For three weeks the two women nursed Lyman Gage, with now and then the help of Molly Poke in the kitchen. There were days when they came and went silently, looking at each other with stricken glances and at the sick man with pity; and Mary Amber went and looked at the letter lying on the bureau, and wondered whether she ought to telegraph that man who had sent the soldier the money that day. Another letter arrived, and then a telegram, all from Chicago. Then Mary Amber and Miss Marilla talked it over, and decided to make some reply.

By that time the doctor had said that Lyman Gage would pull through; and he had opened his eyes once or twice and smiled weakly upon them. Mary Amber went to the telegraph-office, and sent a message to the person in Chicago whose name was written at the left-hand corner of the envelopes, the same that had been signed to that first telegram.

“Lyman Gage very ill at my home, pneumonia, not able to read letters or telegram. Slight improvement to-day.

“(Signed)

“Marilla Chadwick.”

Within three hours an answer arrived.

“Much distressed at news of Gage’s illness. Cannot come on account of fractured bone, automobile accident. Please keep me informed, and let me know if there is anything I can do.

“(Signed)

“Arthur J. Watkins.”

Mary wrote a neat little note that night before she went on duty in the sick-room, stating that the invalid had smiled twice that day and asked what day of the week it was. The doctor felt that he was on the high road to recovery now, and there was nothing to do but be patient. They would show him his mail as soon as the doctor was willing, which would probably be in a few days now.

The day they gave Lyman Gage his mail to read the sun was shining on a new fall of snow, and the air was crisp and clear. There were geraniums blossoming in the spare-room windows between the sheer white curtains, and the Franklin heater was glowing away and filling the place with the warmth of summer.

The patient had been fed what he called “a real breakfast,” milk toast and a soft-boiled egg, and the sun was streaming over the foot of the bed gayly as if to welcome him back to life. He seemed so much stronger that the doctor had given permission for him to be bolstered up with an extra pillow while he read his mail.

He had not seemed anxious to read the mail, nor at all curious, even when they told him it was postmarked Chicago. Miss Marilla carried it to him gayly as if she were bringing him a bouquet, but Mary eyed him with a curious misgiving. Perhaps, after all, there would not be good news. He seemed so very apathetic. She watched him furtively as she tidied the room, putting away the soap and towels, and pulling a dry leaf or two from the geraniums. He was so still, and it took him so long to make up his mind to tear open the envelopes after he had them in his thin white hand. It almost seemed as if he dreaded them like a blow, and was trying to summon courage to meet them. Once, as she looked at him, his eye met hers with a deprecatory smile, and to cover her confusion she spoke impulsively.

“You don’t seem deeply concerned about the news,” she said gayly.

He smiled again almost sadly.“Well, no!” he said thoughtfully. “I can’t say I am. There really isn’t anything much left in which to be interested. You see about the worst things that could happen have happened, and there’s no chance for anything else.”

“You can’t always tell,” said Mary Amber cheerfully, as she finished dusting the bureau and took herself down-stairs for his morning glass of milk and egg.

Slowly Lyman Gage tore the envelope of the topmost letter, and took out the written sheet. In truth he had little curiosity. It was likely an account of how his lawyer friend had paid back the money to Mr. Harrower, or else the details of the loan on the old Chicago house. Houses and loans and such things seemed far from his world just now. He was impatient for Mary Amber to come back with that milk and egg. Not so much for the milk and egg as for the comfort it gave, and the cheeriness of her presence. Presently Miss Marilla would come up and tell over some little incident of Mary’s childhood exactly as if he were Dick, the real nephew; and he liked it. Not that he liked Dick, the villain! He found himself hopelessly jealous of him sometimes. Yet he knew in a feeble far-away sense that this was only a foolish foible of an invalid, and he would get over it and laugh at himself when he got well.

He smiled at the pleasantness of it all, this getting-well business, and then turned his indifferent attention to the letter.

“Dear Gage,” it read, “what in the world did you hide yourself away in that remote corner of the world for? I’ve scoured the country to get trace of you without a single result till your telegram came. There’s good news to tell you. The unexpected has happened, and you are a rich man, old fellow. Don’t let it turn your head, for there’s plenty of business to occupy you as soon as you are able to return.

“To make a long story short, the old tract of land in which you put all you had and a good deal more has come to the front in great shape at last. You will remember that the ore was found to be in such shape when they came to the mining of it that it would cost fabulous sums for the initial operations, and it fell through because your company couldn’t afford to get the proper machinery. Well, the Government has taken over the whole tract, and is working it. I am enclosing the details on another paper, and you will perceive, when you have looked it over, how very much you are needed at home just now to decide numerous questions which have taxed my ingenuity to the limit to know just what you would want done. There is a great deal of timber on those lands also, very valuable timber, it seems; and that is another source of wealth for you. Oh, this war has been a great thing for you, young man; and you certainly ought to give extra thanks that you came out alive to enjoy it all. Properly managed, your property ought to keep you on Easy Street for the rest of your life, and then some.

“I took pains to let Mr. Harrower know how the wind blew when I paid him the money you had borrowed from him. He certainly was one surprised man; and of course I don’t speak officially, but from what he said I should judge that this might make a big difference with Miss Elinore. So you better hurry home, old man, and get busy. The sun is shining, and the war is over.

“Yours fraternally as well as officially,

“Arthur J. Watkins.”Over the first part of the letter Lyman Gage dallied comfortably as he might have done with his grapefruit or the chicken on toast that they had promised him for lunch. He had lost his sense of world values for the time being, and just now a fortune was no more than a hot-water bag when one’s feet were cold. It merely gave him a sense that he needn’t be in a hurry getting well, that he could take things easy because he could pay for everything and give his friends a good time after he was on his feet again. In short, he was no longer a beggar on Miss Marilla’s bounty with only a thousand dollars between him and debt or even the poorhouse.

But, when he came to that last paragraph, his face suddenly hardened, and into his eyes there came a glint of steel as of old, while his jaw set sternly, and lines came around his mouth, hard, bitter lines.

So it was that that had been the matter with Elinore, was it? She had not grown tired of him so much, but had wanted more money than she thought he would be able to furnish for a long time? He stared off into the room not seeing its cozy details for the first time since he began to get well. He was looking at the vision of the past trying to conjure up a face whose loveliness had held for him no imperfections. He was looking at it squarely now as it rose dimly in vision against the gray of Miss Marilla’s spare-room wall; and for the first time he saw the petted under lip with the selfish droop at its corners, the pout when she could not have her own way, the frown of the delicate brows, the petulant tapping of a dainty foot, the proud lifted shoulder, the haughty stare, the cold tones and crushing contempt that were hers sometimes. These had seldom been for him; and, when he had seen them, he had called them beautiful, had gloried in them, fool that he was! Why had he been so blind, when there were girls in the world like—well—say like Mary Amber?

Misjudging Elinore? Well, perhaps, but somehow he did not believe he was. Something had cleared his vision. He began to remember things in Elinore Harrower that he had never called by their true names before. It appeared more than likely that Elinore had deliberately left him for a richer man, and that it was entirely possible under the changed circumstances that she might leave the richer man for him if he could prove that he was the richer of the two. Bah! What a thing to get well to! Why did there have to be things like that in the world? Well, it mattered very little to him what Elinore did. It might make a difference with her, but it would make no difference to him. There were things in that letter of hers that had cut too deep. He could never forget them, no, never, not even if she came crawling to his feet and begging him to come back to her. As for going back to Chicago, business be hanged! He was going to stay right here and get well. A smile melted out on his lips, and comfort settled down about him as he heard Mary Amber’s step on the stairs and the soothing clink of the spoon in the glass of egg and milk.

“Good news?” asked Mary Amber as she shoved up the little serving-table and prepared to administer the egg and milk.

“Oh, so-so!” he answered with a smile, sweeping the letters away from him and looking at the foaming glass with eager eyes.“Why! You haven’t opened them all!” laughed Mary Amber.

“Oh! Haven’t I?” he said impatiently, sweeping them up and tearing them open wholesale with only a glance at each, then throwing them back on the coverlet again.

“Nothing but the same old thing. Hounding me back to Chicago,” he grinned. “I’m having much too good a time to get well too fast, you may be sure.”

Somehow the room seemed cozier after that, and his sleep the sweeter when he took his nap. He ate his chicken on toast slowly to prolong the happy time; and he listened and smiled with deep relish at the little stories Miss Marilla told of Mary Amber’s childhood, the gingerbread men with currant eyes, and the naughty Dick who stole them. This world he was in now was such a happy, clean little world, so simple and so good! Oh, if he could have known a world like this earlier in his life! If only he could have been the hapless Dick in reality!

Molly Poke was established in the kitchen down-stairs now, and Miss Marilla hovered over her anxiously, leaving the entertaining of the invalid much to Mary Amber, who wrote neat business letters for him, telling his lawyer friend to do just as he pleased with everything till he got back; and who read stories and bits of poems, and played chess with him as soon as the doctor allowed. Oh, they were having a happy time, the three of them! Miss Marilla hovered over the two as if they had been her very own children.

And then one lovely winter afternoon, when they were just discussing how perhaps they might take the invalid out for a ride in the car some day next week, the fly dropped into the ointment!

It was as lovely a fly as ever walked on tiny French heels, and came in a limousine lined with gray duvetyn and electrically heated and graced with hothouse rosebuds in a slender glass behind the chauffeur’s right ear. She picked her way daintily up the snowy walk, surveyed the house and grounds critically as far as the Amber hedge, and rang the bell peremptorily.

Miss Marilla herself went to the front door, for Molly Poke was busy making cream-puffs and couldn’t stop; and, when she saw the little fly standing haughtily on the porch, swathed in a gorgeous moleskin cloak with a voluminous collar of tailless ermine, and a little toque made of coral velvet embroidered in silver, she thought right away of a spider. A very beautiful spider, it is true, but all the same a spider.

And, when the beautiful red lips opened and spoke, she thought so all the more.

“I have come to see Lyman Gage,” she announced freezingly, looking at Miss Marilla with the glance one gives to a servant. Miss Marilla cast a frightened glance of discernment over the beautiful little face. For it was beautiful, there was no mistaking that, very perfectly beautiful, though it might have been only superficially so. Miss Marilla was not used to seeing a skin that looked like soft rose-leaves in baby perfection on a person of that age. Great baby eyes of blue, set wide, with curling dark lashes, eyebrows that seemed drawn by a fairy brush, lips of such ruby-red pout, and nose chiselled in warm marble. Peaches and cream floated through her startled mind, and it never occurred to her it was not natural. Oh, the vision was beautiful; there was no doubt about that.

Miss Marilla closed the door, and stood with her back to the stairs and a look of defence upon her face. She had a fleeting thought of Mary and whether she ought to be protected. She had a spasm of fierce jealousy, and a frenzy as to what she should do.

“You can step into the parlor,” she said in a tone that she hoped was calm, although she knew it was not cordial. “I’ll go up and see if he’s able to see you. He’s been very sick. The doctor hasn’t let him see any”—she paused, and eyed the girl defiantly—“any strangers.”

“Oh, that’ll be all right,” laughed the girl with a disagreeable tinkle. “I’m not a stranger. I’m only his fiancÉe.” But she pronounced “fiancÉe” in a way that Miss Marilla didn’t recognize at all, and she looked at her hard. It wasn’t “wife,” anyway; and it hadn’t sounded like “sister” or “cousin.” Miss Marilla looked at the snip—that was what she began to call her in her mind—and decided that she didn’t want her to see Lyman Gage at all; but of course Lyman Gage must be the one to decide that.

“What did you say your name was?” she asked bluntly.

For answer the girl brought out a ridiculous little silk bag with a clattering clasp and chain, and took therefrom a tiny gold card-case, from which she handed Miss Marilla a card. Miss Marilla adjusted her spectacles, and studied it a moment with one foot on the lower stairs.

“Well,” she said reluctantly, “he hasn’t seen any one yet; but I’ll go and find out if you can see him. You can sit in the parlor.” She waved her hand again toward the open door, and started up-stairs.

The blood was beating excitedly through her ears, and her heart pounded in pitiful thuds. If this “snip” belonged to her soldier boy, she was sure she could never mother him again. She wouldn’t feel at home. And her thoughts were so excited that she did not know that the fur-clad snip was following her close behind until she was actually within the spare bedroom, and holding out the card to her boy with a trembling little withered-rose-leaf hand.

The boy looked up with his wide, pleasant smile like a benediction, and reached out for the card interestedly. He caught the look of panic on Miss Marilla’s face and the inscrutable one on Mary Amber’s. Mary had heard the strange voice below and arisen from her reading aloud to glance out of the window. She now beat a precipitate retreat into the little sewing-room just off the spare bedroom. Then Lyman Gage realized another presence in the room, and looked beyond to the door where stood Elinore Harrower, her big eyes watching him jealously from her swathing of gorgeous furs, while he slowly took in the situation.

It had been a common saying among his friends that no situation however unexpected ever found Lyman Gage off his guard, or ever saw him give away his own emotions. Like lightning there flitted over his face now a sudden cloud like a curtain, shutting out all that he had been the moment before, putting under lock and seal any like or dislike he might be feeling, allowing only the most cool courtesy to appear in his expression. Miss Marilla, watching him like a cat, could not tell whether he was glad or sorry, surprised or indignant or pleased. He seemed none of these. He glanced with cool indifference toward the lovely vision smiling in the doorway now and ready to gush over him, and a stern dignity grew in the set of his jaws; but otherwise he did not seem to have changed, and most casually, as if he had seen her but the week before, he remarked:

“Oh! Is that you, Elinore? Seems to me you have chosen a cold day to go out. Won’t you sit down?” He motioned toward a stiff little chair that stood against the wall, though Mary Amber’s rocker was still waving back and forth from her hasty retreat.

Miss Marilla simply faded out of the room, although Gage said politely, “don’t leave us, please.” But she was gone before the words were out of his mouth, and with a sudden feeling of weakness he glanced around the room wildly, and realized that Mary Amber was gone too.Mary Amber stood in the sewing-room, and wondered what she ought to do. For the other door of the sewing-room was closed and barred by a heavy iron bed that had been put up for convenience during the soldier’s illness, and the only spot that was long enough to hold it was straight across the hall door. Obviously Mary Amber could not get out of the sewing-room without moving that bed, and she knew by experience of making it every morning that it squeaked most unmercifully when it was moved. Neither could she go out through the spare bedroom, for she felt that her appearance would cause no end of explanations; and equally of course she dared not shut the door because it would make a noise and call attention to her presence.

So Mary Amber tiptoed softly to the farthest end of the little room, and stood rigidly silent, trying not to listen, yet all the more attuned and sensitive to whatever was going on in the next room. She fairly held her breath lest they should hear her, and pressed her fingers upon her hot eyeballs as if that would shut out the sound.

“That’s scarcely the way I expected you to meet me, Lyme,” in the sweet lilt of Elinore Harrower’s petted voice.

“I was scarcely expecting you, you know, after what has happened,” came chillingly in Lyman Gage’s voice, a bit high and hollow from his illness, and all the cooler for that.

“I couldn’t stay away when I knew you were ill, Lyme, dear!” The voice was honeyed sweet now.

“What had that to do with it?” The tone was almost vicious. “You wrote that we had grown apart, and it was true. You are engaged to another man.”

“Well, can’t I change my mind?” The tone was playful, kittenish. It smote Lyman Gage’s memory that he had been wont to call it teasing and enjoy it in her once upon a time.

“You’ve changed your mind once too often!” The sick man’s voice was tense in his weakness, and his brow was dark.

“Why, Lyme Gage! I think you are horrid!” cried the girl with a hint of indignant tears in her voice. “Here I come a long journey to see you when you’re sick; and you meet me that way, and taunt me. It’s not like you. You don’t seem a bit glad to see me! Perhaps there’s some one else.” The voice had a taunt in it now, and an assurance that expected to win out in the end, no matter to what she might have to descend to gain her point.

But she had reckoned without knowledge, for Lyman Gage remembered the picture he had torn to bits in the dying light of the sunset and trampled in the road; those same brilliant eyes, that soft tinted cheek, those painted lips, had smiled impudently up to him that way as he had ground them beneath his heel; and this was GIRL, his natural enemy, who would play with him at her pleasure, and toss him away when he was no longer profitable to her, expecting to find him ready at a word again when circumstances changed. He straightened up with sudden strength, and caught her words with a kind of joyful triumph.

“Yes, there is some one else! Mary! Mary Amber!”

Mary Amber, trying not to hear, had caught her name, heard the sound in his voice like to the little chick that calls its mother when the hawk appears; and suddenly her fear vanished. She turned, and walked with steady step and bright eyes straight into the spare bedroom, a smile upon her lips and a rose upon her cheek that needed no cosmetics to enhance its beauty.

“Did you call me—Lyman?” she said, looking straight at him with rescue in her eyes.

He put out his hand to her, and she went and stood by the bed over across from the visitor, who had turned and was staring amazedly, insolently at her now.

Lyman Gage put out his big, wasted hand, and gathered Mary Amber’s hand in his, and she let him!

“Mary,” said Lyman Gage possessively, and there were both boldness and appeal in his eyes as he looked at her, “I want Miss Harrower to know you; Miss Amber, Miss Harrower.”

Elinore Harrower had risen with one hand on the back of her chair; and her crimson lips parted, a startled expression in her eyes. Her rich furs had fallen back, and revealed a rich and vampish little frock beneath; but she was not thinking of her frock just then. She was looking from one to the other of the two before her.

“I don’t understand!” she said haughtily. “Did you know her before?”

Lyman Gage flashed a look at Mary for indulgence, and answered happily.

“Our friendship dates back to when we were children and I spent a summer with my Aunt Marilla teasing Mary, and letting the sawdust out of her dolls.” He gave a daring glance at Mary, and found the twinkles in her eyes playing with the dimples at the corner of her mouth; and his fingers clung more warmly around hers.

The two were so absorbedly interested in this little comedy they were enacting that they had quite failed to notice its effect upon the audience. Elinore Harrower had gathered her fur robes about her, and was fastening them proudly at her throat. Her dark eyes were two points of steel, and the little white teeth that bit into the pouting crimson under lip looked vicious and suggestive.

“I did not understand,” said Elinore haughtily. “I thought you were among strangers, and needed some one. I will leave you to your friends. You always did like simple country ways, I remember;” and she cast a withering glance around.

“Why, where is Aunt Rilla, Mary?” asked Lyman, innocently ignoring the sneer of his guest. “Aunt Marilla!” he raised his voice, looking toward the door. “Aunt Marilla, won’t you please come here?”

Miss Marilla, her heart a perfect tumult of joy to hear him call her that way, straightened up from her ambush outside the door, and entered precipitately, just as the haughty guest was about to stalk from the room, if one so small and exquisite as Elinore can be said to stalk. The result was a collision that quite spoiled the effect of the exit, and the two ladies looked at each other for a brief instant much as two cats might have done under similar circumstances.

Mary Amber’s eyes were dancing, and Lyman Gage wanted to laugh, but he controlled his voice.

“Aunt Marilla, this is Miss Harrower, a girl who used to be an old friend of mine, and she thinks she can’t stay any longer. Would you mind taking her down to the door? Good-by, Elinore. Congratulations! And I hope you’ll be very happy!” He held out his free hand—the other still held Mary Amber’s, and the smile upon his lips was full of merriment. But Elinore Harrower ignored the hand and the congratulations; and, drawing her fur mantle once more about her small haughty shoulders, she sailed from the room, her coral and silver toque held high, and her little red mouth drooping with scorn and defeat. Miss Marilla, all hospitality now that she understood, offered tea and cake, but was vouchsafed no answer whatever; and so in joyous, wondering silence she attended her soldier’s guest to the door.

Lyman Gage lay back on his pillows, his face turned away from Mary Amber, listening; but his hand still held Mary Amber’s. And Mary Amber, standing quietly by his side, listening too, seemed to understand that the curtain had not fallen yet, not quite, upon the little play; for a smile wove in and out among the dimples near her lips, and her eyes were dancing little happy lights of mirth. It was not until the front door shut upon the guest and they heard the motor’s soft purr as the car left the house that they felt the tenseness of the moment relax, and consciousness of their position stole upon them.

“Mary, Mary Amber!” whispered Lyman Gage softly, looking up into her face, “can you ever forgive me for all this?”

He held her hand, and his eyes pleaded for him.

“But it is all true. There is another one. I love you! And oh, I’m so tired. Mary Amber, can you forgive me—and—and love me, just a little bit?”

Down upon her knees went Mary Amber beside that bed, and gathered her soldier boy within her strong young arms, drawing his tired head upon her firm, sweet shoulder.

When Miss Marilla trotted back up-stairs on her weary, glad feet, and put her head in at the door fearfully, to see how her boy had stood the strain of the visitor—and to berate herself for having allowed a stranger to come up without warning, she found them so, with Mary Amber soothing her patient to sleep by kisses on his tired eyelids, and the soldier’s big white hand enfolding Mary’s little one contentedly, while the man’s low voice growled tenderly:

“Mary, you are the only girl I ever really loved. I didn’t know there was a girl like you when I knew her.”

So Miss Marilla drew the door to softly lest Molly Poke should come snooping round that way, and trotted off to the kitchen to see about some charlotte russe for supper, a great thankful gladness growing in her heart, for—oh! suppose it had been that other—hussy!

The End