Supplies were becoming very hard to procure. Indeed, Julie had for some time felt urged to go and seek assistance from the outside world. Not the Plague alone, but starvation threatened what was left of these people for whom she had been struggling. The time had come when she must somehow face the outside world.

But how without rational clothing could she undertake such an errand? It was forced upon her that she must first of all present herself to the Reredos, and get her clothes. She remembered now, too, that she had left a little money in the pocket of a dress,—not much, but it loomed tremendously to her eyes. It was probably safe, since she had hidden the key to her trunk among the cadena de amor trailing the window-sill, where no muchacho would have dreamed of searching.

Looking herself desperately over, in the darkness, with full appreciation of her fantastic appearance, Julie found it an almost insuperable business to thrust herself beyond the walls. Quite impossible, on the other hand, was it to remain here longer. Gathering her courage, and consoling herself with the thought that nobody in the city longer remembered her, or was concerned about her, she set forth, her head covered by an old scarf against the terrors of the journey.

She was not really too tall to pass for a native woman, nor, in this light, too white to be taken for a mestiza,—and Eurasians in native costume were not uncommon; but there was in her movement a rhythm that would have revealed her at once as an outsider to the curious observer. Fortunately, few such were abroad; and by selecting a round-about way through unfrequented streets, she contrived to pass unmarked through the dusk, though every nerve was a-quiver when at last she crossed the bridge near the isolated estate of the Reredos.

Approaching the huge iron gates, she saw that in no part of the house within her vision was a light to be seen. She knew that there was in the rear wall a breach, which the children had enlarged, by much chipping and hacking, to enable Chiquito’s increasing dimensions to pass through. This aperture would serve her particularly well just now, since she could not bring herself to appear in this fashion at the front door.

She waded through the lush growth along the old stone walls, wormed herself through Chiquito’s egress, and hurried across the grounds toward the house.

The garden had commenced to take on the covertly wild look of a thing that no longer acknowledges a master. All its lovely blooms had, with the waywardness of tropical foliage, betaken themselves to the tops of walls or trees. The snowy cadena shone timidly in silvery filagree high against Julie’s old window.

The shell shutters were all closed fast; not a sound came from behind them. The house was totally dark. Gaining courage, the girl tried the door, knocked, and finally boldly shook the heavy framework.

Across the door sill and over the floor of the trellised porch, sun-faded newspapers were broadly scattered. The SeÑor had taken his family off to Spain, as he had said he would do. He had doubtless gone hurriedly at the coming of the Plague to his district, without stopping to give instructions concerning these Manila periodicals, which the native carrier, with an increasingly divergent aim, had continued to throw over the gate.

Julie stooped and rummaged among the papers on the sill. Stuck fast under the door, she discovered a couple of letters. She pried them forth, and, examining them in the moonlight at the edge of the porch, found they were both addressed to her. She moved toward the seat under the fire-tree, which she and Barry had so often occupied; the full moon was now flooding the garden; she could read her letters there. In a vague appetite for news of the world she caught up, as she went, two or three of the papers from the walk.

Through curiosity she opened the unknown letter before her uncle’s. She wondered why little Mrs. Smith had taken it into her head to write, after all this time.

The Smiths were now stationed in Solano, and Mrs. Smith rather pathetically wished to know if any of the things that had happened to Julie’s old friends of Nahal were happening to Julie. She hoped not—for the worst thing that could happen to anybody had happened to her. She knew that the natives over here suffered from terrible things, but she had never dreamed that anything so awful could befall her. Those first cruel red spots on her white skin—looking as if they had been branded on with a red hot iron; Marlborough’s desperate efforts to disprove them; the doctor’s reticence; the nurse’s gingerly cautious attitude, had all only disclosed the unbearable truth. She had caught the small pox in Nahal—though she was in Solano when it developed. Where else than in that ill-omened island could one have got such a thing! She could demonstrate to everybody how fatal a spot to everybody Nahal had been.

She had not been anywhere near death, but rather than this thing she would have prayed for any other conceivable, cruel curse of the East—this East which had so many to give.

Marlborough had been a miracle of devotion, assuring her a thousand times that it would never matter to him what she looked like. A girl might believe all this—but to a woman whose heart was deeply versed in the frailty of men it was all intolerable. It wasn’t that she was marked so badly—not really so much at all—but that she would never again see in the glass her old self. Marlborough was going to take her to Paris and have her skin peeled, but—she dared not believe.

Yes, certainly, there must have been a curse on that place! To further prove it there was Calmiden. After Julie left, Calmiden had been ordered to Dao to take Adams’s place. “But, you know, Julie, he was never Adams’s metal, and I guess he rebelled utterly at being put in Adams’s shoes. Templeton goaded Calmiden to what he did—one day he struck him. I can’t imagine any one’s striking Calmiden and going on living, can you? Well—Templeton didn’t, Julie, and that’s it! It’s so hard to tell, but in the big fight they had—men lose their balance so completely in places like this—Templeton somehow dropped dead. Of course you understand that he was a rotten old shell of a dipsomaniac that would cave in at the first few blows.

“They brought Calmiden over here for trial, and high-ranking officers came down from Manila. I don’t know what took place, but they say his men stood around him in an invincible and impenetrable wall of evidence, and he was acquitted. But he will never be the same Kenneth again.

“Do you know, I think that somehow this place has recoiled on us, Julie. We hated it and stood aloof from it. We despised the people and made gods of ourselves. You remember I used always to call them niggers—I thought I was showing the superiority of my birthright that way; and not one throb of this life here ever touched Calmiden’s soul. Did any of us have any soul, particularly, in it? Weren’t we the dead wood on a mighty, struggling stream? I don’t know about you—what has happened to you; but I used to think there was something different about you, for all your seeming to take no real interest in anything here, save Calmiden—and Adams, a little.

“The regiment is soon to sail for home. Be sure to look us up, as we come through.”

Julie dropped the letter in her lap. She leaned forward on her knee, and her mind went wandering over the stretches of the past. So this was the message of Nahal—all there was ever to be; of that Nahal which had caused her soul’s difficulties. She pondered deeply the whole immense problem. Had it been her individual problem, set for her to solve—her fragment of eternal purposes to prove? How utterly she had blundered and drifted along, evading the particular, crucial nonconforming bit of the universe that she had perhaps come into life to subdue. Even when aware of her flaming objective, she had dallied weakly and wastefully in easy and uninspired areas of life. Stupidly she had let her fire die out, and her being go to waste.

Once she had been offered the choice of her ideals or Calmiden, and she had chosen Calmiden, though he was the antagonist of all her stirring beliefs. For a passing whim of passion, she had flung her sublimest convictions to the winds. That there were punishments for such perfidies of spirit she had come tragically to comprehend. She had halted and turned, given up—letting the things she had made a Covenant with go back to fate unaccounted for.

None of these men she had known here would have turned back, at any cost; as agents of the future, of the whole onmoving universe, nothing had counted with them—not happiness, nor life, nor love; while she had demanded insistently and supremely her human happiness, and, failing to obtain it, had let go, like the rest of the derelicts of life: and there the East had stepped in to capture her, as inevitably it captured all of her mood.

With here and there little flashes of eternal verities overwhelming her, she sat and thought more profoundly than ever she had thought in her life. She wanted to probe to the bottom and release the last vestige of the illusion of the past. Those few words of Mrs. Smith stood out like flame against her brain: “This place has recoiled on us—because we hated it, and stood aloof.” Julie felt this sink into some deep, almost inaccessible place, and come forth again.

That was the key to the long mystery. That was the key to her. She remembered how contemptuous her friends in Nahal had all been of the work in hand, how anxious they had been to be rid of it—except her. She covered her face with her hands: all but her! She had clung to Nahal as a glory for herself—as a universe for a small and exhilarantly inflated ego to expand in. Her sincere energies had borne fruit, but too often she had brushed aside all that had not colored her adventurous fancy. Turned in upon herself, she had skimmed fruitlessly this brown well of being. A psychological Alexander taking by assault the soul of Asia. In what a halo of Eastern colors she had planned to do that! She had chosen the East as a stage for her personal grandeur. She had expected a superlative destiny somehow to be handed out from it.

But from the East’s dark face and blunted mind she had actually always shrunk; and as that foolish little woman, in a moment of tremendous wisdom, had pointed out, the East had recoiled upon her and pulled her down with ruthless irony to its lowest levels. Mrs. Smith might as well have said the universe, which demands atom for atom of energy, ounce for ounce of force.

Then had come the inscrutable forces, which had taken up her life and threshed it mercilessly to the point of death, and winnowed it out. The Great Law had taken her in hand, broken her old self to bits, and of the pieces transmuted a form to its ends. In order to come truly into life, she had first to be destroyed! She felt a thrill of the old exhilaration to have at last found the way.

She opened her uncle’s letter, the moon falling in soft sheets about her.

It was upon that letter that for a moment the new fate seemed to hinge. He had written to say that his affairs were in better shape; that he had, in fact, sold the factories, advantageously; that some money of Julie’s, which he had long ago invested for her, would now be available for her. He urged her to come home; he was perfectly sure that the East was no place for a girl alone. She need not live with Mrs. Dreschell, if she did not choose to, but with more congenial relatives.

The girl sank once more into thought. She sat a long time staring at the moon-lit night, at the fire-flowers dropping through it like soft sparks. Over her came at last the conviction that she would never leave—that the gates of the East had indeed closed after her for good. There would be no more turning. She was going straight on, only struggle, everlasting struggle lying ahead. Things were moving toward something over here, and rather than all the safe paths of the world she would choose this vivid, perilous existence. That was what the levels had done for her—taken out all fear. She remembered Barry’s high peak, where from him also fear had dropped. Here the Hunger had been vanquished. Back in that forlorn spot, she had fought the Plague, and lost; but the Plague had fought the Hunger, and won. There were big forces over here, to fight with or against. Everything for her must be created new. In the silence of the night, she recalled a vision of waiting and watching that she had seen in this same garden. Yes, she would go farther on.

She reached down for the papers, which had slipped to her feet. She wanted to see if that stroke of fate—Independence, had come. The most recent of the papers was two days old, and conveyed the information that the bill had failed to pass the Congress of the United States.

There would be no Philippine Republic! The significance of this stupendous fact did not penetrate her all at once. Oddly scattered, different thoughts filtered through her mind.

Fate had decided aright. It would take these people awhile longer to make ready to meet the future. And if Isabel were right in her prophecies of the coming clash of the world, they would certainly be best as they were—till the earth were made safe for such little peoples as they.

Isabel’s dreams then were fallen—and Barry’s hopes were realized. Slowly the full realization of the turn of events broke upon her consciousness. The aims and hopes of Barry and Isabel could never have been united—never in any case. She saw that now.

Where then was Barry? The question flashed through every atom of her.

Her eyes, which unconsciously had wandered down the columns of the paper at which she was staring, rested on Barry’s name—and the monstrous, incredible thing printed with it!

A process of deadly ossification, starting with her feet and traveling to her brain, seemed to be rooting her to this spot forever.

“He couldn’t have it!” she murmured in stupid agony to the night.

The last blow out of the East! The uncombatable enemy! She flung out her arms despairingly, and crumpled crushed on the seat.

Silent as was the garden, it had a myriad of conveyances. They urged her to her feet, and on. She ran to the wall, thrust herself through the crevice, and continued to run along the dusky street till she came upon a carromata.

Now the carromata, by all the chances of the East, was driven by the Pedro who had looted her body and who believed it at this moment to be buried in the sea. Therefore when he saw Julie, from whose hacked blond hair the wrap had slipped, Pedro, who had become too familiar with her features to forget them, gave a cry, and tried frantically to pass on. But Julie had Disgusto by the bit, and could not be dislodged.

“Drive me to Calle Arzobispo at once!” she commanded.

Pedro whimpering and shivering, sure now that the ghost of the unfortunate SeÑorita had come back to haunt his carromata forever, gave up resistance; and, when Julie had taken her seat, obeyed her frenzied injunctions with a rattle of terror in his throat. He drove at terrific speed, till Disgusto appeared ready to drop.

It would be this way, always, Pedro knew. This ghost whom he had plundered in life would not only take complete possession of his carromata, but would drive to death all the horses he could buy. So, when upon nearing the vicinity of the cathedral, the ghost commanded him to stop, leaped over the wheel, and shot forward without paying the fare, Pedro, instead of summoning a policeman, hurled terrific blows upon Disgusto and fled for all he was worth.

In the sacerdotal section of Arzobispo, with the monastic walls rearing darkly around her and the shadowy trees looming above her like super-human shapes, Julie paused. There was his house, lifting out of the dark foliage. She went forward unsteadily. At every step the world seemed to crumble under her tread, and death to claim all that was left of her universe.

A native policeman emerged from the shadows as she crept up to the gate. He surveyed her wonderingly.

“I must go in there!” she said.

“Women, women!” he exclaimed fussily. “The master of that house will never think of women any more. There was another one here this evening, crying as if this old earth were a cage and she were shut in it. She was a beautiful lady, too, with great blue eyes; but not a soul in that house, I tell you, stirred out to her. So at last she went groping away in the blackness. You had better go too. I am guarding the gate so that he shall die in peace. Besides,” he added, “there is no one to let you in. The servants ran away, being afraid of the Plague—all but one boy. A young boy, a good boy; he is a Visayan, as so am I. They will stand by when Tagalogs take to their heels.”

A vivid intuition flashed through the girl’s soul. Stepping past the wordy policeman, she pressed her face close against the bars of the gate. “Delphine!” she called, again and again through the night.

A window slid open above. She could distinguish a slight figure standing in the aperture.

Tremulously she called again: “Delphine! It is I—your maestra.”

The boy’s wondering treble answered her: “Maestra!”

Tears of triumph rolled down her face.

“Come quickly, and open the gate!”

He was coming. She listened for every fall of his hurrying slippers.

At last a white camisa came fluttering through the darkness, the brave white camisa of the poor little brown knight who had set out so long ago for the grand adventure.

“Maestra, my Maestra!” he exclaimed softly and incredulously, staring at her through the bars of the gate.

“Ah! You stayed with him!” was all she could say, the tears choking her.

The boy opened the gate, and let Julie up into the ominous stillness of the house. At the top of the staircase, he uttered a soft word, and Doctor Braithwaite appeared, a tall gray wraith spent with much struggle.

“My maestra has come back.” Delphine quivered with simple pride.

The Doctor stared hard for several moments, while Julie made an agitated effort to explain. At last he contrived to recover himself.

“Chad was right, then,” he said. “He believed that Isabel had tried to do away with you. After you had gone, she endeavored to make it appear that you had gone to meet a man in the southern islands. If I hadn’t been over here so long—I think I might find you surprising.

“Barry was taken ill in the provinces,” he went on. “Your boy brought him back, and has stuck to him to the end. If you have never done anything else here—”

He stopped short, his face contracted painfully. “I’m sorry it’s too late!”

She was pitiful enough anyway, this thin, spent little creature, in her outlandish garments, and he winced at the effect of the blow he had delivered.

“I must see him,” she said, in a low voice.

He shook his head. “But that’s impossible—with the Plague.”

She gave a sobbing little laugh. “The Plague! Why that’s where I’ve been—with it all the time. I—” her head dropped—“watched them die.”

His gray lips twitched. “Yes, we watch them die. Every doctor and every nurse on double duty. Chad and I took care of Barry. Then Rosalie took it, and Chad had to go to her. She’s gone already.” He paused.

“Barry’s case has been different. Usually they go out like lightning—but he wouldn’t die! And he wouldn’t go to San Lazarus. He kept saying he was going to get over it quick. Said he had to be alive in these times. I never saw a man fight so hard; he has fought with the last artery and capillary. Doctor though I am, I really believed that he would win over sheer matter. And I wanted to see him triumph—it would have seemed like a victory for the race.

“He believed you would come back.” The Doctor looked at her hard for several moments of deep silence, then he said: “The East has made you strong.”

He sank heavily into a chair. “If you wish, you may watch. It is good that you have come. I believe I could not have kept my eyes open to-night—even for him! No sleep for nights—and nights!” he murmured.

“He’s unconscious now—nothing more to do. Watch a while—and call me—” Even as he spoke, the Doctor sank sleeping in his chair.

She turned down the hall, groping ahead of her as through gulfs of darkness, her last plank shaking beneath her, scorching agony tearing at her heart.

His door stood open. There was a very dim light in the room. From the threshold, she could see the rumpled head, the quenched conquered face. She stumbled to the bed; and, dropping down beside it, flung her arms about him, as if to hold off with main desperate human strength that last blow.

“You said you’d come back—wherever you were—if I called you!” she cried in anguished despair.

She lifted her head, and looked about her in wild entreaty. Where was He—in nights like these—who had walked human paths of despair? Somewhere here He must still be fighting the battle of death!

She crouched down on the floor; the spectacle of that inert form was insupportable. Suddenly she lifted her head. From out the soft wonder of darkness, with its swinging worlds, Barry was coming toward her—all alight, as of old—looking as he always looked when he had something perfectly new to do. Then he passed on, and darkness dropped once more.

With all the appeal in her, she flung her spirit out upon the night. Power, power—everywhere out there—tremendous; terrifying power behind the illimitable stretches of space, behind the swinging worlds, veining the universe like lightning to eternal depths. If only she could force a foothold in its great conspiracy! She had traveled far, gone deep to find it, and had more than once felt it graze her being. Just around the corner, close it was—yet out of touch. All that was in her soul, or would ever be, stretched after it in this moment. She tore at her circumscribed human vision as at some fatally binding bandage across her eyes. Just to see clear once!

Her consciousness in its search swept out of its surroundings, beyond the barriers of flesh. The stillness of the night seemed charged with the light and force of swift traveling stars. Struggling with the legions of darkness and death, she stumbled suddenly into the kingdoms of the unseen.

The Doctor bent, in the gray light, over the bed. Nobody had called him; and, exhausted, he had slept throughout the night. He had come hurriedly, and stooped down to investigate the outstretched form.

He picked up one of the hands, and counted the pulse intently. A change passed over his face. He placed his ear to the heart. Then he slowly straightened up, and stood staring before him, in a trance of thought.

The dawn came peeping into the room. He bent over, and studied once more, without drawing breath, his patient’s appearance in its reflection. A stir near at hand caused him to turn sharply. He had forgotten the girl.

He concentrated upon her a puzzled look.

“I think,” he said, speaking slowly, as if groping through dazed layers of thought, “that you had better get up. He has pulled back!”

She started, then slowly raised herself from the floor. For a moment, she appeared to be stretching herself out of sleep; then he had an utterly odd sensation that she was putting out her hands in the red dawn toward some invisible thing.

THE END