IN THE HOUR OF NEED

In the meantime Alva, left alone in her room, felt troubled, vastly troubled, by the sorrow and shame gathering so close to her. The emotions of those near by affect one keenly attuned, in a degree that the less sensitive would hardly believe possible.

She went and locked the door after Lassie left, and going to a chair that happened to stand close to the bureau, sat down there, leaned her face on her hand and thought earnestly of the whole matter.

"Why must I trouble so?" she said to herself, presently; "no one else does," and then she smiled sadly. "It is because I have set my face in that direction," she said; "I have vowed myself to service, just as he has vowed himself, for the love of God and God in humanity."

A light tap on her own door sounded, and she started, crying "Come in," quite forgetting that the door was locked.

Some one tried the door and then Alva sprang up and unfastened it. It opened, and Miss Lathbun stood there in the crack.

"May I come in for a few minutes?" she asked, pale and with frightened eyes.

"Yes, come in," Alva said quickly; "come in and sit down." She drew a chair near to the one that she had been occupying.

"I have come to you on a—" began the girl, "on a—on a—" she stammered and stopped.

"You are in trouble," Alva said gently; "tell me all about it."

"I am going to tell you; I have come on purpose to tell you. You were so kind and friendly the other day, and I—I—wasn't truthful; I didn't tell you everything."

Alva rested her face on her hand again and looked straight at her. "Then tell me everything now," she said.

Miss Lathbun returned her look. "Mr. O'Neil has just been up to tell Mother that we must pay our bill here, or leave," she said. "Mother is desperate. She doesn't know what to do, and I don't know what to do. I told you so little of the whole story. The truth is that he is actually driving Mother and me into poverty. The truth is that I don't know whether he ever really has thought of marrying me. Mother never has believed that he has. She doesn't think that he would put us to such straits if he was honest. Of course she doesn't know about his watching nights. I can't tell her. She'd go mad."

Alva contemplated her quietly. "But you love him?" she said.

Miss Lathbun's eyes filled with tears. "I do love him, and I believe that he loves me."

"You feel sure of it, don't you?"

The girl looked at her earnestly. "Doesn't one always know?" she asked.

Alva smiled a little. "One ought to," she assented; "well, then, how can he bear to make your life so miserable?"

The white girl clasped her delicate hands tightly in her thin black merino lap. "I don't know," she said, in a voice almost like a wail; "but oh, we have been very miserable! We have such little income and it comes through the lawyer. He sent the lawyer to Seattle on business in July, and Mamma and I haven't had any money since. We have gone from place to place—we have almost fled from place to place; our trunks are held for bills; we are penniless, winter is coming, and—oh, I don't know what to do; I don't know what to do!" She bit her lip so as not to cry, but her pale face worked pitifully.

Alva looked at her in a curiously speculative but not at all heartless way. "Isn't it strange," she murmured, "that the resolution that drives one man to any heights will drive another of the same calibre to any depths?" She rose and went to her table. "Tell me," she said, taking a framed picture from before the mirror, "is he really like this? You said so before. Say it again."

Miss Lathbun took the picture in her two hands. "Oh, yes, yes!" she said, eagerly; "it is the same. They are just the same."

"What did you say his name was?" Alva asked, taking the picture from her and restoring it to its place.

Miss Lathbun told her: "Lisle C. Bayard."

Alva sat down again, and rested her chin on her hand as before. "I wonder how I can really help you. I am trying to be big enough to see."

Miss Lathbun's lips parted slightly; she looked at her breathlessly, and held her peace.

"Even if you were lying to me still," Alva said presently, "I should want just as much to help you. If you cheated me and laughed at me afterwards, I should still want to help you. If you are an adventuress and I succored you, what would count to me would be that I tried to do right."

She spoke in a strange, meditative manner; Miss Lathbun continued to watch her, always white, and whiter.

"I cannot see why you and your mother came into my life," Alva went on; "but you have come, and I have been interested in you. Our paths seemed ready to diverge and yet just now they join again. Do you know, that a week or so ago I knelt in a church and took two vows; one was to accept without murmur whatever life might bring because for the moment I was so superlatively blessed; the other was to never again pass any trouble by carelessly. No matter what is brought to me, I must deal with it as earnestly and justly as I know how,—as I shall try to deal with you."

She got up, took a key from the pocket of a coat hanging on a hook near by, unlocked her trunk, opened a purse therein, and extracted some bills.

The girl watched her like one fascinated.

Alva came to her side and put the roll in her hands and closed her fingers over it. "It will settle everything," she said; "there, take it, go. Be honest again. Surprise every one. God be with you."

Hannah Adele looked down at her hand as if in a dream. "I was going to ask you for a little money," she faltered; "but this—this—"

"I know," said Alva, "I knew when you came in. Now, please don't say any more. Go back to your mother and tell her. I shall not say one word about it, you can depend upon me."

The girl rose in a blind, stupid kind of way and left the room. When she was gone, Alva went to the window for a minute and looked out. The glisten of coming cold was in the air. The thistles were loosing their down and it floated on the wind like ethereal snow. She stood there for a long time. "Something is to be," she murmured, "I feel it coming. What is it?"

Then she went to her table, picked up a pen and wrote:

Lisle C. Bayard,

Dear Sir:—I am acting under an impulse which I cannot overcome. It may be only a folly, but it is too strong within me to be resisted.

You may or may not know two ladies of the name of Lathbun; you may or may not be interested in them; but if by any chance you are interested in them, you ought to know that both have been threatened with terrible trouble. If the story which I have been told be really true it ought to make you not sorry, but very glad, to learn that in their hour of stress they found a friend.

Yours very truly ...

and she signed her full name.

After that she wrote another letter, with full particulars of the story. And when that letter, too, was finished, she slipped on her wraps and walked up the cinder-path to the post-office.

She found Mrs. Ray just in the fevered finale of her chase after ants.

"Put the letters on the counter," said the postmistress; "I'm standing on the post-box, and the Republican party is getting one good, useful deed to its credit this term, anyhow. I tried a soap box and bu'st through, and I haven't had a worse shock since I stepped down the wrong side of the step-ladder last spring, when I was kalsomining for Mrs. Clinch. But the post-box is as steady as the Bank of England and I feel as if for this one occasion, at least, my grocery business was coming out on top. Well, has anything new come up down your way since noon? Haven't paid their bill yet, have they?"

"I think they'll pay it," said Alva, smiling.

"Pay it! Those two? Well, not much! You're from the city and don't get a chance to judge character like I do, but I tell you every one that is honest has got to have a change of undershirts, at least. I've heard of people as turned them hind side before one week, and inside out the next, but they washed 'em the week after that, if they had any reputations at all to keep up."

"Do you want to bet with me as to Mrs. Lathbun's paying her bill, Mrs. Ray?" Alva asked.

Mrs. Ray turned and looked sharply down from her government perch. "My goodness me," she said, "you surely ain't been fool enough to lend her money, have you?"

Alva was too startled to collect herself.

"Well, you deserve to lose it then," said Mrs. Ray, climbing down abruptly; "see here, it isn't any of my business, but I'm going to make it my business and tell you the plain truth, and if you take offence I'll have done my duty, anyhow. Now you listen to me and bear in mind that I'm twice your age and have got all the experience of a postmistress and a farmer, and a sexton and a grocery business and a married woman and a widow and a stepmother; if you've lent money to the Lathbuns you're going to lose it, for they're just what the paper said—they're a foxy pair and no mistake, and furthermore, with all the money you're spending on that house, you'd better be keeping your eyes open, mark my words."

"IF YOU'VE LENT MONEY TO THE LATHBUNS YOU'RE GOING TO LOSE IT."

"Why, Mrs. Ray, what makes you say that?"

"Because I've got eyes of my own," said Mrs. Ray; "and I've been married too. I've been married and I walked to the Lower Falls beforehand, too. I saw 'em come up the road the first day, and I saw 'em going down it to-day. I'd send her packing, if I was you."

Alva laughed ringingly. "Oh, Mrs. Ray," she exclaimed; "I'm not going to marry that man, and besides, let me tell you something else; I haven't lent any money to the Lathbuns."

Mrs. Ray stared fixedly into her face for a long minute, then she said abruptly: "You tell Nellie not to send up for mail to-night. I'll bring the letters down. I'll be out filin' my bond, and I can just as well bring 'em down. It won't do any good your coming for 'em, because the post-office will be closed and me gone, so you couldn't get 'em if you did come."

Alva smiled. "We'll wait at the house," she said, laying her hand on the door-knob.

Mrs. Ray watched her take her departure.

"I'm glad she's give up the man so pleasant," she said; "and she's give up the money just as pleasant. Poor thing! She thought she was smart enough to keep me from seeing how she meant it. As if any one from a city could fool me!"