Maclin rarely discussed Larry’s private affairs with him, but he controlled them, nevertheless, indirectly. His hold on Larry was subtle and far-reaching. It had its beginning in the old college days when the older man discovered that the younger could be manipulated, by flattery and cheap tricks, into abject servitude. Larry was not as keen-witted as Maclin, but he had a superficial cleverness; a lack of moral fibre and a certain talent that, properly controlled, offered no end of possibility.

So Maclin affixed himself to young Rivers in the days before the doctor’s death; he and Larry had often drifted apart but came together again like steel responding to the same magnet. While apparently intimate with Rivers, Maclin never permitted him to pass a given line, and this restriction often chafed Larry’s pride and egotism; still, he dared not rebel, for there were things in his past that had best be forgotten, or at least not referred to.

When Maclin had discovered the old, deserted mines and bought them, apparently Larry was included in the sale. Maclin sought to be friendly with Mary-Clare when he first came to King’s Forest; but failing in that direction, he shrugged his shoulders and made light of the matter. He never pushed his advantage nor forgave a slight.

“Never force a woman,” he confided to Larry at that juncture, “that is, if she is independent.”

“What you mean, independent?” Larry knew what he meant very well; knew the full significance of it. He fretted at it every time his desires clashed with Mary-Clare’s. If he, not she, owned the yellow house; if she were obliged to take what he chose to give her, how different their lives might have been!

Larry was thinking of all this as he made his way to the mines after denying that he had taken the letters. Those letters lay snugly hid under his shirt––he had a use for them. He could feel them as he walked along; they seemed to be feeding a fire that was slowly igniting.

Larry was going now to Maclin with all barriers removed. His suspicious mind had accepted the coarsest interpretation of Mary-Clare’s declaration of independence. Maclin’s hints were, to him, established facts. There could be but one possible explanation for her act after long, dull years of acceptance.

“Well,” Larry puffed and panted, “there is always a way to get the upper hand of a woman and, I reckon, Maclin, when he’s free to speak out, can catch a fool woman and a sneaking man, who is on no fair business, unless I miss my guess.” Larry grunted the words out and stumbled along. “First and last,” he went on, “there’s just two ways to deal with women. Break ’em or let them break themselves.”

Larry’s idea now was to let Mary-Clare break herself with the Forest as audience. He wasn’t going to do anything. No, not he! Living outside his home would set tongues wagging. All right, let Mary-Clare stop their wagging.

There was always, with Larry, this feeling of hot impotence when he retreated from Mary-Clare. For so vital and high-strung a woman, Mary-Clare could at critical moments be absolutely negative, to all appearances. Where another might show weakness or violence, she seemed to close all the windows and doors of her being, leaving her attacker in the outer darkness with nothing to strike at; no ear to assail. It was maddening to one of Larry’s type.

So had Mary-Clare just now done. After asking him about the letters, she had withdrawn, but in the isolation where Larry was left he could almost hear the terrific truths he guiltily knew he deserved, hurled at him, but which his wife did not utter. Well, two could play at her game.

And in this mood he reached Maclin; accepted a cigar and stretched his feet toward the fire in his owner’s office.

Maclin was in a humanly soothing mood. He fairly 89 crooned over Larry and could tell to a nicety the workings of his mind.

He puffed and puffed at his enormous cigar; he was almost hidden from sight in the smoke but his words oozed forth as if they were cutting through a soft, thick substance.

“Now, Larry,” he said; “don’t make a mistake. Some women don’t have weak spots, they have knots––weak ends tied together, so to speak. The cold, calculating breed––and your wife, no offence intended, is mighty chilly––can’t be broken, as you intimate, but they can be untied and”––Maclin was pleased with his picturesque figures of speech––“left dangling.”

This was amusing. Both men guffawed.

“Do you know, Rivers”––Maclin suddenly relapsed into seriousness––“it was a darned funny thing that a girl like your wife should fall into your open mouth, marry you off-hand, as one might say. Mighty funny, when you come to think of it, that your old man should let her––knowing all he knew and seeming to set such a store by the girl.”

Larry winced and felt the lash on his back. So long had that lash hung unused that the stroke now made him cringe.

“No use harking back to that, Maclin,” he said: “some things ain’t common property, you know, even between you and me. We agreed to that.”

“Yes?” the word came softly. Was it apologetic or threatening?

There was a pause. Then Maclin unbent.

“Larry,” he began, tossing his cigar aside, “you haven’t ever given me full credit, my boy, for what I’ve tried to do for you. See here, old man, I have got you out of more than one fix, haven’t I?”

Larry looked back––the way was not a pleasant one.

“Yes,” he admitted, “yes, you have, Maclin.”

“I know you often get fussed, Rivers, about what you term my using you in business, but I swear to you that in the end you’ll think different about that. I’ve got to work under cover myself to a certain extent. I’m not my own master. But this I can say––I’m willing to be a part of a big thing. 90 When the public is taken into our confidence, we’ll all feel repaid. Can you––do you catch on, Larry?”

“It’s like catching on to something in the dark,” Larry muttered.

“Well, that’s something,” Maclin said cheerfully. “Something to hold to in the dark isn’t to be sneered at.”

“Depends upon what it is!” Apparently Larry was in a difficult mood. Maclin tried a new course.

“It’s one thing having a friend in the dark, old man, and another having an enemy. I suppose that’s what you mean. Well, have I been much of an enemy to you?”

“I just told you what I think about that.” Larry misinterpreted Maclin’s manner and took advantage.

“Larry, I’m going to give you something to chew on because I am your friend and because I want you to trust me, even in the dark. The fellow Northrup–––”

Larry started as if an electric spark had touched him. Maclin appeared not to notice.

“––is on our tracks, but he mustn’t suspect that we have sensed it.” The words were ill-chosen. Having any one on his tracks was a significant phrase that left an ugly fear in Larry’s mind.

“What tracks?” he asked suspiciously.

“Our inventions.” Maclin showed no nervous dread. “These inventions, big as they are, old man, are devilish simple. That’s why we have to lie low. Any really keen chap with the right slant could steal them from under our noses. That’s why I like to get foreigners in here––these Dutchies don’t smell around. Give them work to do, and they do it and ask no questions; the others snoop. Now this Northrup is here for a purpose.”

“You know that for a fact, Maclin?”

“Sure, I know it.” Maclin was a man who believed in holding all the cards and discarding at his leisure; he always played a slow game. “I know his kind, but I’m going to let him hang himself. Now see here, Rivers, you better take me into your confidence––I may be able to fix you up. What’s wrong between you and your wife?”

This plunge sent Larry to the wall. When a slow man does make a drive, he does deadly work.

“Well, then”––Larry looked sullen––“I’ve left the house and mean to stay out until Mary-Clare comes to her senses!”

“All right, old man. I rather smelled this out. I only wanted to make sure. It’s this Northrup, eh? Now, Rivers, I could send you off on a trip but it would be the same old story. I hate to kick you when you’re down, but I will say this, your wife doesn’t look like one mourning without hope when you’re away, and with this Northrup chap on the spot, needing entertainment while he works his game, I’m thinking you better stay right where you are! You can, maybe, untie the knot, old chap. Give her and this Northrup all the chance they want, and if you leave ’em alone, I guess the Forest will smoke ’em out.”

Maclin came nearer to being jubilant than Rivers had ever seen him. The sight was heartening, but still something in Larry tempered his enthusiasm. He had been able, in the past, to exclude Mary-Clare from the inner sanctuary of Maclin’s private ideals, and he hated now to betray her into his clutches. Maclin was devilishly keen under that slow, sluggish manner of his and he hastened, now, to say:

“Don’t get a wrong slant on me, old man. I’m only aiming for the good of us all, not the undoing. I want to show this fellow Northrup up to your wife as well as to others. Then she’ll know her friends from her foes. Naturally a woman feels flattered by attentions from a man like this stranger, but if she sees how he’s taken the Heathcotes in and how he’s used her while he was boring underground, she’ll flare up and know the meaning of real friends. Some women have to be shown!”

By this time Larry suspected that much had gone on during his absence that Maclin had not confided to him. He was thoroughly aroused.

“Now see here, Rivers!” Maclin drew his chair closer and laid his hand on Larry’s arm––he gloated over the trouble in the eyes holding his with dumb questioning. “It’s coming 92 out all right. We’re in early and we’ve got the best seats––only keep them guessing; guessing! Larry, your wife goes––down to the Point a lot––goes missionarying, you know. Well, this Northrup is tramping around in the woods skirting the Point.”

Just here Larry started and looked as if something definite had come to him. Had he not seen Northrup that very day in the woods?

“Now there’s an empty shack on the Point, Rivers––some old squatter has died. I want you to get that shack somehow or another. It ought to be easy, since they say your wife owns the place; it’s your business to get it and then watch out and keep your mouth shut. You’ve got to live somewhere while you can’t live decent at home. ’Tisn’t likely your wife, having slammed the door of her home on you, will oust you from that hovel on the Point––your being there will work both ways––she won’t dare to take a step.”

Larry drew a sigh, a heavy one, and began to understand. He saw more than Maclin could see.

“She hasn’t turned me out,” he muttered. “I came out.”

“Let her explain that, Rivers. See? She can’t do it while she’s gallivanting with this here Northrup.”

Larry saw the possibilities from Maclin’s standpoint, but he saw Mary-Clare’s smile and that uplifted head. He was overwhelmed again by the sense of impotence.

“Give a woman a free rein, Rivers, she’ll shy, sooner or later.” Maclin was gaining assurance as he saw Larry’s discomfort. “That’s what keeps women from getting on––they shy! When all’s said, a tight rein is a woman’s best good, but some women have to learn that.”

Something in Larry burned hot and resentful, but whether it was because of Maclin or Mary-Clare he could not tell, so he kept still.

“Let’s turn in, anyway, for to-night, old boy.” Maclin’s voice sounded paternal. “To-morrow is to-morrow and you’ll feel able to tackle the job after a night’s sleep.”

So they turned in and it was the afternoon of the next day when Larry took his walk to the Point.

Just as he started forth Maclin gave him two or three suggestions.

“I’d offer to hire the shanty,” he said. “That will put you in a safe position, no matter how they look at it. An old woman by the name of Peneluna thinks she owns it. There’s an old codger down there, too, Twombley they call him––he’s smart as the devil, but you can’t tell which way he may leap. Try him out. Get him to take sides with you if you can.”

“I remember Twombley,” Larry said. “Dad used to get a lot of fun out of him in the old days. I haven’t been on the Point since I was a boy.”

“It’s a good thing you never troubled the Point, Rivers. They’ll be more stirred by you now.”

“Maybe they’ll kick me out.”

“Never fear!” Maclin reassured him. “Not if you show good money and play up to your old dad. He had everyone eating out of his hand, all right.”

So Larry, none too sure of himself, but more cheerful than he had been, set forth.

Now there is one thing about the poor, wherever you find them––they live out of doors when the weather permits. Given sunshine and soft air, they promptly turn their backs on the sordid dens they call home and take to the open. The day that Larry went to the Point was warm and lovely, and all the Pointers, or nearly all of them, were in evidence.

Jan-an was sweeping the steps of Peneluna’s doorway, sweeping them viciously, sending the dust flying. She was working off her state of mind produced by the recent funeral of old Philander. She was spiritually inarticulate, but her gropings were expressed in service to them she loved and in violence to them she hated. As she swept she was cleaning for Peneluna, and at the same time, sweeping to the winds of heaven the memory of the dreadful minister who had said such fearsome things about the dead who couldn’t talk back. The man had made Mary-Clare cry as she sat holding Peneluna’s hard, cold hand. Jan-an knew how hard and cold it was, for she had held the other in decent sympathy.

Among the tin cans and ash heaps the children of the 94 Point were playing. One inspired girl had decked a mound of wreckage and garbage with some glittering goldenrod and was calling her mates to come and see the “heaven” she had made.

Larry laughed at this and muttered: “Made it in hell, eh, kid?”

The child scowled at him.

Twombley was sitting in his doorway watching what was going on. He was a gaunt, sharp-eyed, sharp-nosed, and sharp-tongued man. He was the laziest man on the Point, but with all the earmarks of the cleverest.

“Well, Twombley, how are you?”

Twombley spat and took Larry out of the pigeonhole of his memory––labelled and priced; Twombley had not thought of him in years, as a definite individual. He was Mary-Clare’s husband; a drifter; a tool of Maclin. As such he was negligible.

“Feeling same as I look,” he said at last. He was ready to appraise the man before him.

“Bad nut,” was what he thought, but diluted his sentiments because of the relationship to the old doctor and Mary-Clare. Twombley, like everyone else, had a shrine in his memory––rather a musty, shabby one, to be sure, but it held its own sacredly. Doctor Rivers and all that belonged to him were safely niched there––even this son, the husband of Mary-Clare about whom the Forest held its tongue because he was the son of the old doctor.

“Old Sniff’s popped, I hear.” Larry, now that he chose to be friendly, endeavoured to fit his language to his hearer’s level. “Have a cigar, Twombley?”

“I’ll keep to my pipe.” The old man’s face was expressionless. “If you don’t get a taste for what you can’t afford you don’t ruin it for what you can. Yes, looks as if Sniff was dead. They’ve buried him, at any rate.”

“Who’s got his place?”

“Peneluna Sniff.”

“Was he married?” Floating in Rivers’s mind was an old story, but it floated too fast for him to catch it.

“She went through the marriage service. That fixes it, don’t it?” Twombley puffed loudly.

“I suppose it does, but I kind of recall that there was a quarrel between them.”

“Ain’t that a proof that they was married?” Twombley’s eyes twinkled through the slits of lids––he always squinted his eyes close when he wanted to go slow. Larry laughed.

“Didn’t Peneluna Sniff, or whatever her name is, live in a house by herself?” he asked. He was puzzled.

“She sure did. Your old man was a powerful understander of human nater. A few feet ’twixt married folks, he uster say, often saves the day.”

“Well, who’s got her house?”

“She’s got it.”

“Empty?”

“I guess the same truck’s in it that always was. I ain’t seen any moving out.”

“Is Mrs. Sniff at home?”

“How do you suppose I know, young man? These ain’t calling hours on the Point.”

“Well, they’re business hours, all right, Twombley. See here, my friend, I’m going to hire that house of Mrs. Sniff if I can.”

Twombley’s slits came close together.

“Yes?” was all he vouchsafed.

“Yes. And I wish you’d pass the word along, my friend.”

“I don’t pass nothing!” Twombley interrupted. “I take all I kin git. I make use of what I can. The rest, I chuck.”

“Well, have it your own way, but I’m your friend, Twombley, and the friend of your neighbours. I cannot say more now––but you’ll all believe it some day.”

“Maclin standing back of yer, young feller?”

“Yes. And that’s where you’ve made another bad guess, Twombley. Maclin’s your friend, only he isn’t free to speak out just now.”

“Gosh! we ain’t eager for him to speak. The stiller he is the better we like it.”

“He knows that. He’s given up––he is going to see what 96 I can make you feel––I’m one of you, you know that, Twombley.”

“Never would have guessed it, son!” Twombley leered.

“Well, my wife’s always been your friend––what’s the difference? I’ve been on my job; she’s been on hers––it’s all the same, only now I’m going to prove it!”

“Gosh! you’ll be a shock to Maclin all right.”

“No, I won’t, Twombley. You’re wrong about him. He’s meant right, but not being one of us he’s bungled, he knows it now. He’s listened to me at last.”

Larry could be a most important-appearing person when there was no one to prick his little bubble. Twombley eyed his visitor calmly.

“Funny thing, life is,” he ruminated, seeming to forget Larry’s presence. “Yer get to thinking you’re running down hill on a greased plank, and sudden––a nail catches yer breeches and yer stop in time to see where yer was going!”

“What then, Twombley?”

“Oh! nothing. Only as long as yer breeches hold and the nail don’t come out, yer keep on looking!”

Again Twombley spat. Then, seeing his guest rising, he asked with great dignity:

“Going, young sir?”

“Yes, over to Mrs. Sniff’s. And if we are neighbours, Twombley, let us be friends. My father had a liking for you, I remember.”

“I’m not forgetting that, young sir.”

When Larry reached Mrs. Sniff’s, Jan-an was still riotously sweeping the memories of the funeral away. She turned and looked at Larry. Then, leaning on her broom, she continued to stare.

“Well, what in all possessed got yer down here?” asked the girl, her face stiffening.

“Where’s Mrs. Sniff?” Larry asked. He always resented Jan-an, on general principles. She got in his way too often. When she was out of sight he never thought of her, but her vacant stare and monotonous drawl were offensive to him.

He had once suggested that she be confined somewhere. 97 “You never can tell about her kind,” he had said; he had a superstitious fear of her.

“What, shut the poor child from her freedom?” Aunt Polly had asked him, “just because we cannot tell? Lordy! Larry Rivers, there wouldn’t be many people running around loose if we applied that rule to them.”

There were some turns that conversation took that sent Larry into sudden silences––this had been one. He had never referred to Jan-an’s treatment after that, but he always resented her.

Jan-an continued to stare at him.

“There ain’t no Mrs. Sniff” she said finally. “What’s ailin’ folks around here?”

“Well, where’s Miss Peneluna?” Larry ventured, thinking back to the old title of his boyhood days.

“Setting!” Jan-an returned to her sweeping and Larry stepped aside.

“I want to see her,” he said angrily. “Get out of the way.”

“She ain’t no great sight, and I’m cleaning up!” Jan-an scowled and her energy suggested that Larry might soon be included among the things she was getting rid of.

“See here”––Larry’s eyes darkened––“if you don’t stand aside–––”

But at this juncture Peneluna loomed in the doorway. She regarded Larry with a tightening of the mouth muscles. Inwardly she thought of him as a bad son of a good father, but intuitions were not proofs and because Doctor Rivers had been good, and Mary-Clare was always to be considered, the old woman kept her feelings to herself.

She was still in her rusty black, the rakish bonnet set awry on her head.

“Come in!” she said quietly. “And you, Jan-an, you trundle over to my old place and clean up.”

Larry went inside and sat down in the chair nearest the door. The neatness and order of the room struck even his indifferent eyes, so unexpected was it on the Point.

“Well?” Peneluna looked at her visitor coolly. Larry did 98 not speak at once––he was going to get the house next door; he must have it and he did not want to make any mistakes with the grim, silent woman near him. He was not considering the truth, but he was selecting the best lies that occurred to him; the ones most likely to appeal to his future landlady.

“Miss Peneluna,” he began finally, but the stiff lips interrupted him:

“Mrs. Sniff.”

“Good Lord! Mrs. Sniff, then. You see, I didn’t know you were married.”

“Didn’t you? You might not know everything that goes on. You don’t trouble us much. Your goings and comings leave us strangers.”

Larry did not reply. He was manufacturing tears, and presently, to Peneluna’s amazement, they glistened on his cheeks.

“I wonder”––Larry’s voice trembled––“I wonder if I can speak openly to you, Mrs.––Mrs. Sniff? You were in my father’s house; he trusted you. I do not seem to have any one but you at this crisis.”

Peneluna sneezed. She had a terrible habit of sneezing at will––it was positively shocking.

“I guess there ain’t any reason for you not speaking out your ideas to me,” she said cautiously. “I ain’t much of a fount of wisdom, but I ain’t a babbling brook, neither.”

She was thinking that it would be safer to handle Rivers than to let others use him, and she knew something of the trouble at the yellow house. Jan-an had regaled her with some rare tidbits.

“Peneluna, Mary-Clare and I have had some words; I’ve left home.”

There was no answer to this. Larry moistened his lips and went on:

“Perhaps Mary-Clare has told you?”

“No, she ain’t blabbed none.”

This was disconcerting.

“She wouldn’t, and I am not going to, either. It’s just a misunderstanding, Mrs. Sniff. I could go away and let it 99 rest there, but I fear I’ve been away too much and things have got snarled. Mary-Clare doesn’t rightly see things.”

“Yes she does, Larry Rivers! She’s terrible seeing.” Peneluna’s eyes flashed.

“All right then, Mrs. Sniff. I want her to see! I want her to see me here, looking after her interests. I cannot explain; you’ll all know soon enough. Danger’s threatening and I’m going to be on the spot! You’ve all got a wrong line on Maclin, so he’s side-stepped and listened to me at last; I’m going to show up this man Northrup who is hanging round. I want to hire your house, Mrs. Sniff, and live on here until–––”

Peneluna sneezed lustily; it made Larry wince.

“Until Mary-Clare turns you out?” she asked harshly. “And gets talked about for doing it––or lets you stay on reflecting upon her what can’t tell her side? Larry Rivers, you always was a thorn in your good father’s side and I reckon you’ve been one in Mary-Clare’s.”

Larry winced again and recalled sharply the old vacations and this woman’s silent attitude toward him. It all came back clearly. He could always cajole Aunt Polly Heathcote, but Peneluna had explained her attitude toward him in the past by briefly stating that she “internally and eternally hated boys.”

“You’re hard on me, Mrs. Sniff. You’ll be sorry some day.”

“Then I’ll be sorry!” Peneluna sneezed.

Presently her mood, however, changed. She regarded Larry with new interest.

“How much will you give me for my place?” Peneluna leaned forward suddenly and quite took Larry off his guard. He had succeeded so unexpectedly that it had the effect of shock.

“Five dollars a month, Mrs. Sniff.”

“I’m wanting ten.”

This was a staggering demand.

“How bad does he want it?” Peneluna was thinking.

“How far had I best give in?” Larry estimated.

“Make it seven,” he ventured.

“Seven and then three dollars a week more if I cook and serve for you.”

Larry had overlooked this very important item.

“All right!” he agreed. “When can I come?”

“Right off.” Peneluna felt that she must get him under her eye as soon as possible. She moved to the door.

“You’ll make it straight with Mary-Clare?”

Larry was following the rigid form out into the gathering dark––a storm was rising; the bell on the distant island was ringing gleefully like a wicked little imp set free.

“I’ll tell her that you’re here and that she best let you stay on, if that’s what you mean.” Peneluna led the way over the well-worn path she had often trod before. “And, Larry Rivers, I don’t rightly know as I’m doing fair and square, but look at it as you will, it’s better me than another if anything is wrong. I served yer good father and I set a store by yer wife and child––and I want to hang hold of you all. I’ve let you have yer way down here, but I don’t want any ructions and I ain’t going to have Maclin’s crowd hinting and defiling anybody.”

“I’ll never forget this, Mrs. Sniff.” In the gathering gloom, behind Peneluna’s striding form, Larry’s voice almost broke again and undoubtedly the tears were on his cheeks. “Some day, when you know all, you’ll understand.”

“I’m a good setter and waiter, Larry Rivers, and as to understanding, that is as it may be. I can only see just so far! I can’t turn my back on the old doctor’s son nor Mary-Clare’s husband but I don’t want any tricks. You better not forget that! There’s a bed in yonder.” The two had entered the house next door. Jan-an had done good work. The place was in order and a fire burned in the stove. “I’ll fetch food later.” With this Peneluna, followed by Jan-an, a trifle more vague than usual, left the house.

The rain was already falling and the wind rising––it was the haunted wind; the bell sounded in the distance sharply. Jan-an paused in the gathering darkness and spoke tremblingly:

“What’s a-going on?” she asked. Peneluna turned and laid 101 her hand on the girl’s shoulder; her face softened––but Jan-an could not see that.

“Child”––the old voice fell to a whisper––“I ain’t going to expect too much of yer––God Almighty made yer out of a skimpy pattern, I know, but what He did give yer can be helped along by using it for them yer love. Child, watch there!”

A long crooked forefinger pointed to the shack, the windows of which were already darkened––for Larry had drawn the shades!

“Watch early and late there! Keep your mouth shut, except to me. Jan-an, I can trust yer?”

The girl was growing nervous.

“Yes’m,” she blurted suddenly and then fell to weeping. “I keep feelin’ things like wings a-touching of me,” she muttered. “I hate the feelin’. When nothing ain’t happened ever, what’s the reason it has ter begin now?”

It was nearly midnight when Peneluna sat down by her fireside to think. She had cooked a meal for Larry and carried it to him; she had soothed and fed Jan-an and put her to bed on a cot near the bed upon which old Philander Sniff had once rested, and now Peneluna, with Sniff’s old Bible on her knees, felt safe to think and read, and it seemed as if the wings Jan-an had sensed were touching her! The book was marked at passages that had appealed to the old man. Often, after Mary-Clare had read to him and left, thinking that she had made no impression, the trembling, gnarled hand had pencilled the words to be reread in lonely moments.

Peneluna had never read the Bible from choice; indeed, her education had been so limited as to be negligible, but lately these pencilled marks had become tremendously significant to her. She was able, somehow, to follow Philander Sniff closely, catching sight of him, now and again, in an illumined way guided by the Bible verses. It was like the blind leading the blind, to be sure, and often it seemed a blind trail, but occasionally Peneluna could pause and take a long breath while she beheld the vision that must have helped her friend upon his isolated way.

To-night, however, she was tired and puzzled and worried. She kept reverting to Larry: her eyes only lighted on the printed words before her; her thoughts drifted.

What had been going on in the Forest? Why was the storm breaking?

But suddenly a verse more heavily marked than the others stayed her:

And a highway shall be there, and a way and it shall be called the way of holiness. The wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein.

Over and over Peneluna read and pondered; more and more she puzzled.

“Land o’ love!” she muttered at last. “Now these here words mean something particular. Seems like they must get into me with their meaning if I hold to ’em long enough. Lord! I don’t see how folks can enjoy religion when you have to swallow it without tasting it.”

But so powerful is suggestion through words, that presently the old woman became hypnotized by them. They sprang out at her like flashes––one by one. “Highway”––she could grasp that. “A way and it shall be called”––these words ran into each other but––the “way” held. “The wayfarer”––well! that was easy; all folks taking to the highway were wayfarers––“though fools shall not err therein.”

Peneluna, without realizing it, was on The Highway over which all pass, living, seeing, feeling, and storing up experience. In old Philander’s quiet memory-haunted room she was pausing and looking back; groping forward––understanding as she had never understood before!

At times, catching the meaning of what the present held, her old face quivered as a child’s does that is lost, and she would think back, holding to some word or look that gave her courage again to fix her eyes ahead.

“So! so!” she would nod and mutter. “So! so!” It was like meeting others on The Highway, greeting them, and then going on alone!

That was the hurt of it all––she was alone. If only there 103 had been someone to hold her hand, to help her when she stumbled, but no! she was like a creature in a land of shadowy ghosts. Ghosts whom she knew; who knew her, but they could not linger long with her.

More than the others, Philander persisted, but perhaps that was because of the pencilled words. They were guide-posts he had left for her. And strangest of all, this passing to and fro on The Highway seemed to concern Larry Rivers most of all. Larry, who, during all the years, had meant nothing more to King’s Forest than that he was the old doctor’s son, Mary-Clare’s husband, and Maclin’s secret employee.

Larry, asleep in the shack next door, had taken on new proportions. He meant, for the first time, to Peneluna, a person to whom she owed something by virtue of knowledge. Knowledge! What really did she know? How did she know it? She did not question––she accepted and became responsible in a deep and grateful manner. She must remember about Larry. Remember all she could––it would help her now.

The trouble, Peneluna knew, began with Larry’s mother. Larry’s mother had wrecked the old doctor’s life; had driven him to King’s Forest. No one had ever told Peneluna this––but she knew it. It did not matter what that woman had done, she had hurt a man cruelly. Once the old doctor had said to Peneluna––it came sharply back, now, like a call from a wayfarer:

“Miss Pen, it is because of such women as you and Aunt Polly that men can keep their faith.”

That was when Larry was desperately ill and Polly Heathcote and Peneluna were nursing him––he was a little boy then, home on a vacation. It was because of the woman that neither of them had ever known that they tried to mother the boy––but Larry was difficult, he had queer streaks. Again Peneluna looked back, back to some of the difficult streaks.

Once Larry had stolen! He had gone, too, when quite a child, to the tavern! He had tasted the liquor, made the 104 men laugh! The old doctor had been in a sad state at that time and Larry had been sent to school.

After that, well, Peneluna could not recall Larry distinctly for many years. She knew the old doctor clung to him passionately; went occasionally to see him, came back troubled; came back looking older each time and depending more upon Mary-Clare, whose love and devotion could smooth the sadness from his face.

Then that night, the marriage night of Mary-Clare! Peneluna had been near the old doctor when Larry bent to catch the distorted words that were but whispered. She knew, she seemed always to have known, that Larry had lied; he had not understood anything.

Peneluna had tried to interfere, but she was always fumbling; she could patiently wait, but action, with her, was slow.

And then Maclin! Since Maclin came and bought the mines and Larry––oh! what did it all mean? Had things been slumbering, needing only a touch?

And who was this man at the inn? Was he the Touch? What was going to happen in this dull, sluggish life of King’s Forest?

The night was growing old, old! Peneluna, too, was old and tired. The Highway was fraught with terrors for her; the ghosts frightened her. They were trying to make her understand what she must do, now that they had shown her The Way. She must keep the old doctor’s son from Maclin if she could and from the stranger at the inn, if she had need. If trouble came she must defend her own.

The weary woman nodded; her eyes closed; the Book slipped from her lap and lay like a “light unto her feet.” She had, somehow, got an understanding of Larry Rivers: she believed that through his “difficult streaks” Maclin had got a hold upon him; was using him now for evil ends. It was for her, for all who loved the old doctor, to shield, at any cost, the doctor’s son. That Larry was unworthy did not weigh with Peneluna. Where she gave, she gave with abandon.