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CHAPTER XVII

Fate smiled. An itinerant Swiss became interested in the tea room. There were a few days of sharp bargaining and on October the fourteenth it was sold to him. The price just barely covered the indebtedness. Mary Louise made haste to send Claybrook a check for the fifteen hundred dollars plus the interest. Two days later she got the notes through the mail with no comment and she tremblingly tore them into bits and scattered the bits from her window. Then she went to the bank and took up the note for the six hundred dollars she had originally borrowed. It left her nothing, but she was free. She had lived the summer and was where she had started. A little wan, feeling a little empty, she caught the train for Bloomfield. All during the trip she gazed from the window, dizzily conscious of the shifting landscape, dimly aware of her retreat....

Miss Susan McCallum looked up from her rocking chair as Mary Louise entered the sitting room. There was no surprise in her greeting, and she suffered her cheek to be kissed in silence. Old Landy stuck his grizzled head in at the door at the unusual commotion and Mary Louise, unaccountably and suddenly touched by something subtly familiar and friendly, trilled:

"I've come to look after you, Aunt Susie. Just couldn't stay away any longer. The countryside was perfectly beautiful as I came up this morning in the train. It's the loveliest October I've ever seen. Think of being cooped up in the city this time of year."

Landy grinned and came shambling in with a greeting. Miss Susie's eyebrows went up and there was a suspicion of moisture on the lashes. "Well, you needn't have done it. Landy and I have been managing very well. But you look a little peaked." She turned and laid her knitting on the table by her side.

"Little Missy's a sight fo' so' eyes," interjected Landy and then withdrew. Directly they could hear him authoritatively ordering someone about.

Miss Susie sighed and looked at Mary Louise. The latter was taking off her hat but she caught a hidden appeal in the pinched, weazened face that she had never before noticed. It made a sharp little tug at her heart, and throwing her hat on the table, she came over and sat on the stool at the older woman's feet.

"How long will you be with us this time?"

She reached up and took the hand and was startled at finding how hot it was. "Why—for all the time. Didn't you understand? I'm not going back at all."

A strange expression came over Miss Susie's face. It was as though she all of a sudden let down. She stared into Mary Louise's eyes and the latter waited for some characteristic outburst. But none came. Directly the old lady reached over for her knitting again and busied herself with it, bending her head over it. Mary Louise, watching her, saw her throat contract, saw her moisten her lips softly with the tip of her tongue.

Without, looking up, "What about your business? You're not leaving it for someone else to look after for you?" The tone was very low and the voice so husky that she finished the sentence with a little clearing of the throat.

"I've given it up—given it up entirely. Not a thing in the world to keep me," replied Mary Louise.

For a few moments complete silence settled down upon the room, with only the ticking of the clock on the mantel. It was dark and cool and sweet-smelling, a sort of "goodsy" smell. A blue-bottle fly began to buzz and bump against the glass of the window and now and then he would circle about the room, filling its silence with his droning. The sunlight came creeping slowly across the rag carpet, a widening orange pool, as the sun slipped around to the westward. Mary Louise could see the edge of it without turning her head. She felt suddenly guilty, as though she were in some way parading in false colours. There was an impenetrableness in the reserve.

"I just couldn't stand it any longer," she burst out. "I want to be with my people and stay with my people, and look after you and live my life as it was intended." Somehow it was not exactly what she wanted to say, not the whole truth, but as if in explanation she began to stroke her aunt's knee very softly.

"What do you plan to do?" Miss Susie looked up again and there was the same old look of withered sharpness. "There's nothing in Bloomfield, you know."

"Oh, I know. Nothing, if you mean opportunity. But everything in the way of living. We'll just rock along. I'll find something to do. Something to keep me out of mischief," she laughed. "Mr. Orpell ought to have somebody in his drug store. His soft-drink counter is atrocious. Then I can make preserves and sell 'em. I know where I can sell a lot—in the city. I just don't want to think—just rest a bit and let this blessed peace get a good hold of me again." Her voice rose sharp and eager and Miss Susie smiled a quizzical smile and the old order was again restored. A door slammed and Landy's voice came to them, this time in a wailing gospel hymn, and Mary Louise sprang to her feet. "I'll have to go get Zeke Thompson and have him fetch my trunk. There was nobody to bring it over from Guests and I didn't want to wait to hunt for someone."

She skipped over to the table and picked up her hat again. Already she felt better—warmed and comforted. She paused for a moment, standing in front of Miss Susie, looking down at her as she sat there knitting placidly away with the fine firm lines about her mouth. "You won't mind if I go with him, will you? There's an excess baggage charge that I can't trust Zeke with, and I'll not be long."

"No, of course not. Since when have I been that I couldn't be left alone?" But she smiled and Mary Louise, rushing to her, kissed her again, rapturously upon the cheek, turned and whirled toward the door where she paused for a wave of the hand before plunging forth on her errand.

The sound of the door closing behind her sobered her for a moment. Here she was, gone again. Would she never be content to settle down? But the wine of the autumnal weather came mounting to her head and as she opened the front gate and struck out up the street she raised her face, drinking it in.

The rows of maples had been touched by the frost and were flaming scarlet and crimson. Over beyond, across the street, between the houses where a pasture land stretched down to the creek, the beeches were golden and rustling and shimmering in the mellow sunlight. There was a delicious tang in the air one moment and a soft mellow touch of indolent fruition the next. An automobile went scuttling across Main Street at the intersection, seeking its way westward, leaving a cloud of dust that hung lazily golden ere it settled. Even the dust was fragrant. The old tavern was quite deserted; the same green shutter hung by one hinge, and as she passed the town hall or meeting house she could hear the click of a typewriter through an open window, an incongruous touch of modernity in an otherwise immaculate antique setting. The sun was warm and came filtering through the shade to splotch the uneven brick pavement, bringing out its homely roughness in minute detail. She felt as if she recognized each upturned brick, and the worn patch of yellow earth where a grass plot was meant to be, up to the edge of the gnarled root of the oak stump that had been struck by lightning, was just as it had always been. She and Joe Hooper had played marbles there until he had grown too big to be playing marbles with girls. Queer little ecstatic sensations they were.

She crossed the square. A solitary man was walking on the other side of the street, away from her. He was carrying three long poles over his shoulder and he walked stiffly and with a slight limp. He wore a suit of dusty blue "unionalls" and a battered felt hat. Curious that she should notice such things. A "Ford" backed away from the curbing, wheeled and went rattling around the corner down the road toward Guests. And then the street and the square and the whole town were quiet again, as deserted as a street or a town on canvas.

She walked swiftly, but not too swiftly to catch up every sign of home. Her mind was aflood with impressions. What a narrow escape she had had. An exultant thought like a song arose in her. She had ventured forth, had had her taste, and it had cost her nothing. The city had not caught her even though it had reached forth strong, prehensile fingers. She knew now what she wanted, had the strength, the zest. And it was October and fair, and smiling.

Suddenly she ran almost headlong into Mrs. Mosby. That good lady came precipitately out of Orpell's Drug Store, and she was wearing her white ruching and her bangles and a trim little widow's bonnet with a semi-circle of black veil hanging down behind and accentuating the prim whiteness of her face.

Mrs. Mosby's was not a face to betray emotion; it was a well-behaved, studiously composed face. And her voice was level as she took Mary Louise by both hands.

"Well, my dear," she said. "What brings you here? I've heard you're an awfully busy woman. Hope there's nothing wrong at home."

"No," replied Mary Louise. Somehow she could never get it out of her head whenever she spoke to Mrs. Mosby that it was not still as a little girl to a personage—a personage to whom restraint and deference were due. "I'm not so busy as all that."

"Oh, but you are. I've heard all about you. We're very proud of you, my dear. Very. You've been doing so well—oh, I've heard—and your striking out into business quite alone was about the most courageous thing I know of. Why, the mere thought of such a thing takes my breath away."

"But I'm not doing it any more. And there's nothing courageous in that," smiled Mary Louise.

Mrs. Mosby looked puzzled.

"It's a fact. I've given it all up. Just got home to-day. And I'm going to settle down again with you all and be just folks."

The mask again slipped over Mrs. Mosby's countenance. "Quite as courageous a thing to do as the other," she went on evenly. "Just to give up your splendid opportunity to come back and accept your duties here—well, I think it highly commendable." She was not to be robbed of her chance to be agreeable. "Your aunt Susan is, I trust, not unwell?"

"Oh, about the same, thank you, Mrs. Mosby." She wanted to ask about Joe, something in the rapprochement giving rise to thoughts of him, but she realized that Mrs. Mosby was doubtless entirely out of touch with her graceless nephew and would invent some mere plausibility. So she inquired instead after Mr. Fawcette.

"Brother is not so well. Poor soul, he suffers terribly with his rheumatism." Mrs. Mosby lapsed into thoughtfulness and Mary Louise murmured her sympathy.

A moment of this and Mrs. Mosby recovered herself and held out her hand again.

"You must come and see me now—real often. I'm so much alone. Such a lot you must have to tell me and I want to hear it all." She took her prim, precise departure conscious of her graciousness.

On her way, in the opposite direction, Mary Louise suffered another qualm, a feeling of insincerity. She was gathering credit that really was undeserved. Her return would doubtless be labelled in Bloomfield as a bit of pretty sacrifice. And the place was a very refuge. The sun dipped as she walked along, so that the tip of it reddened the ridge poles of the houses and the sky was as blue as indigo. She passed an open lot where weeds abounded and in the weeds the blackbirds were chattering noisily. At her approach they flew up in a black swarm to refuge in an old apple tree in the rear of the lot. On the ground near the sidewalk was an old wagon bed that had been there for years—she tried to remember how long. There were decided compensations in coming home.

She found Zeke sitting on his doorstep, his chin on his hands, busily strengthening his restful philosophy. She quickly bargained with him and he hurried away to get out his old carry-all. When he found that she followed him, and found in addition that she intended accompanying him, his pleasure was quite evident.

"Wait, Mis' Ma'y, ontil I gits a rag and wipes off de seat," he said at the door of the shed.

She could not help feeling a bit self-conscious as she sat by Zeke's side and went rattling along the street, down into the square, into the very centre of Bloomfield life. But she held her head jauntily aloft and wondered if she were being noticed and being talked about. They met no one. They took the open road and the afternoon settled down upon her like a blessing. On either side of the road great patches of red and yellow streaked the hills, and the fields were taking on a soft golden brown, and soft purple mists gathered in the valleys blending in subtle fashion with the foreground. In spite of the riot of colour, the land was wrapped in a calm dignity. It wore its glories well. In the bits of woodland, through which the road occasionally digressed, there was a strong odour of beech and buckeye and there was a fragrant dampness rising.

The thought of Claybrook came into her mind. She could not quite make up her mind about Claybrook. She felt momentarily sorry for him, regretted that their friendship had come to its abrupt close. And yet there was no reason why she should feel sorry for him, he had so much of everything. But he and his world were woven out of different fabric from this world about her. She could not keep one and still have the other. Anyway, she had made up her mind. She had escaped; her feeling was one of definite escape. She banished the thought of him.

She got her trunk and Zeke loaded it upon the car where it threatened to crush its way through bottom, springs, frame, and all. She observed it skeptically but Zeke was quite brisk and cheerful about it. She bought a "Courier" from the station agent and with it in her hand climbed back into her seat and felt content, now that she had her goods about her and was about to go home again.

Zeke started to crank the car when he took one reassuring look about to see if everything was all right. Not being quite satisfied with the way the trunk was riding, he departed to look for a bit of rope with which to lash it into place. While she waited, she opened up the paper in her lap and looked idly at the first page.

Instantly something caught her eye; she started and then felt suddenly weak. She read on for a moment and then closed the paper and let it fall into her lap and stared off at the blue hills that rimmed the horizon. The station at Guests was about a half mile from the town and the road was quite deserted, with only the sound of someone moving a trunk around in the baggage room behind her. A flock of birds went winging across the sky and dipped down into a patch of red-and-gold woodland. She picked up the paper again and read some more.

The "Courier" made no specialty of scare headlines or red type. Its most sensational news rarely ever rated more than single-column type, or at most two columns. The article that caught her attention was the usual one concerning misappropriation of public funds, malfeasance of office, bribery, and the like—a drab sort of story. The public had been "bilked" again. It sounded quite matter of fact. Involved were the city engineer and one J. K. Thompson, Contractor, and J. F. Claybrook, lumber man and dealer, all in collusion. All this was in the headlines—in neat, modest type. Below came the bald facts stating the amounts of money involved which somehow she did not notice and a somewhat cynically weary paragraph at the end remarking that the people were having quite too much of this sort of thing and that the courts should recognize their full duty.

So that was where the new car and the trip to California was to come from. Perhaps that was where the fifteen hundred dollars had come from, too. But she had paid it back. She had just barely shaken the bird-catcher's lime from her wings. She shivered and closed the paper again.

When Zeke returned with the rope she smiled at him.

"Let's hurry back," she said.

On the way back to Bloomfield she had no eyes for the beauties of the fast-falling October evening. But in a little while she began to feel warmer inside. At least she had shaken the dust of the city from her feet, the city where everyone wore a mask—of honesty and sobriety and right living—and lived otherwise. No wonder they called it a melting pot. She would be content from henceforth to live where the air and the living were cleaner and purer.

So absorbed was she that she did not realize that Zeke had taken another route home. When she noticed, she remarked on it.

"Hit's a shoht cut," explained Zeke. "You said you wanted to get home quick."

She smiled at his responsiveness.

They came suddenly around a bend in the road upon a gang of men, road mending. There was a huge concrete mixer and she wondered at the sight of it, a new sign of progress for Bloomfield. There was a stretch of loose rock and a wooden bar blocking the road. Zeke muttered his dismay but did not stop. They rolled right up to the barrier. A man in khaki breeches and flannel shirt and high lace boots came and waved them back.

"You'll have to turn around," he called out cheerily, and she saw that it was Joe Hooper. As though in answer to the obvious question he added, as he in turn recognized her, "Like a bad penny—I'm turning up again."

She looked at him and stared. His face was very red and somehow he looked quite natural, more so than in his city clothes.

"What in the world?" she said.

He had come quite close and she could see he was smiling. That baffling, uncertain look had left his face and there was something open about it.

"Got a man's job again," he said, still smiling.

"And you're going to be in this part of the country?"

"Till the job's finished," he replied. "And there's quite a lot of it, too. County's got a prosperous streak on. Means to have some real roads. It's about time."

Zeke was slowly backing the car preparatory to turning around.

"I'm back home now, myself," she called and reddened at once at her unnecessary confidence. What did he care where she was? But as they turned slowly in the narrow road she added, "Come and see me," and waved to him and wondered if he would.

It was growing dusk as they came again to Bloomfield and a chill was settling down. The lights in the windows glowed cheerily against the purple twilight and in one kitchen someone was frying potato cakes. The odour was symbolical of hot suppers, and summer's passing, and home, and warmth, and cheer.

She tipped Zeke a quarter even before he lugged her trunk through the kitchen door, and then she went briskly in.

"Supper ready, Zenie?" she called.

Zenie turned slowly around and looked at her from the biscuit board. She smiled wearily. "No'm. Not jes' yet it ain'. Terectly."

Mary Louise looked at her watch. It was a quarter past six. She came to a sudden decision.

"Zenie," she said.

Zenie looked up hopefully.

"I guess we'll not be needing you any more after this week."

A slow, incredulous look met her. "Yas'm?"

"You can go back and look after that husband of yours."

"Yas'm? He gettin' erlong all right."

"I don't know, Zenie. You never can tell," Mary Louise went on, maliciously enjoying the havoc she was spreading. "I'll pay you for the week. You can leave whenever you want to. But let's have supper right away." And she walked resolutely through the kitchen into a darkened house, burning her bridges behind her.

CHAPTER XVIII

It was seven o'clock on Main Street. A very faint glow still lingered in the western sky and above it cool points of stars pricked a gray-blue curtain. Over to the left the moon was peeping above a gambrel roof and the near side was steely blue up to the shadow of the purple chimney. Joe walked along shuffling with his feet in the little hollows of dry leaves. They crunched cheerily, sending up a faint, dry fragrance. Up ahead was a dying fire with only here and there a tiny flame tongue; the rest, a black and smoking crust underlaid with dull embers. The smoke that curled upward from the fire was pale blue-gray and mixed with tiny dust particles, and it hung in thin motionless strata or came curling in feathery wisps almost invisible in the shadow but heavy laden with magic scent. Up slid the moon, till Main Street was a phantom cloister, the maple boles huge columns casting purple shadows on a milky floor. Fairy lights winked in hooded windows like deep-set eyes, and a soft warm haze lapped round him dreamily, lulling his senses.

Joe had left the road-camp and tramped three miles into town. In the dusk he had come upon it unawares; it seemed quite deserted. Very quietly he had come through the back lanes, and now it lay before him, its heart open in a sort of whispered confidence. Crude, inert, makeshift sort of place it might betray itself to be in daylight, it now lay snug and warm and breathing in its cluster of trees. It had gathered its brood to it, its warm lights blinking red, and above, clear liquid moonlight. Joe walked along slowly, an outsider, and yet feeling himself slipping somehow into the warmth and protection of the street. The odour of the burning leaves was heady, a superdistillate of memories. October and moonlight and burning leaves! It meant nuts and wine-sap apples, lingering in the dusk, watching the bull-bats rise. It meant hot supper and a ravenous appetite and a slow roasting before an open fire. Sharp little pictures flashed before his eyes as he walked along, and he fancied he could hear the soft crunch of buggy wheels in the dried leaves and the pad-pad of hoofs. It all seemed wrapped up in the same parcel with his childhood, stored away somewhere in musty archives. You couldn't pull out one without stirring up all the others. He half closed his eyes and peered through his lashes down a sharp black line of roofs like a knife edge against a liquid, shimmering sky, down a broad ghostly band of silver white that was the road, all flecked and mottled with leaf shadows that moved slowly to and fro. He paused a moment. He scarcely dared breathe lest the whole thing vanish. A fairy touch on his arm, light as thistle-down, a subtle sense of warmth and a dim, intangible fragrance, and he started, blinking, and then walked on. Something was dry and dusty in his throat. "Golly, the old place sorta gets next to you on a night like this," he thought. "Guess I'd better get in. They'll think I'm nuts, mooning around on the street all night."

He came to a long stretch of wooden picket fence, beyond it a silver plaque of moon-splashed grass, the house all hollow-eyed and gaunt, like a thing watching. As he approached the gate a man came hurrying out, his head hunched forward on his shoulders. Joe stood aside to let him pass. The man peered sharply at him from under his hat brim, grunted, and then passed on. It was Mr. Burrus. Joe had a sense of being too late. Over the house hung the stillness of death, and a thing like Burrus leaving! It was an ugly thought. He walked up to the porch and knocked softly on the door.

A moment's silence and then it slowly opened. Someone stood in the doorway. A voice said, "Well?" in a low vibrant tone. There was blended in it the soft mistiness of the night, something of regret, something of purple shadows, something of stirring memories. He moistened his lips with his tongue.

"Is it you?" the voice went on, and then Mary Louise came out.

"I just heard to-day that Miss Susie had had another spell," he explained.

She stood beside him on the porch and looked up into his face. He could see she was shivering a little.

"Not to amount to anything," she said. "Aunt Susie has 'em periodically. She'll be all right in a day or two."

Joe stood in indecision. There had come a high-pitched, nervous tension into her tone, an eagerness that he did not like. The other thing had vanished.

"Won't you sit down?" said Mary Louise. "I'd ask you in, but Aunt Susie's asleep and the sound of our voices might disturb her. She hasn't had much sleep the last few nights."

Joe fingered his hat.

"Aren't you going to stay and tell me about yourself?" she urged. "It's been ages since we had a talk. Let's go down to the summerhouse."

He felt doubtful. Already a chill was gathering in the air, and he fancied she spoke through set teeth. The charm was melting away and the moon, rising above the tops of the maples, seemed cheerless and cold. But he could not be unfriendly; she had had a lot to upset her. He had read about Claybrook in the paper and while the news had caused him no discomfort—if anything quite the contrary—still, it was different now. She was alone in that bleak, staring house, alone with a sick woman. So he followed her awkwardly across the grass that was already gathering dew.

They sat facing each other in the summerhouse, sat on the edges of the chairs, bending slightly forward. Mary Louise was softly chafing her hands.

"So you've really come back," she began.

"Well, three miles from 'back,'" he replied. She was making a pretty brave show; her voice sounded bright and cheery. If only she would stop rubbing her hands together—be still for a moment.

"I expect we're meant for this place, Joe."

"Yes? How do you mean?"

"Oh, if you bend a twig young enough, the tree will grow that way." She laughed softly and he gave her a quick look.

For a few moments they sat in silence.

"How did you happen to make another change, Joe?" she asked at length, very quietly.

He paused before replying. "Well," he began, "you see I've never had any real preparation for anything I was doin'. I never could have got anywhere. Those jobs I had in town—I just drifted into 'em. Anybody could have filled 'em. I—what was the use of 'em?" He paused and was silent.

She nodded slowly. "I think you said something like that once before. I begin to see where you were right."

He made no reply. Why did she want to talk about such things? He hoped she wouldn't bring in Claybrook and her relations with him. He did not feel in the mood for raking over ashes.

"Has Miss Susie been in bed?" He carefully headed on another tack.

"Oh, up and down. She's always that way. You cannot imagine how surprised I was to see you with that road gang. I was riding along with Zeke, all wrapped up in my thoughts, and suddenly I looked up and saw you there——" She trailed off and sat thinking.

Again he was uneasy. Apparently the uncomfortable topic was not entirely buried yet. It might rise up exhumed, in its shroud, any moment.

"Yes," he said. "I'm used to that sort of thing—managin' niggers. Had 'em doin' most every sort of rough work in my time, diggin' ditches, mendin' roads, cuttin' fence posts—all that sort of thing. Guess it's about all I'm fit for." The effort died lugubriously and he sat, waiting. He hated personal confidences and there hung a most particularly uncomfortable one in the offing.

The silence was like a living thing. It crushed down upon the summerhouse with huge, downy black wings. A very faint rustling started up in the dry leaves of the creeper on the roof and clammy little draughts of air came twisting through the cracks. All the languorous glamour of the night had passed. It was merely autumn moonlight, and too late in the year to be sitting out in a summerhouse mouthing inconsequentialities—two people who were old enough to know better. Joe stirred restlessly. Surely she must be convinced that he meant to be friendly. He leaned back and looked up at the sky.

"What do you mean to do, Joe?" Mary Louise began again.

"Huh?" He recovered with a start. "Oh, I don't know. Think sometimes I will come back and try my hand at farmin'. Think maybe I'll be more of a real person doing that than anything else I know. But this road business is a necessary thing. Bloomfield needs a good road—all the way into the city. Something to put her on the map. Maybe with a good road we can get somewhere." Speaking out the idea seemed to crystallize it. He began to enthuse a little over it inwardly. "Mightn't be so bad. Might buy back the old place even, some day. Jenkins is not makin' too much speed with it, I hear."

Mary Louise leaned forward toward him.

"Oh, Joe, I wish you would," she said. "I've been thinking a lot here lately and it seems to me it's just as essential for real men to settle and live in places like Bloomfield as anywhere else. Big people should spread their influence. Why should they all cluster in little knots and bunches like the cities? I think there's a better chance to grow—here. I really do." She turned away and sat with her chin on her hands, her face averted.

Joe, carried momentarily away with the thought, did not notice her agitation; moreover, it was quite dark in the summerhouse, with only odds and ends of moonlight slipping through the roof. And he did not answer her, but sat thinking.

"I'm going to," she continued after a bit, her voice sounding somewhat broken and muffled against her open hand.

"Goin' to what?"

"Going to stay here and see what I can make out of it."

She was groping for his friendship and he did not know it. A new line of thought had been stimulated and it brought up very pleasing pictures. After all, what could be better than a respectable life on a farm producing things, seeing the direct results of the work of his own hands, establishing his very own identity? By contrast, how much better than working for someone else, furnishing the effort while someone else worked out the plans, losing his identity completely in an economic machine? He could start modestly, pay off as he went, out of the profits. And meantime, he could be living—real life. Only first he must get a little money to make a start on.

He realized Mary Louise had spoken, paused in his thought and then remembered. "Oh—yeah. Don't know but what it's about the best thing to do. Might try it myself—soon's I can get enough money together."

She made no reply and he watched her dim profile. Her head drooped quite dejectedly. There was a little splash of moonlight on her cheek; tendrils of her hair curled about the line of her neck. "She's had a pretty heavy bump," he thought.

He briskly rose to his feet. "Must be on my way," he said and stood looking down at the shadow of her. "It's three miles or more out to the camp. We get up at six."

For a moment she did not move, and then heavily she stood up. She made no protest and he could not see her face. If only he might get away, now that he had started, she might not be tempted to make any allusions to her affair. He shunned it instinctively as a dark closet containing a few unburied bones of his own skeleton.

Accordingly he walked slowly out upon the lawn and headed for the front gate. He could feel the dew lapping about his ankles through his socks and his shadow was clear cut and black on the grass, Mary Louise came and walked the short distance by his side, neither saying a word. They came to the gate and stood there in silence. Not a sound could be heard, the street stretching along before them a broad white ribbon, with splotches of mottled shade along the edges, the dark line of houses across the street like mysterious creatures crouching in the shadow.

As they stood there, each occupied with his own thoughts, there came a distant sound, low and yet distinct, like the sound of one metal striking upon another. It was clear and somewhat musical, lingering in the air with a dying cadence. As the waves of sound died slowly away there came silence and then the soft rustle of the leaves overhead.

"What was that?" she whispered.

"Don't know. Sounded like the closin' of a door."

Both stood listening intently, but the sound was not repeated.

"Well, good-bye," he said, holding out his hand. "See you again sometime."

She took the hand and held it for a moment. "Joe," she began, "let's be friends." She was forcing herself to talk. "I've made some mistakes but—I want everybody to like me here—especially you. You understand things, and you will overlook some of the things that have happened?" Spectres of uncharitableness were disturbing her and she sought to be shriven.

He thought she was alluding to Claybrook and moved uneasily so that she dropped his hand.

"Surely. Surely I will. Good-night," he said again. Then he turned and walked briskly away.

He had got but ten yards or so when out of the stillness came the sound again. He paused there on the sidewalk and listened. A faint, musical, metallic clang came surging toward him in clear beating waves. It sounded as if it were miles away, and the echo lingered pulsing on the silence. Slowly it died away to a whisper and then he heard distant shouts and footsteps echoing hollow. Men were running toward him down the brick sidewalk, their voices sounding nearer. At the corner they turned and went, westward, the sound of them growing fainter and fainter. He looked back, and at the gate he could see a shadow standing there waiting. There was a faint nimbus about the head and the face, turned toward him, was in the darkness.

He paused a moment in indecision and then turned and walked rapidly down the street westward, toward the camp.

CHAPTER XIX

Mary Louise walked back to the house. At the side porch she paused and looked behind her. High overhead sailed the moon, a day or two past the first half. There was a tremulous movement in the leaves of the maples along the sidewalk, producing an indistinct, vibratory shimmer and shadow. By contrast the patches of darkness were jet black; the overhanging portico of the house was as yawning as a cavern. She listened, stood, her head bent slightly forward, listening. Not a sound could be heard. The sharp, crisp clack of Joe's footsteps had been swallowed up by the distance. She could hear the sound of her own breathing. An uneasiness came gradually upon her, a vague sort of dread of being left alone, entirely alone. How aloof he had seemed; how aloof everything seemed, and unreal! Those sinister trees waving there without a breath of wind; the lowering shadows of the summerhouse and the barn; that greasy moonlight that came slipping up to the very edge of the porch and lay there fearful and cold—were they all remembering her scorn and coming back to mock her loneliness?

Softly she opened the door and went inside. Something scurried off into a corner and she fancied it turned about there and watched her in the darkness. The room seemed hot and close and there was a rhythmic rise and fall like the rising and falling of some vast invisible bosom, oppressed. She tiptoed over to the far door and stood listening. Not a sound could she hear. Old Landy was most probably asleep in his bed in the room up over the stable. She balanced on her feet and stood waiting, in indecision. She could not go back, so she opened the door softly and peered in.

A glaring white patch caught her eye. The moonlight through the window lay cold and bright upon the counterpane. Just above the patch was a jumble of shadows, from which protruded, bare and yellow and weazened, an arm. She caught her breath and fought down the sudden rising of her heart. It was nothing—only lying there so detached in the moonlight, thrust up out of the shadow out of nowhere, it did look gruesome, like something dead, something completely and irrevocably dead. It lay without a sign of movement, with the fingers slightly curled up under the palm and clutching at the coverlet. Gradually, her calm returning, she listened with her head thrust around the corner of the door, and directly she caught the very faint sound of breathing, a far-away, fine-drawn, eerie whisper. Slowly she backed away and closed the door.

She groped over to a chair in the sitting room and sat down. Through the squares of the window panes she could see the milky white patches of moonlight flooding the world outside, and the silence came creeping up all around until it seemed to squeeze the very walls inward.

"I wonder what's going on?" she thought. Because of its very soundlessness, the universe about her seemed to be teeming with vague suggestions. That distant clamour, the hurry of footsteps, and then Joe, slipping away from her into the shadow. And now the deathlike stillness.

She began to rock slowly to and fro. With an effort of the will she forced herself to think of cheerful things, housework and cooking, and sunlight and people. Suddenly she realized that there was no reason for her sitting up. She might just as well go to bed. She started to her feet, but something held her, something forced her back into her chair. There had been footsteps fading off into the darkness. She must wait until they came back again—out of the darkness. Something in the idea strangely excited her, left her tense. In all this silence she knew she could not sleep; she would be lying there waiting, waiting for something, she knew not what. So she settled back and rocked and waited, staring with wide-open eyes at the steel-blue patch that was the door. And the night settled down and drew close to her with its uncertainties.

Time passed.

Suddenly she was aware of sound. So gradually it had come that she realized she had been hearing it for some time. It was coming back. She riveted her gaze upon the door, watched it unblinking, waiting for it to open upon her with its secret any moment.

Slowly she rocked to and fro. Gradually nearer and nearer came the sound. Rolling upward, gathering round and round into a ball, it took the shape of footsteps and a confused murmur of voices. On it swept. They were passing the house, would pass it, away into the darkness and silence again. Whither?

She rose to her feet and hurried to the door. She groped for the knob and stumbled blindly out upon the porch. The sudden glare of the moonlight dazzled her and she could only make out dimly a little knot of black shadows moving along the pavement past the gate. There was a confused murmur of voices as of several persons trying to make themselves heard at once, and yet be quiet about it. As she watched, tried to get her eyes to focus, the little group passed on and was gone.

She walked slowly to the gate and stood there looking into the darkness after it. Gradually she was recovering her sight; sounds sprang up, little normal sounds, and she began to feel cold. She turned and was about to go back to the house when the echo of footsteps again caught her ear, and she waited.

It was a single person, apparently in a great hurry. She could hear him shuffling and stumbling along. She peered down the street into the darkness and directly could distinguish the shadow of a man hurrying toward her. On he came. He passed the fence corner—now he had reached the tree with the big fork—he was passing the gate. She saw it was Zeke.

"What's going on?" she called to him.

He started, stopped, and then came over to the gate.

"Mist' Burrus's bahn done cave in," he said, the whites of his eyes gleaming at her in the darkness.

The sound of his voice cheered her greatly. She felt suddenly so relieved that it was with difficulty that she kept herself from laughing out loud. "How do you mean? It didn't fall down of itself?"

"Yas'm, hit did. Hit's de waehouse. Folks say he done load hit up too full and hit plum' give out." His voice sounded excited.

"Anybody hurt?" She was beginning to enjoy it all, feeling exhilarated over the drama of it.

"Mist' Joe—Mist' Joe Hoopah. He done fell offen de bridge into de ditch. Speck he done broke his laig."

She caught her breath.

"Dey done sen' me to git my cah. Said dey would lemme ketch up wid 'em. But Lawsy, de cah won' run."

"Was that him they were carrying past the house?" she managed to ask.

"Yas'm, I reckon. Dey aim to take him to Mis' Mosby's. Reckon I better hurry on."

She reached over and seized him by the coat. "Was he much hurt? Did he seem much hurt?"

"Well, yas'm. No'm. Leasewise, he say he ain'. But he cain't stan' up. Hit's his laig. Dey done pull him outen de ditch, wid it dubble unner him."

She let him go and listened to his retreating footsteps down the street into the darkness. She felt suddenly faint and weak. She walked back to the house, entered the sitting room, and lit a candle. Then she went to Miss Susie's door and opened it.

Miss Susie's eyes were looking calmly at her from the bed as she entered. "What's the matter?" said Miss Susie's voice.

"He was here just an hour ago. I saw him go down the street. And now they're bringing him back, broken. Just an hour! God knows what happened to him."

"Who do you mean, child?" Miss Susie moved forward and raised up a little on her elbow.

"It just seems as if the hand of Fate was stretching out over this place, reaching down over us. It makes no difference what we do—we're helpless—all of us." She seemed to steady herself. She came over to the bedside and laid her hand on Miss Susie's forehead.

"Don't you want me to bring you a drink of water?" she asked.

CHAPTER XX

Directly after breakfast she went to the Mosby place. The sunlight was making glaring white patches on the pavement, of which she was but dimly conscious as she walked along. The house looked very peaceful, with the mellowness of respectable old age, that fresh October morning. She climbed the steps to the front door, feeling a little self-conscious as she stood and waited. It was possible that she was borrowing trouble; the accident might not prove to have been a serious one at all and she might seem too solicitous.

The door opened and a very old Negro woman in a stiff, white, starched apron stood and peered forth at her.

"Mrs. Mosby in?" she asked.

The old woman ducked her head and held open the door. "I see." And then she waddled off. Half-way down the dim hallway she turned, paused a moment, and then came back. She went to a tall door, on the left side of the hall, and pushed it open, casting up a furtive eye at Mary Louise as she did so. A wave of clammy air rushed forth and there was a faint crackling as of dried leaves back in the darkness. "Won' you set down?" said the old woman.

Mary Louise realized how early she had come; she had quite disturbed the usual order of things. "No, thank you," she said. "I'll just wait here in the hall."

The woman waddled away again and disappeared through a back door which wheezed shut with a sort of sucking noise, and the hall was left in hushed silence. Mary Louise gazed up at the ceiling, then at the stairway reaching far back and into the depths of upstairs hall. Even in the soft light the place looked like a barn. It seemed to be watching her sullenly as a small child watches an intruder. Odd little crackings sounded in far corners, and a whispering, starting somewhere in that upstairs hall, came slinking down the wainscoting, across the hall carpet, and out beneath the front door. She wondered what might be going on back in those silent, unexplored depths.

Then the door opened again and Mrs. Mosby came swishing forth, like an echo of the whisper that had preceded her. She was wearing the same ruching, the same bangles, the same everything—minus the bonnet with the veil—that she had worn that previous afternoon. There was an opaque flatness in her eyes.

Mary Louise rose to her feet. She was embarrassed as she met the older woman's quiet gaze, but she quickly threw off the feeling.

"I just heard some indefinite but disturbing news about an accident last night," she said anxiously.

Mrs. Mosby smiled a ghostly little smile and inclined her head. "We had quite a time," she admitted. "Won't you sit down? Or won't you come in the parlour?"

"No. I've not long to stay. I—I felt so worried. I wanted to come first thing and find out, see if there was anything I could do." They sat down at opposite ends of the horsehair sofa, each reflectively watching the other.

Mrs. Mosby shook her head. "He's getting on as nicely as could be expected. Fortunately, Dr. Withers was got hold of right away, last night." She was gazing dreamily at Mary Louise as though the latter were a creature of another world come vaguely intruding.

There was a curious atmosphere of restraint. Mary Louise sat waiting for the other woman to speak, her hands in her lap, her fingers slowly weaving in and out. After a momentary silence she asked in a politely casual tone, "What really did happen, Mrs. Mosby? Was he much hurt?"

Mrs. Mosby continued staring for an instant before she replied: "It really was the strangest thing. You know I did not even know that Joseph was in this part of the country. And at ten o'clock last night they came carrying him in. Of course, I was terribly excited and upset, and I did not find out the particulars exactly." She paused and took a delicate little shuddering breath. "You see, Mr. Burrus' warehouse—the one down by the creek, you know? Well, something happened—the bank on which it stood caved in, in some way, and the rear wall collapsed, and from all I can understand there was quite a wreck, quite a lot of damage, for he had it crammed full of winter goods." She paused and looked intently at Mary Louise with eyes that were visualizing the events of the night before. "Well, to continue. It seems that someone with a lantern, investigating the place around the back, ran across poor Joseph lying in the creek in the water, with one leg doubled up under him. He told the man he had fallen off the bridge. That was all he said. Just what he could have been doing there at such a time I cannot imagine. It seems that he had been working with a road-construction company about three miles out on the road to Guests. I found that out from a perfect stranger." She paused again and the line of her mouth took on a grimmer straightness. "One of the men, who brought him in—a great rough boor he was—had the audacity to suggest that Joseph was around there seeing what he could pick up. I silenced him quickly enough. But can you imagine what brought him to such a place at such a time?"

Mary Louise drew herself together in an odd little shiver. "Some strange things can happen by coincidence, Mrs. Mosby. Was he badly hurt?"

"Fractured his left leg just below the knee, Dr. Withers says—poor Joseph! He's been an ambitious boy. So anxious to get ahead, and so self-sufficient. I feel right guilty about Joseph." She shook her head dolorously.

"But there's no real danger, is there?" broke in Mary Louise, her heart momentarily sinking.

"No. I suppose not. He is terribly run down. Like a ghost he looked when they carried him in last night, his eyes staring out before him all dumb and suffering. He must have been in that ice-cold water almost an hour before they found him. I might have been doing things for him all this time—looking after him—but you know how things have been in this house."

The cold wall of her reserve seemed to be gradually letting down. Never before had she ever so much as alluded to the break in her family's fortunes. Mary Louise felt an odd, lifting feeling of hope—tremulous but dawning hope.

"Mrs. Mosby," she said. "Excuse me for speaking about something that is not my affair, but"—she hesitated and gazed at the polished marble slab of the hall tree—"it's only because I've known Joe so well, for such a long time"—the polished slab was gleaming faintly from an errant ray of sunshine that came through a dim, high-set hall window—"that I perhaps know a little more about him." She paused after this introduction, and having thus committed herself, plunged in. "Why don't you give Joe the chance he really wants? You have a lot of land here that is not being developed at all. Give Joe the chance to work it out—some of it, at least, on shares." She paused, breathless, and looked up timidly to see how her presumption fared.

A slow, fatuous smile spread over Mrs. Mosby's face. Mary Louise watched it break—watched it play for a moment about her lips like a shaft of winter sunshine. Then she spoke, shaking her head in reminiscence:

"I'd thought of that, myself. In fact, I'd spoken of it to Joseph. But he had other ideas. Many's the time I would have welcomed having someone who really cared, on whom I could depend. It's been a difficult time for me, my dear. Brother's so feeble. I couldn't call on him. No. Joseph doesn't care for farming. You're mistaken there. He's got an errant streak in him, like his father, I'm afraid." She sighed, and the sibilance of it echoed with a strange lingering note between those high gray walls. "Besides—though I've not let it be generally known—I've sold the place—to a Mr. Walcott of New York. He's very wealthy, I believe. He's taking it over the first of the year. I'm just not strong enough to hold on any longer."

Mary Louise did not look up. The sunlight on the marble slab of the hall tree faded slowly away.

"Don't you want to go up and see him, my dear?" Mrs. Mosby said at length.

She started. "No," she replied. "I must be getting on. I've so many things to do. Some other time, may I? Perhaps this afternoon." She rose to her feet and walked slowly to the door. She opened it and walked through, out on to the wide front porch, her thoughts in a turmoil. Rising above everything was an inexplicable conviction that Joe was closely akin to herself; in all the confusion of the world's ways, a kindred creature.

She turned. Mrs. Mosby was standing in the open doorway watching her, on her face a set, wistful smile, that was as hard as stone. They exchanged good-byes and then the door slowly closed with its soft sucking noise and she found herself in the graying light of a gathering storm....

It was not until late the following afternoon that she found time again to visit the Mosby home.

The same old Negro woman admitted her and she stepped into the hall and stood waiting. Back in the shadow, in an open doorway, Mrs. Mosby and a stout, thickset man with stubbly black hair were talking in low tones. The Negro woman hurried past them back into the passage, and they moved aside a little as she passed. The last words of the conversation came faintly to Mary Louise's ears; the stout man was talking:

"Must build him up," he was saying. "Keep the windows open, give him plenty to eat, all he wants." Then Mrs. Mosby's sibilant but inaudible reply. And then again, "He's used himself up. No reserve. Not prepared for an emergency like this."

She sat dumbly wondering; it was most probably Dr. Withers, the new doctor. The monotonous hum of their voices suddenly ceased and he was walking past her toward the door, pursing his lips in an odd sort of way. He looked at her as he passed, and reached for his hat. She did not hear the door close after him. Mrs. Mosby was speaking to her with a slight frown on her face.

"Just go on up, my dear. Ell bedroom, on the left. I'll be up directly."

She climbed the stairs in a maze. The silence was the most noticeable thing about the place unless it was the clinging, indescribable odour.

She found the door without difficulty and softly pushed it open. A draught of chill air greeted her, and there was a dim glow on the carpet from an open-grate fire in the wall opposite. Behind the door stood the bed, with its head against the wall, and in the bed lay Joe.

For a moment she could not realize it was he, the light was so dim, the figure so indistinct, so swathed in its covers. He turned his head at the sound of her footsteps and looked at her.

"Hullo," he said weakly.

All her reserves collapsed within her and she came and sat on the edge of the bed. She looked down into his face and could not speak; a change which she could not begin to detail had come over him. He smiled, "Was wondering about you to-day," he said.

She reached out and took his hand. It was very hot. Two bright spots burned in his cheeks and his eyes had that peculiar, hollow, sunken look she had seen once or twice before. Two days had passed. The realization that it was but two days shocked her.

"Funny," he was saying. "That night—you remember—I met old Burrus coming out of your house. I wondered then what he could be doing. Well—he was just on my trail. Fact."

"Yes," she said. "He brought Aunt Susie a hot-water bottle. But you mustn't talk too much, Joe." She squeezed his hand very softly.

"Well," he went on, as though intensely interested in the idea, "you know what he was for Uncle Buzz? Well, next he must put his jinx on me." He chuckled softly. "His kind always have it in for—my kind. It is funny. As I went down the road, after leaving your house, you remember?"

She nodded.

"Well, I soon saw from the road that something had happened. I went down across the field up to the fence. Things were scattered all over the ground, and some of 'em floating down the creek—I could see in the moonlight. 'Serves you right, you old skinflint,' I said to myself. 'But it's none of your business.' So I turned about and went back to the road. Couldn't help feeling kinda glad about it." He paused and drew a deep, painful breath. "I guess it's all just retribution. Shouldn't have enjoyed a man's misfortune. I missed the edge of the road, slipped, and fell across the big eight by eight that ties the bridge to the bank, and that's all I remember. Old Burrus pulled me out of the creek himself."

He withdrew his hand and moved slightly in the bed, as if easing himself somewhere. "It was funny, wasn't it?"

She gazed into his face. Something was stirring within her over which she seemed to have no control—a tenderness, a mothering instinct, a vast hurt deep within herself. She suddenly realized that she could have had him, although he had not offered himself. Nor had he ever asked for anything, probably never would. The realization singularly made him seem all the more her own. "You mustn't work yourself up, Joe. Be quiet. I want you to get well." Just how fervently she wished it, and with what anxiety, she suddenly knew. The sight of his peaked, upturned face, staring at the ceiling, with the bright red spots on his cheeks, was more than she could bear, and she rose to her feet and walked over to the open window.

The sun was just sinking behind a broken bank of heavy, blue-gray clouds. On the inner surfaces through which streamed its last rays patches of blood-red lining showed. A lurid glow was thinly suffused over the stretch of land between, against which were outlined the gray top branches of trees, moving fitfully to and fro. She stood for a few moments, waiting, listening for Mrs. Mosby. The shadows deepened and lengthened; they came creeping over the grass toward her, in their van the fading glow. All at once, as it were out of the twilight, the sunlight settled momentarily on the field at the bottom of the hill before her. Stark upright and in serried rows stretched the waste of last year's cornfield, the withered stalks touched with a passing glory, standing quite proudly erect and then—blue-gray darkness. A mellow waste delivering a valedictory! Next year it would doubtless be ploughed up—prepared for a crop. Over beyond the crest of hills clouds were gathering like a smoke pall. She wondered if the factory chimneys were sending their beacons that far. There were forty miles between the two worlds.

A voice spoke behind her, a strange, unknown voice. She turned and went back to the bedside. Joe lay staring straight before him and his lips were moving stiffly. The words came muffled and indistinct: "Tell you—got to have more money 'n that, Mr. Heston. 'Tisn't a question of just gettin' by. A man's got to get ahead." And then there was an unintelligible muttering. And then suddenly the voice rose, clear, querulous, and high-pitched: "Well you can go to hell with it. Needn't think you're doin' us a favour—payin' us a living—just because you've got it all. No, sir! I can go back home. Can live there without havin' to thank you!" The voice died away.

She hung on the echo, shaken to the depths of her. Like a disembodied voice it had come out of the great silence. What was it all about? Who was Mr. Heston?

Then in a flash it all came clear to her. The mists arose from the past and before her stood envisioned all in the proper relationship: herself, Claybrook, and Joe; Bloomfield, the city, all of mankind.

Life was, after all, but one shrewd bargain; success a process of getting more than one gave; the survivors, shrewd bargainers, shouldering, edging, metamorphosed by a modern Circe, their forefeet and muzzles thrust eager and deep into the magic swill of her trough; and the others—creatures like Joe—untouched by the sorcery, going without and suffering discredit. Militant, her spirit rose in revolt. Was there no escape from the dilemma? She felt dried up, parched, athirst for something; her throat contracted in a burning ache.

She sat down on the edge of the bed and took his hand. She sat in silence with a great pain in her heart. Over beyond the window sill the glow was dying, and the gathering pall was rising and coming nearer. Like a blanket the relentless world the cog-world of personal interests, regulations, and restrictions—was coming, gathering up its wastage into its blue-gray depths.

Joe was speaking again. His voice was suddenly clearer.

"I wonder," he was saying, "if you'd mind goin' for Zeke Thompson and sendin' him up to me? I want him to go somewhere for me. And will you—will you call up Mr. Clausen of the Pulvia Company and tell him I'll get back on the job soon's I can? To-morrow'll do to call him up."

"Surely I will, Joe," she replied.

The door opened softly from the hall and Mrs. Mosby appeared, shading a lamp with her hand. "Keep your seat." she exclaimed as Mary Louise rose to her feet. "I'm just getting ready to bring him his supper." Then she went back out again.

Mary Louise bent over the bed. The lamp was directly behind her and she could not see for blurring.

"Do take care of yourself, Joe," she whispered. "I'll come back again to-morrow," and then she slipped noiselessly from the room.

Directly Mrs. Mosby returned with a steaming tray which she set on the little table by the bedside. "Has she gone?" she asked.

Joe turned and looked with indifference at the tray, with its white napkins and egg-shell china. "Don't believe I want anything much, Aunt Lorry," he said.

"Come now, Joseph. You must. I've a soft-boiled egg and some milk toast and cocoa. Dr. Withers says you must keep up your strength."

He turned languidly away. "And Aunt Lorry," he added.

"Yes?"

"I don't need anything—specially this sympathy stuff." He paused and frowned at the ceiling. "I don't—I don't want to have any company. Reckon I can get along all right."

Ten minutes later she carried away the tray with the food on it but scarcely touched. And he lay in the gathering darkness, watching the ceiling, with the wavering circles from the open fire and the soft whisper of the wind in the withered leaves outside the window. There came a gentle patter of rain on the roof and night slipped down upon Bloomfield. He sighed gently, turned his head, and fell asleep....

Some four blocks away a girl was walking—swiftly, her hands clenched so that the knuckles were white. Bright spots burned in her cheeks and her eyes were deep and starry with bright vision. A man, passing close, turned and watched her curiously, saw her enter a wooden gate. A few feet from a darkened porch she seemed to spring forward in her haste. He saw her run up the steps and disappear into the house....

There was the sound of water being poured from one vessel into another, in the downstairs back-hall, and then the shuffling of retiring feet. Mrs. Mosby stood outlined in the high doorway, a lighted candle in her hand, her eyes straining into the darkness.

"Come, brother Rob," she called and waited.

There was a muffled reply.

"It will certainly be good," she went on, half to herself and pleasantly musing, "to have a real bathroom with hot water from a spigot. The city's pleasant in winter. I'm sorry we're waiting until January first. Come, brother Rob. The water's getting cold."