WHEN DIFFERENCES LEAD TO WHAT IS EVER THE SAME

Lassie fled down the path. Not even that primeval river which once rushed wildly across the old Devonian rocks just here was more thoughtless as to whither it was going. All that she was conscious of in that instant was irresistible revolt against the horror of what she had just heard, and which bred in her a sudden and utter rebellion. A vivid imagination will have already pictured the possible effect of Alva's story upon her friend, and that vast majority whose imaginations are not vivid will be happy to be spared such details. It is sufficient to say that tears, pain, groans, and a coffin suspended, like Damocles' sword, above all the rest, was Lassie's background to her friend's romance; and the picture thus held in her mind was so benumbing to her other senses that as she ran she tripped, stumbled, almost fell, down the hill, so blind and careless of all else had she become. The restraint of Alva's presence was now removed; nothing stood between the young girl and her sensation of appalling wretchedness. As she ran she shook, she shuddered; the path was steep, and her knees seemed to crumble beneath her; twice she almost went headlong, and at the minute she felt that a broken neck was but a trifle in comparison to coming face to face with anything like what she had just been told. "Of course he was a great man," she gasped half aloud; "but he'll never be able to even feed himself again—it said so in the paper. Why, at first it said his back was broken. Oh, oh, if Alva can be so crazy as that, who is sane, and what can one believe? Oh, dear—oh, dear—oh, dear! And she calls it love, too!"

The village of Ledgeville lay below, and a few more minutes of precipitous flight brought Lassie in sight of its houses. Still a few more minutes, and she was in the middle of the village—a very small village, consisting of two streets composing the usual American town cross, and half a dozen stores. Every one whom she met knew just who she was (for had she not arrived upon the evening previous?), and they all regarded her with earnest scrutiny. The inhabitants of Ledgeville themselves were never in the habit of coming down from the Long Bridge with tear-stained faces, heaving bosoms and a catch in their breath, but that Lassie did so, caused them no surprise. Was she not of that unaccountable multitude called "city folks?"

Lassie herself neither thought nor cared how she appeared to the ruminative gaze of Ledgeville at first, but as soon as she did notice the attention which she was attracting, she wanted to get away from it as quickly as possible, eyes being quite unbearable in her present distress. She stopped and asked a kindly looking old man where the bridge—the lower bridge—might be, knowing that it would take her to solitude again. The kindly old man pointed to where the bridge could be seen, a block or so beyond, and she thanked him and hurried on. It was a wooden bridge, very long; and the river here glided in wonderful contrast to that other aspect of itself which plunged so furiously from cataract to cataract, a quarter of a mile further down the course. How curious to think that all smooth-flowing rivers have it in them to foam and rage and gnaw and rend away the backbone of the globe itself, if driven in among narrow and hard environment. Is there ever any simile to those conditions in human lives, I wonder! And then to consider on the other hand that there is no volume of watery menace which, if spread between banks of green with space to flow untrammeled, will not become the greatest and most beneficial of all the helpers of need and seed! That is also a simile—one more cheerful and happy than the former, praise be to God.

The river by Ledgeville is one of those flowing smoothly and broadly between banks of green. So smoothly and sweetly does it flow just there that it might well have brought some quieting mood, some gracious, even current of gently rippling peace, into poor Lassie's throbbing heart, had she but been able to receive any comfort at that moment. But meditation was as far from her at this juncture as her mental attitude was from Alva's, and more than that cannot be said for either proposition.

So the river carried its lesson unread, while the girlish figure traversed the bridge as quickly as it had flown through the town, and, hurriedly turning at the forking of the road beyond, started up the hill. She knew that that way must lead to Ledge, and eventually her own little hotel bedroom, that longed for haven where she would be able to sit down quietly, away from the sunlight and omnipresent people, away from everything and everybody. Oh, but it was freshly awful to think of Alva, her beautiful Alva, and of what Alva was going to do! Marry that man! Why, he would never even sit up again; he could hardly see, the paper had said—the newspapers had said—everybody had said.

She stopped suddenly and stood perfectly still. A choking pain gripped her in the throat and side. Her spiritual torment had suddenly yielded to her physical lack of breath.

Beyond a doubt there is nothing that will curb any sentiment of any description so quickly as walking up hill. Without in the slightest degree intending to be flippant, I must say that in all my experience, personal and observed, I have never yet felt or seen the emotion which does not have to give way somewhat under that particular form of exercise. In Lassie's case she found herself to be so suddenly and completely exhausted that she could hardly stand. Her knees, which had seemed on the verge of giving out as she hurried down the opposite bank, now really did fail her and, looking despairingly about and feeling tears to be again perilously near, she turned off of the road into the woods that stretched down the bank and, treading rapidly over soft turf and softer moss, came in a minute to a solitude sufficiently removed to allow of her sinking upon the ground and there giving out completely.

Oh, how she cried then! Cried in the unrestrained, childish way that gasps for breath, and chokes and then sobs afresh and aloud. She thought herself so safely alone in the depths of the wood that she could gasp and choke and sob to her heart's uttermost content, not at all knowing that Fate, who does indeed weave a mesh of the most intricate patterning, had even now begun to interweave her destiny with that of—well, let us say—of the dam at Ledgeville.

Alva's talk about the dam had gone in one ear and out the other; Alva's words regarding Ingram had been driven into the background of Lassie's brain by the later surprises; but now things were to begin to alter. We never can tell, when we weep over the frightful love affair of a friend, what delightful plans that same little Cupid may have for our own immediate comforting, or how deftly he and the dark-veiled goddess may have combined in future projects.

Sorrow is sorrow, but sometimes it comes with the comforter close upon its heels, and when the sorrow is really another's, and the comforter is unattached and therefore may quite easily become one's own!—

Ah, but all this is anticipating. It is true that disinterested parties (like Joey Beall) always know everything before those most interested have the slightest suspicion of what is going on; but still it seems to me unfair to take any advantage of two innocent people as early in the game as the Sixth Chapter.

Therefore it shall only be said here that the party of surveyors had employed that morning in sighting and flagging up and down the banks beneath the Long Bridge, and Ingram, having spent two hours in their company, was now climbing the hillside for pure athletic joy, being one of those who prefer a scramble to a smooth road any day. As he came lightly up the last long swing that measured the bank for him, he surely was looking for nothing less in life than that which he found at the top,—and yet that which he found at the top was not so disagreeable a surprise, after all. For Lassie, even now when indubitably miserable, pink-eyed and wretched, was still a very pretty girl. A pretty girl is very much like a rose in the rain—a few drops of water only add to its charm; and so when Ingram came suddenly upon her, crying there under a tree, and caused her to look up with a little scream at the man crashing out of the bushes with such a force of interruption as made her jump to her feet and shrink quickly away—why, really it was all far less startling and alarming than it sounds to read about. For he at once exclaimed, "Surely you remember me." And she saw who it was, stared at him dazedly for an instant, and then dropped her face in her hands again, realizing that he was the first of the big world that "hadn't been told," and that he would ask what was the matter, and that she must not tell him. And so—and so—there was nothing to do but hide her face—and collect her wits—and listen.

"SURELY YOU REMEMBER ME."

"What is it?" he said, and as she felt for her handkerchief she could but think how hard it was to resist sympathy when one's dearest friend was doing such unheard-of things, and one had just learned about them. Not that she would tell him why she was crying, of course.

"What is it?" he asked again then—he was very near now. "You know who I am. I used to know you when you were a little girl. You remember?"

She was still feeling for her handkerchief, and he put a great white one into her seeking hand. She wiped her eyes with it and thought again that he must not be told, and so said, with quivering lips:

"Oh, please leave me, please go away. Nothing is the matter, but I must be alone. I want to be alone. Please go away and leave me."

Ingram looked down upon her and, laying his hand on her arm with a grasp that was so firm as to feel brotherly (to one not yet a dÉbutante), said in a tone of fascinating authority (to one not yet a dÉbutante):

"What is it? What is the trouble? You've had a letter with bad news?" In his own mind he set it down that she and Alva had had a misunderstanding of some sort, but that opinion he would not voice.

"Oh, no," sobbed Lassie; "it isn't a letter—it is Alva!" She paused and Ingram had just time enough to reflect how quickly a man could see straight through any woman, when Lassie could bear the burden of reserve no longer, and with a wild burst of accelerated woe cried: "She has told me her secret, and I listened 'way through to the end and then—then when I really understood and realized what it all meant, then I could not bear it, and so—and so—I ran away from her and down the hill and across the bridge and came here to be alone. And I wish you would go away and leave me alone; oh, I want to be alone so very, very much, for I cannot keep still unless I am alone; I am too unhappy over it all. Too unhappy. And I have promised her not to tell."

Ingram looked his startled sympathy. "What is the trouble?" he asked. "Tell me; perhaps I can help you. Why should you keep 'it' a secret? I'm her friend, too, you know."

"But it isn't my secret, it's hers," Lassie sobbed; "and I've promised; and, anyway, nobody or nothing can help her. Nothing! Nobody!"

"Is it really as bad as that?" said the man, looking very serious.

Lassie was wringing her hands. "Oh, it's ever so much worse than that; it's the very worst thing I ever heard of. And that shows how bad I am; for Alva is good, and it makes her happy!"

Naturally Ingram could not follow the reasoning which caused her terminal phrase to serve as a sort of mental apology for her way of looking at the affair, but he was not alarmed by the breadth of her confession of guilt, only unspeakably distressed by her distress, and its mysterious cause.

"But what is it?" he asked. "What has Alva done?"

"I musn't tell."

"Alva's not in any difficulty across the river there, is she?" he hazarded.

"Oh, no; she isn't in any difficulty; she is very, very happy. That's what seems so awful about it."

"What? I can't understand."

"I can't explain, either. And I musn't tell you. It's going to drive me crazy to keep still, but I must not tell."

"You can tell me;" his tone was suddenly authoritative again (quite thrilling its young listener).

"No, I can't. I can't tell any one," but her tone was wavering, with a catch in its note.

Ingram became instantly imperious.

"Yes, you can tell me! You must tell me! It will relieve your mind, and perhaps I can help Alva."

"No, you can't help her; she doesn't want to be helped."

"Well, I can help you, anyway. Just telling me will help you."

Lassie choked.

"Tell me at once," said Ingram, sternly; "I insist upon knowing."

She looked up at him.

"Don't stop to think," he commanded; "tell me."

Oh, the intense relief of having a burdensome secret torn from your keeping! Lassie felt that when in trouble, a man was the friend to find—even before one's dÉbut.

"You won't ever let her know that I told?" she faltered.

"Of course not."

"She didn't ask me really to promise; she only said that I should be the only one to ever know."

"Never mind, I don't count. Go on."

"Well, she is going to marry—" and then she told him, with many halts and gasps, who; and then she told him further, when.

Ingram listened, silent, turning white all about his mouth. "She can't do it," he said, after a minute. "That man may die any hour. It said so in last night's paper."

"She is going to do it," Lassie said; "she doesn't mind his dying—that is, she doesn't mind his dying as most people do."

"Oh, but that's horrible," he said then; "you were right—it is awful. No wonder you were frightened and ran away. She must be insane. I never heard of such a thing." He went to the edge of the bank and looked off for a little, standing there still, and then, after a while, "Oh, my God!" he said; and then again "Oh, my God!" and came back beside her. His action, his evident emotion, quieted her own strangely.

"Isn't it terrible?" she asked, almost timidly, when he was close again; "it seems to me the most terrible thing that I ever knew about."

"Very terrible," said the man, briefly. "We will walk on up the hill," he added, after a little; "it's near dinner time." She did as he said.

"You won't tell Alva that I told you?" she asked.

He shook his head. "No, indeed," and then both were silent.

Towards the top, he asked: "How long shall you be with her?"

"A week."

"That means until she leaves to marry him?"

"Yes."

"That's good; I am glad that you can stay."

She tried to say something then, and her voice died in one of those same strange gasps, but she tried a second time and succeeded. "I suppose that nothing could be done?" she questioned.

"What would you do?" he asked.

"I don't know," she said.

He smiled a little oddly. "I am afraid that we should be fools," he said; "those fools that rush in, you know. It is beginning to come back to me how Alva looked and how she spoke when I took her to see the house. It all had no meaning to me then, but it has meaning now. It comes back to me more and more. Perhaps you and I are—are—not up to seeing it quite as she does. Perhaps. It's possible."

"That is what she says over and over—that I cannot understand," Lassie said, faintly.

"I can't understand either, but—perhaps she does. I can understand that."

"I am glad that you know, anyway;" her tone was sweet and confiding. He looked down into her pretty eyes.

"I am, too," he said, heartily.

"But I hope that it wasn't very wrong for me to tell you; it seemed as if I could not bear it alone!"

"Don't worry about that; Alva shall never know. And now, if you cannot bear it (as you say) again, you know that you can come to me and say what you like. We shall have that comfort."

She smiled a little. "You don't seem like a stranger; you seem like an old, old friend."

"I'm glad. Because I am an old, old friend in reality, you know."

"But, if—if I—when I want—" she hesitated.

"Oh, you don't know where to find me if you want me?" He laughed. "It's true that I am an uncertain quantity, but I take supper at the hotel every evening, and sometimes I go to the post-office afterwards." He smiled roundly at that, and she smiled, too. "We must go to the post-office together, sometimes," he added; "it's the great social diversion of Ledge." He was glad to see her face and manner getting easier. That was what he was trying for—to lift the weight from her.

"Alva took me there this morning," she said.

They came now to the Soldiers' Monument and the tracks.

"I hope that she isn't going to mind the way that I left her!" the young girl exclaimed suddenly, smitten with anxiety. "I ran away, you know; I couldn't bear it another minute."

"She won't mind that," said Ingram; "all the little things of life won't cut any figure with her any more, if she's the kind that has made up her mind to do such a thing. That's what I've been thinking all the time that we were coming along; a woman who has decided to marry in the way that Alva has, must of course look at everything in life by a different light from that of the rest of us; I don't know really that we have the right even to criticize her. We don't understand her at all; that's all it is."

Lassie looked astonished. "You don't mean to say that you think that she isn't crazy?" she said.

Ingram smiled again, "I mean that I hardly think it possible to judge what one cannot measure; savages reverence the Unknown, you know, and I'm not sure that reverence is not a fitter attitude towards mystery than condemnation or ridicule, although of course it isn't the civilized or popular standpoint."

"But do you think it's—it's—it's the thing, to do—" Lassie could not get on further.

"I think it's just as awful as you do," he said quietly; "but I've had time since you told me to see that just because it seems awful to me, it's very plain to me that I see it differently from the way in which she does. She isn't a girl, she's a woman; and she's a very good and sweet and true woman at that. If she is making this marriage, the really awful part isn't the part that you or I or the world are going to think about, it's something else."

Lassie's glance rose doubtfully upward. "You think that it's all right for her to do it, then?" she asked miserably.

"I think that we aren't wise enough to talk about it at all," said Ingram with determined cheerfulness. "Let's change the subject. I am going to be here on and off for a year, likely, and digging holes to hold little flags, and drilling to keep track of what one drills through isn't the liveliest fun in the world to look forward to; so when Alva doesn't need you, do give me some of your time and make me some jolly memories to live on later, when I'm alone—will you?"

"You won't ever be able to go and see Alva in her house afterwards, will you?" said Lassie, her mind apparently unequal to changing the subject on short notice; "because no one is ever to go there, she says."

"I shall never go unless she asks me, surely."

They were now quite near the little hotel.

"Before we part, let us be a little conventional and say that we are glad to have met one another," Ingram suggested; "will you?"

"I'm glad that I met you," she said; "it will be a great comfort—as you said."

Ingram was looking at her and that turned his face towards the gorge. "I see Alva coming across the bridge," he exclaimed; "go and meet her. Go to her quite frankly, openly,—as if nothing had happened. That will be easiest—and kindest—and best all around."

She flashed a grateful glance to his eyes, and ran at once down the tracks and out upon the bridge.

Alva came towards her, with a rapid step, her open coat floating lightly back on either side. She smiled sweetly as she saw the girlish figure. "You beat me home," she called out, gaily.

Lassie swallowed the lump in her throat and smiled, too. "It's such a beautiful day, and I'm so happy and so glad that you are happy!"

The pretty young voice rang fresh and true. The next instant they were close, side by side.

Alva stood still. What Ingram had said proved most truly true; she did not seem to hold any recollection of that parting an hour before. She drew Lassie close beside her and pointed over the bridge-rail. A rainbow was spanning the Upper Falls, and its brilliant, evanescent promise seemed to reflect in the face above. What is so fragile, illusive, uncertain as a rainbow? And yet it is the mirrored mirage of all the Eternal Purpose's immutable law. Form is there, and color; hope is there, and the will-o'-the-wisp of human struggles evolving continually and, in their evolution, fading to human eyes as they take their place up higher. From the foaming, dashing water, which during the centuries was strong enough to eat into the rock, arose the light, lovely mist that in cycles of time was in its turn strong enough to wear it away. Through the mist floated the impalpable radiance that, in Æons to come, when rock should again flash fiery through unending space, and water should have evaporated to await fresh form, would still continue to illuminate the Divine Will.