There had been five days in which to face a rather ugly and bald fact before Northrup again saw Mary-Clare. He had employed the time, he tried to make himself believe, wisely, sanely.

He had spent a good portion of it at the Point. He had irritated Larry beyond endurance by friendly overtures. In an effort to be just, he tried to include Rivers in his reconstruction. The truth, he sternly believed, would never be known, but if it were, certainly Rivers might have something to say for himself, and with humiliation Northrup regarded himself “as other men.” He had never, thank heaven! looked upon himself as better than other men, but he had thought his struggle, early in life, his unhappy parenthood, and later devotion to his work, had set him apart from the general temptations of many young men and had given him a distaste for follies that could hold no suggestion of mystery for him.

Well, Fate had merely bided its time.

With every reason for escaping a pitfall, he had floundered in. “Like other men?” Northrup sneered at himself. No other man could be such a consummate fool, knowing what he knew.

Viewed from this position, Larry was not as contemptible as he had once appeared.

But Rivers resented Northrup’s advances, putting the lowest interpretation upon them. In this he was upheld by Maclin, who was growing restive under the tension that did not break, but stretched endlessly on.

Northrup resolved to see Mary-Clare once more and then go home. He would make sure that the fire he himself was scorched by had not touched her. After that he would turn 148 his back upon the golden selah in his life and return to his niche in the wall.

This brought his mother and Kathryn into the line of vision. How utterly he had betrayed their confidence! His whole life, from now on, should be devoted to their service. Doubtless to other men, like himself, there were women who were never forgotten, but that must not blot out reality.

And then Northrup considered the task of unearthing Maclin’s secrets, and ridding the Forest of that subtle fear and distrust that the man created. That was, however, too big an undertaking now. He must get Twombley to watch and report. Northrup had a great respect for Twombley’s powers of observation.

And so the time on the Point had been put to some purpose, and it had occupied Northrup. Noreen and Jan-an had helped, too. It was rather tragic the way Northrup had grown to feel about Noreen. The child had developed his latent love for children––they had never figured in his life before. So much had been left out, now that he came to think of it!

And Jan-an. Poor groping creature! To have gained her affection and trust meant a great deal.

Then the Heathcotes! Polly and Peter! During those five distraught days they developed halos in Northrup’s imagination.

They had taken him in, a stranger. They had fathered and mothered him; staunchly and silently stood by him. What if they knew?

They must never know! He would make sure of that.

In this frame of mind, chastened and determined, Northrup on the fifth day took his place behind the laurel clump back of Mary-Clare’s cabin, and to his relief saw her coming out of the door. His manuscript was not in her hands, but her face had an uplifted and luminous look that set his heart to a quicker pulsing.

After a decent length of time, Northrup, whistling carelessly, scruffing the dead leaves noiselessly, followed on and 149 overtook Mary-Clare near the log upon which they had sat at their last meeting.

The quaint poise and dignity of the girl was the first impression Northrup always got. He had never quite grown accustomed to it; it was like a challenge––his impulse was to test it. It threatened his exalted state now.

“It’s quite mysterious, isn’t it?”

Mary-Clare sat down on her end of the log and looked up, her eyes twinkling.

“What is mysterious?” Northrup took his place. The log was not a long one.

“The way we manage to meet.”

She was setting him at a safe distance in that old way of hers that somehow made her seem so young.

It irritated Northrup now as it never had before.

He had prepared himself for an ordeal, was keyed to a high note, and the quiet, smiling girl near him made it all seem a farce.

This was dangerous. Northrup relaxed.

“It’s been nearly a week since I saw you,” he said, and let his eyes rest upon Mary-Clare’s face.

“Yes, nearly a week,” she said softly, “but it took me all that time to make up my mind.”

“About what?”

“Your book.”

Northrup had forgotten, for the moment, his book, and he resented its introduction.

“Damn the book!” he thought. Aloud he said: “Of course! You were going to tell me where I have fallen down.”

“I hope you are not making a joke of it”––Mary-Clare’s face flushed––“but even if you are, I am going to tell you what I think. I must, you know.”

“That’s awfully good of you”––Northrup became earnest––“but it doesn’t matter now, I am going away. Let us talk of something else.”

Mary-Clare took this in silence. The only evidence of her surprise showed in the higher touch of colour that rose, then died out, leaving her almost pale.

“Then, there is all the more reason why I must tell you what I think,” she said at last.

The words came like sharp detached particles; they hurt.

“We must talk about the book!”

And Northrup suddenly caught the truth. The book was their common language. Only through that could they reach each other, understandingly.

“All right!” he murmured, and turned his face away.

“It’s your woman,” Mary-Clare began with a sharp catching of her breath as if she had been running. “Your woman is not real.”

Northrup flushed. He was foolishly and suddenly angry. If the book must be brought in, he would defend it. It was all that was left to him of this detached interlude of his life. He meant to keep it. It was one thing to live along in his story and daringly see how close he could come to revealment with the keen-witted girl who had inspired him, but quite another, now that he was going, beaten from the field, to have the book, as a book, assailed. As to books, he knew his business!

“You put your words in your woman’s mouth,” Mary-Clare was saying.

“And whose words, pray, should I put there?” Northrup asked huskily.

“You must let her speak for herself.”

“Good Lord!”

Mary-Clare did not notice the interruption. She was doing battle for more than Northrup guessed. She hoped he would never know the truth, but the battle must be fought if all the beautiful weeks of joy were to be saved for the future. The idealism that the old doctor had desperately hoped might save, not destroy, Mary-Clare was to prove itself now.

“There are so many endings in life, that it is hard, in a book, to choose just one. Why should there be an end to a book?” she asked.

The question came falteringly and Northrup almost laughed.

“Go on, please,” he said quietly. “You think I’ve ended my woman by letting her do what any woman in real life would do?”

“All women would not do what your woman does. Such women end men!”

This was audacious, but it caught Northrup’s imagination.

“Go on,” he muttered lamely.

“Do you think love is everything to a woman?” Mary-Clare demanded ferociously.

“It is the biggest thing!” Northrup was up in arms to defend his code and his work.

“You think it could wipe out honour, all the things that meant honour to her?”

“Love conquers everything for a woman.”

“Does it for a man?”

Northrup tried to fling out the affirmative, but he hedged.

“Largely, yes.”

“I do not think that. There are some things bigger to him. Maybe not bigger, but things that he would choose instead of love, if he had to. It is what you do to love that matters. If you come and take it when you haven’t a right to it; when you’d be stealing it; letting other sacred things go for it––then you would be killing love. But if you honour it, even if it is lonely and often sad, it lives and lives and–––”

The universe, at that momentous instant, seemed to rock and tremble. Everything was swept aside as by a Force that but bided its hour and had taken absolute control.

Northrup was never able to connect the two edges of conscious thought that were riven apart by the blinding stroke that left him and Mary-Clare in that space where their souls met. But, thank God, the Force was not evil; it was but revealing.

Northrup drew Mary-Clare to her feet and held her little work-worn hands close.

“You are crying––suffering,” he whispered.

“Yes.”

“And–––”

“Oh! please wait”––the deep sobs shook the girl––“you must wait. I’ll try to––to make you see. I was awake that night at the inn––that is why I––trust you now! Why I want you to––to understand.”

She seemed pleading with him––it made him wince; she was calling forth his best to help her weakest.

“Your book”––Mary-Clare gripped that again––“your book is a beautiful, live thing––we must keep it so! Your man has grown and grown through every page until he quite naturally believed he was able to––to do more than any man can ever do! Why, this is your chance to be different, stronger.” The quick, panting words ran into each other and then Mary-Clare controlled them while, unheeded, the tears rolled down her cheeks. “You must let your woman act for herself! She, too, must learn and know. She made a horrible mistake from not knowing and seeing the first man; no love can help her by taking the solution from her. She must be free––free and begin again. If it is right–––”

“Yes, Mary-Clare. If it is right, what then?”

Everything seemed to wait upon the answer. The scurrying wood creatures and the dropping of dead leaves alone broke the silence. Slowly, like one coming into consciousness, Mary-Clare drew one hand from Northrup’s, wiped her eyes, and then––let it fall again into his!

“I can see clearer now,” she faltered. “Please, please try to understand. It is because love means so much to some women, that when they think it out with their women-minds they will be very careful of it. They will feel about it as men do about their honour. There must be times when love must stand aside if they want to keep it! I know how queer and crooked all this must sound, but men do not stop loving if their honour makes them turn from it. We are all, men and women, too, parts––we cannot act as if––oh! you do understand, I know you do, and some day you will go on with your beautiful book.”

“And the end of my book, Mary-Clare? There must be an end.”

“I do not know. I do not think a great big book ever ends any more than life ends.”

Northrup was swept from his hard-wrought position at this. The next wave of emotion might carry him higher, but for the moment he was drifting, drifting.

“You do not know life, nor men, nor women,” he said huskily and clutched her hands in his. “If life cheats and injures you, you have a right to snatch what joy you can. It’s not only what you do to love, but what you do to yourself, that counts. For real love can stand anything.”

“No, it cannot!” Mary-Clare tried to draw away, but she felt the hold tighten on her hands; “it cannot stand dishonour. That’s what kills it.”

“Dishonour! What is dishonour?” Northrup asked bitterly. “I’m going to prove as far as I can, in my book, that the right kind of man and woman with a big enough love can throttle life; cheat the cheater.” This came defiantly.

But the book no longer served its purpose; it seemed to fall at the feet of the man and woman, standing with clasped hands and hungry, desperate eyes.

The words that might have changed their lives were never spoken, for, down the trail gaily, joyously, came the sound of Noreen’s voice, shrilly singing one of the songs Northrup had taught her.

“That’s what I mean by honour,” Mary-Clare whispered. “Noreen and all that she is! You, you do understand about some women, don’t you? You will help, not hurt, such women, won’t you?”

“For God’s sake, Mary-Clare, don’t!”

Northrup bent and touched his lips to the small work-stained hands. The song down the trail rose joyously.

“I have thought of you”––Mary-Clare was catching her breath sharply––“as Noreen has––a man brought by the haunted wind. It has all been like a wonderful play. I have not thought of the place where you belong, but I know there are those in that place who are like Noreen.”

“Yes!” Northrup shivered and flinched as a cold, wet leaf fell upon his hands and Mary-Clare’s.

“The wind is changing,” said the woman. “The lovely autumn has been kind and has stayed long.”

“My dear, my dear––don’t!” Northrup pleaded.

“Oh! but I must. You see I want you to think back, as I shall––at all this as great happiness. Come, let us go down the trail. I want you to tell me about your city, the place where you belong! I must picture you there now.”

Northrup kept the small right hand in his as they turned. It was a cold hand and it trembled in his grasp, but there was a steel-like quality in it, too.

It was tragic, this strength of the girl who had drawn her understanding of life from hidden sources. Northrup knew that she was seeking to smooth his way on ahead; to take the bitterness from a memory that, without her sacrifice, might hold him back from what had been, was, and must always be, inevitable. She was ignoring the weak, tempted moment and linking the past with all that the future must hold for them both.

There was only the crude, simple course for him to follow––to accept the commonplace, turn and face life as one turns from a grave that hides a beautiful thing.

“You have never been to the city?”

There was nothing to do but resort to words. Superficial, foolish words.

“Yes, once. On my wedding trip.”

This was unfortunate, but words without thought are wild things.

Mary-Clare hurried along while visions of Larry’s city rose like smiting rebukes to her heedlessness. Cheap theatres, noisy restaurants, gaudy lights.

“My dear doctor and I always planned going together,” she said brokenly. “I believe there are many cities in the city. One has to find his city for himself.”

“Yes, that’s exactly what one does.” Northrup closed his hand closer over the dead-cold one in his grasp.

“Your city, it must be wonderful.”

“It will be a haunted city, Mary-Clare.”

“Tell me about it. And tell me a little, if you don’t mind, about your people.”

The bravery was almost heart-breaking, it caused Northrup’s lips to set grimly.

“There is my mother,” he replied.

“I’m glad. You love her very much?”

“Very much. She’s wonderful. My father died long ago.”

Mary-Clare did not ask whether he loved his father or not, and she hurried on:

“And now, when I try to think of you in your city, at your work, just how shall I think of you? Make it like a picture.”

Northrup struggled with himself. The girl beside him, in pushing him from her life, was so unutterably sweet and brave.

“My dear, my dear!” he whispered, and remorse, pity, yearning rang in the words.

“Make it like a picture!” Relentlessly the words were repeated. They demanded that he give his best.

“Think of a high little room in a tall tower overlooking all cities,” he began slowly, “the cheap, the beautiful, the glad, and the sad. The steam and smoke roll up and seem to make a gauzy path upon which all that really matters comes and goes as one sits and watches.”

Mary-Clare’s eyes were wide and vision-filled.

“Oh! thank you,” she whispered. “I shall always see it and you so. And sometimes, maybe when the sun is going down, as it is now, you will see me on that trail that is just yours, in your city coming to––to wish you well!”

“Good God!” Northrup shook himself. “What’s got us two? We’ve worked ourselves into a pretty state. Talking as, as if––Mary-Clare, I’m not going away. There will be other days. It’s that book of mine. Hang it! We’ve got snarled in the book.”

The weak efforts to ignore everything failed pitifully.

“No, it is life.” Mary-Clare grew grim as Northrup relaxed. “But I want you always to remember my old 156 doctor’s rule. If a thing is going to kill you, die bravely; if it isn’t, get over it at once and live the best you can.”

“God bless and keep you, Mary-Clare.” Absolute surrender marked the tone.

“He will!”

“But this is not good-bye!”

“No, it is not good-bye.”