REVELATION

Linda, looking at Mrs. Porter, saw in the light of their many talks that her friend was striving for the composure with which it was her wont to meet adverse circumstances.

Fred Whitcomb, too, recognizing that the older woman was the more interested of his listeners, began to address his narration chiefly to her.

"King was pretty badly off," he went on. "He was nutty for days, and some of the things he said in his delirium made me feel that—well, that perhaps he'd had a rather lonely time of it. At any rate, he had asked only that his papers should be kept from Radcliffe, so I made up my mind that I'd go through them myself."

Fred paused and gave a rather doubtful and wistful look at Linda's immovable countenance.

Mrs. Porter's eyes were shining in their attention.

"Well, I hadn't spent much time at his desk before I discovered why King had written me those directions. Henry can do what he pleases about Harriet, but I know Linda's a good sport. I know she wants the truth."

"I do," returned Linda, with cold promptness. "What had Bertram against Henry?"

"Nothing, bless your heart. The telltale package of papers concerned the Antlers Irrigation proposition. Your father was out in the West on the spot and King was in Chicago and these letters and telegrams were their correspondence at the time. It seems that Mr. Barry was completely fascinated by the proposition, but King knew the people connected with it better than Mr. Barry did; and though it appeared entirely legitimate, King begged your father to have nothing to do with it. He admitted that if it succeeded it would be a fortune, but the whole thing was on such a big scale and would involve Barry & Co. so deeply that King advised strongly and even urged that they let it alone; but after an argument of days Mr. Barry decided against him."

Fred met Linda's frowning gaze. He waited while her face flushed, then watched while the red tide sank. In her concentrated look she appeared to be angry; and Fred hurried on defensively.

"I tell you, Linda, I thought you ought to know this. You've always stood for fair play, and there the whole business world has been knocking Bertram King for months. He was a good fighter—but they knocked him down at last. If you'd seen him as I did, lying there, burning up with fever, and babbling scraps of talk that showed how he has worried—"

Linda leaned forward and took Fred Whitcomb's surprised hand in one as cold as ice. Her brow still frowned, but the relaxed lips parted.

"Thank you for telling me; thank you," she said.

Mrs. Porter hurriedly gathered together her sewing materials, stuffed them into her silk workbag, and rose.

Whitcomb, much relieved by Linda's words, also stood up.

"Don't disturb yourselves," said Mrs. Porter; "I am going home to pack. I shall go at once to Chicago."

"Do you mean to King?" asked Whitcomb.

"Of course." Mrs. Porter also seized the young man's hand, and her moist eyes poured out their gratitude. "I can't tell you, Mr. Whitcomb, how I thank you, for befriending him: it's impossible."

Fred smiled broadly. "Oh, say," he returned, "you don't need to pack. King is here."

"What!"

"Sure thing. I wouldn't have come without him. Not on your life. He didn't care much about it, but then he didn't care much about anything, and Mrs. Lindsay had said it was doing Madge a world of good—and Linda was here,"—the speaker turned and looked down at Linda, leaning back against the rock with a face as stony as its gray wall,—"so I bundled the poor chap on the train, and here we are."

"At that awful Benslow place?" gasped Mrs. Porter.

"It isn't so worse," said Fred. "I'm a dandy camper and I'll take care of King myself. The doctors told me just what to stuff him with, and, believe me, I'm going to stuff him. He doesn't slide off this planet till he gets some of the justice that's coming to him. Not if I know it. I haven't talked to him yet about my discovery of the letters, but I told Henry Radcliffe all about it the night before we left and he can do as he pleases about telling Harriet."

"Mr. Whitcomb, you have earned my life-long gratitude," repeated Mrs. Porter. "Between us we will put that dear boy on his feet again. I'm off to see him. Good-bye."

Linda felt hurt that not by word or look did her friend recognize the misery Mrs. Porter must have known she was suffering. Lightly that lady sped away around the clump of birches and was gone; and Fred Whitcomb's sturdy shoulders dropped down again near Linda's rock divan.

"I thought you were looking great when I came up a few minutes ago," he said, examining her, "but it seems to me you might raise a little more color in this perfectly wonderful air."

"You've given me a great shock, Fred."

"Well, I hated to seem to disparage your father in any way," he returned tenderly, "but I knew—I just knew, Linda, you'd want to see King get fair play."

"I do. I have blamed him cruelly myself."

"How could you help it when everybody was feeling the same way? Does he know you blamed him?"

"Yes."

"I wonder if that had anything to do with his not seeing you off that morning in Chicago?"

"Probably."

"I blamed him for that; but now," added Whitcomb, happily, "everything is understood. We mustn't have another sorrowful minute." Linda's lips were looking as if there were only sorrow on earth. "There's a great reaction in Chicago in favor of your father," he added. "The excitement has calmed down, and when Lambert Barry is spoken of now it's with the same old respect, Linda; the same old respect."

"And Bertram has done that," she said slowly.

"Indeed, he has, and as he comes back to strength he's going to feel pretty good over it, too, I can tell you. So—take a brace, Linda. I'm so happy to see you, I can hardly contain myself."

"What a good fellow you are, Fred!"

"You mean for standing by King? Think what he's done for me. Snatched my savings like brands from the burning. My boss, too, is a big beneficiary by King's efforts, and he gave me an extra long vacation so I could come up here and look after him."

"Is he very weak?"

"Not any worse than you'd expect." Whitcomb's constitutional inability to look on the dark side shone in his happy eyes. "That Cap'n Jerry of yours is a dandy, though. He brought us over from the station and he whiled the time away telling how suddenly people either convalesced or died here. King coughs a little, and that inspired the genial captain to tell of his brother who'd been 'coughin' quite a spell'; and how 'sudden' he went off at the last. He said, 'Bill got up one mornin', et a good breakfast; then all to once he fetched a couple o' hacks and was gone!'"

"Fred!" Linda frowned and smiled.

"He did, for a fact. King says he positively refuses to fetch two consecutively."

"He jokes, then," Linda spoke wistfully.

"Oh, yes. He's as game as ever."

"Fred,"—Linda clasped her hands tightly together,—"you don't know how cruel—how beastly I've been to Bertram."

"Oh, forget it," Fred's worshiping eyes met the mourning gaze.

"I'd like to; and I could if Bertram would, but he never will, I'm afraid. He hates me."

"He'll get over it."

"Tell me, Fred,—you must have spoken to him about me. What does he say?"

Whitcomb looked off as if consulting his memory. "I can't remember his mentioning your name since Reason resumed her throne. He used to babble about you and your father, too, during his illness; but nothing connected: nothing that I can remember."

"I'm really surprised that he was willing to come where I was staying."

"I don't believe he knew it till we were on the train. I told him about the Lindsays and that I believed it was the right place for him."

"But he must have known this was where Mrs. Porter was, and that she was with Aunt Belinda. He must have known I was with them."

Whitcomb shrugged his shoulders under this insistence. "Perhaps he did," he admitted. "I spoke several times about you on the train, of course,—how I anticipated seeing you and all that." The speaker's eyes again sought some personal reassurance from his companion's distant gaze.

"And he didn't say anything?"

"I don't remember. I didn't notice. I don't think so."

"Fred,"—Linda leaned forward in her earnestness and wrung her hands together,—"you don't know how hard it is for me to sit here and wait instead of running—running to Bertram and confessing the wrong I've done and imploring his forgiveness."

"None of that: none of that." Whitcomb raised a warning hand. "You mustn't say things to King to excite him. He's glassware, remember, glassware." The speaker sank on his elbow, bringing his eager, boyish face nearer the girl's white gown. His hat was on the grass beside him and his thick hair fell forward in his movement.

"But here I am, Linda," he added, in a different tone, "husky to the limit. When it comes to me, go as far as you like. You haven't seemed conscious of me yet."

"Oh, yes, I'm conscious of you. I'm very grateful to you for finding out the truth and taking such care of Bertram." The girl's eyes were glowing in her pale face. "'Instead of the thorn';—Fred, did you ever read the Bible?"

Whitcomb sat up under the sudden question, and stared at her.

"The Bible!" he repeated. "Why, sure thing—some of it."

"There's a promise in it, 'Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree.' It struck some chord in me when first I read it and it seems to mean more and more. See those firs,"—Linda waved her hand to where on the other side of the little brook the soft variation of color in the evergreens stood against the sky. "Breathe the balm they send out in the air? Mrs. Porter has shown me how it just rests with us to do away with the wounding thorn, and receive the peace of the stanch, unchanging fir tree, with its soft, invigorating perfume and color, and the music in its branches. It has come to be a great symbol to me—the fir tree."

"Hurrah for the Tannenbaum," returned Whitcomb, mechanically, not knowing what to say to this changed Linda with the exalted eyes.

"You have done a wonderful thing for me to-day, Fred; and if only I could wipe out from my own and Bertram's memory my wickedness, the fir tree could at once begin to come up; but my father suffered for his mistake and I must suffer for mine. To be patient—to put down my willfulness—to be willing just to guard my thoughts and to think right and to leave all the rest to God—that's my lesson; and you know how hard it is for me, Fred. You know how I've always managed, and dictated, and carried my point, and never had any patience."

"You suit me all right, whatever you've done," blurted out Whitcomb, upon whom Linda's matter-of-course mention of the Creator had made a profound impression. "You've changed a lot in some ways," he went on, rather dejectedly, "but in a certain line where I'm interested, you don't seem to have made much progress. I'm the biggest donkey this side of Cairo, I know that; but when I'm away from you, I forget all the discouraging things you've ever said, and I build a lot of castles-in-the-air, each one more attractive than the last, and then the minute I get with you, with a simple twist of the wrist you tumble them all about my ears."

"Oh, Freddy!"

"Don't you 'Oh, Freddy' me. I was awfully afraid of King at one time, but when I found he wasn't in the race, I felt there wasn't anybody ahead of me and Holdfast's a good dog. I made up my mind to win."

"Oh, Fred!"

"Why shouldn't my thorn be pulled up, too? Why shouldn't I have a nice Tannenbaum with just one gift hanging on it?"

"Because, Fred, we can't any of us outline. We must be faithful and unselfish and let things grow right, and they will, because we were created for happiness. Mrs. Porter says so."

"Oh, she has inside information, has she?" returned Whitcomb, with as near an approach to a sneer as his wholesome nature could come.

"Yes, that's a very good name for it," returned Linda promptly. "Even I, Fred," she added humbly, "even I have had some inside information. In not getting me," she added gently, "you will get something better if we're all thinking right."

Silence, during which Whitcomb gloomily uprooted such long grasses as grew near him.

"I have no expectation of marrying anyone," said Linda, "and you are a hero in my eyes to-day, if that is any comfort to you."

Whitcomb lifted a frowning, obstinate gaze to hers.

"Holdfast's a good dog," he said sententiously. Presently he spoke again. "It's time for King to eat. I must go."

"I'll walk with you as far as Aunt Belinda's."

Whitcomb helped her gather up books and work and they moved away together.