Part 15

The Mother Superior, still apprehensive, asked Ruth to accompany him to the gates and make sure of his departure. But Cyrus did not walk toward the gates. He walked toward the spot where he and Ruth had met, then beyond among the trees. During this walk neither spoke. As Cyrus was obviously in deepest sorrow Ruth refrained from words. Absorbed in her own thoughts, she suddenly realized that she was approaching an unfamiliar object. This unfamiliar object, a thing about twenty feet in length and a little taller than a man, might pass for some unknown monster of the deep, or a minor whale. It seemed to be of iron with a trap-door in the side just large enough for a man to climb within. Its color was a dull gray.

"Look!" she exclaimed. "What on earth is that?"

"My flying machine. That is what I came in."

"You came in that?"

As she looked up at him he nodded, slowly, and made no other reply. The light was fading, but she could see that a change had come into his face since they stood together at the garden wall. This new expression showed a side of his character that she had forgotten. She now remembered that it was the same look that had come into his face when he vanquished the Tormentor in the Unitarian Church, years ago; when the good natured, easy going boy became, of a sudden, a reckless gladiator, the fearless defender who fights--and dies, if needed--for a sacred cause; his God, his Country, or--on that occasion--for his girl. It told deep emotions, of strength of purpose and the courage that has no respect for obstacles. Yet the slumbrous eyes were friendly as he said:

"Come, Ruth. Come home with me. I will make you happier than you will ever be in this place."

"No, Cyrus. No. I cannot."

"Do you mean that you will stay here all your life, from a sense of duty?"

"No--not wholly. Oh, why begin all over again? Please be reasonable, Drowsy. Please go away quietly."

His voice was gentle, but there was something in his face that recalled the boy of long ago, the boy who vanquished giants. Now it was the man--who might defy the gods. She was afraid:--of what, she knew not. But she took a backward step, a hand to her breast as if to calm a nervous heart. There was reason to be afraid. For then happened the unforgivable thing--doubly unforgivable when applied to a woman of sensibility and pride. He bent forward, to pick up something at her feet, she thought. Then, without warning, and all too sudden for escape, she felt an arm behind her knees, another across her back, and she was lifted from the ground. Before she could protest, or even struggle, he pushed open the door of the iron monster with his foot and passed her within as if she were a child. Gently he placed her on the floor and climbed in himself. She found herself sitting in front of him, her shoulders held firmly between his knees. He shut the little door at his side and all was dark. A button was pressed, one or two small levers manipulated, then a buzzing sound, a slight quivering of the car and through the port hole in front she saw that they were rising above the tops of the trees.

Then, high into the air.

XVII

"I MEAN IT"

Six hundred miles an hour, to old-time travelers, might seem fast. High up in the air, however, some miles above the earth with nothing beneath but the Atlantic Ocean, it seems a moderate pace. There are none of the usual landmarks to gauge one's speed; no telegraph poles, houses, or towns. The few ships one passes, seen far below, are movable objects with no definite relation to your own progress. Also, in a practically air tight conveyance no wind can beat against your face.

While three hours may seem brief for a transatlantic passage it must be remembered that the time Cyrus lost in going Eastward he gained in going West. The surface of our little earth moves eastward about a thousand miles an hour; so, with North America rushing forward to meet him he could easily make the journey of five thousand miles and more in the four hours, and almost without hurrying. There is a startling difference in celerity between an automobile and a yoke of oxen; more still between a steamship and a cannon-ball: and Cyrus' device was capable of any speed that he dared to travel. The only delays were in starting off, and in approaching his own Coast. Once above Massachusetts, however, he could easily find Longfields. The landmarks were familiar.

During this journey very little conversation took place between his passenger and himself. Sitting on the floor in front of him, her shoulders between his knees, he could not see her face. She made no acknowledgment of his speeches and gave no answer to any questions. He was correct in his belief that she was both alarmed and angry. But he did not know at the time that her anger far exceeded her alarm. This he realized, however, when he helped her from the car at the door of her aunt's house in Longfields.

For a moment she leaned against the door, weak, trembling, dazed, her hair disarranged, her cheeks hot. No words had been spoken during the last two hours. This long silence he was the first to break.

"You will forgive me, Ruth, won't you?"

It was too dark to see each other's faces, but this time had her eyes met his there would be nothing to conceal. Her anger and her dislike were deep and sincere. She answered in a low tone, but the tone and manner revealed a repugnance of whose existence there could be no doubt.

"Do not speak to me again; ever. Do you hear?"

"Yes, I hear."

"I mean it."

With a quivering hand she turned the knob, entered the house and shut the door behind her.

That Ruth meant all she said was soon made clear to Cyrus--very clear indeed. Two days later--after giving her time to recover--he came to her aunt's house with a little bouquet of flowers, hopefully gathered by his own hands in his own garden. With it was a note, an eloquent little plea for forgiveness, so humble and so sincere as to soften a heart of granite. He knocked at the front door, and waited. At last--it might have been a year that he waited--the door was opened.

"Good morning, Stella."

"Good morning, Cyrus."

Stella was the daughter of Abner Phillips, the harness maker, and she and Ruth and Cyrus had been playmates together in the old days at the red school house. The little harness business had suffered--even more than other things--with the decline of Longfields, and had finally expired. Stella had been out at service for the last few years. She was an angular maiden with thin lips and sharp eyes.

"Will you please take this note and the flowers to Ruth, Stella, and ask if I can see her?"

"Yes, of course, won't you come in?"

"No, thank you. I'll just wait here."

On the doorstep he waited, but not long; Stella quickly returned with the note and the flowers.

She seemed embarrassed. "Ruth says she--she----"

"Out with it, Stella."

"She says she won't see you."

"Won't see me! Is that just what she said?"

The maiden hesitated. As a friend of both and strictly neutral, her position was awkward.

"Why--yes."

"Just what did she say, Stella?"

"She said, give him back his flowers and his note and tell him not to come again."

This was clear to the dullest lover. And the words cut deeper still as he saw in the face of the sharp eyed ambassadress an impressible gleam of pity--or exultation--he could not tell which. Cyrus blushed like a girl. For a moment his drowsy eyes gazed blindly at Stella, then at the flowers and the note as if trying to realize what had happened. The effort was painful. The flowers seemed to be jubilant in their gayety, and jeering at him. He had believed, until this moment, that he was prepared for the worst. He had also believed, from his knowledge of women in history and fiction that they changed their minds with ease--in short, that honest lovers never need despair. This blow seemed to paralyze his senses. But Pride came to his rescue. It made him realize the degradation of appearing a fool before Stella. So, collecting his scattered wits he raised his head and smiled upon the waiting maiden. There was a quivering of the lip, however, as he said in a manner laboriously offhand--and, of course, unsuccessful:

"Oh, well, I must try again. Thank you, Stella. Good-by."

As he reached the gate she saw him toss the flowers to the ground.

His state of mind as he walked blindly along the village street, beneath the arching elms, could not be described in articulate language. Sorrow, anger, humiliation, all struggled for control. Resignation was not among them. So Ruth was really in earnest. If she hated and despised him, why live? This tumult within, while it numbed his senses--and might lead to tragedy--provided mirth for others. Just in front of the store a group of children ran across his path. They were followed, slowly, by a large Newfoundland dog, a well-known character in the village. He officiated, as is customary among dogs, as guardian and boon companion to children, all of whom he loved. His name was Major. He belonged to little Jason Howard, but he was on terms of intimacy with every child in Longfields. Major happened to stroll across the sidewalk just in front of Cyrus. The discarded lover, blind to outward things, collided with him. Always a gentleman and never forgetting his manners, Cyrus stopped, and--Ruth being the only thing in his mind--he raised his cap and bowed politely.

"I beg your pardon. It was my fault. Excuse me."

And all with a sober face. The children laughed, supposing Cyrus was being funny for their amusement. But never in his life had Cyrus felt less like being funny. Soberly he walked away not even hearing their laughter.

After this interview with Major he at once relapsed into the Cañon of Despair. For his was the agony of a man of honor who feels he has committed a disgraceful act, and has lost, for all time, the respect and good opinion of the being whose affection he valued above all other things.

It seemed but a moment after leaving Major that he found himself standing before two women and saying "how do you do"--or something equally significant. With a mighty effort to ignore the past--and the future--he recognized the two elderly maidens as Miss Fidelia Allen and Miss Anita Clement. They had stopped and were passing the time of day with him. He realized, blindly, that Miss Clement had opened a book and was telling him about it. Miss Clement had the faculty of expressing a barren idea in a wealth of language. So, while the listener's drowsy--and now dreaming--eyes rested on the speaker's lips he was seeing, not Miss Clement's face, but a face more threatening, yet of greater interest. As to the effect of Miss Clement's well chosen words on the listener's far away mind, the sound from her lips might have been the murmuring of pines. And as for The Only Woman in the world, if other women had changed their minds why not this one? He recalled the look in her eyes when----

"Do tell us what you think of it--just how you feel about it, Cyrus?"

As the wild horse of the prairies is suddenly jerked to earth by a lasso, so came back Cyrus.

"Oh--oh--very well, indeed, thank you. Never better."

"I meant about this new thought from the Orient. Just how deeply it impresses you. Just where, among the great thinkers, you would place Rub-a Shah Lagore."

"That's it exactly! Rubbish galore! Couldn't express it better. Somebody described all that stuff as transcendental flim-flam." And he smiled his most winning smile--a smile of sympathy, of fine intelligence and a lively interest in the conversation.

But Miss Clement stiffened a little, and frowned. "Do you feel that way?"

"Possibly you don't know Rub-a Shah Lagore," said Miss Fidelia, more gently.

"Know him? Oh, yes," said Cyrus. "I know him. That is, I think I met him. Was it in Cambridge?"

"I doubt it," said Miss Clement, "as he died about fifteen hundred."

"Fifteen hundred!" Cyrus smiled, nodded and tried to appear at ease. "Still I may have met him in a previous incarnation."

Then, apropos of incarnations, Miss Clement discoursed on the Oriental mind, on matters psychic, philosophic, mystic and occult. And as she talked, and drifted hither and thither on a sea of words, Cyrus floated off in his own direction, and was recalling once again the look in Ruth's eyes--that mingling of anger and contempt when Miss Clement again suddenly brought him back to the village street.

"Don't you think so yourself?"

Cyrus pulled himself together. "Er--well--perhaps I don't quite understand you."

"Do you know of any richer period in human thought? Any greater age?"

"Any greater age? No, certainly not. You mean fifteen hundred years? It certainly beats all records. That is, of course, all human records. Elephants, parrots and turtles, I believe, live to a green old age, but nothing like----"

Just what happened after that Cyrus did not remember. He found himself walking home with clear memories of Ruth, intermingled with blurred but painful impressions of two maiden ladies, frowning in surprise and annoyance as they said good-by and turned away.

Of one thing only was he certain: that in the utterance of senseless words he had surpassed all previous records, ancient or modern.

XVIII

THE CAÑON OF DESPAIR

As to human wisdom, the best that can be said is that some of us are less crazy than others. Also, that the habitually foolish person, he who is foolish by preference--or by unalterable Fate--is less disturbing than your usually sensible friend who suddenly becomes fatuous.

This was realized by Joanna during the next few days. Cyrus caused her serious alarm. On his new and larger air craft he worked with such feverish haste that he forgot to eat or go to bed until reminded of those habits. In the matter of eating he seemed to have lost all memory as to when or how to do it. He poured tea instead of maple syrup on his rice cakes; he recognized no difference in flavor between salt and powdered sugar, marmalade or mustard. Joanna's strawberry shortcake, the very best in the world--and his favorite dish--he regarded with unseeing eyes and forgot to eat it. His reply to nearly all her demands for information on whatever subject, was a smiling "Certainly, of course."

But these were trifles. In his cup of bitterness there still were dregs: and sleepless Fate had not forgotten them. The cup was to be emptied. Late one afternoon, three days after the rebuff to his note, his flowers and himself, he was returning from Springfield alone in his motor. About a mile from Longfields, where the road ran through some woods, he saw a figure on ahead, walking toward the village. It was a female figure, short, slight, erect, and moving with a light and rather jaunty step. It wore a continental hat, a white shirt waist and a white skirt. He recognized this person at first glance, ran his car ahead of her a short distance, then stopped at the side of the road, got out and walked back to meet her. This time there was no elaborate salutation _à la Grande Monarch_. It was a simple raising of his cap and a tentative, humble minded greeting.

"Good day, Ruth."

"Good day, Cyrus."

She smiled, but the smile brought no sunshine to his heart; a perfunctory smile of duty and good manners, such as might have greeted any other human animal. And as she stood there, against the dark background of the woods, calm, cold, beautiful, and oh! so far away!--he saw aversion in her face and in every line of the rigid little figure.

In a low, uncertain voice he spoke. "So you will never forgive me?"

For a moment she looked away, beyond him, along the road toward the village. "I forgive you a great deal. I forgive your taking me by force and against my will from a welcome refuge where I was looking forward to a peaceful, happy life. But the greater wrong you have done me, the irreparable injury--that is harder to forgive."

"Irreparable injury? What do you mean, Ruth?"

Her eyebrows went up. "Indeed! You really do not know what I mean?"

"On my honor I do not."

"I mean my reputation--the loss of my good name."

"Oh, Ruth! Why you--oh--don't say that!"

Calmly, but with an obvious effort at self control she answered:

"Do you think there is no gossip in Longfields, no comment on my unexpected arrival? Do you think an unmarried woman can travel about the world alone with a young man as I did, and keep her good name?"

"I never thought of it--in that way. On my honor--I did not."

"Do you know of any other respectable young woman of your acquaintance who has done anything like it?"

"But it was all my doing. You couldn't help it. Don't they all know that?"

"No. Why should they know it? Will they believe that you, whom they have known from boyhood, whom they respect and like, would carry me off by force, entirely against my will?" Then with a bitter little laugh: "Oh, no! They are not so simple! And some woman has started a story that we----" Her face became crimson and she covered it for a moment with her hands--"Oh, I can't bear to think of it."

Cyrus closed his eyes. His head drooped. "I never thought of all that. I was stupid. I can see it now. I don't blame you for hating me."

Ruth went on, speaking with nervous haste. "A pleasanter bit of scandal never happened in this village. I could not bear to live here. It would kill me to live here."

"You are not going away!"

"Indeed I am!"

"Where?"

"To Worcester, to earn my living as a nurse."

"Listen, Ruth. Let me do something, no matter what. Let me take you, or send you back to the Convent."

"The Convent! The Convent!" she repeated, and her cheeks reddened. "Do you think the Convent a refuge for women who leave it as I did?--for women who elope with--oh! It's for better women than that! They would never allow me within its gates."

"Then let me atone in some way."

"Indeed! And how?"

"In any way you say--there's all my money--take some of it--all of it. Not as a gift, but in some business way. Let me buy something at a----"

"Clever thought! Regild my reputation with Cyrus Alton's money!"

"Then marry me. Be my wife, only in name. I swear to you--I--will never see you if you wish it. Or--or trouble you in any way. Only let me do something. I had no idea of--of what--of what all this meant to you."

"Your wife!" she laughed a scornful, tragic, broken-hearted little laugh. "Never in this world. Never! Never that!"

She turned and walked away.

He walked beside her. "Please listen. I will do anything you say. I know I deserve it all, but that afternoon at the convent I was not myself. After what happened I was all wrought up. My brain----"

She stopped, turned about and faced him.

"Yes, there is one thing you can do. Leave me now. And let us not be seen together again--ever."

For a brief moment they stood confronting each other. And Cyrus looked deep into the eyes that once had been his guiding stars; the friendly eyes in whose depths his boy heart had sought--and never in vain--encouragement, or consolation. Now, he was finding in their contemptuous beauty only the cold ashes of their childhood devotion.

Then, once more, she turned her back upon him. Erect and with decisive steps, the little figure departed. He stood watching her as she walked--walking out of his life. In his brain and in his heart was a numbing pain--the knowledge that his highest hopes were dead--killed, and by himself!

There and there he made a decision, a decision of vital import to himself. And why not? Who in the world, except Joanna would mourn, or even miss him? If there be such a thing as consolation when hope is dead, he found it in a great resolve.

As he passed her in his car he raised his cap and murmured

"_Morituri te salutamus_."

XIX

A YOUNG MAN TALKS

Ruth was in earnest when she told Cyrus of her intention to become a nurse. Some experience in that line, while in Europe, had fitted her for the work and she found little difficulty in securing a position in a Worcester Hospital. Possibly her prepossessing appearance was a help. The Superintendent, being human, was not immune, perhaps, to the influence of an interesting personality, especially in combination with an attractive face and voice and figure.

After this interview at the hospital, about the middle of the day, she took a return train for Springfield.

When she entered the car at the Worcester Station, and found a vacant seat, she gave no special attention to the two men in the seat just behind her own. She merely noticed that the carefully dressed young man nearest the aisle had an intelligent wide awake face, and that his companion--next the window--was suffering from a cold in the head of aggravated dimensions. His aqueous eyes and swollen nose, his sneezes and his busy handkerchief told the familiar and unromantic drama of a mucous membrane at war with its owner.

The weather this day--a week or so after the interview with Cyrus--was cloudy, damp and otherwise depressing. She felt, of course, gratification in the success of her mission at the hospital. Her thoughts, however, were not entirely rosy as she looked from the car window on this homeward journey, gazing absently on the sunless landscape. She had much to think about, and often, during this little journey from Worcester she tried vainly to escape from unwelcome memories. At the mention of a familiar name, however, these wandering thoughts were centered suddenly on the conversation of the two men in the seat behind her.

"Alton, Cyrus Alton. Guess you've met him."

"Yez, I thig zo. Kide of sleeby eyes, hasn'd he?"

"Yep. His eyes are sleepy, but, gee whiz! He does things."

"Whad thigs?"

"Oh, anything--if it's impossible."

"Didn'd he bake a lod of bunny all of a zudden?"

"Bet your life he did! Made it while you wait."

"How budge?"

"God knows."

"How did he do id?"

"God knows that too:--He and Alton. You can hear anything. Some say a rich widow, others, a pirate's cave. Perhaps it's just a friendly tip from his Partner."

"Who is his bardner?"

"The Almighty."

"You bead he is bious?"

"Nixy not! He's a scientist, and science and piety don't seem to cuddle much. He has discovered--or his Big Partner has told him--some secret of electricity that is just the humpingest thing out of jail. It's going to revolutionize the whole human outfit; business, travel, transportation. As to little things like manufactures in peace and wholesale destruction in war, why, we've got to begin all over again. You just can't digest it. And it's so simple that you laugh when you think of it."

"Doe! Really?"

"Yep; that's no exaggeration."

"Thad's inderesdig. I have heard vague rubers aboud id bud nothing like thad. Just whad is id?"

"Just what is it. Well, that's an easy question to ask. When he blabs his secret then we'll all know. But he says it's so simple that it's sure to be discovered some day."

"I spoze you doe him breddy well."

"Yep, in a way. He orders his electric stuff through us. A year ago when he was so poor he used to foot it to save trolley fare the boss trusted him for twelve hundreds dollars' worth of radium."

"Good for the boss! He was a zpord. Did he ever get his bunny bag?"

"Twice over. Oh, Alton didn't forget it. He's as straight as a string."

"Well, he bay be all ride in sub ways bud he busd be jusd aboud grazy to sdard on thad jourdy."

"Oh, I dunno. He has done some big stunts already. And he's pretty level headed."

"Yez, bud id seebs like suizide to be. How var away is Bars, eddyway?"

"Oh, just a step. I believe the astronomers call it about forty-eight millions of miles."

"Vorty-eight billions of biles? Whew!"

"No, forty-eight millions--not billions."

The Rose Cold tried to laugh. "Yez I doe id iz--but with thiz invernal drouble I gan'd prodounce by ebs."

"Of course; beg your pardon."

"Thad's all ride. But dell be, is he really goig to dry vor id?"

"Sure thing. He may have started already."