued-mr. pryor had got this far without let or hindrance; and so paralysed were his hearers, and so deeply imbued with their born-and-bred conviction that no disturbance must ever be made in a church, no matter what the provocation, that it seemed likely that he would continue unchecked to the end. but one man at least in that audience was not hampered by inherited or acquired reverence for the sacred edifice. norman douglas was, as susan had often vowed crisply, nothing more or less than a "pagan." but he was a rampantly patriotic pagan, and when the significance of what mr. pryor was saying fully dawned on him, norman douglas suddenly went berserk. with a positive roar he bounded to his feet in his side pew, facing the audience, and shouted in tones of thunder: "stop--stop--stop that abominable prayer! what an abominable prayer!" every head in the church flew up. a boy in khaki at the back gave a faint cheer. mr. meredith raised a deprecating hand, but norman was past caring for anything like that. eluding his wife's restraining grasp, he gave one mad spring over the front of the pew and caught the unfortunate whiskers-on-the-moon by his coat collar. mr. pryor had not "stopped" when so bidden, but he stopped now, perforce, for norman, his long red beard literally bristling with fury, was shaking him until his bones fairly rattled, and punctuating his shakes with a lurid assortment of abusive epithets. "you blatant beast!"--shake--"you malignant carrion"--shake--"you pig-headed varmint!"--shake--"you putrid pup"--shake--"you pestilential parasite"--shake--"you--hunnish scum"--shake--"you indecent reptile--you--you--" norman choked for a moment. everybody believed that the next thing he would say, church or no church, would be something that would have to be spelt with asterisks; but at that moment norman encountered his wife's eye and he fell back with a thud on holy writ. "you whited sepulchre!" he bellowed, with a final shake, and cast whiskers-on-the-moon from him with a vigour which impelled that unhappy pacifist to the very verge of the choir entrance door. mr. pryor's once ruddy face was ashen. but he turned at bay. "i'll have the law on you for this," he gasped. "do--do," roared norman, making another rush. but mr. pryor was gone. he had no desire to fall a second time into the hands of an avenging militarist. norman turned to the platform for one graceless, triumphant moment. "don't look so flabbergasted, parsons," he boomed. "you couldn't do it--nobody would expect it of the cloth--but somebody had to do it. you know you're glad i threw him out--he couldn't be let go on yammering and yodelling and yawping sedition and treason. sedition and treason--somebody had to deal with it. i was born for this hour--i've had my innings in church at last. i can sit quiet for another sixty years now! go ahead with your meeting, parsons. i reckon you won't be troubled with any more pacifist prayers." but the spirit of devotion and reverence had fled. both ministers realized it and realized that the only thing to do was to close the meeting quietly and let the excited people go. mr. meredith addressed a few earnest words to the boys in khaki--which probably saved mr. pryor's windows from a second onslaught--and mr. arnold pronounced an incongruous benediction, at least he felt it was incongruous, for he could not at once banish from his memory the sight of gigantic norman douglas shaking the fat, pompous little whiskers-on-the-moon as a huge mastiff might shake an overgrown puppy. and he knew that the same picture was in everybody's mind. altogether the union prayer-meeting could hardly be called an unqualified success. but it was remembered in glen st. mary when scores of orthodox and undisturbed assemblies were totally forgotten. "you will never, no, never, mrs. dr. dear, hear me call norman douglas a pagan again," said susan when she reached home. "if ellen douglas is not a proud woman this night she should be." "norman douglas did a wholly indefensible thing," said the doctor. "pryor should have been let severely alone until the meeting was over. then later on, his own minister and session should deal with him. that would have been the proper procedure. norman's performance was utterly improper and scandalous and outrageous; but, by george,"--the doctor threw back his head and chuckled, "by george, anne-girl, it was satisfying." chapter xxi "love affairs are horrible" ingleside 20th june 1916 "we have been so busy, and day after day has brought such exciting news, good and bad, that i haven't had time and composure to write in my diary for weeks. i like to keep it up regularly, for father says a diary of the years of the war should be a very interesting thing to hand down to one's children. the trouble is, i like to write a few personal things in this blessed old book that might not be exactly what i'd want my children to read. i feel that i shall be a far greater stickler for propriety in regard to them than i am for myself! "the first week in june was another dreadful one. the austrians seemed just on the point of overrunning italy: and then came the first awful news of the battle of jutland, which the germans claimed as a great victory. susan was the only one who carried on. 'you need never tell me that the kaiser has defeated the british navy,' she said, with a contemptuous sniff. 'it is all a german lie and that you may tie to.' and when a couple of days later we found out that she was right and that it had been a british victory instead of a british defeat, we had to put up with a great many 'i told you so's,' but we endured them very comfortably. "it took kitchener's death to finish susan. for the first time i saw her down and out. we all felt the shock of it but susan plumbed the depths of despair. the news came at night by 'phone but susan wouldn't believe it until she saw the enterprise headline the next day. she did not cry or faint or go into hysterics; but she forgot to put salt in the soup, and that is something susan never did in my recollection. mother and miss oliver and i cried but susan looked at us in stony sarcasm and said, 'the kaiser and his six sons are all alive and thriving. so the world is not left wholly desolate. why cry, mrs. dr. dear?' susan continued in this stony, hopeless condition for twenty-four hours, and then cousin sophia appeared and began to condole with her. "'this is terrible news, ain't it, susan? we might as well prepare for the worst for it is bound to come. you said once--and well do i remember the words, susan baker--that you had complete confidence in god and kitchener. ah well, susan baker, there is only god left now.' "whereat cousin sophia put her handkerchief to her eyes pathetically as if the world were indeed in terrible straits. as for susan, cousin sophia was the salvation of her. she came to life with a jerk. "'sophia crawford, hold your peace!' she said sternly. 'you may be an idiot but you need not be an irreverent idiot. it is no more than decent to be weeping and wailing because the almighty is the sole stay of the allies now. as for kitchener, his death is a great loss and i do not dispute it. but the outcome of this war does not depend on one man's life and now that the russians are coming on again you will soon see a change for the better.' "susan said this so energetically that she convinced herself and cheered up immediately. but cousin sophia shook her head. "'albert's wife wants to call the baby after brusiloff,' she said, 'but i told her to wait and see what becomes of him first. them russians has such a habit of petering out.' "the russians are doing splendidly, however, and they have saved italy. but even when the daily news of their sweeping advance comes we don't feel like running up the flag as we used to do. as gertrude says, verdun has slain all exultation. we would all feel more like rejoicing if the victories were on the western front. 'when will the british strike?' gertrude sighed this morning. 'we have waited so long--so long.' "our greatest local event in recent weeks was the route march the county battalion made through the county before it left for overseas. they marched from charlottetown to lowbridge, then round the harbour head and through the upper glen and so down to the st. mary station. everybody turned out to see them, except old aunt fannie clow, who is bedridden and mr. pryor, who hadn't been seen out even in church since the night of the union prayer meeting the previous week. "it was wonderful and heartbreaking to see that battalion marching past. there were young men and middle-aged men in it. there was laurie mcallister from over-harbour who is only sixteen but swore he was eighteen, so that he could enlist; and there was angus mackenzie, from the upper glen who is fifty-five if he is a day and swore he was forty-four. there were two south african veterans from lowbridge, and the three eighteen-year-old baxter triplets from harbour head. everybody cheered as they went by, and they cheered foster booth, who is forty, walking side by side with his son charley who is twenty. charley's mother died when he was born, and when charley enlisted foster said he'd never yet let charley go anywhere he daren't go himself, and he didn't mean to begin with the flanders trenches. at the station dog monday nearly went out of his head. he tore about and sent messages to jem by them all. mr. meredith read an address and reta crawford recited 'the piper.' the soldiers cheered her like mad and cried 'we'll follow--we'll follow--we won't break faith,' and i felt so proud to think that it was my dear brother who had written such a wonderful, heart-stirring thing. and then i looked at the khaki ranks and wondered if those tall fellows in uniform could be the boys i've laughed with and played with and danced with and teased all my life. something seems to have touched them and set them apart. they have heard the piper's call. "fred arnold was in the battalion and i felt dreadfully about him, for i realized that it was because of me that he was going away with such a sorrowful expression. i couldn't help it but i felt as badly as if i could. "the last evening of his leave fred came up to ingleside and told me he loved me and asked me if i would promise to marry him some day, if he ever came back. he was desperately in earnest and i felt more wretched than i ever did in my life. i couldn't promise him that--why, even if there was no question of ken, i don't care for fred that way and never could--but it seemed so cruel and heartless to send him away to the front without any hope of comfort. i cried like a baby; and yet--oh, i am afraid that there must be something incurably frivolous about me, because, right in the middle of it all, with me crying and fred looking so wild and tragic, the thought popped into my head that it would be an unendurable thing to see that nose across from me at the breakfast table every morning of my life. there, that is one of the entries i wouldn't want my descendants to read in this journal. but it is the humiliating truth; and perhaps it's just as well that thought did come or i might have been tricked by pity and remorse into giving him some rash assurance. if fred's nose were as handsome as his eyes and mouth some such thing might have happened. and then what an unthinkable predicament i should have been in! "when poor fred became convinced that i couldn't promise him, he behaved beautifully--though that rather made things worse. if he had been nasty about it i wouldn't have felt so heartbroken and remorseful--though why i should feel remorseful i don't know, for i never encouraged fred to think i cared a bit about him. yet feel remorseful i did--and do. if fred arnold never comes back from overseas, this will haunt me all my life. "then fred said if he couldn't take my love with him to the trenches at least he wanted to feel that he had my friendship, and would i kiss him just once in good-bye before he went--perhaps for ever? "i don't know how i could ever had imagined that love affairs were delightful, interesting things. they are horrible. i couldn't even give poor heartbroken fred one little kiss, because of my promise to ken. it seemed so brutal. i had to tell fred that of course he would have my friendship, but that i couldn't kiss him because i had promised somebody else i wouldn't. "he said, 'it is--is it--ken ford?' "i nodded. it seemed dreadful to have to tell it--it was such a sacred little secret just between me and ken. "when fred went away i came up here to my room and cried so long and so bitterly that mother came up and insisted on knowing what was the matter. i told her. she listened to my tale with an expression that clearly said, 'can it be possible that anyone has been wanting to marry this baby?' but she was so nice and understanding and sympathetic, oh, just so race-of-josephy--that i felt indescribably comforted. mothers are the dearest things. "'but oh, mother,' i sobbed, 'he wanted me to kiss him good-bye--and i couldn't--and that hurt me worse than all the rest.' "'well, why didn't you kiss him?' asked mother coolly. 'considering the circumstances, i think you might have.' "'but i couldn't, mother--i promised ken when he went away that i wouldn't kiss anybody else until he came back.' "this was another high explosive for poor mother. she exclaimed, with the queerest little catch in her voice, 'rilla, are you engaged to kenneth ford?' "'i--don't--know,' i sobbed. "'you--don't--know?' repeated mother. "then i had to tell her the whole story, too; and every time i tell it it seems sillier and sillier to imagine that ken meant anything serious. i felt idiotic and ashamed by the time i got through. "mother sat a little while in silence. then she came over, sat down beside me, and took me in her arms. "'don't cry, dear little rilla-my-rilla. you have nothing to reproach yourself with in regard to fred; and if leslie west's son asked you to keep your lips for him, i think you may consider yourself engaged to him. but--oh, my baby--my last little baby--i have lost you--the war has made a woman of you too soon.' "i shall never be too much of a woman to find comfort in mother's hugs. nevertheless, when i saw fred marching by two days later in the parade, my heart ached unbearably. "but i'm glad mother thinks i'm really engaged to ken!" chapter xxii little dog monday knows "it is two years tonight since the dance at the light, when jack elliott brought us news of the war. do you remember, miss oliver?" cousin sophia answered for miss oliver. "oh, indeed, rilla, i remember that evening only too well, and you a-prancing down here to show off your party clothes. didn't i warn you that we could not tell what was before us? little did you think that night what was before you." "little did any of us think that," said susan sharply, "not being gifted with the power of prophecy. it does not require any great foresight, sophia crawford, to tell a body that she will have some trouble before her life is over. i could do as much myself." "we all thought the war would be over in a few months then," said rilla wistfully. "when i look back it seems so ridiculous that we ever could have supposed it." "and now, two years later, it is no nearer the end than it was then," said miss oliver gloomily. susan clicked her knitting-needles briskly. "now, miss oliver, dear, you know that is not a reasonable remark. you know we are just two years nearer the end, whenever the end is appointed to be." "albert read in a montreal paper today that a war expert gives it as his opinion that it will last five years more," was cousin sophia's cheerful contribution. "it can't," cried rilla; then she added with a sigh, "two years ago we would have said 'it can't last two years.' but five more years of this!" "if rumania comes in, as i have strong hopes now of her doing, you will see the end in five months instead of five years," said susan. "i've no faith in furriners," sighed cousin sophia. "the french are foreigners," retorted susan, "and look at verdun. and think of all the somme victories this blessed summer. the big push is on and the russians are still going well. why, general haig says that the german officers he has captured admit that they have lost the war." "you can't believe a word the germans say," protested cousin sophia. "there is no sense in believing a thing just because you'd like to believe it, susan baker. the british have lost millions of men at the somme and how far have they got? look facts in the face, susan baker, look facts in the face." "they are wearing the germans out and so long as that happens it does not matter whether it is done a few miles east or a few miles west. i am not," admitted susan in tremendous humility, "i am not a military expert, sophia crawford, but even i can see that, and so could you if you were not determined to take a gloomy view of everything. the huns have not got all the cleverness in the world. have you not heard the story of alistair maccallum's son roderick, from the upper glen? he is a prisoner in germany and his mother got a letter from him last week. he wrote that he was being very kindly treated and that all the prisoners had plenty of food and so on, till you would have supposed everything was lovely. but when he signed his name, right in between roderick and maccallum, he wrote two gaelic words that meant 'all lies' and the german censor did not understand gaelic and thought it was all part of roddy's name. so he let it pass, never dreaming how he was diddled. well, i am going to leave the war to haig for the rest of the day and make a frosting for my chocolate cake. and when it is made i shall put it on the top shelf. the last one i made i left it on the lower shelf and little kitchener sneaked in and clawed all the icing off and ate it. we had company for tea that night and when i went to get my cake what a sight did i behold!" "has that pore orphan's father never been heerd from yet?" asked cousin sophia. "yes, i had a letter from him in july," said rilla. "he said that when he got word of his wife's death and of my taking the baby--mr. meredith wrote him, you know--he wrote right away, but as he never got any answer he had begun to think his letter must have been lost." "it took him two years to begin to think it," said susan scornfully. "some people think very slow. jim anderson has not got a scratch, for all he has been two years in the trenches. a fool for luck, as the old proverb says." "he wrote very nicely about jims and said he'd like to see him," said rilla. "so i wrote and told him all about the wee man, and sent him snapshots. jims will be two years old next week and he is a perfect duck." "you didn't used to be very fond of babies," said cousin sophia. "i'm not a bit fonder of babies in the abstract than ever i was," said rilla, frankly. "but i do love jims, and i'm afraid i wasn't really half as glad as i should have been when jim anderson's letter proved that he was safe and sound." "you wasn't hoping the man would be killed!" cried cousin sophia in horrified accents. "no--no--no! i just hoped he would go on forgetting about jims, mrs. crawford." "and then your pa would have the expense of raising him," said cousin sophia reprovingly. "you young creeturs are terrible thoughtless." jims himself ran in at this juncture, so rosy and curly and kissable, that he extorted a qualified compliment even from cousin sophia. "he's a reel healthy-looking child now, though mebbee his colour is a mite too high--sorter consumptive looking, as you might say. i never thought you'd raise him when i saw him the day after you brung him home. i reely did not think it was in you and i told albert's wife so when i got home. albert's wife says, says she, 'there's more in rilla blythe than you'd think for, aunt sophia.' them was her very words. 'more in rilla blythe than you'd think for.' albert's wife always had a good opinion of you." cousin sophia sighed, as if to imply that albert's wife stood alone in this against the world. but cousin sophia really did not mean that. she was quite fond of rilla in her own melancholy way; but young creeturs had to be kept down. if they were not kept down society would be demoralized. "do you remember your walk home from the light two years ago tonight?" whispered gertrude oliver to rilla, teasingly. "i should think i do," smiled rilla; and then her smile grew dreamy and absent; she was remembering something else--that hour with kenneth on the sandshore. where would ken be tonight? and jem and jerry and walter and all the other boys who had danced and moonlighted on the old four winds point that evening of mirth and laughter--their last joyous unclouded evening. in the filthy trenches of the somme front, with the roar of the guns and the groans of stricken men for the music of ned burr's violin, and the flash of star shells for the silver sparkles on the old blue gulf. two of them were sleeping under the flanders poppies--alec burr from the upper glen, and clark manley of lowbridge. others were wounded in the hospitals. but so far nothing had touched the manse and the ingleside boys. they seemed to bear charmed lives. yet the suspense never grew any easier to bear as the weeks and months of war went by. "it isn't as if it were some sort of fever to which you might conclude they were immune when they hadn't taken it for two years," sighed rilla. "the danger is just as great and just as real as it was the first day they went into the trenches. i know this, and it tortures me every day. and yet i can't help hoping that since they've come this far unhurt they'll come through. oh, miss oliver, what would it be like not to wake up in the morning feeling afraid of the news the day would bring? i can't picture such a state of things somehow. and two years ago this morning i woke wondering what delightful gift the new day would give me. these are the two years i thought would be filled with fun." "would you exchange them--now--for two years filled with fun?" "no," said rilla slowly. "i wouldn't. it's strange--isn't it?--they have been two terrible years--and yet i have a queer feeling of thankfulness for them--as if they had brought me something very precious, with all their pain. i wouldn't want to go back and be the girl i was two years ago, not even if i could. not that i think i've made any wonderful progress--but i'm not quite the selfish, frivolous little doll i was then. i suppose i had a soul then, miss oliver--but i didn't know it. i know it now--and that is worth a great deal--worth all the suffering of the past two years. and still"--rilla gave a little apologetic laugh, "i don't want to suffer any more--not even for the sake of more soul growth. at the end of two more years i might look back and be thankful for the development they had brought me, too; but i don't want it now." "we never do," said miss oliver. "that is why we are not left to choose our own means and measure of development, i suppose. no matter how much we value what our lessons have brought us we don't want to go on with the bitter schooling. well, let us hope for the best, as susan says; things are really going well now and if rumania lines up, the end may come with a suddenness that will surprise us all." rumania did come in--and susan remarked approvingly that its king and queen were the finest looking royal couple she had seen pictures of. so the summer passed away. early in september word came that the canadians had been shifted to the somme front and anxiety grew tenser and deeper. for the first time mrs. blythe's spirit failed her a little, and as the days of suspense wore on the doctor began to look gravely at her, and veto this or that special effort in red cross work. "oh, let me work--let me work, gilbert," she entreated feverishly. "while i'm working i don't think so much. if i'm idle i imagine everything--rest is only torture for me. my two boys are on the frightful somme front--and shirley pores day and night over aviation literature and says nothing. but i see the purpose growing in his eyes. no, i cannot rest--don't ask it of me, gilbert." but the doctor was inexorable. "i can't let you kill yourself, anne-girl," he said. "when the boys come back i want a mother here to welcome them. why, you're getting transparent. it won't do--ask susan there if it will do." "oh, if susan and you are both banded together against me!" said anne helplessly. one day the glorious news came that the canadians had taken courcelette and martenpuich, with many prisoners and guns. susan ran up the flag and said it was plain to be seen that haig knew what soldiers to pick for a hard job. the others dared not feel exultant. who knew what price had been paid? rilla woke that morning when the dawn was beginning to break and went to her window to look out, her thick creamy eyelids heavy with sleep. just at dawn the world looks as it never looks at any other time. the air was cold with dew and the orchard and grove and rainbow valley were full of mystery and wonder. over the eastern hill were golden deeps and silvery-pink shallows. there was no wind, and rilla heard distinctly a dog howling in a melancholy way down in the direction of the station. was it dog monday? and if it were, why was he howling like that? rilla shivered; the sound had something boding and grievous in it. she remembered that miss oliver said once, when they were coming home in the darkness and heard a dog howl, "when a dog cries like that the angel of death is passing." rilla listened with a curdling fear at her heart. it was dog monday--she felt sure of it. whose dirge was he howling--to whose spirit was he sending that anguished greeting and farewell? rilla went back to bed but she could not sleep. all day she watched and waited in a dread of which she did not speak to anyone. she went down to see dog monday and the station-master said, "that dog of yours howled from midnight to sunrise something weird. i dunno what got into him. i got up once and went out and hollered at him but he paid no 'tention to me. he was sitting all alone in the moonlight out there at the end of the platform, and every few minutes the poor lonely little beggar'd lift his nose and howl as if his heart was breaking. he never did it afore--always slept in his kennel real quiet and canny from train to train. but he sure had something on his mind last night." dog monday was lying in his kennel. he wagged his tail and licked rilla's hand. but he would not touch the food she brought for him. "i'm afraid he's sick," she said anxiously. she hated to go away and leave him. but no bad news came that day--nor the next--nor the next. rilla's fear lifted. dog monday howled no more and resumed his routine of train meeting and watching. when five days had passed the ingleside people began to feel that they might be cheerful again. rilla dashed about the kitchen helping susan with the breakfast and singing so sweetly and clearly that cousin sophia across the road heard her and croaked out to mrs. albert, "'sing before eating, cry before sleeping,' i've always heard." but rilla blythe shed no tears before the nightfall. when her father, his face grey and drawn and old, came to her that afternoon and told her that walter had been killed in action at courcelette she crumpled up in a pitiful little heap of merciful unconsciousness in his arms. nor did she waken to her pain for many hours. chapter xxiii "and so, goodnight" the fierce flame of agony had burned itself out and the grey dust of its ashes was over all the world. rilla's younger life recovered physically sooner than her mother. for weeks mrs. blythe lay ill from grief and shock. rilla found it was possible to go on with existence, since existence had still to be reckoned with. there was work to be done, for susan could not do all. for her mother's sake she had to put on calmness and endurance as a garment in the day; but night after night she lay in her bed, weeping the bitter rebellious tears of youth until at last tears were all wept out and the little patient ache that was to be in her heart until she died took their place. she clung to miss oliver, who knew what to say and what not to say. so few people did. kind, well-meaning callers and comforters gave rilla some terrible moments. "you'll get over it in time," mrs. william reese said, cheerfully. mrs. reese had three stalwart sons, not one of whom had gone to the front. "it's such a blessing it was walter who was taken and not jem," said miss sarah clow. "walter was a member of the church, and jem wasn't. i've told mr. meredith many a time that he should have spoken seriously to jem about it before he went away." "pore, pore walter," sighed mrs. reese. "do not you come here calling him poor walter," said susan indignantly, appearing in the kitchen door, much to the relief of rilla, who felt that she could endure no more just then. "he was not poor. he was richer than any of you. it is you who stay at home and will not let your sons go who are poor--poor and naked and mean and small--pisen poor, and so are your sons, with all their prosperous farms and fat cattle and their souls no bigger than a flea's--if as big." "i came here to comfort the afflicted and not to be insulted," said mrs. reese, taking her departure, unregretted by anyone. then the fire went out of susan and she retreated to her kitchen, laid her faithful old head on the table and wept bitterly for a time. then she went to work and ironed jims's little rompers. rilla scolded her gently for it when she herself came in to do it. "i am not going to have you kill yourself working for any war-baby," susan said obstinately. "oh, i wish i could just keep on working all the time, susan," cried poor rilla. "and i wish i didn't have to go to sleep. it is hideous to go to sleep and forget it for a little while, and wake up and have it all rush over me anew the next morning. do people ever get used to things like this, susan? and oh, susan, i can't get away from what mrs. reese said. did walter suffer much--he was always so sensitive to pain. oh, susan, if i knew that he didn't i think i could gather up a little courage and strength." this merciful knowledge was given to rilla. a letter came from walter's commanding officer, telling them that he had been killed instantly by a bullet during a charge at courcelette. the same day there was a letter for rilla from walter himself. rilla carried it unopened to rainbow valley and read it there, in the spot where she had had her last talk with him. it is a strange thing to read a letter after the writer is dead--a bitter-sweet thing, in which pain and comfort are strangely mingled. for the first time since the blow had fallen rilla felt--a different thing from tremulous hope and faith--that walter, of the glorious gift and the splendid ideals, still lived, with just the same gift and just the same ideals. that could not be destroyed--these could suffer no eclipse. the personality that had expressed itself in that last letter, written on the eve of courcelette, could not be snuffed out by a german bullet. it must carry on, though the earthly link with things of earth were broken. "we're going over the top tomorrow, rilla-my-rilla," wrote walter. "i wrote mother and di yesterday, but somehow i feel as if i must write you tonight. i hadn't intended to do any writing tonight--but i've got to. do you remember old mrs. tom crawford over-harbour, who was always saying that it was 'laid on her' to do such and such a thing? well, that is just how i feel. it's 'laid on me' to write you tonight--you, sister and chum of mine. there are some things i want to say before--well, before tomorrow. "you and ingleside seem strangely near me tonight. it's the first time i've felt this since i came. always home has seemed so far away--so hopelessly far away from this hideous welter of filth and blood. but tonight it is quite close to me--it seems to me i can almost see you--hear you speak. and i can see the moonlight shining white and still on the old hills of home. it has seemed to me ever since i came here that it was impossible that there could be calm gentle nights and unshattered moonlight anywhere in the world. but tonight somehow, all the beautiful things i have always loved seem to have become possible again--and this is good, and makes me feel a deep, certain, exquisite happiness. it must be autumn at home now--the harbour is a-dream and the old glen hills blue with haze, and rainbow valley a haunt of delight with wild asters blowing all over it--our old "farewell-summers." i always liked that name better than 'aster'--it was a poem in itself. "rilla, you know i've always had premonitions. you remember the pied piper--but no, of course you wouldn't--you were too young. one evening long ago when nan and di and jem and the merediths and i were together in rainbow valley i had a queer vision or presentiment--whatever you like to call it. rilla, i saw the piper coming down the valley with a shadowy host behind him. the others thought i was only pretending--but i saw him for just one moment. and rilla, last night i saw him again. i was doing sentry-go and i saw him marching across no-man's-land from our trenches to the german trenches--the same tall shadowy form, piping weirdly--and behind him followed boys in khaki. rilla, i tell you i saw him--it was no fancy--no illusion. i heard his music, and then--he was gone. but i had seen him--and i knew what it meant--i knew that i was among those who followed him. "rilla, the piper will pipe me 'west' tomorrow. i feel sure of this. and rilla, i'm not afraid. when you hear the news, remember that. i've won my own freedom here--freedom from all fear. i shall never be afraid of anything again--not of death--nor of life, if after all, i am to go on living. and life, i think, would be the harder of the two to face--for it could never be beautiful for me again. there would always be such horrible things to remember--things that would make life ugly and painful always for me. i could never forget them. but whether it's life or death, i'm not afraid, rilla-my-rilla, and i am not sorry that i came. i'm satisfied. i'll never write the poems i once dreamed of writing--but i've helped to make canada safe for the poets of the future--for the workers of the future--ay, and the dreamers, too--for if no man dreams, there will be nothing for the workers to fulfil--the future, not of canada only but of the world--when the 'red rain' of langemarck and verdun shall have brought forth a golden harvest--not in a year or two, as some foolishly think, but a generation later, when the seed sown now shall have had time to germinate and grow. yes, i'm glad i came, rilla. it isn't only the fate of the little sea-born island i love that is in the balance--nor of canada nor of england. it's the fate of mankind. that is what we're fighting for. and we shall win--never for a moment doubt that, rilla. for it isn't only the living who are fighting--the dead are fighting too. such an army cannot be defeated. "is there laughter in your face yet, rilla? i hope so. the world will need laughter and courage more than ever in the years that will come next. i don't want to preach--this isn't any time for it. but i just want to say something that may help you over the worst when you hear that i've gone 'west.' i've a premonition about you, rilla, as well as about myself. i think ken will go back to you--and that there are long years of happiness for you by-and-by. and you will tell your children of the idea we fought and died for--teach them it must be lived for as well as died for, else the price paid for it will have been given for nought. this will be part of your work, rilla. and if you--all you girls back in the homeland--do it, then we who don't come back will know that you have not 'broken faith' with us. "i meant to write to una tonight, too, but i won't have time now. read this letter to her and tell her it's really meant for you both--you two dear, fine loyal girls. tomorrow, when we go over the top--i'll think of you both--of your laughter, rilla-my-rilla, and the steadfastness in una's blue eyes--somehow i see those eyes very plainly tonight, too. yes, you'll both keep faith--i'm sure of that--you and una. and so--goodnight. we go over the top at dawn." rilla read her letter over many times. there was a new light on her pale young face when she finally stood up, amid the asters walter had loved, with the sunshine of autumn around her. for the moment at least, she was lifted above pain and loneliness. "i will keep faith, walter," she said steadily. "i will work--and teach--and learn--and laugh, yes, i will even laugh--through all my years, because of you and because of what you gave when you followed the call." rilla meant to keep walter's letter as a a sacred treasure. but, seeing the look on una meredith's face when una had read it and held it back to her, she thought of something. could she do it? oh, no, she could not give up walter's letter--his last letter. surely it was not selfishness to keep it. a copy would be such a soulless thing. but una--una had so little--and her eyes were the eyes of a woman stricken to the heart, who yet must not cry out or ask for sympathy. "una, would you like to have this letter--to keep?" she asked slowly. "yes--if you can give it to me," una said dully. "then--you may have it," said rilla hurriedly. "thank you," said una. it was all she said, but there was something in her voice which repaid rilla for her bit of sacrifice. una took the letter and when rilla had gone she pressed it against her lonely lips. una knew that love would never come into her life now--it was buried for ever under the blood-stained soil "somewhere in france." no one but herself--and perhaps rilla--knew it--would ever know it. she had no right in the eyes of her world to grieve. she must hide and bear her long pain as best she could--alone. but she, too, would keep faith. chapter xxiv mary is just in time the autumn of 1916 was a bitter season for ingleside. mrs. blythe's return to health was slow, and sorrow and loneliness were in all hearts. every one tried to hide it from the others and "carry on" cheerfully. rilla laughed a good deal. nobody at ingleside was deceived by her laughter; it came from her lips only, never from her heart. but outsiders said some people got over trouble very easily, and irene howard remarked that she was surprised to find how shallow rilla blythe really was. "why, after all her pose of being so devoted to walter, she doesn't seem to mind his death at all. nobody has ever seen her shed a tear or heard her mention his name. she has evidently quite forgotten him. poor fellow--you'd really think his family would feel it more. i spoke of him to rilla at the last junior red meeting--of how fine and brave and splendid he was--and i said life could never be just the same to me again, now that walter had gone--we were such friends, you know--why i was the very first person he told about having enlisted--and rilla answered, as coolly and indifferently as if she were speaking of an entire stranger, 'he was just one of many fine and splendid boys who have given everything for their country.' well, i wish i could take things as calmly--but i'm not made like that. i'm so sensitive--things hurt me terribly--i really never get over them. i asked rilla right out why she didn't put on mourning for walter. she said her mother didn't wish it. but every one is talking about it." "rilla doesn't wear colours--nothing but white," protested betty mead. "white becomes her better than anything else," said irene significantly. "and we all know black doesn't suit her complexion at all. but of course i'm not saying that is the reason she doesn't wear it. only, it's funny. if my brother had died i'd have gone into deep mourning. i wouldn't have had the heart for anything else. i confess i'm disappointed in rilla blythe." "i am not, then," cried betty meade, loyally, "i think rilla is just a wonderful girl. a few years ago i admit i did think she was rather too vain and gigglesome; but now she is nothing of the sort. i don't think there is a girl in the glen who is so unselfish and plucky as rilla, or who has done her bit as thoroughly and patiently. our junior red cross would have gone on the rocks a dozen times if it hadn't been for her tact and perseverance and enthusiasm--you know that perfectly well, irene." "why, i am not running rilla down," said irene, opening her eyes widely. "it was only her lack of feeling i was criticizing. i suppose she can't help it. of course, she's a born manager--everyone knows that. she's very fond of managing, too--and people like that are very necessary i admit. so don't look at me as if i'd said something perfectly dreadful, betty, please. i'm quite willing to agree that rilla blythe is the embodiment of all the virtues, if that will please you. and no doubt it is a virtue to be quite unmoved by things that would crush most people." some of irene's remarks were reported to rilla; but they did not hurt her as they would once have done. they didn't matter, that was all. life was too big to leave room for pettiness. she had a pact to keep and a work to do; and through the long hard days and weeks of that disastrous autumn she was faithful to her task. the war news was consistently bad, for germany marched from victory to victory over poor rumania. "foreigners--foreigners," susan muttered dubiously. "russians or rumanians or whatever they may be, they are foreigners and you cannot tie to them. but after verdun i shall not give up hope. and can you tell me, mrs. dr. dear, if the dobruja is a river or a mountain range, or a condition of the atmosphere?" the presidential election in the united states came off in november, and susan was red-hot over that--and quite apologetic for her excitement. "i never thought i would live to see the day when i would be interested in a yankee election, mrs. dr. dear. it only goes to show we can never know what we will come to in this world, and therefore we should not be proud." susan stayed up late on the evening of the eleventh, ostensibly to finish a pair of socks. but she 'phoned down to carter flagg's store at intervals, and when the first report came through that hughes had been elected she stalked solemnly upstairs to mrs. blythe's room and announced it in a thrilling whisper from the foot of the bed. "i thought if you were not asleep you would be interested in knowing it. i believe it is for the best. perhaps he will just fall to writing notes, too, mrs. dr. dear, but i hope for better things. i never was very partial to whiskers, but one cannot have everything." when news came in the morning that after all wilson was re-elected, susan tacked to catch another breeze of optimism. "well, better a fool you know than a fool you do not know, as the old proverb has it," she remarked cheerfully. "not that i hold woodrow to be a fool by any means, though by times you would not think he has the sense he was born with. but he is a good letter writer at least, and we do not know if the hughes man is even that. all things being considered i commend the yankees. they have shown good sense and i do not mind admitting it. cousin sophia wanted them to elect roosevelt, and is much disgruntled because they would not give him a chance. i had a hankering for him myself, but we must believe that providence over-rules these matters and be satisfied--though what the almighty means in this affair of rumania i cannot fathom--saying it with all reverence." susan fathomed it--or thought she did--when the asquith ministry went down and lloyd george became premier. "mrs. dr. dear, lloyd george is at the helm at last. i have been praying for this for many a day. now we shall soon see a blessed change. it took the rumanian disaster to bring it about, no less, and that is the meaning of it, though i could not see it before. there will be no more shilly-shallying. i consider that the war is as good as won, and that i shall tie to, whether bucharest falls or not." bucharest did fall--and germany proposed peace negotiations. whereat susan scornfully turned a deaf ear and absolutely refused to listen to such proposals. when president wilson sent his famous december peace note susan waxed violently sarcastic. "woodrow wilson is going to make peace, i understand. first henry ford had a try at it and now comes wilson. but peace is not made with ink, woodrow, and that you may tie to," said susan, apostrophizing the unlucky president out of the kitchen window nearest the united states. "lloyd george's speech will tell the kaiser what is what, and you may keep your peace screeds at home and save postage." "what a pity president wilson can't hear you, susan," said rilla slyly. "indeed, rilla dear, it is a pity that he has no one near him to give him good advice, as it is clear he has not, in all those democrats and republicans," retorted susan. "i do not know the difference between them, for the politics of the yankees is a puzzle i cannot solve, study it as i may. but as far as seeing through a grindstone goes, i am afraid--" susan shook her head dubiously, "that they are all tarred with the same brush." "i am thankful christmas is over," rilla wrote in her diary during the last week of a stormy december. "we had dreaded it so--the first christmas since courcelette. but we had all the merediths down for dinner and nobody tried to be gay or cheerful. we were all just quiet and friendly, and that helped. then, too, i was so thankful that jims had got better--so thankful that i almost felt glad--almost but not quite. i wonder if i shall ever feel really glad over anything again. it seems as if gladness were killed in me--shot down by the same bullet that pierced walter's heart. perhaps some day a new kind of gladness will be born in my soul--but the old kind will never live again. "winter set in awfully early this year. ten days before christmas we had a big snowstorm--at least we thought it big at the time. as it happened, it was only a prelude to the real performance. it was fine the next day, and ingleside and rainbow valley were wonderful, with the trees all covered with snow, and big drifts everywhere, carved into the most fantastic shapes by the chisel of the northeast wind. father and mother went up to avonlea. father thought the change would do mother good, and they wanted to see poor aunt diana, whose son jock had been seriously wounded a short time before. they left susan and me to keep house, and father expected to be back the next day. but he never got back for a week. that night it began to storm again, and it stormed unbrokenly for four days. it was the worst and longest storm that prince edward island has known for years. everything was disorganized--the roads were completely choked up, the trains blockaded, and the telephone wires put entirely out of commission. "and then jims took ill. "he had a little cold when father and mother went away, and he kept getting worse for a couple of days, but it didn't occur to me that there was danger of anything serious. i never even took his temperature, and i can't forgive myself, because it was sheer carelessness. the truth is i had slumped just then. mother was away, so i let myself go. all at once i was tired of keeping up and pretending to be brave and cheerful, and i just gave up for a few days and spent most of the time lying on my face on my bed, crying. i neglected jims--that is the hateful truth--i was cowardly and false to what i promised walter--and if jims had died i could never have forgiven myself. "then, the third night after father and mother went away, jims suddenly got worse--oh, so much worse--all at once. susan and i were all alone. gertrude had been at lowbridge when the storm began and had never got back. at first we were not much alarmed. jims has had several bouts of croup and susan and morgan and i have always brought him through without much trouble. but it wasn't very long before we were dreadfully alarmed. "'i never saw croup like this before,' said susan. "as for me, i knew, when it was too late, what kind of croup it was. i knew it was not the ordinary croup--'false croup' as doctors call it--but the 'true croup'--and i knew that it was a deadly and dangerous thing. and father was away and there was no doctor nearer than lowbridge--and we could not 'phone and neither horse nor man could get through the drifts that night. "gallant little jims put up a good fight for his life,--susan and i tried every remedy we could think of or find in father's books, but he continued to grow worse. it was heart-rending to see and hear him. he gasped so horribly for breath--the poor little soul--and his face turned a dreadful bluish colour and had such an agonized expression, and he kept struggling with his little hands, as if he were appealing to us to help him somehow. i found myself thinking that the boys who had been gassed at the front must have looked like that, and the thought haunted me amid all my dread and misery over jims. and all the time the fatal membrane in his wee throat grew and thickened and he couldn't get it up. "oh, i was just wild! i never realized how dear jims was to me until that moment. and i felt so utterly helpless." "and then susan gave up. 'we cannot save him! oh, if your father was here--look at him, the poor little fellow! i know not what to do.' "i looked at jims and i thought he was dying. susan was holding him up in his crib to give him a better chance for breath, but it didn't seem as if he could breathe at all. my little war-baby, with his dear ways and sweet roguish face, was choking to death before my very eyes, and i couldn't help him. i threw down the hot poultice i had ready in despair. of what use was it? jims was dying, and it was my fault--i hadn't been careful enough! "just then--at eleven o'clock at night--the door bell rang. such a ring--it pealed all over the house above the roar of the storm. susan couldn't go--she dared not lay jims down--so i rushed downstairs. in the hall i paused just a minute--i was suddenly overcome by an absurd dread. i thought of a weird story gertrude had told me once. an aunt of hers was alone in a house one night with her sick husband. she heard a knock at the door. and when she went and opened it there was nothing there--nothing that could be seen, at least. but when she opened the door a deadly cold wind blew in and seemed to sweep past her right up the stairs, although it was a calm, warm summer night outside. immediately she heard a cry. she ran upstairs--and her husband was dead. and she always believed, so gertrude said, that when she opened that door she let death in. "it was so ridiculous of me to feel so frightened. but i was distracted and worn out, and i simply felt for a moment that i dared not open the door--that death was waiting outside. then i remembered that i had no time to waste--must not be so foolish--i sprang forward and opened the door. "certainly a cold wind did blow in and filled the hall with a whirl of snow. but there on the threshold stood a form of flesh and blood--mary vance, coated from head to foot with snow--and she brought life, not death, with her, though i didn't know that then. i just stared at her. "'i haven't been turned out,' grinned mary, as she stepped in and shut the door. 'i came up to carter flagg's two days ago and i've been stormed-stayed there ever since. but old abbie flagg got on my nerves at last, and tonight i just made up my mind to come up here. i thought i could wade this far, but i can tell you it was as much as a bargain. once i thought i was stuck for keeps. ain't it an awful night?' "i came to myself and knew i must hurry upstairs. i explained as quickly as i could to mary, and left her trying to brush the snow off. upstairs i found that jims was over that paroxysm, but almost as soon as i got back to the room he was in the grip of another. i couldn't do anything but moan and cry--oh, how ashamed i am when i think of it; and yet what could i do--we had tried everything we knew--and then all at once i heard mary vance saying loudly behind me, 'why, that child is dying!' "i whirled around. didn't i know he was dying--my little jims! i could have thrown mary vance out of the door or the window--anywhere--at that moment. there she stood, cool and composed, looking down at my baby, with those, weird white eyes of hers, as she might look at a choking kitten. i had always disliked mary vance--and just then i hated her. "'we have tried everything,' said poor susan dully. 'it is not ordinary croup.' "'no, it's the dipthery croup,' said mary briskly, snatching up an apron. 'and there's mighty little time to lose--but i know what to do. when i lived over-harbour with mrs. wiley, years ago, will crawford's kid died of dipthery croup, in spite of two doctors. and when old aunt christina macallister heard of it--she was the one brought me round when i nearly died of pneumonia you know--she was a wonder--no doctor was a patch on her--they don't hatch her breed of cats nowadays, let me tell you--she said she could have saved him with her grandmother's remedy if she'd been there. she told mrs. wiley what it was and i've never forgot it. i've the greatest memory ever--a thing just lies in the back of my head till the time comes to use it. got any sulphur in the house, susan?' "yes, we had sulphur. susan went down with mary to get it, and i held jims. i hadn't any hope--not the least. mary vance might brag as she liked--she was always bragging--but i didn't believe any grandmother's remedy could save jims now. presently mary came back. she had tied a piece of thick flannel over her mouth and nose, and she carried susan's old tin chip pan, half full of burning coals. "'you watch me,' she said boastfully. 'i've never done this, but it's kill or cure that child is dying anyway.' "she sprinkled a spoonful of sulphur over the coals; and then she picked up jims, turned him over, and held him face downward, right over those choking, blinding fumes. i don't know why i didn't spring forward and snatch him away. susan says it was because it was fore-ordained that i shouldn't, and i think she is right, because it did really seem that i was powerless to move. susan herself seemed transfixed, watching mary from the doorway. jims writhed in those big, firm, capable hands of mary--oh yes, she is capable all right--and choked and wheezed--and choked and wheezed--and i felt that he was being tortured to death--and then all at once, after what seemed to me an hour, though it really wasn't long, he coughed up the membrane that was killing him. mary turned him over and laid him back on his bed. he was white as marble and the tears were pouring out of his brown eyes--but that awful livid look was gone from his face and he could breathe quite easily. "'wasn't that some trick?' said mary gaily. 'i hadn't any idea how it would work, but i just took a chance. i'll smoke his throat out again once or twice before morning, just to kill all the germs, but you'll see he'll be all right now.' "jims went right to sleep--real sleep, not coma, as i feared at first. mary 'smoked him,' as she called it, twice through the night, and at daylight his throat was perfectly clear and his temperature was almost normal. when i made sure of that i turned and looked at mary vance. she was sitting on the lounge laying down the law to susan on some subject about which susan must have known forty times as much as she did. but i didn't mind how much law she laid down or how much she bragged. she had a right to brag--she had dared to do what i would never have dared, and had saved jims from a horrible death. it didn't matter any more that she had once chased me through the glen with a codfish; it didn't matter that she had smeared goose-grease all over my dream of romance the night of the lighthouse dance; it didn't matter that she thought she knew more than anybody else and always rubbed it in--i would never dislike mary vance again. i went over to her and kissed her. "'what's up now?' she said. "'nothing--only i'm so grateful to you, mary.' "'well, i think you ought to be, that's a fact. you two would have let that baby die on your hands if i hadn't happened along,' said mary, just beaming with complacency. she got susan and me a tip-top breakfast and made us eat it, and 'bossed the life out of us,' as susan says, for two days, until the roads were opened so that she could get home. jims was almost well by that time, and father turned up. he heard our tale without saying much. father is rather scornful generally about what he calls 'old wives' remedies.' he laughed a little and said, 'after this, mary vance will expect me to call her in for consultation in all my serious cases.' "so christmas was not so hard as i expected it to be; and now the new year is coming--and we are still hoping for the 'big push' that will end the war--and little dog monday is getting stiff and rheumatic from his cold vigils, but still he 'carries on,' and shirley continues to read the exploits of the aces. oh, nineteen-seventeen, what will you bring?" chapter xxv shirley goes "no, woodrow, there will be no peace without victory," said susan, sticking her knitting needle viciously through president wilson's name in the newspaper column. "we canadians mean to have peace and victory, too. you, if it pleases you, woodrow, can have the peace without the victory"--and susan stalked off to bed with the comfortable consciousness of having got the better of the argument with the president. but a few days later she rushed to mrs. blythe in red-hot excitement. "mrs. dr. dear, what do you think? a 'phone message has just come through from charlottetown that woodrow wilson has sent that german ambassador man to the right about at last. they tell me that means war. so i begin to think that woodrow's heart is in the right place after all, wherever his head may be, and i am going to commandeer a little sugar and celebrate the occasion with some fudge, despite the howls of the food board. i thought that submarine business would bring things to a crisis. i told cousin sophia so when she said it was the beginning of the end for the allies." "don't let the doctor hear of the fudge, susan," said anne, with a smile. "you know he has laid down very strict rules for us along the lines of economy the government has asked for." "yes, mrs. dr. dear, and a man should be master in his own household, and his women folk should bow to his decrees. i flatter myself that i am becoming quite efficient in economizing"--susan had taken to using certain german terms with killing effect--"but one can exercise a little gumption on the quiet now and then. shirley was wishing for some of my fudge the other day--the susan brand, as he called it--and i said 'the first victory there is to celebrate i shall make you some.' i consider this news quite equal to a victory, and what the doctor does not know will never grieve him. i take the whole responsibility, mrs. dr. dear, so do not you vex your conscience." susan spoiled shirley shamelessly that winter. he came home from queen's every week-end, and susan had all his favourite dishes for him, in so far as she could evade or wheedle the doctor, and waited on him hand and foot. though she talked war constantly to everyone else she never mentioned it to him or before him, but she watched him like a cat watching a mouse; and when the german retreat from the bapaume salient began and continued, susan's exultation was linked up with something deeper than anything she expressed. surely the end was in sight--would come now before--anyone else--could go. "things are coming our way at last. we have got the germans on the run," she boasted. "the united states has declared war at last, as i always believed they would, in spite of woodrow's gift for letter writing, and you will see they will go into it with a vim since i understand that is their habit, when they do start. and we have got the germans on the run, too." "the states mean well," moaned cousin sophia, "but all the vim in the world cannot put them on the fighting line this spring, and the allies will be finished before that. the germans are just luring them on. that man simonds says their retreat has put the allies in a hole." "that man simonds has said more than he will ever live to make good," retorted susan. "i do not worry myself about his opinion as long as lloyd george is premier of england. he will not be bamboozled and that you may tie to. things look good to me. the u. s. is in the war, and we have got kut and bagdad back--and i would not be surprised to see the allies in berlin by june--and the russians, too, since they have got rid of the czar. that, in my opinion was a good piece of work." "time will show if it is," said cousin sophia, who would have been very indignant if anyone had told her that she would rather see susan put to shame as a seer, than a successful overthrow of tyranny, or even the march of the allies down unter den linden. but then the woes of the russian people were quite unknown to cousin sophia, while this aggravating, optimistic susan was an ever-present thorn in her side. just at that moment shirley was sitting on the edge of the table in the living-room, swinging his legs--a brown, ruddy, wholesome lad, from top to toe, every inch of him--and saying coolly, "mother and dad, i was eighteen last monday. don't you think it's about time i joined up?" the pale mother looked at him. "two of my sons have gone and one will never return. must i give you too, shirley?" the age-old cry--"joseph is not and simeon is not; and ye will take benjamin away." how the mothers of the great war echoed the old patriarch's moan of so many centuries agone! "you wouldn't have me a slacker, mother? i can get into the flying-corps. what say, dad?" the doctor's hands were not quite steady as he folded up the powders he was concocting for abbie flagg's rheumatism. he had known this moment was coming, yet he was not altogether prepared for it. he answered slowly, "i won't try to hold you back from what you believe to be your duty. but you must not go unless your mother says you may." shirley said nothing more. he was not a lad of many words. anne did not say anything more just then, either. she was thinking of little joyce's grave in the old burying-ground over-harbour--little joyce who would have been a woman now, had she lived--of the white cross in france and the splendid grey eyes of the little boy who had been taught his first lessons of duty and loyalty at her knee--of jem in the terrible trenches--of nan and di and rilla, waiting--waiting--waiting, while the golden years of youth passed by--and she wondered if she could bear any more. she thought not; surely she had given enough. yet that night she told shirley that he might go. they did not tell susan right away. she did not know it until, a few days later, shirley presented himself in her kitchen in his aviation uniform. susan didn't make half the fuss she had made when jem and walter had gone. she said stonily, "so they're going to take you, too." "take me? no. i'm going, susan--got to." susan sat down by the table, folded her knotted old hands, that had grown warped and twisted working for the ingleside children to still their shaking, and said: "yes, you must go. i did not see once why such things must be, but i can see now." "you're a brick, susan," said shirley. he was relieved that she took it so coolly--he had been a little afraid, with a boy's horror of "a scene." he went out whistling gaily; but half an hour later, when pale anne blythe came in, susan was still sitting there. "mrs. dr. dear," said susan, making an admission she would once have died rather than make, "i feel very old. jem and walter were yours but shirley is mine. and i cannot bear to think of him flying--his machine crashing down--the life crushed out of his body--the dear little body i nursed and cuddled when he was a wee baby." "susan--don't," cried anne. "oh, mrs. dr. dear, i beg your pardon. i ought not to have said anything like that out loud. i sometimes forget that i resolved to be a heroine. this--this has shaken me a little. but i will not forget myself again. only if things do not go as smoothly in the kitchen for a few days i hope you will make due allowance for me. at least," said poor susan, forcing a grim smile in a desperate effort to recover lost standing, "at least flying is a clean job. he will not get so dirty and messed up as he would in the trenches, and that is well, for he has always been a tidy child." so shirley went--not radiantly, as to a high adventure, like jem, not in a white flame of sacrifice, like walter, but in a cool, business-like mood, as of one doing something, rather dirty and disagreeable, that had just got to be done. he kissed susan for the first time since he was five years old, and said, "good-bye, susan--mother susan." "my little brown boy--my little brown boy," said susan. "i wonder," she thought bitterly, as she looked at the doctor's sorrowful face, "if you remember how you spanked him once when he was a baby. i am thankful i have nothing like that on my conscience now." the doctor did not remember the old discipline. but before he put on his hat to go out on his round of calls he stood for a moment in the great silent living-room that had once been full of children's laughter. "our last son--our last son," he said aloud. "a good, sturdy, sensible lad, too. always reminded me of my father. i suppose i ought to be proud that he wanted to go--i was proud when jem went--even when walter went--but 'our house is left us desolate.'" "i have been thinking, doctor," old sandy of the upper glen said to him that afternoon, "that your house will be seeming very big the day." highland sandy's quaint phrase struck the doctor as perfectly expressive. ingleside did seem very big and empty that night. yet shirley had been away all winter except for week-ends, and had always been a quiet fellow even when home. was it because he had been the only one left that his going seemed to leave such a huge blank--that every room seemed vacant and deserted--that the very trees on the lawn seemed to be trying to comfort each other with caresses of freshly-budding boughs for the loss of the last of the little lads who had romped under them in childhood? susan worked very hard all day and late into the night. when she had wound the kitchen clock and put dr. jekyll out, none too gently, she stood for a little while on the doorstep, looking down the glen, which lay tranced in faint, silvery light from a sinking young moon. but susan did not see the familiar hills and harbour. she was looking at the aviation camp in kingsport where shirley was that night. "he called me 'mother susan,'" she was thinking. "well, all our men folk have gone now--jem and walter and shirley and jerry and carl. and none of them had to be driven to it. so we have a right to be proud. but pride--" susan sighed bitterly--"pride is cold company and that there is no gainsaying." the moon sank lower into a black cloud in the west, the glen went out in an eclipse of sudden shadow--and thousands of miles away the canadian boys in khaki--the living and the dead--were in possession of vimy ridge. vimy ridge is a name written in crimson and gold on the canadian annals of the great war. "the british couldn't take it and the french couldn't take it," said a german prisoner to his captors, "but you canadians are such fools that you don't know when a place can't be taken!" so the "fools" took it--and paid the price. jerry meredith was seriously wounded at vimy ridge--shot in the back, the telegram said. "poor nan," said mrs. blythe, when the news came. she thought of her own happy girlhood at old green gables. there had been no tragedy like this in it. how the girls of to-day had to suffer! when nan came home from redmond two weeks later her face showed what those weeks had meant to her. john meredith, too, seemed to have grown old suddenly in them. faith did not come home; she was on her way across the atlantic as a v.a.d. di had tried to wring from her father consent to her going also, but had been told that for her mother's sake it could not be given. so di, after a flying visit home, went back to her red cross work in kingsport. the mayflowers bloomed in the secret nooks of rainbow valley. rilla was watching for them. jem had once taken his mother the earliest mayflowers; walter brought them to her when jem was gone; last spring shirley had sought them out for her; now, rilla thought she must take the boys' place in this. but before she had discovered any, bruce meredith came to ingleside one twilight with his hands full of delicate pink sprays. he stalked up the steps of the veranda and laid them on mrs. blythe's lap. "because shirley isn't here to bring them," he said in his funny, shy, blunt way. "and you thought of this, you darling," said anne, her lips quivering, as she looked at the stocky, black-browed little chap, standing before her, with his hands thrust into his pockets. "i wrote jem to-day and told him not to worry 'bout you not getting your mayflowers," said bruce seriously, "'cause i'd see to that. and i told him i would be ten pretty soon now, so it won't be very long before i'll be eighteen, and then i'll go to help him fight, and maybe let him come home for a rest while i took his place. i wrote jerry, too. jerry's getting better, you know." "is he? have you had any good news about him?" "yes. mother had a letter to-day, and it said he was out of danger." "oh, thank god," murmured mrs. blythe, in a half-whisper. bruce looked at her curiously. "that is what father said when mother told him. but when l said it the other day when i found out mr. mead's dog hadn't hurt my kitten--i thought he had shooken it to death, you know--father looked awful solemn and said i must never say that again about a kitten. but i couldn't understand why, mrs. blythe. i felt awful thankful, and it must have been god that saved stripey, because that mead dog had 'normous jaws, and oh, how it shook poor stripey. and so why couldn't i thank him? 'course," added bruce reminiscently, "maybe i said it too loud--'cause i was awful glad and excited when i found stripey was all right. i 'most shouted it, mrs. blythe. maybe if i'd said it sort of whispery like you and father it would have been all right. do you know, mrs. blythe"--bruce dropped to a "whispery" tone, edging a little nearer to anne--"what i would like to do to the kaiser if i could?" "what would you like to do, laddie?" "norman reese said in school to-day that he would like to tie the kaiser to a tree and set cross dogs to worrying him," said bruce gravely. "and emily flagg said she would like to put him in a cage and poke sharp things into him. and they all said things like that. but mrs. blythe"--bruce took a little square paw out of his pocket and put it earnestly on anne's knee--"i would like to turn the kaiser into a good man--a very good man--all at once if i could. that is what i would do. don't you think, mrs. blythe, that would be the very worstest punishment of all?" "bless the child," said susan, "how do you make out that would be any kind of a punishment for that wicked fiend?" "don't you see," said bruce, looking levelly at susan, out of his blackly blue eyes, "if he was turned into a good man he would understand how dreadful the things he has done are, and he would feel so terrible about it that he would be more unhappy and miserable than he could ever be in any other way. he would feel just awful--and he would go on feeling like that forever. yes"--bruce clenched his hands and nodded his head emphatically, "yes, i would make the kaiser a good man--that is what i would do--it would serve him 'zackly right." chapter xxvi susan has a proposal of marriage an aeroplane was flying over glen st. mary, like a great bird poised against the western sky--a sky so clear and of such a pale, silvery yellow, that it gave an impression of a vast, wind-freshened space of freedom. the little group on the ingleside lawn looked up at it with fascinated eyes, although it was by no means an unusual thing to see an occasional hovering plane that summer. susan was always intensely excited. who knew but that it might be shirley away up there in the clouds, flying over to the island from kingsport? but shirley had gone overseas now, so susan was not so keenly interested in this particular aeroplane and its pilot. nevertheless, she looked at it with awe. "i wonder, mrs. dr. dear," she said solemnly, "what the old folks down there in the graveyard would think if they could rise out of their graves for one moment and behold that sight. i am sure my father would disapprove of it, for he was a man who did not believe in new-fangled ideas of any sort. he always cut his grain with a reaping hook to the day of his death. a mower he would not have. what was good enough for his father was good enough for him, he used to say. i hope it is not unfilial to say that i think he was wrong in that point of view, but i am not sure i go so far as to approve of aeroplanes, though they may be a military necessity. if the almighty had meant us to fly he would have provided us with wings. since he did not it is plain he meant us to stick to the solid earth. at any rate, you will never see me, mrs. dr. dear, cavorting through the sky in an aeroplane." "but you won't refuse to cavort a bit in father's new automobile when it comes, will you, susan?" teased rilla. "i do not expect to trust my old bones in automobiles, either," retorted susan. "but i do not look upon them as some narrow-minded people do. whiskers-on-the-moon says the government should be turned out of office for permitting them to run on the island at all. he foams at the mouth, they tell me, when he sees one. the other day he saw one coming along that narrow side-road by his wheatfield, and whiskers bounded over the fence and stood right in the middle of the road, with his pitchfork. the man in the machine was an agent of some kind, and whiskers hates agents as much as he hates automobiles. he made the car come to a halt, because there was not room to pass him on either side, and the agent could not actually run over him. then he raised his pitchfork and shouted, 'get out of this with your devil-machine or i will run this pitchfork clean through you.' and mrs. dr. dear, if you will believe me, that poor agent had to back his car clean out to the lowbridge road, nearly a mile, whiskers following him every step, shaking his pitchfork and bellowing insults. now, mrs. dr. dear, i call such conduct unreasonable; but all the same," added susan, with a sigh, "what with aeroplanes and automobiles and all the rest of it, this island is not what it used to be." the aeroplane soared and dipped and circled, and soared again, until it became a mere speck far over the sunset hills. "'with the majesty of pinion which the theban eagles bear sailing with supreme dominion through the azure fields of air.'" quoted anne blythe dreamily. "i wonder," said miss oliver, "if humanity will be any happier because of aeroplanes. it seems to me that the sum of human happiness remains much the same from age to age, no matter how it may vary in distribution, and that all the 'many inventions' neither lessen nor increase it." "after all, the 'kingdom of heaven is within you,'" said mr. meredith, gazing after the vanishing speck which symbolized man's latest victory in a world-old struggle. "it does not depend on material achievements and triumphs." "nevertheless, an aeroplane is a fascinating thing," said the doctor. "it has always been one of humanity's favourite dreams--the dream of flying. dream after dream comes true--or rather is made true by persevering effort. i should like to have a flight in an aeroplane myself." "shirley wrote me that he was dreadfully disappointed in his first flight," said rilla. "he had expected to experience the sensation of soaring up from the earth like a bird--and instead he just had the feeling that he wasn't moving at all, but that the earth was dropping away under him. and the first time he went up alone he suddenly felt terribly homesick. he had never felt like that before; but all at once, he said, he felt as if he were adrift in space--and he had a wild desire to get back home to the old planet and the companionship of fellow creatures. he soon got over that feeling, but he says his first flight alone was a nightmare to him because of that dreadful sensation of ghastly loneliness." the aeroplane disappeared. the doctor threw back his head with a sigh. "when i have watched one of those bird-men out of sight i come back to earth with an odd feeling of being merely a crawling insect. anne," he said, turning to his wife, "do you remember the first time i took you for a buggy ride in avonlea--that night we went to the carmody concert, the first fall you taught in avonlea? i had out little black mare with the white star on her forehead, and a shining brand-new buggy--and i was the proudest fellow in the world, barring none. i suppose our grandson will be taking his sweetheart out quite casually for an evening 'fly' in his aeroplane." "an aeroplane won't be as nice as little silverspot was," said anne. "a machine is simply a machine--but silverspot, why she was a personality, gilbert. a drive behind her had something in it that not even a flight among sunset clouds could have. no, i don't envy my grandson's sweetheart, after all. mr. meredith is right. 'the kingdom of heaven'--and of love--and of happiness--doesn't depend on externals." "besides," said the doctor gravely, "our said grandson will have to give most of his attention to the aeroplane--he won't be able to let the reins lie on its back while he gazes into his lady's eyes. and i have an awful suspicion that you can't run an aeroplane with one arm. no"--the doctor shook his head--"i believe i'd still prefer silverspot after all." the russian line broke again that summer and susan said bitterly that she had expected it ever since kerensky had gone and got married. "far be it from me to decry the holy state of matrimony, mrs. dr. dear, but i felt that when a man was running a revolution he had his hands full and should have postponed marriage until a more fitting season. the russians are done for this time and there would be no sense in shutting our eyes to the fact. but have you seen woodrow wilson's reply to the pope's peace proposals? it is magnificent. i really could not have expressed the rights of the matter better myself. i feel that i can forgive wilson everything for it. he knows the meaning of words and that you may tie to. speaking of meanings, have you heard the latest story about whiskers-on-the-moon, mrs. dr. dear? it seems he was over at the lowbridge road school the other day and took a notion to examine the fourth class in spelling. they have the summer term there yet, you know, with the spring and fall vacations, being rather backward people on that road. my niece, ella baker, goes to that school and she it was who told me the story. the teacher was not feeling well, having a dreadful headache, and she went out to get a little fresh air while mr. pryor was examining the class. the children got along all right with the spelling but when whiskers began to question them about the meanings of the words they were all at sea, because they had not learned them. ella and the other big scholars felt terrible over it. they love their teacher so, and it seems mr. pryor's brother, abel pryor, who is trustee of that school, is against her and has been trying to turn the other trustees over to his way of thinking. and ella and the rest were afraid that if the fourth class couldn't tell whiskers the meanings of the words he would think the teacher was no good and tell abel so, and abel would have a fine handle. but little sandy logan saved the situation. he is a home boy, but he is as smart as a steel trap, and he sized up whiskers-on-the-moon right off. 'what does "anatomy" mean?' whiskers demanded. 'a pain in your stomach,' sandy replied, quick as a flash and never batting an eyelid. whiskers-on-the-moon is a very ignorant man, mrs. dr. dear; he didn't know the meaning of the words himself, and he said 'very good--very good.' the class caught right on--at least three or four of the brighter ones did--and they kept up the fun. jean blane said that 'acoustic' meant 'a religious squabble,' and muriel baker said that an 'agnostic' was 'a man who had indigestion,' and jim carter said that 'acerbity' meant that 'you ate nothing but vegetable food,' and so on all down the list. whiskers swallowed it all, and kept saying 'very good--very good' until ella thought that die she would trying to keep a straight face. when the teacher came in, whiskers complimented her on the splendid understanding the children had of their lesson and said he meant to tell the trustees what a jewel they had. it was 'very unusual,' he said, to find a fourth class who could answer up so prompt when it came to explaining what words meant. he went off beaming. but ella told me this as a great secret, mrs. dr. dear, and we must keep it as such, for the sake of the lowbridge road teacher. it would likely be the ruin of her chances of keeping the school if whiskers should ever find out how he had been bamboozled." mary vance came up to ingleside that same afternoon to tell them that miller douglas, who had been wounded when the canadians took hill 70, had had to have his leg amputated. the ingleside folk sympathized with mary, whose zeal and patriotism had taken some time to kindle but now burned with a glow as steady and bright as any one's. "some folks have been twitting me about having a husband with only one leg. but," said mary, rising to a lofty height, "i would rather miller with only one leg than any other man in the world with a dozen--unless," she added as an after-thought, "unless it was lloyd george. well, i must be going. i thought you'd be interested in hearing about miller so i ran up from the store, but i must hustle home for i promised luke macallister i'd help him build his grain stack this evening. it's up to us girls to see that the harvest is got in, since the boys are so scarce. i've got overalls and i can tell you they're real becoming. mrs. alec douglas says they're indecent and shouldn't be allowed, and even mrs. elliott kinder looks askance at them. but bless you, the world moves, and anyhow there's no fun for me like shocking kitty alec." "by the way, father," said rilla, "i'm going to take jack flagg's place in his father's store for a month. i promised him today that i would, if you didn't object. then he can help the farmers get the harvest in. i don't think i'd be much use in a harvest myself--though lots of the girls are--but i can set jack free while i do his work. jims isn't much bother in the daytime now, and i'll always be home at night." "do you think you'll like weighing out sugar and beans, and trafficking in butter and eggs?" said the doctor, twinkling. "probably not. that isn't the question. it's just one way of doing my bit." so rilla went behind mr. flagg's counter for a month; and susan went into albert crawford's oat-fields. "i am as good as any of them yet," she said proudly. "not a man of them can beat me when it comes to building a stack. when i offered to help albert looked doubtful. 'i am afraid the work will be too hard for you,' he said. 'try me for a day and see,' said i. 'i will do my darnedest.'" none of the ingleside folks spoke for just a moment. their silence meant that they thought susan's pluck in "working out" quite wonderful. but susan mistook their meaning and her sun-burned face grew red. "this habit of swearing seems to be growing on me, mrs. dr. dear," she said apologetically. "to think that i should be acquiring it at my age! it is such a dreadful example to the young girls. i am of the opinion it comes of reading the newspapers so much. they are so full of profanity and they do not spell it with stars either, as used to be done in my young days. this war is demoralizing everybody." susan, standing on a load of grain, her grey hair whipping in the breeze and her skirt kilted up to her knees for safety and convenience--no overalls for susan, if you please--neither a beautiful nor a romantic figure; but the spirit that animated her gaunt arms was the self-same one that captured vimy ridge and held the german legions back from verdun. it is not the least likely, however, that this consideration was the one which appealed most strongly to mr. pryor when he drove past one afternoon and saw susan pitching sheaves gamely. "smart woman that," he reflected. "worth two of many a younger one yet. i might do worse--i might do worse. if milgrave comes home alive i'll lose miranda and hired housekeepers cost more than a wife and are liable to leave a man in the lurch any time. i'll think it over." a week later mrs. blythe, coming up from the village late in the afternoon, paused at the gate of ingleside in an amazement which temporarily bereft her of the power of motion. an extraordinary sight met her eyes. round the end of the kitchen burst mr. pryor, running as stout, pompous mr. pryor had not run in years, with terror imprinted on every lineament--a terror quite justifiable, for behind him, like an avenging fate, came susan, with a huge, smoking iron pot grasped in her hands, and an expression in her eye that boded ill to the object of her indignation, if she should overtake him. pursuer and pursued tore across the lawn. mr. pryor reached the gate a few feet ahead of susan, wrenched it open, and fled down the road, without a glance at the transfixed lady of ingleside. "susan," gasped anne. susan halted in her mad career, set down her pot, and shook her fist after mr. pryor, who had not ceased to run, evidently believing that susan was still full cry after him. "susan, what does this mean?" demanded anne, a little severely. "you may well ask that, mrs. dr. dear," susan replied wrathfully. "i have not been so upset in years. that--that--that pacifist has actually had the audacity to come up here and, in my own kitchen, to ask me to marry him. him!" anne choked back a laugh. "but--susan! couldn't you have found a--well, a less spectacular method of refusing him? think what a gossip this would have made if anyone had been going past and had seen such a performance." "indeed, mrs. dr. dear, you are quite right. i did not think of it because i was quite past thinking rationally. i was just clean mad. come in the house and i will tell you all about it." susan picked up her pot and marched into the kitchen, still trembling with wrathful excitement. she set her pot on the stove with a vicious thud. "wait a moment until i open all the windows to air this kitchen well, mrs. dr. dear. there, that is better. and i must wash my hands, too, because i shook hands with whiskers-on-the-moon when he came in--not that i wanted to, but when he stuck out his fat, oily hand i did not know just what else to do at the moment. i had just finished my afternoon cleaning and thanks be, everything was shining and spotless; and thought i 'now that dye is boiling and i will get my rug rags and have them nicely out of the way before supper.' "just then a shadow fell over the floor and looking up i saw whiskers-on-the-moon, standing in the doorway, dressed up and looking as if he had just been starched and ironed. i shook hands with him, as aforesaid, mrs. dr. dear, and told him you and the doctor were both away. but he said, "i have come to see you, miss baker.' "i asked him to sit down, for the sake of my own manners, and then i stood there right in the middle of the floor and gazed at him as contemptuously as i could. in spite of his brazen assurance this seemed to rattle him a little; but he began trying to look sentimental at me out of his little piggy eyes, and all at once an awful suspicion flashed into my mind. something told me, mrs. dr. dear, that i was about to receive my first proposal. i have always thought that i would like to have just one offer of marriage to reject, so that i might be able to look other women in the face, but you will not hear me bragging of this. i consider it an insult and if i could have thought of any way of preventing it i would. but just then, mrs. dr. dear, you will see i was at a disadvantage, being taken so completely by surprise. some men, i am told, consider a little preliminary courting the proper thing before a proposal, if only to give fair warning of their intentions; but whiskers-on-the-moon probably thought it was any port in a storm for me and that i would jump at him. well, he is undeceived--yes, he is undeceived, mrs. dr. dear. i wonder if he has stopped running yet." "i understand that you don't feel flattered, susan. but couldn't you have refused him a little more delicately than by chasing him off the premises in such a fashion?" "well, maybe i might have, mrs. dr. dear, and i intended to, but one remark he made aggravated me beyond my powers of endurance. if it had not been for that i would not have chased him with my dye-pot. i will tell you the whole interview. whiskers sat down, as i have said, and right beside him on another chair doc was lying. the animal was pretending to be asleep but i knew very well he was not, for he has been hyde all day and hyde never sleeps. by the way, mrs. dr. dear, have you noticed that that cat is far oftener hyde than jekyll now? the more victories germany wins the hyder he becomes. i leave you to draw your own conclusions from that. i suppose whiskers thought he might curry favour with me by praising the creature, little dreaming what my real sentiments towards it were, so he stuck out his pudgy hand and stroked mr. hyde's back. 'what a nice cat,' he said. the nice cat flew at him and bit him. then it gave a fearful yowl, and bounded out of the door. whiskers looked after it quite amazed. 'that is a queer kind of a varmint,' he said. i agreed with him on that point, but i was not going to let him see it. besides, what business had he to call our cat a varmint? 'it may be a varmint or it may not,' i said, 'but it knows the difference between a canadian and a hun.' you would have thought, would you not, mrs. dr. dear, that a hint like that would have been enough for him! but it went no deeper than his skin. i saw him settling back quite comfortable, as if for a good talk, and thought i, 'if there is anything coming it may as well come soon and be done with, for with all these rags to dye before supper i have no time to waste in flirting,' so i spoke right out. 'if you have anything particular to discuss with me, mr. pryor, i would feel obliged if you would mention it without loss of time, because i am very busy this afternoon.' he fairly beamed at me out of that circle of red whisker, and said, 'you are a business-like woman and i agree with you. there is no use in wasting time beating around the bush. i came up here today to ask you to marry me.' so there it was, mrs. dr. dear. i had a proposal at last, after waiting sixty-four years for one. "i just glared at that presumptuous creature and i said, 'i would not marry you if you were the last man on earth, josiah pryor. so there you have my answer and you can take it away forthwith.' you never saw a man so taken aback as he was, mrs. dr. dear. he was so flabbergasted that he just blurted out the truth. 'why, i thought you'd be only too glad to get a chance to be married,' he said. that was when i lost my head, mrs. dr. dear. do you think i had a good excuse, when a hun and a pacifist made such an insulting remark to me? 'go,' i thundered, and i just caught up that iron pot. i could see that he thought i had suddenly gone insane, and i suppose he considered an iron pot full of boiling dye was a dangerous weapon in the hands of a lunatic. at any rate he went, and stood not upon the order of his going, as you saw for yourself. and i do not think we will see him back here proposing to us again in a hurry. no, i think he has learned that there is at least one single woman in glen st. mary who has no hankering to become mrs. whiskers-on-the-moon." chapter xxvii waiting ingleside, 1st november 1917 "it is november--and the glen is all grey and brown, except where the lombardy poplars stand up here and there like great golden torches in the sombre landscape, although every other tree has shed its leaves. it has been very hard to keep our courage alight of late. the caporetto disaster is a dreadful thing and not even susan can extract much consolation out of the present state of affairs. the rest of us don't try. gertrude keeps saying desperately, 'they must not get venice--they must not get venice,' as if by saying it often enough she can prevent them. but what is to prevent them from getting venice i cannot see. yet, as susan fails not to point out, there was seemingly nothing to prevent them from getting to paris in 1914, yet they did not get it, and she affirms they shall not get venice either. oh, how i hope and pray they will not--venice the beautiful queen of the adriatic. although i've never seen it i feel about it just as byron did--i've always loved it--it has always been to me 'a fairy city of the heart.' perhaps i caught my love of it from walter, who worshipped it. it was always one of his dreams to see venice. i remember we planned once--down in rainbow valley one evening just before the war broke out--that some time we would go together to see it and float in a gondola through its moonlit streets. "every fall since the war began there has been some terrible blow to our troops--antwerp in 1914, serbia in 1915; last fall, rumania, and now italy, the worst of all. i think i would give up in despair if it were not for what walter said in his dear last letter--that 'the dead as well as the living were fighting on our side and such an army cannot be defeated.' no it cannot. we will win in the end. i will not doubt it for one moment. to let myself doubt would be to 'break faith.' "we have all been campaigning furiously of late for the new victory loan. we junior reds canvassed diligently and landed several tough old customers who had at first flatly refused to invest. i--even i--tackled whiskers-on-the-moon. i expected a bad time and a refusal. but to my amazement he was quite agreeable and promised on the spot to take a thousand dollar bond. he may be a pacifist, but he knows a good investment when it is handed out to him. five and a half per cent is five and a half per cent, even when a militaristic government pays it. "father, to tease susan, says it was her speech at the victory loan campaign meeting that converted mr. pryor. i don't think that at all likely, since mr. pryor has been publicly very bitter against susan ever since her quite unmistakable rejection of his lover-like advances. but susan did make a speech--and the best one made at the meeting, too. it was the first time she ever did such a thing and she vows it will be the last. everybody in the glen was at the meeting, and quite a number of speeches were made, but somehow things were a little flat and no especial enthusiasm could be worked up. susan was quite dismayed at the lack of zeal, because she had been burningly anxious that the island should go over the top in regard to its quota. she kept whispering viciously to gertrude and me that there was 'no ginger' in the speeches; and when nobody went forward to subscribe to the loan at the close susan 'lost her head.' at least, that is how she describes it herself. she bounded to her feet, her face grim and set under her bonnet--susan is the only woman in glen st. mary who still wears a bonnet--and said sarcastically and loudly, 'no doubt it is much cheaper to talk patriotism than it is to pay for it. and we are asking charity, of course--we are asking you to lend us your money for nothing! no doubt the kaiser will feel quite downcast when he hears of this meeting!" "susan has an unshaken belief that the kaiser's spies--presumably represented by mr. pryor--promptly inform him of every happening in our glen. "norman douglas shouted out 'hear! hear!' and some boy at the back said, 'what about lloyd george?' in a tone susan didn't like. lloyd george is her pet hero, now that kitchener is gone. "'i stand behind lloyd george every time,' retorted susan. "'i suppose that will hearten him up greatly,' said warren mead, with one of his disagreeable 'haw-haws.' "warren's remark was spark to powder. susan just 'sailed in' as she puts it, and 'said her say.' she said it remarkably well, too. there was no lack of 'ginger' in her speech, anyhow. when susan is warmed up she has no mean powers of oratory, and the way she trimmed those men down was funny and wonderful and effective all at once. she said it was the likes of her, millions of her, that did stand behind lloyd george, and did hearten him up. that was the key-note of her speech. dear old susan! she is a perfect dynamo of patriotism and loyalty and contempt for slackers of all kinds, and when she let it loose on that audience in her one grand outburst she electrified it. susan always vows she is no suffragette, but she gave womanhood its due that night, and she literally made those men cringe. when she finished with them they were ready to eat out of her hand. she wound up by ordering them--yes, ordering them--to march up to the platform forthwith and subscribe for victory bonds. and after wild applause most of them did it, even warren mead. when the total amount subscribed came out in the charlottetown dailies the next day we found that the glen led every district on the island--and certainly susan has the credit for it. she, herself, after she came home that night was quite ashamed and evidently feared that she had been guilty of unbecoming conduct: she confessed to mother that she had been 'rather unladylike.' "we were all--except susan--out for a trial ride in father's new automobile tonight. a very good one we had, too, though we did get ingloriously ditched at the end, owing to a certain grim old dame--to wit, miss elizabeth carr of the upper glen--who wouldn't rein her horse out to let us pass, honk as we might. father was quite furious; but in my heart i believe i sympathized with miss elizabeth. if i had been a spinster lady, driving along behind my own old nag, in maiden meditation fancy free, i wouldn't have lifted a rein when an obstreperous car hooted blatantly behind me. i should just have sat up as dourly as she did and said 'take the ditch if you are determined to pass.' "we did take the ditch--and got up to our axles in sand--and sat foolishly there while miss elizabeth clucked up her horse and rattled victoriously away. "jem will have a laugh when i write him this. he knows miss elizabeth of old. "but--will--venice--be--saved?" 19th november 1917 "it is not saved yet--it is still in great danger. but the italians are making a stand at last on the piave line. to be sure military critics say they cannot possibly hold it and must retreat to the adige. but susan and gertrude and i say they must hold it, because venice must be saved, so what are the military critics to do? "oh, if i could only believe that they can hold it! "our canadian troops have won another great victory--they have stormed the passchendaele ridge and held it in the face of all counter attacks. none of our boys were in the battle--but oh, the casualty list of other people's boys! joe milgrave was in it but came through safe. miranda had some bad days until she got word from him. but it is wonderful how miranda has bloomed out since her marriage. she isn't the same girl at all. even her eyes seem to have darkened and deepened--though i suppose that is just because they glow with the greater intensity that has come to her. she makes her father stand round in a perfectly amazing fashion; she runs up the flag whenever a yard of trench on the western front is taken; and she comes up regularly to our junior red cross; and she does--yes, she does--put on funny little 'married woman' airs that are quite killing. but she is the only war-bride in the glen and surely nobody need grudge her the satisfaction she gets out of it. "the russian news is bad, too--kerensky's government has fallen and lenin is dictator of russia. somehow, it is very hard to keep up courage in the dull hopelessness of these grey autumn days of suspense and boding news. but we are beginning to 'get in a low,' as old highland sandy says, over the approaching election. conscription is the real issue at stake and it will be the most exciting election we ever had. all the women 'who have got de age'--to quote jo poirier, and who have husbands, sons, and brothers at the front, can vote. oh, if i were only twenty-one! gertrude and susan are both furious because they can't vote. "'it is not fair,' gertrude says passionately. 'there is agnes carr who can vote because her husband went. she did everything she could to prevent him from going, and now she is going to vote against the union government. yet i have no vote, because my man at the front is only my sweetheart and not my husband!" "as for susan, when she reflects that she cannot vote, while a rank old pacifist like mr. pryor can--and will--her comments are sulphurous. "i really feel sorry for the elliotts and crawfords and macallisters over-harbour. they have always lined up in clearly divided camps of liberal and conservative, and now they are torn from their moorings--i know i'm mixing my metaphors dreadfully--and set hopelessly adrift. it will kill some of those old grits to vote for sir robert borden's side--and yet they have to because they believe the time has come when we must have conscription. and some poor conservatives who are against conscription must vote for laurier, who always has been anathema to them. some of them are taking it terribly hard. others seem to be in much the same attitude as mrs. marshall elliott has come to be regarding church union. "she was up here last night. she doesn't come as often as she used to. she is growing too old to walk this far--dear old 'miss cornelia.' i hate to think of her growing old--we have always loved her so and she has always been so good to us ingleside young fry. "she used to be so bitterly opposed to church union. but last night, when father told her it was practically decided, she said in a resigned tone, 'well, in a world where everything is being rent and torn what matters one more rending and tearing? anyhow, compared with germans even methodists seem attractive to me.' "our junior r.c. goes on quite smoothly, in spite of the fact that irene has come back to it--having fallen out with the lowbridge society, i understand. she gave me a sweet little jab last meeting--about knowing me across the square in charlottetown 'by my green velvet hat.' everybody knows me by that detestable and detested hat. this will be my fourth season for it. even mother wanted me to get a new one this fall; but i said, 'no.' as long as the war lasts so long do i wear that velvet hat in winter." 23rd november 1917 "the piave line still holds--and general byng has won a splendid victory at cambrai. i did run up the flag for that--but susan only said 'i shall set a kettle of water on the kitchen range tonight. i notice little kitchener always has an attack of croup after any british victory. i do hope he has no pro-german blood in his veins. nobody knows much about his father's people.' "jims has had a few attacks of croup this fall--just the ordinary croup--not that terrible thing he had last year. but whatever blood runs in his little veins it is good, healthy blood. he is rosy and plump and curly and cute; and he says such funny things and asks such comical questions. he likes very much to sit in a special chair in the kitchen; but that is susan's favourite chair, too, and when she wants it, out jims must go. the last time she put him out of it he turned around and asked solemnly, 'when you are dead, susan, can i sit in that chair?' susan thought it quite dreadful, and i think that was when she began to feel anxiety about his possible ancestry. the other night i took jims with me for a walk down to the store. it was the first time he had ever been out so late at night, and when he saw the stars he exclaimed, 'oh, willa, see the big moon and all the little moons!' and last wednesday morning, when he woke up, my little alarm clock had stopped because i had forgotten to wind it up. jims bounded out of his crib and ran across to me, his face quite aghast above his little blue flannel pyjamas. 'the clock is dead,' he gasped, 'oh willa, the clock is dead.' "one night he was quite angry with both susan and me because we would not give him something he wanted very much. when he said his prayers he plumped down wrathfully, and when he came to the petition 'make me a good boy' he tacked on emphatically, 'and please make willa and susan good, 'cause they're not.' "i don't go about quoting jims's speeches to all i meet. that always bores me when other people do it! i just enshrine them in this old hotch-potch of a journal! "this very evening as i put jims to bed he looked up and asked me gravely, 'why can't yesterday come back, willa?' "oh, why can't it, jims? that beautiful 'yesterday' of dreams and laughter--when our boys were home--when walter and i read and rambled and watched new moons and sunsets together in rainbow valley. if it could just come back! but yesterdays never come back, little jims--and the todays are dark with clouds--and we dare not think about the tomorrows." 11th december 1917 "wonderful news came today. the british troops captured jerusalem yesterday. we ran up the flag and some of gertrude's old sparkle came back to her for a moment. "'after all,' she said, 'it is worth while to live in the days which see the object of the crusades attained. the ghosts of all the crusaders must have crowded the walls of jerusalem last night, with coeur-de-lion at their head.' "susan had cause for satisfaction also. "'i am so thankful i can pronounce jerusalem and hebron,' she said. 'they give me a real comfortable feeling after przemysl and brest-litovsk! well, we have got the turks on the run, at least, and venice is safe and lord lansdowne is not to be taken seriously; and i see no reason why we should be downhearted.' "jerusalem! the 'meteor flag of england!' floats over you--the crescent is gone. how walter would have thrilled over that!" 18th december 1917 "yesterday the election came off. in the evening mother and susan and gertrude and i forgathered in the living-room and waited in breathless suspense, father having gone down to the village. we had no way of hearing the news, for carter flagg's store is not on our line, and when we tried to get it central always answered that the line 'was busy'--as no doubt it was, for everybody for miles around was trying to get carter's store for the same reason we were. "about ten o'clock gertrude went to the 'phone and happened to catch someone from over-harbour talking to carter flagg. gertrude shamelessly listened in and got for her comforting what eavesdroppers are proverbially supposed to get--to wit, unpleasant hearing; the union government had 'done nothing' in the west. "we looked at each other in dismay. if the government had failed to carry the west, it was defeated. "'canada is disgraced in the eyes of the world,' said gertrude bitterly. "'if everybody was like the mark crawfords over-harbour this would not have happened,' groaned susan. 'they locked their uncle up in the barn this morning and would not let him out until he promised to vote union. that is what i call effective argument, mrs. dr. dear.' "gertrude and i couldn't rest after all that. we walked the floor until our legs gave out and we had to sit down perforce. mother knitted away as steadily as clockwork and pretended to be calm and serene--pretended so well that we were all deceived and envious until the next day, when i caught her ravelling out four inches of her sock. she had knit that far past where the heel should have begun! "it was twelve before father came home. he stood in the doorway and looked at us and we looked at him. we did not dare ask him what the news was. then he said that it was laurier who had 'done nothing' in the west, and that the union government was in with a big majority. gertrude clapped her hands. i wanted to laugh and cry, mother's eyes flashed with their old-time starriness and susan emitted a queer sound between a gasp and a whoop. "this will not comfort the kaiser much,' she said. "then we went to bed, but were too excited to sleep. really, as susan said solemnly this morning, 'mrs. dr. dear, i think politics are too strenuous for women.'" 31st december 1917 "our fourth war christmas is over. we are trying to gather up some courage wherewith to face another year of it. germany has, for the most part, been victorious all summer. and now they say she has all her troops from the russian front ready for a 'big push' in the spring. sometimes it seems to me that we just cannot live through the winter waiting for that. "i had a great batch of letters from overseas this week. shirley is at the front now, too, and writes about it all as coolly and matter-of-factly as he used to write of football at queen's. carl wrote that it had been raining for weeks and that nights in the trenches always made him think of the night of long ago when he did penance in the graveyard for running away from henry warren's ghost. carl's letters are always full of jokes and bits of fun. they had a great rat-hunt the night before he wrote--spearing rats with their bayonets--and he got the best bag and won the prize. he has a tame rat that knows him and sleeps in his pocket at night. rats don't worry carl as they do some people--he was always chummy with all little beasts. he says he is making a study of the habits of the trench rat and means to write a treatise on it some day that will make him famous. "ken wrote a short letter. his letters are all rather short now--and he doesn't often slip in those dear little sudden sentences i love so much. sometimes i think he has forgotten all about the night he was here to say goodbye--and then there will be just a line or a word that makes me think he remembers and always will remember. for instance to-day's letter hadn't a thing in it that mightn't have been written to any girl, except that he signed himself 'your kenneth,' instead of 'yours, kenneth,' as he usually does. now, did he leave that 's' off intentionally or was it only carelessness? i shall lie awake half the night wondering. he is a captain now. i am glad and proud--and yet captain ford sounds so horribly far away and high up. ken and captain ford seem like two different persons. i may be practically engaged to ken--mother's opinion on that point is my stay and bulwark--but i can't be to captain ford! "and jem is a lieutenant now--won his promotion on the field. he sent me a snap-shot, taken in his new uniform. he looked thin and old--old--my boy-brother jem. i can't forget mother's face when i showed it to her. 'that--my little jem--the baby of the old house of dreams?' was all she said. "there was a letter from faith, too. she is doing v.a.d. work in england and writes hopefully and brightly. i think she is almost happy--she saw jem on his last leave and she is so near him she could go to him, if he were wounded. that means so much to her. oh, if i were only with her! but my work is here at home. i know walter wouldn't have wanted me to leave mother and in everything i try to 'keep faith' with him, even to the little details of daily life. walter died for canada--i must live for her. that is what he asked me to do." 28th january 1918 "'i shall anchor my storm-tossed soul to the british fleet and make a batch of bran biscuits,' said susan today to cousin sophia, who had come in with some weird tale of a new and all-conquering submarine, just launched by germany. but susan is a somewhat disgruntled woman at present, owing to the regulations regarding cookery. her loyalty to the union government is being sorely tried. it surmounted the first strain gallantly. when the order about flour came susan said, quite cheerfully, 'i am an old dog to be learning new tricks, but i shall learn to make war bread if it will help defeat the huns.' "but the later suggestions went against susan's grain. had it not been for father's decree i think she would have snapped her fingers at sir robert borden. "'talk about trying to make bricks without straw, mrs. dr. dear! how am i to make a cake without butter or sugar? it cannot be done--not cake that is cake. of course one can make a slab, mrs. dr. dear. and we cannot even camooflash it with a little icing! to think that i should have lived to see the day when a government at ottawa should step into my kitchen and put me on rations!' "susan would give the last drop of her blood for her 'king and country,' but to surrender her beloved recipes is a very different and much more serious matter. "i had letters from nan and di too--or rather notes. they are too busy to write letters, for exams are looming up. they will graduate in arts this spring. i am evidently to be the dunce of the family. but somehow i never had any hankering for a college course, and even now it doesn't appeal to me. i'm afraid i'm rather devoid of ambition. there is only one thing i really want to be--and i don't know if i'll be it or not. if not--i don't want to be anything. but i shan't write it down. it is all right to think it; but, as cousin sophia would say, it might be brazen to write it down. "i will write it down. i won't be cowed by the conventions and cousin sophia! i want to be kenneth ford's wife! there now! "i've just looked in the glass, and i hadn't the sign of a blush on my face. i suppose i'm not a properly constructed damsel at all. "i was down to see little dog monday today. he has grown quite stiff and rheumatic but there he sat, waiting for the train. he thumped his tail and looked pleadingly into my eyes. 'when will jem come?' he seemed to say. oh, dog monday, there is no answer to that question; and there is, as yet, no answer to the other which we are all constantly asking 'what will happen when germany strikes again on the western front--her one great, last blow for victory!" 1st march 1918 "'what will spring bring?' gertrude said today. 'i dread it as i never dreaded spring before. do you suppose there will ever again come a time when life will be free from fear? for almost four years we have lain down with fear and risen up with it. it has been the unbidden guest at every meal, the unwelcome companion at every gathering.' "'hindenburg says he will be in paris on 1st april,' sighed cousin sophia. "'hindenburg!' there is no power in pen and ink to express the contempt which susan infused into that name. 'has he forgotten what day the first of april is?' "'hindenburg has kept his word hitherto,' said gertrude, as gloomily as cousin sophia herself could have said it. "'yes, fighting against the russians and rumanians,' retorted susan. 'wait you till he comes up against the british and french, not to speak of the yankees, who are getting there as fast as they can and will no doubt give a good account of themselves.' "'you said just the same thing before mons, susan,' i reminded her. "'hindenburg says he will spend a million lives to break the allied front,' said gertrude. 'at such a price he must purchase some successes and how can we live through them, even if he is baffled in the end. these past two months when we have been crouching and waiting for the blow to fall have seemed as long as all the preceding months of the war put together. i work all day feverishly and waken at three o'clock at night to wonder if the iron legions have struck at last. it is then i see hindenburg in paris and germany triumphant. i never see her so at any other time than that accursed hour.' "susan looked dubious over gertrude's adjective, but evidently concluded that the 'a' saved the situation. "'i wish it were possible to take some magic draught and go to sleep for the next three months--and then waken to find armageddon over,' said mother, almost impatiently. "it is not often that mother slumps into a wish like that--or at least the verbal expression of it. mother has changed a great deal since that terrible day in september when we knew that walter would not come back; but she has always been brave and patient. now it seemed as if even she had reached the limit of her endurance. "susan went over to mother and touched her shoulder. "'do not you be frightened or downhearted, mrs. dr. dear,' she said gently. 'i felt somewhat that way myself last night, and i rose from my bed and lighted my lamp and opened my bible; and what do you think was the first verse my eyes lighted upon? it was 'and they shall fight against thee but they shall not prevail against thee, for i am with thee, saith the lord of hosts, to deliver thee.' i am not gifted in the way of dreaming, as miss oliver is, but i knew then and there, mrs. dr. dear, that it was a manifest leading, and that hindenburg will never see paris. so i read no further but went back to my bed and i did not waken at three o'clock or at any other hour before morning.' "i say that verse susan read over and over again to myself. the lord of hosts is with us--and the spirits of all just men made perfect--and even the legions and guns that germany is massing on the western front must break against such a barrier. this is in certain uplifted moments; but when other moments come i feel, like gertrude, that i cannot endure any longer this awful and ominous hush before the coming storm." 23rd march 1918 "armageddon has begun!--'the last great fight of all!' is it, i wonder? yesterday i went down to the post office for the mail. it was a dull, bitter day. the snow was gone but the grey, lifeless ground was frozen hard and a biting wind was blowing. the whole glen landscape was ugly and hopeless. "then i got the paper with its big black headlines. germany struck on the twenty-first. she makes big claims of guns and prisoners taken. general haig reports that 'severe fighting continues.' i don't like the sound of that last expression. "we all find we cannot do any work that requires concentration of thought. so we all knit furiously, because we can do that mechanically. at least the dreadful waiting is over--the horrible wondering where and when the blow will fall. it has fallen--but they shall not prevail against us! "oh, what is happening on the western front tonight as i write this, sitting here in my room with my journal before me? jims is asleep in his crib and the wind is wailing around the window; over my desk hangs walter's picture, looking at me with his beautiful deep eyes; the mona lisa he gave me the last christmas he was home hangs on one side of it, and on the other a framed copy of "the piper." it seems to me that i can hear walter's voice repeating it--that little poem into which he put his soul, and which will therefore live for ever, carrying walter's name on through the future of our land. everything about me is calm and peaceful and 'homey.' walter seems very near me--if i could just sweep aside the thin wavering little veil that hangs between, i could see him--just as he saw the pied piper the night before courcelette. "over there in france tonight--does the line hold?" chapter xxviii black sunday in march of the year of grace 1918 there was one week into which must have crowded more of searing human agony than any seven days had ever held before in the history of the world. and in that week there was one day when all humanity seemed nailed to the cross; on that day the whole planet must have been agroan with universal convulsion; everywhere the hearts of men were failing them for fear. it dawned calmly and coldly and greyly at ingleside. mrs. blythe and rilla and miss oliver made ready for church in a suspense tempered by hope and confidence. the doctor was away, having been summoned during the wee sma's to the marwood household in upper glen, where a little war-bride was fighting gallantly on her own battleground to give life, not death, to the world. susan announced that she meant to stay home that morning--a rare decision for susan. "but i would rather not go to church this morning, mrs. dr. dear," she explained. "if whiskers-on-the-moon were there and i saw him looking holy and pleased, as he always looks when he thinks the huns are winning, i fear i would lose my patience and my sense of decorum and hurl a bible or hymn-book at him, thereby disgracing myself and the sacred edifice. no, mrs. dr. dear, i shall stay home from church till the tide turns and pray hard here." "i think i might as well stay home, too, for all the good church will do me today," miss oliver said to rilla, as they walked down the hard-frozen red road to the church. "i can think of nothing but the question, 'does the line still hold?'" "next sunday will be easter," said rilla. "will it herald death or life to our cause?" mr. meredith preached that morning from the text, "he that endureth to the end shall be saved," and hope and confidence rang through his inspiring sentences. rilla, looking up at the memorial tablet on the wall above their pew, "sacred to the memory of walter cuthbert blythe," felt herself lifted out of her dread and filled anew with courage. walter could not have laid down his life for naught. his had been the gift of prophetic vision and he had foreseen victory. she would cling to that belief--the line would hold. in this renewed mood she walked home from church almost gaily. the others, too, were hopeful, and all went smiling into ingleside. there was no one in the living-room, save jims, who had fallen asleep on the sofa, and doc, who sat "hushed in grim repose" on the hearth-rug, looking very hydeish indeed. no one was in the dining-room either--and, stranger still, no dinner was on the table, which was not even set. where was susan? "can she have taken ill?" exclaimed mrs. blythe anxiously. "i thought it strange that she did not want to go to church this morning." the kitchen door opened and susan appeared on the threshold with such a ghastly face that mrs. blythe cried out in sudden panic. "susan, what is it?" "the british line is broken and the german shells are falling on paris," said susan dully. the three women stared at each other, stricken. "it's not true--it's not," gasped rilla. "the thing would be--ridiculous," said gertrude oliver--and then she laughed horribly. "susan, who told you this--when did the news come?" asked mrs. blythe. "i got it over the long-distance phone from charlottetown half an hour ago," said susan. "the news came to town late last night. it was dr. holland phoned it out and he said it was only too true. since then i have done nothing, mrs. dr. dear. i am very sorry dinner is not ready. it is the first time i have been so remiss. if you will be patient i will soon have something for you to eat. but i am afraid i let the potatoes burn." "dinner! nobody wants any dinner, susan," said mrs. blythe wildly. "oh, this thing is unbelievable--it must be a nightmare." "paris is lost--france is lost--the war is lost," gasped rilla, amid the utter ruins of hope and confidence and belief. "oh god--oh god," moaned gertrude oliver, walking about the room and wringing her hands, "oh--god!" nothing else--no other words--nothing but that age old plea--the old, old cry of supreme agony and appeal, from the human heart whose every human staff has failed it. "is god dead?" asked a startled little voice from the doorway of the living-room. jims stood there, flushed from sleep, his big brown eyes filled with dread, "oh willa--oh, willa, is god dead?" miss oliver stopped walking and exclaiming, and stared at jims, in whose eyes tears of fright were beginning to gather. rilla ran to his comforting, while susan bounded up from the chair upon which she had dropped. "no," she said briskly, with a sudden return of her real self. "no, god isn't dead--nor lloyd george either. we were forgetting that, mrs. dr. dear. don't cry, little kitchener. bad as things are, they might be worse. the british line may be broken but the british navy is not. let us tie to that. i will take a brace and get up a bite to eat, for strength we must have." they made a pretence of eating susan's "bite," but it was only a pretence. nobody at ingleside ever forgot that black afternoon. gertrude oliver walked the floor--they all walked the floor; except susan, who got out her grey war sock. "mrs. dr. dear, i must knit on sunday at last. i have never dreamed of doing it before for, say what might be said, i have considered it was a violation of the third commandment. but whether it is or whether it is not i must knit today or i shall go mad." "knit if you can, susan," said mrs. blythe restlessly. "i would knit if i could--but i cannot--i cannot." "if we could only get fuller information," moaned rilla. "there might be something to encourage us--if we knew all." "we know that the germans are shelling paris," said miss oliver bitterly. "in that case they must have smashed through everywhere and be at the very gates. no, we have lost--let us face the fact as other peoples in the past have had to face it. other nations, with right on their side, have given their best and bravest--and gone down to defeat in spite of it. ours is 'but one more to baffled millions who have gone before.'" "i won't give up like that," cried rilla, her pale face suddenly flushing. "i won't despair. we are not conquered--no, if germany overruns all france we are not conquered. i am ashamed of myself for this hour of despair. you won't see me slump again like that, i'm going to ring up town at once and ask for particulars." but town could not be got. the long-distance operator there was submerged by similar calls from every part of the distracted country. rilla finally gave up and slipped away to rainbow valley. there she knelt down on the withered grey grasses in the little nook where she and walter had had their last talk together, with her head bowed against the mossy trunk of a fallen tree. the sun had broken through the black clouds and drenched the valley with a pale golden splendour. the bells on the tree lovers twinkled elfinly and fitfully in the gusty march wind. "oh god, give me strength," rilla whispered. "just strength--and courage." then like a child she clasped her hands together and said, as simply as jims could have done, "please send us better news tomorrow." she knelt there a long time, and when she went back to ingleside she was calm and resolute. the doctor had arrived home, tired but triumphant, little douglas haig marwood having made a safe landing on the shores of time. gertrude was still pacing restlessly but mrs. blythe and susan had reacted from the shock, and susan was already planning a new line of defence for the channel ports. "as long as we can hold them," she declared, "the situation is saved. paris has really no military significance." "don't," said gertrude sharply, as if susan had run something into her. she thought the old worn phrase 'no military significance' nothing short of ghastly mockery under the circumstances, and more terrible to endure than the voice of despair would have been. "i heard up at marwood's of the line being broken," said the doctor, "but this story of the germans shelling paris seems to be rather incredible. even if they broke through they were fifty miles from paris at the nearest point and how could they get their artillery close enough to shell it in so short a time? depend upon it, girls, that part of the message can't be true. i'm going to try to try a long-distance call to town myself." the doctor was no more successful than rilla had been, but his point of view cheered them all a little, and helped them through the evening. and at nine o'clock a long-distance message came through at last, that helped them through the night. "the line broke only in one place, before st. quentin," said the doctor, as he hung up the receiver, "and the british troops are retreating in good order. that's not so bad. as for the shells that are falling on paris, they are coming from a distance of seventy miles--from some amazing long-range gun the germans have invented and sprung with the opening offensive. that is all the news to date, and dr. holland says it is reliable." "it would have been dreadful news yesterday," said gertrude, "but compared to what we heard this morning it is almost like good news. but still," she added, trying to smile, "i am afraid i will not sleep much tonight." "there is one thing to be thankful for at any rate, miss oliver, dear," said susan, "and that is that cousin sophia did not come in today. i really could not have endured her on top of all the rest." chapter xxix "wounded and missing" "battered but not broken" was the headline in monday's paper, and susan repeated it over and over to herself as she went about her work. the gap caused by the st. quentin disaster had been patched up in time, but the allied line was being pushed relentlessly back from the territory they had purchased in 1917 with half a million lives. on wednesday the headline was "british and french check germans"; but still the retreat went on. back--and back--and back! where would it end? would the line break again--this time disastrously? on saturday the headline was "even berlin admits offensive checked," and for the first time in that terrible week the ingleside folk dared to draw a long breath. "well, we have got one week over--now for the next," said susan staunchly. "i feel like a prisoner on the rack when they stopped turning it," miss oliver said to rilla, as they went to church on easter morning. "but i am not off the rack. the torture may begin again at any time." "i doubted god last sunday," said rilla, "but i don't doubt him today. evil cannot win. spirit is on our side and it is bound to outlast flesh." nevertheless her faith was often tried in the dark spring that followed. armageddon was not, as they had hoped, a matter of a few days. it stretched out into weeks and months. again and again hindenburg struck his savage, sudden blows, with alarming, though futile success. again and again the military critics declared the situation extremely perilous. again and again cousin sophia agreed with the military critics. "if the allies go back three miles more the war is lost," she wailed. "is the british navy anchored in those three miles?" demanded susan scornfully. "it is the opinion of a man who knows all about it," said cousin sophia solemnly. "there is no such person," retorted susan. "as for the military critics, they do not know one blessed thing about it, any more than you or i. they have been mistaken times out of number. why do you always look on the dark side, sophia crawford?" "because there ain't any bright side, susan baker." "oh, is there not? it is the twentieth of april, and hindy is not in paris yet, although he said he would be there by april first. is that not a bright spot at least?" "it is my opinion that the germans will be in paris before very long and more than that, susan baker, they will be in canada." "not in this part of it. the huns shall never set foot in prince edward island as long as i can handle a pitchfork," declared susan, looking, and feeling quite equal to routing the entire german army single-handed. "no, sophia crawford, to tell you the plain truth i am sick and tired of your gloomy predictions. i do not deny that some mistakes have been made. the germans would never have got back passchendaele if the canadians had been left there; and it was bad business trusting to those portuguese at the lys river. but that is no reason why you or anyone should go about proclaiming the war is lost. i do not want to quarrel with you, least of all at such a time as this, but our morale must be kept up, and i am going to speak my mind out plainly and tell you that if you cannot keep from such croaking your room is better than your company." cousin sophia marched home in high dudgeon to digest her affront, and did not reappear in susan's kitchen for many weeks. perhaps it was just as well, for they were hard weeks, when the germans continued to strike, now here, now there, and seemingly vital points fell to them at every blow. and one day in early may, when wind and sunshine frolicked in rainbow valley and the maple grove was golden-green and the harbour all blue and dimpled and white-capped, the news came about jem. there had been a trench raid on the canadian front--a little trench raid so insignificant that it was never even mentioned in the dispatches and when it was over lieutenant james blythe was reported "wounded and missing." "i think this is even worse than the news of his death would have been," moaned rilla through her white lips, that night. "no--no--'missing' leaves a little hope, rilla," urged gertrude oliver. "yes--torturing, agonized hope that keeps you from ever becoming quite resigned to the worst," said rilla. "oh, miss oliver--must we go for weeks and months--not knowing whether jem is alive or dead? perhaps we will never know. i--i cannot bear it--i cannot. walter--and now jem. this will kill mother--look at her face, miss oliver, and you will see that. and faith--poor faith--how can she bear it?" gertrude shivered with pain. she looked up at the pictures hanging over rilla's desk and felt a sudden hatred of mona lisa's endless smile. "will not even this blot it off your face?" she thought savagely. but she said gently, "no, it won't kill your mother. she's made of finer mettle than that. besides, she refuses to believe jem is dead; she will cling to hope and we must all do that. faith, you may be sure, will do it." "i cannot," moaned rilla, "jem was wounded--what chance would he have? even if the germans found him--we know how they have treated wounded prisoners. i wish i could hope, miss oliver--it would help, i suppose. but hope seems dead in me. i can't hope without some reason for it--and there is no reason." when miss oliver had gone to her own room and rilla was lying on her bed in the moonlight, praying desperately for a little strength, susan stepped in like a gaunt shadow and sat down beside her. "rilla, dear, do not you worry. little jem is not dead." "oh, how can you believe that, susan?" "because i know. listen you to me. when that word came this morning the first thing i thought of was dog monday. and tonight, as soon as i got the supper dishes washed and the bread set, i went down to the station. there was dog monday, waiting for the train, just as patient as usual. now, rilla, dear, that trench raid was four days ago--last monday--and i said to the station-agent, 'can you tell me if that dog howled or made any kind of a fuss last monday night?' he thought it over a bit, and then he said, 'no, he did not.' 'are you sure?' i said. 'there's more depends on it than you think!' 'dead sure,' he said. 'i was up all night last monday night because my mare was sick, and there was never a sound out of him. i would have heard if there had been, for the stable door was open all the time and his kennel is right across from it!' now rilla dear, those were the man's very words. and you know how that poor little dog howled all night after the battle of courcelette. yet he did not love walter as much as he loved jem. if he mourned for walter like that, do you suppose he would sleep sound in his kennel the night after jem had been killed? no, rilla dear, little jem is not dead, and that you may tie to. if he were, dog monday would have known, just as he knew before, and he would not be still waiting for the trains." it was absurd--and irrational--and impossible. but rilla believed it, for all that; and mrs. blythe believed it; and the doctor, though he smiled faintly in pretended derision, felt an odd confidence replace his first despair; and foolish and absurd or not, they all plucked up heart and courage to carry on, just because a faithful little dog at the glen station was still watching with unbroken faith for his master to come home. common sense might scorn--incredulity might mutter "mere superstition"--but in their hearts the folk of ingleside stood by their belief that dog monday knew. chapter xxx the turning of the tide susan was very sorrowful when she saw the beautiful old lawn of ingleside ploughed up that spring and planted with potatoes. yet she made no protest, even when her beloved peony bed was sacrificed. but when the government passed the daylight saving law susan balked. there was a higher power than the union government, to which susan owed allegiance. "do you think it right to meddle with the arrangements of the almighty?" she demanded indignantly of the doctor. the doctor, quite unmoved, responded that the law must be observed, and the ingleside clocks were moved on accordingly. but the doctor had no power over susan's little alarm. "i bought that with my own money, mrs. dr. dear," she said firmly, "and it shall go on god's time and not borden's time." susan got up and went to bed by "god's time," and regulated her own goings and comings by it. she served the meals, under protest, by borden's time, and she had to go to church by it, which was the crowning injury. but she said her prayers by her own clock, and fed the hens by it; so that there was always a furtive triumph in her eye when she looked at the doctor. she had got the better of him by so much at least. "whiskers-on-the-moon is very much delighted with this daylight saving business," she told him one evening. "of course he naturally would be, since i understand that the germans invented it. i hear he came near losing his entire wheat-crop lately. warren mead's cows broke into the field one day last week--it was the very day the germans captured the chemang-de-dam, which may have been a coincidence or may not--and were making fine havoc of it when mrs. dick clow happened to see them from her attic window. at first she had no intention of letting mr. pryor know. she told me she had just gloated over the sight of those cows pasturing on his wheat. she felt it served him exactly right. but presently she reflected that the wheat-crop was a matter of great importance and that 'save and serve' meant that those cows must be routed out as much as it meant anything. so she went down and phoned over to whiskers about the matter. all the thanks she got was that he said something queer right out to her. she is not prepared to state that it was actually swearing for you cannot be sure just what you hear over the phone; but she has her own opinion, and so have i, but i will not express it for here comes mr. meredith, and whiskers is one of his elders, so we must be discreet." "are you looking for the new star?" asked mr. meredith, joining miss oliver and rilla, who were standing among the blossoming potatoes gazing skyward. "yes--we have found it--see, it is just above the tip of the tallest old pine." "it's wonderful to be looking at something that happened three thousand years ago, isn't it?" said rilla. "that is when astronomers think the collision took place which produced this new star. it makes me feel horribly insignificant," she added under her breath. "even this event cannot dwarf into what may be the proper perspective in star systems the fact that the germans are again only one leap from paris," said gertrude restlessly. "i think i would like to have been an astronomer," said mr. meredith dreamily, gazing at the star. "there must be a strange pleasure in it," agreed miss oliver, "an unearthly pleasure, in more senses than one. i would like to have a few astronomers for my friends." "fancy talking the gossip of the hosts of heaven," laughed rilla. "i wonder if astronomers feel a very deep interest in earthly affairs?" said the doctor. "perhaps students of the canals of mars would not be so keenly sensitive to the significance of a few yards of trenches lost or won on the western front." "i have read somewhere," said mr. meredith, "that ernest renan wrote one of his books during the siege of paris in 1870 and 'enjoyed the writing of it very much.' i suppose one would call him a philosopher." "i have read also," said miss oliver, "that shortly before his death he said that his only regret in dying was that he must die before he had seen what that 'extremely interesting young man, the german emperor,' would do in his life. if ernest renan 'walked' today and saw what that interesting young man had done to his beloved france, not to speak of the world, i wonder if his mental detachment would be as complete as it was in 1870." "i wonder where jem is tonight," thought rilla, in a sudden bitter inrush of remembrance. it was over a month since the news had come about jem. nothing had been discovered concerning him, in spite of all efforts. two or three letters had come from him, written before the trench raid, and since then there had been only unbroken silence. now the germans were again at the marne, pressing nearer and nearer paris; now rumours were coming of another austrian offensive against the piave line. rilla turned away from the new star, sick at heart. it was one of the moments when hope and courage failed her utterly--when it seemed impossible to go on even one more day. if only they knew what had happened to jem--you can face anything you know. but a beleaguerment of fear and doubt and suspense is a hard thing for the morale. surely, if jem were alive, some word would have come through. he must be dead. only--they would never know--they could never be quite sure; and dog monday would wait for the train until he died of old age. monday was only a poor, faithful, rheumatic little dog, who knew nothing more of his master's fate than they did. rilla had a "white night" and did not fall asleep until late. when she wakened gertrude oliver was sitting at her window leaning out to meet the silver mystery of the dawn. her clever, striking profile, with the masses of black hair behind it, came out clearly against the pallid gold of the eastern sky. rilla remembered jem's admiration of the curve of miss oliver's brow and chin, and she shuddered. everything that reminded her of jem was beginning to give intolerable pain. walter's death had inflicted on her heart a terrible wound. but it had been a clean wound and had healed slowly, as such wounds do, though the scar must remain for ever. but the torture of jem's disappearance was another thing: there was a poison in it that kept it from healing. the alternations of hope and despair, the endless watching each day for the letter that never came--that might never come--the newspaper tales of ill-usage of prisoners--the bitter wonder as to jem's wound--all were increasingly hard to bear. gertrude oliver turned her head. there was an odd brilliancy in her eyes. "rilla, i've had another dream." "oh, no--no," cried rilla, shrinking. miss oliver's dreams had always foretold coming disaster. "rilla, it was a good dream. listen--i dreamed just as i did four years ago, that i stood on the veranda steps and looked down the glen. and it was still covered by waves that lapped about my feet. but as i looked the waves began to ebb--and they ebbed as swiftly as, four years ago, they rolled in--ebbed out and out, to the gulf; and the glen lay before me, beautiful and green, with a rainbow spanning rainbow valley--a rainbow of such splendid colour that it dazzled me--and i woke. rilla--rilla blythe--the tide has turned." "i wish i could believe it," sighed rilla. "sooth was my prophecy of fear believe it when it augurs cheer," quoted gertrude, almost gaily. "i tell you i have no doubt." yet, in spite of the great italian victory at the piave that came a few days later, she had doubt many a time in the hard month that followed; and when in mid-july the germans crossed the marne again despair came sickeningly. it was idle, they all felt, to hope that the miracle of the marne would be repeated. but it was: again, as in 1914, the tide turned at the marne. the french and the american troops struck their sudden smashing blow on the exposed flank of the enemy and, with the almost inconceivable rapidity of a dream, the whole aspect of the war changed. "the allies have won two tremendous victories," said the doctor on 20th july. "it is the beginning of the end--i feel it--i feel it," said mrs. blythe. "thank god," said susan, folding her trembling old hands, then she added, under her breath, "but it won't bring our boys back." nevertheless she went out and ran up the flag, for the first time since the fall of jerusalem. as it caught the breeze and swelled gallantly out above her, susan lifted her hand and saluted it, as she had seen shirley do. "we've all given something to keep you flying," she said. "four hundred thousand of our boys gone overseas--fifty thousand of them killed. but--you are worth it!" the wind whipped her grey hair about her face and the gingham apron that shrouded her from head to foot was cut on lines of economy, not of grace; yet, somehow, just then susan made an imposing figure. she was one of the women--courageous, unquailing, patient, heroic--who had made victory possible. in her, they all saluted the symbol for which their dearest had fought. something of this was in the doctor's mind as he watched her from the door. "susan," he said, when she turned to come in, "from first to last of this business you have been a brick!" chapter xxxi mrs. matilda pittman rilla and jims were standing on the rear platform of their car when the train stopped at the little millward siding. the august evening was so hot and close that the crowded cars were stifling. nobody ever knew just why trains stopped at millward siding. nobody was ever known to get off there or get on. there was only one house nearer to it than four miles, and it was surrounded by acres of blueberry barrens and scrub spruce-trees. rilla was on her way into charlottetown to spend the night with a friend and the next day in red cross shopping; she had taken jims with her, partly because she did not want susan or her mother to be bothered with his care, partly because of a hungry desire in her heart to have as much of him as she could before she might have to give him up forever. james anderson had written to her not long before this; he was wounded and in the hospital; he would not be able to go back to the front and as soon as he was able he would be coming home for jims. rilla was heavy-hearted over this, and worried also. she loved jims dearly and would feel deeply giving him up in any case; but if jim anderson were a different sort of a man, with a proper home for the child, it would not be so bad. but to give jims up to a roving, shiftless, irresponsible father, however kind and good-hearted he might be--and she knew jim anderson was kind and good-hearted enough--was a bitter prospect to rilla. it was not even likely anderson would stay in the glen; he had no ties there now; he might even go back to england. she might never see her dear, sunshiny, carefully brought-up little jims again. with such a father what might his fate be? rilla meant to beg jim anderson to leave him with her, but, from his letter, she had not much hope that he would. "if he would only stay in the glen, where i could keep an eye on jims and have him often with me i wouldn't feel so worried over it," she reflected. "but i feel sure he won't--and jims will never have any chance. and he is such a bright little chap--he has ambition, wherever he got it--and he isn't lazy. but his father will never have a cent to give him any education or start in life. jims, my little war-baby, whatever is going to become of you?" jims was not in the least concerned over what was to become of him. he was gleefully watching the antics of a striped chipmunk that was frisking over the roof of the little siding. as the train pulled out jims leaned eagerly forward for a last look at chippy, pulling his hand from rilla's. rilla was so engrossed in wondering what was to become of jims in the future that she forgot to take notice of what was happening to him in the present. what did happen was that jims lost his balance, shot headlong down the steps, hurtled across the little siding platform, and landed in a clump of bracken fern on the other side. rilla shrieked and lost her head. she sprang down the steps and jumped off the train. fortunately, the train was still going at a comparatively slow speed; fortunately also, rilla retained enough sense to jump the way it was going; nevertheless, she fell and sprawled helplessly down the embankment, landing in a ditch full of a rank growth of golden-rod and fireweed. nobody had seen what had happened and the train whisked briskly away round a curve in the barrens. rilla picked herself up, dizzy but unhurt, scrambled out of the ditch, and flew wildly across the platform, expecting to find jims dead or broken in pieces. but jims, except for a few bruises, and a big fright, was quite uninjured. he was so badly scared that he didn't even cry, but rilla, when she found that he was safe and sound, burst into tears and sobbed wildly. "nasty old twain," remarked jims in disgust. "and nasty old god," he added, with a scowl at the heavens. a laugh broke into rilla's sobbing, producing something very like what her father would have called hysterics. but she caught herself up before the hysteria could conquer her. "rilla blythe, i'm ashamed of you. pull yourself together immediately. jims, you shouldn't have said anything like that." "god frew me off the twain," declared jims defiantly. "somebody frew me; you didn't frow me; so it was god." "no, it wasn't. you fell because you let go of my hand and bent too far forward. i told you not to do that. so that it was your own fault." jims looked to see if she meant it; then glanced up at the sky again. "excuse me, then, god," he remarked airily. rilla scanned the sky also; she did not like its appearance; a heavy thundercloud was appearing in the northwest. what in the world was to be done? there was no other train that night, since the nine o'clock special ran only on saturdays. would it be possible for them to reach hannah brewster's house, two miles away, before the storm broke? rilla thought she could do it alone easily enough, but with jims it was another matter. were his little legs good for it? "we've got to try it," said rilla desperately. "we might stay in the siding until the thunderstorm is over; but it may keep on raining all night and anyway it will be pitch dark. if we can get to hannah's she will keep us all night." hannah brewster, when she had been hannah crawford, had lived in the glen and gone to school with rilla. they had been good friends then, though hannah had been three years the older. she had married very young and had gone to live in millward. what with hard work and babies and a ne'er-do-well husband, her life had not been an easy one, and hannah seldom revisited her old home. rilla had visited her once soon after her marriage, but had not seen her or even heard of her for years; she knew, however, that she and jims would find welcome and harbourage in any house where rosy-faced, open-hearted, generous hannah lived. for the first mile they got on very well but the second one was harder. the road, seldom used, was rough and deep-rutted. jims grew so tired that rilla had to carry him for the last quarter. she reached the brewster house, almost exhausted, and dropped jims on the walk with a sigh of thankfulness. the sky was black with clouds; the first heavy drops were beginning to fall; and the rumble of thunder was growing very loud. then she made an unpleasant discovery. the blinds were all down and the doors locked. evidently the brewsters were not at home. rilla ran to the little barn. it, too, was locked. no other refuge presented itself. the bare whitewashed little house had not even a veranda or porch. it was almost dark now and her plight seemed desperate. "i'm going to get in if i have to break a window," said rilla resolutely. "hannah would want me to do that. she'd never get over it if she heard i came to her house for refuge in a thunderstorm and couldn't get in." luckily she did not have to go to the length of actual housebreaking. the kitchen window went up quite easily. rilla lifted jims in and scrambled through herself, just as the storm broke in good earnest. "oh, see all the little pieces of thunder," cried jims in delight, as the hail danced in after them. rilla shut the window and with some difficulty found and lighted a lamp. they were in a very snug little kitchen. opening off it on one side was a trim, nicely furnished parlour, and on the other a pantry, which proved to be well stocked. "i'm going to make myself at home," said rilla. "i know that is just what hannah would want me to do. i'll get a little snack for jims and me, and then if the rain continues and nobody comes home i'll just go upstairs to the spare room and go to bed. there is nothing like acting sensibly in an emergency. if i had not been a goose when i saw jims fall off the train i'd have rushed back into the car and got some one to stop it. then i wouldn't have been in this scrape. since i am in it i'll make the best of it. "this house," she added, looking around, "is fixed up much nicer than when i was here before. of course hannah and ted were just beginning housekeeping then. but somehow i've had the idea that ted hasn't been very prosperous. he must have done better than i've been led to believe, when they can afford furniture like this. i'm awfully glad for hannah's sake." the thunderstorm passed, but the rain continued to fall heavily. at eleven o'clock rilla decided that nobody was coming home. jims had fallen asleep on the sofa; she carried him up to the spare room and put him to bed. then she undressed, put on a nightgown she found in the washstand drawer, and scrambled sleepily in between very nice lavender-scented sheets. she was so tired, after her adventures and exertions, that not even the oddity of her situation could keep her awake; she was sound asleep in a few minutes. rilla slept until eight o'clock the next morning and then wakened with startling suddenness. somebody was saying in a harsh, gruff voice, "here, you two, wake up. i want to know what this means." rilla did wake up, promptly and effectually. she had never in all her life wakened up so thoroughly before. standing in the room were three people, one of them a man, who were absolute strangers to her. the man was a big fellow with a bushy black beard and an angry scowl. beside him was a woman--a tall, thin, angular person, with violently red hair and an indescribable hat. she looked even crosser and more amazed than the man, if that were possible. in the background was another woman--a tiny old lady who must have been at least eighty. she was, in spite of her tinyness, a very striking-looking personage; she was dressed in unrelieved black, had snow-white hair, a dead-white face, and snapping, vivid, coal-black eyes. she looked as amazed as the other two, but rilla realized that she didn't look cross. rilla also was realizing that something was wrong--fearfully wrong. then the man said, more gruffly than ever, "come now. who are you and what business have you here?" rilla raised herself on one elbow, looking and feeling hopelessly bewildered and foolish. she heard the old black-and-white lady in the background chuckle to herself. "she must be real," rilla thought. "i can't be dreaming her." aloud she gasped, "isn't this theodore brewster's place?" "no," said the big woman, speaking for the first time, "this place belongs to us. we bought it from the brewsters last fall. they moved to greenvale. our name is chapley." poor rilla fell back on her pillow, quite overcome. "i beg your pardon," she said. "i--i--thought the brewsters lived here. mrs. brewster is a friend of mine. i am rilla blythe--dr. blythe's daughter from glen st. mary. i--i was going to town with my--my--this little boy--and he fell off the train--and i jumped off after him--and nobody knew of it. i knew we couldn't get home last night and a storm was coming up--so we came here and when we found nobody at home--we--we--just got in through the window and--and--made ourselves at home." "so it seems," said the woman sarcastically. "a likely story," said the man. "we weren't born yesterday," added the woman. madam black-and-white didn't say anything; but when the other two made their pretty speeches she doubled up in a silent convulsion of mirth, shaking her head from side to side and beating the air with her hands. rilla, stung by the disagreeable attitude of the chapleys, regained her self-possession and lost her temper. she sat up in bed and said in her haughtiest voice, "i do not know when you were born, or where, but it must have been somewhere where very peculiar manners were taught. if you will have the decency to leave my room--er--this room--until i can get up and dress i shall not transgress upon your hospitality"--rilla was killingly sarcastic--"any longer. and i shall pay you amply for the food we have eaten and the night's lodging i have taken." the black-and-white apparition went through the motion of clapping her hands, but not a sound did she make. perhaps mr. chapley was cowed by rilla's tone--or perhaps he was appeased at the prospect of payment; at all events, he spoke more civilly. "well, that's fair. if you pay up it's all right." "she shall do no such thing as pay you," said madam black-and-white in a surprisingly clear, resolute, authoritative tone of voice. "if you haven't got any shame for yourself, robert chapley, you've got a mother-in-law who can be ashamed for you. no strangers shall be charged for room and lodging in any house where mrs. matilda pitman lives. remember that, though i may have come down in the world, i haven't quite forgot all decency for all that. i knew you was a skinflint when amelia married you, and you've made her as bad as yourself. but mrs. matilda pitman has been boss for a long time, and mrs. matilda pitman will remain boss. here you, robert chapley, take yourself out of here and let that girl get dressed. and you, amelia, go downstairs and cook a breakfast for her." never, in all her life, had rilla seen anything like the abject meekness with which those two big people obeyed that mite. they went without word or look of protest. as the door closed behind them mrs. matilda pitman laughed silently, and rocked from side to side in her merriment. "ain't it funny?" she said. "i mostly lets them run the length of their tether, but sometimes i has to pull them up, and then i does it with a jerk. they don't dast aggravate me, because i've got considerable hard cash, and they're afraid i won't leave it all to them. neither i will. i'll leave 'em some, but some i won't, just to vex 'em. i haven't made up my mind where i will leave it but i'll have to, soon, for at eighty a body is living on borrowed time. now, you can take your time about dressing, my dear, and i'll go down and keep them mean scallawags in order. that's a handsome child you have there. is he your brother?" "no, he's a little war-baby i've been taking care of, because his mother died and his father was overseas," answered rilla in a subdued tone. "war-baby! humph! well, i'd better skin out before he wakes up or he'll likely start crying. children don't like me--never did. i can't recollect any youngster ever coming near me of its own accord. never had any of my own. amelia was my step-daughter. well, it's saved me a world of bother. if kids don't like me i don't like them, so that's an even score. but that certainly is a handsome child." jims chose this moment for waking up. he opened his big brown eyes and looked at mrs. matilda pitman unblinkingly. then he sat up, dimpled deliciously, pointed to her and said solemnly to rilla, "pwitty lady, willa, pwitty lady." mrs. matilda pitman smiled. even eighty-odd is sometimes vulnerable in vanity. "i've heard that children and fools tell the truth," she said. "i was used to compliments when i was young--but they're scarcer when you get as far along as i am. i haven't had one for years. it tastes good. i s'pose now, you monkey, you wouldn't give me a kiss." then jims did a quite surprising thing. he was not a demonstrative youngster and was chary with kisses even to the ingleside people. but without a word he stood up in bed, his plump little body encased only in his undershirt, ran to the footboard, flung his arms about mrs. matilda pitman's neck, and gave her a bear hug, accompanied by three or four hearty, ungrudging smacks. "jims," protested rilla, aghast at this liberty. "you leave him be," ordered mrs. matilda pitman, setting her bonnet straight. "laws i like to see some one that isn't skeered of me. everybody is--you are, though you're trying to hide it. and why? of course robert and amelia are because i make 'em skeered on purpose. but folks always are--no matter how civil i be to them. are you going to keep this child?" "i'm afraid not. his father is coming home before long." "is he any good--the father, i mean?" "well--he's kind and nice--but he's poor--and i'm afraid he always will be," faltered rilla. "i see--shiftless--can't make or keep. well, i'll see--i'll see. i have an idea. it's a good idea, and besides it will make robert and amelia squirm. that's its main merit in my eyes, though i like that child, mind you, because he ain't skeered of me. he's worth some bother. now, you get dressed, as i said before, and come down when you're good and ready." rilla was stiff and sore after her tumble and walk of the night before but she was not long in dressing herself and jims. when she went down to the kitchen she found a smoking hot breakfast on the table. mr. chapley was nowhere in sight and mrs. chapley was cutting bread with a sulky air. mrs. matilda pitman was sitting in an armchair, knitting a grey army sock. she still wore her bonnet and her triumphant expression. "set right in, dears, and make a good breakfast," she said. "i am not hungry," said rilla almost pleadingly. "i don't think i can eat anything. and it is time i was starting for the station. the morning train will soon be along. please excuse me and let us go--i'll take a piece of bread and butter for jims." mrs. matilda pitman shook a knitting-needle playfully at rilla. "sit down and take your breakfast," she said. "mrs. matilda pitman commands you. everybody obeys mrs. matilda pitman--even robert and amelia. you must obey her too." rilla did obey her. she sat down and, such was the influence of mrs. matilda pitman's mesmeric eye, she ate a tolerable breakfast. the obedient amelia never spoke; mrs. matilda pitman did not speak either; but she knitted furiously and chuckled. when rilla had finished, mrs. matilda pitman rolled up her sock. "now you can go if you want to," she said, "but you don't have to go. you can stay here as long as you want to and i'll make amelia cook your meals for you." the independent miss blythe, whom a certain clique of junior red cross girls accused of being domineering and "bossy," was thoroughly cowed. "thank you," she said meekly, "but we must really go." "well, then," said mrs. matilda pitman, throwing open the door, "your conveyance is ready for you. i told robert he must hitch up and drive you to the station. i enjoy making robert do things. it's almost the only sport i have left. i'm over eighty and most things have lost their flavour except bossing robert." robert sat before the door on the front seat of a trim, double-seated, rubber-tired buggy. he must have heard every word his mother-in-law said but he gave no sign. "i do wish," said rilla, plucking up what little spirit she had left, "that you would let me--oh--ah--" then she quailed again before mrs. matilda pitman's eye--"recompense you for--for--" "mrs. matilda pitman said before--and meant it--that she doesn't take pay for entertaining strangers, nor let other people where she lives do it, much as their natural meanness would like to do it. you go along to town and don't forget to call the next time you come this way. don't be scared. not that you are scared of much, i reckon, considering the way you sassed robert back this morning. i like your spunk. most girls nowadays are such timid, skeery creeturs. when i was a girl i wasn't afraid of nothing nor nobody. mind you take good care of that boy. he ain't any common child. and make robert drive round all the puddles in the road. i won't have that new buggy splashed." as they drove away jims threw kisses at mrs. matilda pitman as long as he could see her, and mrs. matilda pitman waved her sock back at him. robert spoke no word, either good or bad, all the way to the station, but he remembered the puddles. when rilla got out at the siding she thanked him courteously. the only response she got was a grunt as robert turned his horse and started for home. "well"--rilla drew a long breath--"i must try to get back into rilla blythe again. i've been somebody else these past few hours--i don't know just who--some creation of that extraordinary old person's. i believe she hypnotized me. what an adventure this will be to write the boys." and then she sighed. bitter remembrance came that there were only jerry, ken, carl and shirley to write it to now. jem--who would have appreciated mrs. matilda pitman keenly--where was jem? chapter xxxii word from jem 4th august 1918 "it is four years tonight since the dance at the lighthouse--four years of war. it seems like three times four. i was fifteen then. i am nineteen now. i expected that these past four years would be the most delightful years of my life and they have been years of war--years of fear and grief and worry--but i humbly hope, of a little growth in strength and character as well. "today i was going through the hall and i heard mother saying something to father about me. i didn't mean to listen--i couldn't help hearing her as i went along the hall and upstairs--so perhaps that is why i heard what listeners are said never to hear--something good of myself. and because it was mother who said it i'm going to write it here in my journal, for my comforting when days of discouragement come upon me, in which i feel that i am vain and selfish and weak and that there is no good thing in me. "'rilla has developed in a wonderful fashion these past four years. she used to be such an irresponsible young creature. she has changed into a capable, womanly girl and she is such a comfort to me. nan and di have grown a little away from me--they have been so little at home--but rilla has grown closer and closer to me. we are chums. i don't see how i could have got through these terrible years without her, gilbert.' "there, that is just what mother said--and i feel glad--and sorry--and proud--and humble! it's beautiful to have my mother think that about me--but i don't deserve it quite. i'm not as good and strong as all that. there are heaps of times when i have felt cross and impatient and woeful and despairing. it is mother and susan who have been this family's backbone. but i have helped a little, i believe, and i am so glad and thankful. "the war news has been good right along. the french and americans are pushing the germans back and back and back. sometimes i am afraid it is too good to last--after nearly four years of disasters one has a feeling that this constant success is unbelievable. we don't rejoice noisily over it. susan keeps the flag up but we go softly. the price paid has been too high for jubilation. we are just thankful that it has not been paid in vain. "no word has come from jem. we hope--because we dare not do anything else. but there are hours when we all feel--though we never say so--that such hoping is foolishness. these hours come more and more frequently as the weeks go by. and we may never know. that is the most terrible thought of all. i wonder how faith is bearing it. to judge from her letters she has never for a moment given up hope, but she must have had her dark hours of doubt like the rest of us." 20th august 1918 "the canadians have been in action again and mr. meredith had a cable today saying that carl had been slightly wounded and is in the hospital. it did not say where the wound was, which is unusual, and we all feel worried. there is news of a fresh victory every day now." 30th august 1918 "the merediths had a letter from carl today. his wound was "only a slight one"--but it was in his right eye and the sight is gone for ever! "'one eye is enough to watch bugs with,' carl writes cheerfully. and we know it might have been oh so much worse! if it had been both eyes! but i cried all the afternoon after i saw carl's letter. those beautiful, fearless blue eyes of his! "there is one comfort--he will not have to go back to the front. he is coming home as soon as he is out of the hospital--the first of our boys to return. when will the others come? "and there is one who will never come. at least we will not see him if he does. but, oh, i think he will be there--when our canadian soldiers return there will be a shadow army with them--the army of the fallen. we will not see them--but they will be there!" 1st september 1918 "mother and i went into charlottetown yesterday to see the moving picture, "hearts of the world." i made an awful goose of myself--father will never stop teasing me about it for the rest of my life. but it all seemed so horribly real--and i was so intensely interested that i forgot everything but the scenes i saw enacted before my eyes. and then, quite near the last came a terribly exciting one. the heroine was struggling with a horrible german soldier who was trying to drag her away. i knew she had a knife--i had seen her hide it, to have it in readiness--and i couldn't understand why she didn't produce it and finish the brute. i thought she must have forgotten it, and just at the tensest moment of the scene i lost my head altogether. i just stood right up on my feet in that crowded house and shrieked at the top of my voice--'the knife is in your stocking--the knife is in your stocking!' "i created a sensation! "the funny part was, that just as i said it, the girl did snatch out the knife and stab the soldier with it! "everybody in the house laughed. i came to my senses and fell back in my seat, overcome with mortification. mother was shaking with laughter. i could have shaken her. why hadn't she pulled me down and choked me before i had made such an idiot of myself. she protests that there wasn't time. "fortunately the house was dark, and i don't believe there was anybody there who knew me. and i thought i was becoming sensible and self-controlled and womanly! it is plain i have some distance to go yet before i attain that devoutly desired consummation." 20th september 1918 "in the east bulgaria has asked for peace, and in the west the british have smashed the hindenburg line; and right here in glen st. mary little bruce meredith has done something that i think wonderful--wonderful because of the love behind it. mrs. meredith was here tonight and told us about it--and mother and i cried, and susan got up and clattered the things about the stove. "bruce always loved jem very devotedly, and the child has never forgotten him in all these years. he has been as faithful in his way as dog monday was in his. we have always told him that jem would come back. but it seems that he was in carter flagg's store last night and he heard his uncle norman flatly declaring that jem blythe would never come back and that the ingleside folk might as well give up hoping he would. bruce went home and cried himself to sleep. this morning his mother saw him going out of the yard, with a very sorrowful and determined look, carrying his pet kitten. she didn't think much more about it until later on he came in, with the most tragic little face, and told her, his little body shaking with sobs, that he had drowned stripey. "'why did you do that?' mrs. meredith exclaimed. "'to bring jem back,' sobbed bruce. 'i thought if i sacrificed stripey god would send jem back. so i drownded him--and, oh mother, it was awful hard--but surely god will send jem back now, 'cause stripey was the dearest thing i had. i just told god i would give him stripey if he would send jem back. and he will, won't he, mother?' "mrs. meredith didn't know what to say to the poor child. she just could not tell him that perhaps his sacrifice wouldn't bring jem back--that god didn't work that way. she told him that he mustn't expect it right away--that perhaps it would be quite a long time yet before jem came back. "but bruce said, 'it oughtn't to take longer'n a week, mother. oh, mother, stripey was such a nice little cat. he purred so pretty. don't you think god ought to like him enough to let us have jem?" "mr. meredith is worried about the effect on bruce's faith in god, and mrs. meredith is worried about the effect on bruce himself if his hope isn't fulfilled. and i feel as if i must cry every time i think of it. it was so splendid--and sad--and beautiful. the dear devoted little fellow! he worshipped that kitten. and if it all goes for nothing--as so many sacrifices seem to go for nothing--he will be brokenhearted, for he isn't old enough to understand that god doesn't answer our prayers just as we hope--and doesn't make bargains with us when we yield something we love up to him." 24th september 1918 "i have been kneeling at my window in the moonshine for a long time, just thanking god over and over again. the joy of last night and today has been so great that it seemed half pain--as if our hearts weren't big enough to hold it. "last night i was sitting here in my room at eleven o'clock writing a letter to shirley. every one else was in bed, except father, who was out. i heard the telephone ring and i ran out to the hall to answer it, before it should waken mother. it was long-distance calling, and when i answered it said 'this is the telegraph company's office in charlottetown. there is an overseas cable for dr. blythe.' "i thought of shirley--my heart stood still--and then i heard him saying, 'it's from holland.' "the message was, 'just arrived. escaped from germany. quite well. writing. james blythe.' "i didn't faint or fall or scream. i didn't feel glad or surprised. i didn't feel anything. i felt numb, just as i did when i heard walter had enlisted. i hung up the receiver and turned round. mother was standing in her doorway. she wore her old rose kimono, and her hair was hanging down her back in a long thick braid, and her eyes were shining. she looked just like a young girl. "'there is word from jem?' she said. "how did she know? i hadn't said a word at the phone except 'yes--yes--yes.' she says she doesn't know how she knew, but she did know. she was awake and she heard the ring and she knew that there was word from jem. "'he's alive--he's well--he's in holland,' i said. "mother came out into the hall and said, 'i must get your father on the 'phone and tell him. he is in the upper glen.' "she was very calm and quiet--not a bit like i would have expected her to be. but then i wasn't either. i went and woke up gertrude and susan and told them. susan said 'thank god,' firstly, and secondly she said 'did i not tell you dog monday knew?' and thirdly, 'i'll go down and make a cup of tea'--and she stalked down in her nightdress to make it. she did make it--and made mother and gertrude drink it--but i went back to my room and shut my door and locked it, and i knelt by my window and cried--just as gertrude did when her great news came. "i think i know at last exactly what i shall feel like on the resurrection morning." 4th october 1918 "today jem's letter came. it has been in the house only six hours and it is almost read to pieces. the post-mistress told everybody in the glen it had come, and everybody came up to hear the news. "jem was badly wounded in the thigh--and he was picked up and taken to prison, so delirious with fever that he didn't know what was happening to him or where he was. it was weeks before he came to his senses and was able to write. then he did write--but it never came. he wasn't treated at all badly at his camp--only the food was poor. he had nothing to eat but a little black bread and boiled turnips and now and then a little soup with black peas in it. and we sat down every one of those days to three good square luxurious meals! he wrote us as often as he could but he was afraid we were not getting his letters because no reply came. as soon as he was strong enough he tried to escape, but was caught and brought back; a month later he and a comrade made another attempt and succeeded in reaching holland. "jem can't come home right away. he isn't quite so well as his cable said, for his wound has not healed properly and he has to go into a hospital in england for further treatment. but he says he will be all right eventually, and we know he is safe and will be back home sometime, and oh, the difference it makes in everything! "i had a letter from jim anderson today, too. he has married an english girl, got his discharge, and is coming right home to canada with his bride. i don't know whether to be glad or sorry. it will depend on what kind of a woman she is. i had a second letter also of a somewhat mysterious tenor. it is from a charlottetown lawyer, asking me to go in to see him at my earliest convenience in regard to a certain matter connected with the estate of the 'late mrs. matilda pitman.' "i read a notice of mrs. pitman's death--from heart failure--in the enterprise a few weeks ago. i wonder if this summons has anything to do with jims." 5th october 1918 "i went into town this morning and had an interview with mrs. pitman's lawyer--a little thin, wispy man, who spoke of his late client with such a profound respect that it is evident that he as was much under her thumb as robert and amelia were. he drew up a new will for her a short time before her death. she was worth thirty thousand dollars, the bulk of which was left to amelia chapley. but she left five thousand to me in trust for jims. the interest is to be used as i see fit for his education, and the principal is to be paid over to him on his twentieth birthday. certainly jims was born lucky. i saved him from slow extinction at the hands of mrs. conover--mary vance saved him from death by diptheritic croup--his star saved him when he fell off the train. and he tumbled not only into a clump of bracken, but right into this nice little legacy. "evidently, as mrs. matilda pitman said, and as i have always believed, he is no common child and he has no common destiny in store for him. "at all events he is provided for, and in such a fashion that jim anderson can't squander his inheritance if he wanted to. now, if the new english stepmother is only a good sort i shall feel quite easy about the future of my war-baby. "i wonder what robert and amelia think of it. i fancy they will nail down their windows when they leave home after this!" chapter xxxiii victory! "a day 'of chilling winds and gloomy skies,'" rilla quoted one sunday afternoon--the sixth of october to be exact. it was so cold that they had lighted a fire in the living-room and the merry little flames were doing their best to counteract the outside dourness. "it's more like november than october--november is such an ugly month." cousin sophia was there, having again forgiven susan, and mrs. martin clow, who was not visiting on sunday but had dropped in to borrow susan's cure for rheumatism--that being cheaper than getting one from the doctor. "i'm afeared we're going to have an airly winter," foreboded cousin sophia. "the muskrats are building awful big houses round the pond, and that's a sign that never fails. dear me, how that child has grown!" cousin sophia sighed again, as if it were an unhappy circumstance that a child should grow. "when do you expect his father?" "next week," said rilla. "well, i hope the stepmother won't abuse the pore child," sighed cousin sophia, "but i have my doubts--i have my doubts. anyhow, he'll be sure to feel the difference between his usage here and what he'll get anywhere else. you've spoiled him so, rilla, waiting on him hand and foot the way you've always done." rilla smiled and pressed her cheek to jims' curls. she knew sweet-tempered, sunny, little jims was not spoiled. nevertheless her heart was anxious behind her smile. she, too, thought much about the new mrs. anderson and wondered uneasily what she would be like. "i can't give jims up to a woman who won't love him," she thought rebelliously. "i b'lieve it's going to rain," said cousin sophia. "we have had an awful lot of rain this fall already. it's going to make it awful hard for people to get their roots in. it wasn't so in my young days. we gin'rally had beautiful octobers then. but the seasons is altogether different now from what they used to be." clear across cousin sophia's doleful voice cut the telephone bell. gertrude oliver answered it. "yes--what? what? is it true--is it official? thank you--thank you." gertrude turned and faced the room dramatically, her dark eyes flashing, her dark face flushed with feeling. all at once the sun broke through the thick clouds and poured through the big crimson maple outside the window. its reflected glow enveloped her in a weird immaterial flame. she looked like a priestess performing some mystic, splendid rite. "germany and austria are suing for peace," she said. rilla went crazy for a few minutes. she sprang up and danced around the room, clapping her hands, laughing, crying. "sit down, child," said mrs. clow, who never got excited over anything, and so had missed a tremendous amount of trouble and delight in her journey through life. "oh," cried rilla, "i have walked the floor for hours in despair and anxiety in these past four years. now let me walk in joy. it was worth living long dreary years for this minute, and it would be worth living them again just to look back to it. susan, let's run up the flag--and we must phone the news to every one in the glen." "can we have as much sugar as we want to now?" asked jims eagerly. it was a never-to-be-forgotten afternoon. as the news spread excited people ran about the village and dashed up to ingleside. the merediths came over and stayed to supper and everybody talked and nobody listened. cousin sophia tried to protest that germany and austria were not to be trusted and it was all part of a plot, but nobody paid the least attention to her. "this sunday makes up for that one in march," said susan. "i wonder," said gertrude dreamily, apart to rilla, "if things won't seem rather flat and insipid when peace really comes. after being fed for four years on horrors and fears, terrible reverses, amazing victories, won't anything less be tame and uninteresting? how strange--and blessed--and dull it will be not to dread the coming of the mail every day." "we must dread it for a little while yet, i suppose," said rilla. "peace won't come--can't come--for some weeks yet. and in those weeks dreadful things may happen. my excitement is over. we have won the victory--but oh, what a price we have paid!" "not too high a price for freedom," said gertrude softly. "do you think it was, rilla?" "no," said rilla, under her breath. she was seeing a little white cross on a battlefield of france. "no--not if those of us who live will show ourselves worthy of it--if we 'keep faith.'" "we will keep faith," said gertrude. she rose suddenly. a silence fell around the table, and in the silence gertrude repeated walter's famous poem "the piper." when she finished mr. meredith stood up and held up his glass. "let us drink," he said, "to the silent army--to the boys who followed when the piper summoned. 'for our tomorrow they gave their today'--theirs is the victory!" chapter xxxiv mr. hyde goes to his own place and susan takes a honeymoon early in november jims left ingleside. rilla saw him go with many tears but a heart free from boding. mrs. jim anderson, number two, was such a nice little woman that one was rather inclined to wonder at the luck which bestowed her on jim. she was rosy-faced and blue-eyed and wholesome, with the roundness and trigness of a geranium leaf. rilla saw at first glance that she was to be trusted with jims. "i'm fond of children, miss," she said heartily. "i'm used to them--i've left six little brothers and sisters behind me. jims is a dear child and i must say you've done wonders in bringing him up so healthy and handsome. i'll be as good to him as if he was my own, miss. and i'll make jim toe the line all right. he's a good worker--all he needs is some one to keep him at it, and to take charge of his money. we've rented a little farm just out of the village, and we're going to settle down there. jim wanted to stay in england but i says 'no.' i hankered to try a new country and i've always thought canada would suit me." "i'm so glad you are going to live near us. you'll let jims come here often, won't you? i love him dearly." "no doubt you do, miss, for a lovabler child i never did see. we understand, jim and me, what you've done for him, and you won't find us ungrateful. he can come here whenever you want him and i'll always be glad of any advice from you about his bringing up. he is more your baby than anyone else's i should say, and i'll see that you get your fair share of him, miss." so jims went away--with the soup tureen, though not in it. then the news of the armistice came, and even glen st. mary went mad. that night the village had a bonfire, and burned the kaiser in effigy. the fishing village boys turned out and burned all the sandhills off in one grand glorious conflagration that extended for seven miles. up at ingleside rilla ran laughing to her room. "now i'm going to do a most unladylike and inexcusable thing," she said, as she pulled her green velvet hat out of its box. "i'm going to kick this hat about the room until it is without form and void; and i shall never as long as i live wear anything of that shade of green again." "you've certainly kept your vow pluckily," laughed miss oliver. "it wasn't pluck--it was sheer obstinacy--i'm rather ashamed of it," said rilla, kicking joyously. "i wanted to show mother. it's mean to want to show your own mother--most unfilial conduct! but i have shown her. and i've shown myself a few things! oh, miss oliver, just for one moment i'm really feeling quite young again--young and frivolous and silly. did i ever say november was an ugly month? why it's the most beautiful month in the whole year. listen to the bells ringing in rainbow valley! i never heard them so clearly. they're ringing for peace--and new happiness--and all the dear, sweet, sane, homey things that we can have again now, miss oliver. not that i am sane just now--i don't pretend to be. the whole world is having a little crazy spell today. soon we'll sober down--and 'keep faith'--and begin to build up our new world. but just for today let's be mad and glad." susan came in from the outdoor sunlight looking supremely satisfied. "mr. hyde is gone," she announced. "gone! do you mean he is dead, susan?" "no, mrs. dr. dear, that beast is not dead. but you will never see him again. i feel sure of that." "don't be so mysterious, susan. what has happened to him?" "well, mrs. dr. dear, he was sitting out on the back steps this afternoon. it was just after the news came that the armistice had been signed and he was looking his hydest. i can assure you he was an awesome looking beast. all at once, mrs. dr. dear, bruce meredith came around the corner of the kitchen walking on his stilts. he has been learning to walk on them lately and came over to show me how well he could do it. mr. hyde just took a look and one bound carried him over the yard fence. then he went tearing through the maple grove in great leaps with his ears laid back. you never saw a creature so terrified, mrs. dr. dear. he has never returned." "oh, he'll come back, susan, probably chastened in spirit by his fright." "we will see, mrs. dr. dear--we will see. remember, the armistice has been signed. and that reminds me that whiskers-on-the-moon had a paralytic stroke last night. i am not saying it is a judgment on him, because i am not in the counsels of the almighty, but one can have one's own thoughts about it. neither whiskers-on-the-moon or mr. hyde will be much more heard of in glen st. mary, mrs. dr. dear, and that you may tie to." mr. hyde certainly was heard of no more. as it could hardly have been his fright that kept him away the ingleside folk decided that some dark fate of shot or poison had descended on him--except susan, who believed and continued to affirm that he had merely "gone to his own place." rilla lamented him, for she had been very fond of her stately golden pussy, and had liked him quite as well in his weird hyde moods as in his tame jekyll ones. "and now, mrs. dr. dear," said susan, "since the fall house-cleaning is over and the garden truck is all safe in cellar, i am going to take a honeymoon to celebrate the peace." "a honeymoon, susan?" "yes, mrs. dr. dear, a honeymoon," repeated susan firmly. "i shall never be able to get a husband but i am not going to be cheated out of everything and a honeymoon i intend to have. i am going to charlottetown to visit my married brother and his family. his wife has been ailing all the fall, but nobody knows whether she is going to die not. she never did tell anyone what she was going to do until she did it. that is the main reason why she was never liked in our family. but to be on the safe side i feel that i should visit her. i have not been in town for over a day for twenty years and i have a feeling that i might as well see one of those moving pictures there is so much talk of, so as not to be wholly out of the swim. but have no fear that i shall be carried away with them, mrs. dr. dear. i shall be away a fortnight if you can spare me so long." "you certainly deserve a good holiday, susan. better take a month--that is the proper length for a honeymoon." "no, mrs. dr. dear, a fortnight is all i require. besides, i must be home for at least three weeks before christmas to make the proper preparations. we will have a christmas that is a christmas this year, mrs. dr. dear. do you think there is any chance of our boys being home for it?" "no, i think not, susan. both jem and shirley write that they don't expect to be home before spring--it may be even midsummer before shirley comes. but carl meredith will be home, and nan and di, and we will have a grand celebration once more. we'll set chairs for all, susan, as you did our first war christmas--yes, for all--for my dear lad whose chair must always be vacant, as well as for the others, susan." "it is not likely i would forget to set his place, mrs. dr. dear," said susan, wiping her eyes as she departed to pack up for her "honeymoon." chapter xxxv "rilla-my-rilla!" carl meredith and miller douglas came home just before christmas and glen st. mary met them at the station with a brass band borrowed from lowbridge and speeches of home manufacture. miller was brisk and beaming in spite of his wooden leg; he had developed into a broad-shouldered, imposing looking fellow and the d. c. medal he wore reconciled miss cornelia to the shortcomings of his pedigree to such a degree that she tacitly recognized his engagement to mary. the latter put on a few airs--especially when carter flagg took miller into his store as head clerk--but nobody grudged them to her. "of course farming's out of the question for us now," she told rilla, "but miller thinks he'll like storekeeping fine once he gets used to a quiet life again, and carter flagg will be a more agreeable boss than old kitty. we're going to be married in the fall and live in the old mead house with the bay windows and the mansard roof. i've always thought that the handsomest house in the glen, but never did i dream i'd ever live there. we're only renting it, of course, but if things go as we expect and carter flagg takes miller into partnership we'll own it some day. say, i've got on some in society, haven't i, considering what i come from? i never aspired to being a storekeeper's wife. but miller's real ambitious and he'll have a wife that'll back him up. he says he never saw a french girl worth looking at twice and that his heart beat true to me every moment he was away." jerry meredith and joe milgrave came back in january, and all winter the boys from the glen and its environs came home by twos and threes. none of them came back just as they went away, not even those who had been so fortunate as to escape injury. one spring day, when the daffodils were blowing on the ingleside lawn, and the banks of the brook in rainbow valley were sweet with white and purple violets, the little, lazy afternoon accommodation train pulled into the glen station. it was very seldom that passengers for the glen came by that train, so nobody was there to meet it except the new station agent and a small black-and-yellow dog, who for four and a half years had met every train that had steamed into glen st. mary. thousands of trains had dog monday met and never had the boy he waited and watched for returned. yet still dog monday watched on with eyes that never quite lost hope. perhaps his dog-heart failed him at times; he was growing old and rheumatic; when he walked back to his kennel after each train had gone his gait was very sober now--he never trotted but went slowly with a drooping head and a depressed tail that had quite lost its old saucy uplift. one passenger stepped off the train--a tall fellow in a faded lieutenant's uniform, who walked with a barely perceptible limp. he had a bronzed face and there were some grey hairs in the ruddy curls that clustered around his forehead. the new station agent looked at him anxiously. he was used to seeing the khaki-clad figures come off the train, some met by a tumultuous crowd, others, who had sent no word of their coming, stepping off quietly like this one. but there was a certain distinction of bearing and features in this soldier that caught his attention and made him wonder a little more interestedly who he was. a black-and-yellow streak shot past the station agent. dog monday stiff? dog monday rheumatic? dog monday old? never believe it. dog monday was a young pup, gone clean mad with rejuvenating joy. he flung himself against the tall soldier, with a bark that choked in his throat from sheer rapture. he flung himself on the ground and writhed in a frenzy of welcome. he tried to climb the soldier's khaki legs and slipped down and groveled in an ecstasy that seemed as if it must tear his little body in pieces. he licked his boots and when the lieutenant had, with laughter on his lips and tears in his eyes, succeeded in gathering the little creature up in his arms dog monday laid his head on the khaki shoulder and licked the sunburned neck, making queer sounds between barks and sobs. the station agent had heard the story of dog monday. he knew now who the returned soldier was. dog monday's long vigil was ended. jem blythe had come home. "we are all very happy--and sad--and thankful," wrote rilla in her diary a week later, "though susan has not yet recovered--never will recover, i believe--from the shock of having jem come home the very night she had, owing to a strenuous day, prepared a 'pick up' supper. i shall never forget the sight of her, tearing madly about from pantry to cellar, hunting out stored away goodies. just as if anybody cared what was on the table--none of us could eat, anyway. it was meat and drink just to look at jem. mother seemed afraid to take her eyes off him lest he vanish out of her sight. it is wonderful to have jem back--and little dog monday. monday refuses to be separated from jem for a moment. he sleeps on the foot of his bed and squats beside him at meal-times. and on sunday he went to church with him and insisted on going right into our pew, where he went to sleep on jem's feet. in the middle of the sermon he woke up and seemed to think he must welcome jem all over again, for he bounded up with a series of barks and wouldn't quiet down until jem took him up in his arms. but nobody seemed to mind, and mr. meredith came and patted his head after the service and said, "'faith and affection and loyalty are precious things wherever they are found. that little dog's love is a treasure, jem.' "one night when jem and i were talking things over in rainbow valley, i asked him if he had ever felt afraid at the front. "jem laughed. "'afraid! i was afraid scores of times--sick with fear--i who used to laugh at walter when he was frightened. do you know, walter was never frightened after he got to the front. realities never scared him--only his imagination could do that. his colonel told me that walter was the bravest man in the regiment. rilla, i never realized that walter was dead till i came back home. you don't know how i miss him now--you folks here have got used to it in a sense--but it's all fresh to me. walter and i grew up together--we were chums as well as brothers--and now here, in this old valley we loved when we were children, it has come home to me that i'm not to see him again.' "jem is going back to college in the fall and so are jerry and carl. i suppose shirley will, too. he expects to be home in july. nan and di will go on teaching. faith doesn't expect to be home before september. i suppose she will teach then too, for she and jem can't be married until he gets through his course in medicine. una meredith has decided, i think, to take a course in household science at kingsport--and gertrude is to be married to her major and is frankly happy about it--'shamelessly happy' she says; but i think her attitude is very beautiful. they are all talking of their plans and hopes--more soberly than they used to do long ago, but still with interest, and a determination to carry on and make good in spite of lost years. "'we're in a new world,' jem says, 'and we've got to make it a better one than the old. that isn't done yet, though some folks seem to think it ought to be. the job isn't finished--it isn't really begun. the old world is destroyed and we must build up the new one. it will be the task of years. i've seen enough of war to realize that we've got to make a world where wars can't happen. we've given prussianism its mortal wound but it isn't dead yet and it isn't confined to germany either. it isn't enough to drive out the old spirit--we've got to bring in the new.' "i'm writing down those words of jem's in my diary so that i can read them over occasionally and get courage from them, when moods come when i find it not so easy to 'keep faith.'" rilla closed her journal with a little sigh. just then she was not finding it easy to keep faith. all the rest seemed to have some special aim or ambition about which to build up their lives--she had none. and she was very lonely, horribly lonely. jem had come back--but he was not the laughing boy-brother who had gone away in 1914 and he belonged to faith. walter would never come back. she had not even jims left. all at once her world seemed wide and empty--that is, it had seemed wide and empty from the moment yesterday when she had read in a montreal paper a fortnight-old list of returned soldiers in which was the name of captain kenneth ford. so ken was home--and he had not even written her that he was coming. he had been in canada two weeks and she had not had a line from him. of course he had forgotten--if there was ever anything to forget--a handclasp--a kiss--a look--a promise asked under the influence of a passing emotion. it was all absurd--she had been a silly, romantic, inexperienced goose. well, she would be wiser in the future--very wise--and very discreet--and very contemptuous of men and their ways. "i suppose i'd better go with una and take up household science too," she thought, as she stood by her window and looked down through a delicate emerald tangle of young vines on rainbow valley, lying in a wonderful lilac light of sunset. there did not seem anything very attractive just then about household science, but, with a whole new world waiting to be built, a girl must do something. the door bell rang, rilla turned reluctantly stairwards. she must answer it--there was no one else in the house; but she hated the idea of callers just then. she went downstairs slowly, and opened the front door. a man in khaki was standing on the steps--a tall fellow, with dark eyes and hair, and a narrow white scar running across his brown cheek. rilla stared at him foolishly for a moment. who was it? she ought to know him--there was certainly something very familiar about him--"rilla-my-rilla," he said. "ken," gasped rilla. of course, it was ken--but he looked so much older--he was so much changed--that scar--the lines about his eyes and lips--her thoughts went whirling helplessly. ken took the uncertain hand she held out, and looked at her. the slim rilla of four years ago had rounded out into symmetry. he had left a school girl, and he found a woman--a woman with wonderful eyes and a dented lip, and rose-bloom cheek--a woman altogether beautiful and desirable--the woman of his dreams. "is it rilla-my-rilla?" he asked, meaningly. emotion shook rilla from head to foot. joy--happiness--sorrow--fear--every passion that had wrung her heart in those four long years seemed to surge up in her soul for a moment as the deeps of being were stirred. she had tried to speak; at first voice would not come. then--"yeth," said rilla. 