Chapter 11

"You gave me a garden," laughed the Piper, "when I had no garden of my own, so why should I not get the white stuff for you? 'T was queer, the day I got it," he went on, chuckling at the recollection, "for I did not know its name. Every place I went, I asked for white stuff, and they showed me many kinds, but nothing like this. At last I said to a young girl: 'What is it that is like a cloud, all white and soft, which one can see through, but through which no one can be seen--the stuff that ladies wear when they are so beautiful that they do not want their faces seen?' She smiled, and told me it was 'chiffon.' And so--" A wave of the hand finished his explanation.

After an interval of silence, the Piper spoke again. "There are chains that bind you," he began, "but they are chains of your own forging. No one else can shackle you--you must always do it yourself. Whatever is past is over, and I'm thinking you have no more to do with it than a butterfly has with the empty chrysalis from which he came. The law of life is growth, and we cannot linger--we must always be going on.

"You stand alone upon a height," he said, dreamily, "like one in a dreary land. Behind you all is darkness, before you all is darkness; there is but one small space of light. In that one space is a day. They come, one at a time, from the night of To-morrow, and vanish into the night of Yesterday.

"I have thought of the days as men and women, for a woman's day is not at all like a man's. For you, I think, they first were children, with laughing eyes and little, dimpled hands. One at a time, they came out of the darkness, and disappeared into the darkness on the other side. Some brought you flowers or new toys and some brought you childish griefs, but none came empty-handed. Each day laid its gift at your feet and went on.

"Some brought their gifts wrapped up, that you might have the surprise of opening them. Many a gift in a bright-hued covering turned out to be far from what you expected when you were opening it. Some of the happiest gifts were hidden in dull coverings you took off slowly, dreading to see the contents. Some days brought many gifts, others only one.

"As the days grew older, some brought you laughter; some gave you light and love. Others came with music and pleasure--and some of them brought pain."

"Yes," sighed Evelina, "some brought pain."

"It is of that," went on the Piper, "that I wished to be speaking. It was one day, was it not, that brought you a long sorrow?"

"Yes."

"Not more than one? Was it only one day?"

"Yes, only one day,"

"See," said The Piper, gently, "the day came with her gift. You would not let her lay it at your feet and pass on into the darkness of Yesterday. You held her by her grey garments and would not let her go. You kept searching her sad eyes to see whether she did not have further pain for you. Why keep her back from her appointed way? Why not let your days go by?"

"The other days," murmured Evelina, "have all been sad."

"Yes, and why? You were holding fast to one day--the one that brought you pain. So, with downcast eyes they passed you, and carried their appointed gifts on into Yesterday, where you can never find them again. Even now, the one day you have been holding is struggling to free herself from the chains you have put upon her. You have no right to keep a day."

"Should I not keep the gifts?" she asked. His fancy pleased her.

"The gifts, yes--even the gifts of tears, but never a day. You cannot hold a happy day, for it goes too quickly. This one sad day that marched so slowly by you is the one you chose to hold. Lady," he pleaded, "let her go!"

"The other days," she whispered, brokenly. "What of them?"

"No man can say. While you have been holding this one, the others have passed you, taking your gifts into Yesterday. Memory guards Yesterday, but there is a veil on the face of To-morrow. Sometimes I think To-morrow is so beautiful that she hides her face."

"God veils her face," cried Evelina, "or else we could not live!"

"Lady," said the Piper, "have you lived so long and never learned this simple thing? Whatever a day may bring you, whatever terrible gifts of woe, if you search her closely, you will always find the strength to meet her face to face. Overshadowed by her burden of bitterness, one fails to find the balm. Concealed within her garments or held loosely in her hand, she always has her bit of consolation; rosemary in the midst of her rue, belief with the doubt, life with the death."

"I found no balm," murmured Evelina, "in the day you say I held."

"Had there been no secret balm, you could never have held her--the thorns would have pierced your hands. Have you not seen that you can never have sorrow until you have first had joy? Happiness is the light and sadness the shade. God sets you right, and you stray from the path, into the shadow of the cypress."

"The cypress casts a long shadow," said Evelina, pointing to the tree at the gate.

The Piper smiled. "The shadow of a sorrow is longer than the sorrow," he answered. "The shadow of one day, with you, has stretched over twenty-five years. 'T is approaching night that makes long shadows; when life is at noon, they are short. When life is at its highest, there are no shadows at all."

Miss Evelina sighed and leaned uneasily against the wall.

"This, I'm thinking," mused the Piper, "is the inmost truth of living--there is always a balance which swings true. A sorrow is precisely equal to a joy, and the shadow can loom no larger unless the light slants. And if you sit always in the sun, the shadow that lies behind a joy can be scarcely seen at all."

A faint breath of Spring stirred Miss Evelina's veil. She caught at it and tied the long floating ends about her neck.

"I would not look," said the Piper, softly. "If your veil should blow away, I would close my eyes and feel my way to the gate. Unless you chose to have me see your beauty, I would never ask, nor take advantage of an accidental opportunity. I'm thinking you are very beautiful, but you need never be afraid of me."

Miss Evelina did not reply; she only leaned more heavily against the wall.

"Lady," he continued, "perhaps you think I do not know. You may think I'm talking blindly, but there are few sorrows in the world that I have not seen face to face. Those I have not had myself, my friends have had, and I have been privileged to share with them. The sorrows of the world are not so many--they are few, and, in essence, the same.

"It's very strange, I'm thinking. The little laughing, creeping days go by us, then the awkward ones that bring us the first footsteps, then childhood comes, and youth, and then maturity. But the days have begun to grow feeble before one learns how to meet them; how to take the gifts humbly, scorning none, and how to make each day give up its secret balm. Memory, the angel who stands at the portal of Yesterday, has always an inscrutable smile. She keeps for us so many things that we would be glad to spare, and pushes headlong into Yesterday so much that we fain would keep. I do not yet know all the ways of Memory--I only know that she means to be kind."

"Kind!" repeated Evelina. Her tone was indescribably bitter.

"Yes," returned the Piper, "Memory means to be kind--she is kind. I have said that I do not know her ways, but of that I am sure. Lady, I would that you could let go of the day you are holding back. Cast her from you, and let her go into the Yesterday from which you have kept her so long. Perhaps Memory will be kinder to you then, for, remember, she stands at the gate."

"I cannot," breathed Evelina. "I have tried and I cannot let her go!"

"Yes," said the Piper, very gently, "you can. 'T is that, I'm thinking, that has set your life all wrong. Unclasp your hands from her rough garments, cease to question her closed eyes. Take her gift and the balm that infallibly comes with it; meet To-day with kindness and To-morrow with a brave heart. Oh, Spinner in the Shadow," he cried, his voice breaking, "I fain would see you a Spinner in the Sun!"

"No," she sighed, "I have been in the dark too long. There is no light for me."

"There is light," he insisted. "When you admit the shadow, you have at the same time acknowledged the light."

Evelina shook her head. "Too late," she said, despairingly; "it is too late."

"Ah," cried the Piper, "if you could only trust me! I have helped many a soul into the sun again."

"I trusted," said Evelina, "and my trust was betrayed."

"Yes," he answered, "I know. I have trusted, too, and I have been betrayed, also, but I know that the one who wronged me must suffer more than I."

She laughed; a wild, fantastic laugh. "The one who wronged me," she said, "has not suffered at all. He married in a year."

"There are different ways of suffering," he explained. "With a woman, it is most often spread out over a long period. The quick, clean-cut stroke is seldom given to a woman--she suffers less and longer than a man. With him, I'm thinking, it has come, or will come, all at once."

"If it does," she cried, her frail body quivering, "what a day for him, oh, what a day!"

Her voice was trembling with the hideous passion for revenge, and the Piper read her, unerringly. "Lady," he said, sadly, "'t is a long way to the light, but I'm here to help | you find it. We'll be going now. Laddie and I, but we'll come back soon."

He whistled to the dog and the two went off downhill together. She watched him from the gate until the bobbing red feather turned a corner at the foot of the hill, and the cheery whistle had ceased.

The stillness was acute, profound. It was so deep that it seemed positive, rather than negative. She went back into the house, her steps dragging painfully.

As in a vision she saw the days passing her while she stood upon a height. All around her were bare rocks and fearful precipices; there was nothing but a narrow path in front. Day by day, they came, peacefully, contentedly; till at last dawned that terrible one which had blasted her life. Was it true that she still held that day by the garment, and could not unclasp her hands?

One by one they had passed her, leaving no gifts, because she still clung to one. If she could let go, what gifts would the others bring? Joy? Never--there was no joy in the world for her.

Sometime that mystical procession must come to an end. When the last day passed on, she would follow, too, and go into the night of Yesterday, where, perhaps, there was peace. As never before, she craved the last gift, praying to see the uplifted head and stately figure of the last Day--grave, silent, unfathomable, tender; the Day with the veiled face, bearing white poppies in her hands.

XVII

Loved by a Dog

Anthony Dexter sat on the porch in front of his house, alone. Ralph had been out since early morning, attending to his calls. It was the last of April and the trees were brave in their panoply of new leaves. Birds were singing and the very air was eloquent with new life.

Between Anthony Dexter and the lilac bush at the gate, there moved perpetually the black, veiled figure of Evelina Grey. He knew she was not there and he was fully certain of the fact that it was an hallucination, but his assurance had not done away with the phantom.

How mercilessly she followed him! Since the night he had flung himself out of her house, tortured in every nerve, she had not for a moment left him. When he walked through the house, she followed him, her stealthy footfall sounding just the merest fraction of a second after his. He avoided the bare polished floors and walked on the rugs whenever possible, that he might not hear that soft, slow step so plainly. Ralph had laughed at him, once, for taking a long, awkward jump from rug to rug.

Within the line of his vision she moved horizontally, but never back and forth. Sometimes her veiled face was averted, and sometimes, through the eternal barrier of chiffon, he could feel her burning eyes fixed pitilessly upon his.

He never slept, now, without drugs. Gradually he had increased the dose, but to no purpose. Evelina haunted his sleep endlessly and he had no respite. Through the dull stupor of the night, she was never for a moment absent, and in every horrible dream, she stood in the foreground, mute, solitary, accusing.

He was fully aware of the fact that he was in the clutches of a drug addiction, but that was nothing to be feared in comparison with his veiled phantom. He had exhausted the harmless soporifics long ago, and turned, perforce, to the swift and deadly ministers of forgetfulness.

The veiled figure moved slowly back and forth across the yard, lifting its skirts daintily to avoid a tiny pool of water where a thirsty robin was drinking. The robin, evidently, did not fear Evelina. He could hear the soft, slow footfalls on the turf, and the echo of three or four steps upon the brick walk, when she crossed. She kept carefully within the line of his vision; he did not have to turn his head to see her. When he did turn his head, she moved with equal swiftness. Not for a single pitying instant was she out of his sight.

Farther on, doubtless, as he thought, she would come closer. She might throw back her veil as she had done on that terrible night, or lay her cold hand on his--she might even speak to him. What hideous conversations they might have--he and the woman he had once loved and to whom he was still bound! Anthony Dexter knew now that even his marriage had not released him and that Evelina had held him, through all the five-and-twenty years.

Such happiness as he had known had been purely negative. The thrill of joyous life had died, for him, the day he took Evelina into the laboratory. He was no longer capable of caring for any one except Ralph. The remnant of his cowardly heart was passionately and wholly given to his son.

He meditated laying his case before Ralph. as one physician to another, then the inmost soul of him shuddered at the very thought. Rather than have Ralph know, he would die a thousand deaths. He would face the uttermost depths of hell, rather than see those clear, honest eyes fixed upon him in judgment.

He might go to the city to see a specialist--it would be an easy matter to accomplish, and Ralph would gladly attend to his work. Yes, he might go--he and Evelina. He could go to a brother physician and say:

"This woman haunts me. She saved my life and continually follows me. I want her kept away. What, do you not see her, too?"

Anthony Dexter laughed harshly, and fancied that the veiled figure paused slightly at the sound. "No," he said, aloud, "you need not prepare for travel, Evelina. We shall not go to the city--you and I."

That was his mate, walking in his garden before him, veiled. She was his and he was hers. They were mated as two atoms of hydrogen and one of oxygen, forming a molecule of water. All these years, her suffering had reacted upon him, kept him from being happy, and made him fight continually to keep her out of his remembrance. For having kept her out, he was paying, now, with compound interest.

Upon a lofty spire of granite stands a wireless telegraph instrument. Fogs are thick about it, wild surges crash in the unfathomable depths below; the silence is that of chaos, before the first day of creation. Out of the emptiness, a world away, comes a message. At the first syllable, the wireless instrument leaps to answer its mate. With the universe between them, those two are bound together, inextricably, eternally bound. One may fancy that a disorder in one might cause vague unrest in the other. In like manner, Evelina's obsession had preyed upon Anthony Dexter for twenty-five years. Now, the line was at work again and there was an unceasing flow of communication.

Perhaps, if he had the strength, he might learn to ignore the phantom as he had ignored memory. Eventually, he might be able to put aside the eternal presence as he had put aside his own cowardice. There was indefinite comfort in the thought.

Having preached the gospel of work for so long, he began to apply it to himself. Work was undoubtedly what he needed--the one thing which could set him right again. After a little, he could make the rounds with Ralph, and dwell constantly in the boy's sunny presence. In the meantime, there was his paper, for the completion of which one more experiment was absolutely essential.

He stirred uneasily in his chair. He wished that Ralph had not been so womanish, or else that he had more diplomatically concealed his own opinions, to which, indeed, Ralph had admitted his right. Condemnation from Ralph was the one thing he could not bear, but, after all, was it needful that Ralph should know?

The experiment would not take long, as he wished to satisfy himself on but one minor point. It could be done, easily, while Ralph was out upon his daily round. Behind the lilac bushes there was yet room for one more tiny grave.

One more experiment, and then, in deference to Ralph's foolish, effeminate sentiments, he would give it up. One more heart in action, the conclusion of his brilliant paper, and then--why, he would be willing to devote the rest of his life, in company with Ralph, to curing whooping-cough, measles, and mumps.

The veiled figure still paced restlessly back and forth, now on the turf and now on the brick walk. He closed his eyes, but he still saw Evelina and noted the slight difference of sound in her footfalls as she crossed the walk. He heard the swish of her skirts as she lifted them when she passed the pool of water--was it possible that his hearing was becoming more keen? He was sure that he had not heard it from that distance before.

It was certainly an inviting yard and the gate stood temptingly ajar. The gravelled highway was rough for a little dog's feet, and Laddie and the Piper had travelled far. For many a mile, there had been no water, and in this cool, green yard, there was a small pool. Laddie whined softly and nosed the gate farther open.

A man sat on the porch, but he was asleep--anyhow, his eyes were closed. Perhaps he had a dog of his own. At any rate, he could not object to a tired yellow mongrel quenching his thirst at his pool. The Piper had gone on without observing that his wayworn companion had stopped.

Except for a mob of boys who had thrown stones at him and broken his leg, humans had been kind to Laddie. It had been a human, Piper Tom, in fact, who had rescued him from the boys and made his leg good again. Laddie cherished no resentment against the mob, for he had that eternal forgiveness of blows and neglect which lives in the heart of the commonest cur.

Opening his eyes, Anthony Dexter noted that a small, rough-coated yellow dog was drinking eagerly at the pool of water past which Evelina continually moved. She went by twice while the dog was drinking, but he took no notice of her. Neither robins nor dogs seemed to fear Evelina--it was only men, or, to be exact, one man, who had hitherto feared nothing save self-analysis.

The turf was cool and soft to a little dog's tired feet. Laddie walked leisurely toward the shrubbery, where there was deep and quiet shade. Under the lilac bush, he lay down to rest, but was presently on his feet again, curiously exploring the place.

He sniffed carefully at the ground behind the lilac bushes, and the wiry hair on his back bristled. There was something uncanny about it, and a guarding instinct warned him away. But what was this that lay on the ground, so soaked with rains that, in the shade, it had not yet dried? Laddie dragged it out into the sunlight to see.

It was small and square and soft on the outside, yet hard within. Except for the soft, damp outer covering, it might have been the block of pine with which Piper Tom and he would play by the hour. The Piper would throw the block of wood far from him, sometimes even into the water, and Laddie would race after it, barking gaily. When he brought it back, he was rewarded with a pat on the head, or, sometimes, a bone. Always, there would be friendly talk. Perhaps the man on the porch had thrown this, and was waiting for him to bring it back.

Laddie took the mysterious thing carefully in his strong jaws, and trotted exultantly up to the porch, wagging his stub of a tail. Strangely enough, just at the steps, the thing opened, and something small and cold and snake-like slipped out. The man could scarcely have seen the necklace of discoloured pearls before, with an oath, he rose to his feet, and, firmly holding Laddie under his arm, strode into the house, entering at the side door.

The Piper had reached home before he missed his dog. He waited a little, then called, but there was no answer. It was not like Laddie to stray, for he was usually close at his master's heels.

"Poor little man," said the Piper to himself, "I'm thinking we went too far."

He retraced his steps over the dusty road, searching the ground. He discovered that Laddie's tracks ended in the road near Doctor Dexter's house, and turned toward the gate. Tales of mysterious horrors, vaguely hinted at, came back to him now with ominous force. He searched the yard carefully, looking in every nook and corner, then a cry of anguish reached his ears.

Great beads of sweat stood out upon Piper Tom's forehead, as he burst in at the laboratory door. On a narrow table, tightly strapped down, lay Laddie, fully conscious, his faithful heart laid bare. The odour of anesthetics was so faint as to be scarcely noticeable. At the dog's side stood Doctor Dexter, in a blood-stained linen coat, with a pad of paper and a short pencil in his white, firm hands. He was taking notes.

With infinite appeal in his agonised eyes, Laddie recognised his master, who at last had come too late. Piper Tom seized the knife from the table, and, with a quick, clean stroke, ended the torture. Doctor Dexter looked up, his mask-like face wearing an expression of insolent inquiry.

"Man," cried the Piper, his voice shaking, "have you never been loved by a dog?"

The silence was tense, but Doctor Dexter had taken out his watch, and was timing the spasmodic pulsations of the heart he had been so carefully studying.

"Aye," said the Piper, passionately, "watch it till the last--you cannot hurt him now. 'T is the truest heart in all the world save a woman's, and you do well to study it, having no heart of your own. A poor beast you are, if a dog has never loved you. Take your pencil and write down on the bit of paper you have there that you've seen the heart of a dog. Write down that you've seen the heart of one who left his own kind to be with you, to fight for you, even against them. Write down that 't is a good honest heart with red blood in it, that never once failed and never could fail.

"When a man's mother casts him off, when his wife forsakes him, when his love betrays him, his dog stays true. When he's poor and his friends pass him by on the other side of the street, looking the other way, his dog fares with him, ready to starve with him for very love of him. 'T is a man and his dog, I'm thinking, against the whole world.

"This little lad here was only a yellow mongrel, there was no fine blood in him; he couldn't bring in the birds nor swim after the ducks men kill to amuse themselves. He was worth no high price to anybody--nobody wanted him but me. When I took him away from the boys who were hurting him, and set his poor broken leg as best I could, he knew me for his master and claimed me then.