Chapter 17

She set about it quickly enough, and what with her nervousness, her sympathy for that mother across the Rothel, her anxiety for the Colonel, her fear of the trial to which his powers of endurance were about to be put, and the description of his silent suffering during the last week, she failed to notice that Aileen said nothing. The girl busied herself with setting the table and preparing tea, Mrs. Caukins, meanwhile, rocking comfortably in her chair and easing her heart of its heavy burden by continual drippings of talk after the main flow of her tale was exhausted.

Presently, just after sunset, the twins came rushing in. Evidently they were full of secrets--they were always a close corporation of two--and their inane giggles and breathless suppression of what they were obviously longing to impart to their mother and Aileen, told on Mrs. Caukins' already much worn nerves.

"I wish you wouldn't stay out so long after sundown, children, you worry me to death. I don't say but the quarries are safe enough, but I do say you never can tell who's round after dusk, and growing girls like you belong at home."

She spoke fretfully. The twins exchanged meaning glances that were lost on their mother, who was used to their ways, but not on Aileen.

"Where have you been all this time, Dulcie?" she asked rather indifferently. Her short teaching experience had shown her that the only way to gain children's confidence is not to display too great a curiosity in regard to their comings and goings, their doings and undoings. "Tave and I didn't see you anywhere when we drove up."

The twins looked at each other and screwed their lips into a violently repressive contortion.

"We've been over to the sheepfolds with 'Lias."

"Why, 'Lias has been out in the barn for the last half hour--what were you doing over there, I'd like to know?" Their mother spoke sharply, for untruth she would not tolerate.

"We did stay with 'Lias till he got through, then we played ranchmen and made believe round up the cattle the way the boys wrote us they do." Two of their brothers were in the West trying their fortune on a ranch and incidentally "dovetailing into the home business," as the Colonel defined their united efforts along the line of mutton raising.

"Well, I never!" their mother ejaculated; "I suppose now you'll be making believe you're everything the other boys are going to be."

The little girls giggled and nodded emphatically.

"Well, Aileen," she said as she took her seat at the table, "times have changed since I was a girl, and that isn't so very long ago. Then we used to content ourselves with sewing, and housework, and reading all the books in the Sunday school library, and making our own clothes, and enjoying ourselves as much as anybody nowadays for all I see, what with our picnics and excursions down the Bay and the clam bakes and winter lecture course and the young folks 'Circle' and two or three dances to help out--and now here are my girls that can't be satisfied to sit down and hem good crash towels for their mother, but must turn themselves into boys, and play ranchmen and baseball and hockey on the ice, and Wild West shows with the dogs and the pony--and even riding him a-straddle--and want to go to college just because their two brothers are going, and, for all I know, join a fraternity and have secrets from their own mother and a football team!" She paused long enough to help the twins bountifully.

"Sometimes I think it's their being brought up with so many boys, and then again I'm convinced it's the times, for all girls seem to have caught the male fever. What with divided skirts, and no petticoats, and racing and running and tumbling in basket ball, and rowing races, and entering for prize championships in golf and the dear knows what, it'll be lucky if a mother of the next generation can tell whether she's borned girls or boys by the time her children are ten years old. The land knows it's hard enough for a married woman to try to keep up with one man in a few things, but when it comes to a lot of old maids and unmarried girls trying to catch up all the time with the men in _everything_, and catch on too, I must say _I_, for one, draw the line."

Aileen could not help smiling at this diatribe on "the times." The twins laughed outright; they were used to their mother by this time, and patronized her in a loving way.

"We weren't there _all_ the time," Doosie said meaningly, and Dulcie added her little word, which she intended should tantalize her mother and Aileen to the extent that many pertinent questions should be forthcoming, and the news they were burning to impart would, to all appearance, be dragged out of them--a process in which the twins revelled.

"We met Luigi on the road near the bridge."

"What do you suppose Luigi's doing up here at this time, I'd like to know," said Mrs. Caukins, turning to Aileen and ignoring the children.

"He come up on an errand to see some of the quarrymen," piped up both the girls at the same time.

"Oh, is that all?" said their mother indifferently; then, much to the twins' chagrin, she suddenly changed the subject. "I want you to take the glass of wine jell on the second shelf in the pantry over to Mrs. Googe's after you finish your supper--you can leave it with the girl and tell her not to say anything to Mrs. Googe about it, but just put some in a saucer and give it to her with her supper. Maybe it'll tempt her to taste it, poor soul!"

The twins sat up very straight on their chairs. A look of consternation came into their faces.

"We don't want to go," murmured Dulcie.

"Don't want to go!" their mother exclaimed; decided irritation was audible in her voice. "For pity's sake, what is the matter now, that you can't run on an errand for me just over the bridge, and here you've been prowling about in the dusk for the last hour around those lonesome sheepfolds and 'Lias nowheres near--I declare, I could understand my six boys even if they were terrors when they were little. You could always count on their being somewheres anyway, even if 't was on the top of freight cars at The Corners or at the bottom of the pond diving for pebbles that they brought up between their lips and run the risk of choking besides drowning; and they did think the same thoughts for at least twenty-four hours on a stretch, when they were set on having things--but when it come to my having two girls, and I forty at the time, I give it up! They don't know their own minds from one six minutes to the next.--Why don't you want to go?" she demanded, coming at last to the point. Aileen was listening in amused silence.

"'Coz we got scared--awful scared," said Dulcie under her breath.

"Scared most to death," Doosie added solemnly.

Both Mrs. Caukins and Aileen saw at once that the children were in earnest.

"You look scared!" said Mrs. Caukins with withering scorn; "you've eaten a good supper if you were 'scared' as you say.--What scared you?"

The twins looked down into their plates, the generally cleared-up appearance of which seemed fully to warrant their mother's sarcasm.

"Luigi told us not to tell," said Dulcie in a low voice.

"Luigi told you not to tell!" echoed their mother. "I'd like to know what right Luigi Poggi has to tell my children not to tell their mother anything and everything!" She spoke with waxing excitement; every motherly pin-feather was erect.

"He was 'fraid it would scare you," ventured Doosie.

"Scare me! He must have a pretty poor opinion of a woman that can raise six boys of her own and then be 'scared' at what two snips of girls can tell her. You'll tell me now, this very minute, what scared you--this all comes of your being away from the house so far and so late--and I won't have it."

"We saw a bear--"

"A big one--"

"He was crawling on all fours--"

"Back of the sheepfold wall--"

"He scrooched down as if he was nosing for something--"

"Just where the trees are so thick you can't see into the woods--"

"And we jumped over the wall and right down into the sheep, and they made an awful fuss they were so scared too, huddling and rushing round to get out--"

"Then we found the gate--"

"But I _heard_ him--" Dulcie's eyes were very big and bright with remembered terror.

"And then we climbed over the gate--'Lias had locked it--and run home lickety-split and most run into Luigi at the bridge--"

"'Coz we come down the road after we got through the last pasture--"

"Oh, he was so big!" Doosie shuddered as her imagination began to work more vigorously with the recital--"bigger'n a man--"

"What nonsense."

The twins had been telling all this at the same time, and their mother's common sense and downright exclamation brought them to a full stop. They looked crestfallen.

"You needn't tell me there's a bear between here and Moosehead--I know better. Did you tell Luigi all this?" she questioned sharply.

The two nodded affirmatively.

"And he told you not to tell me?"

Another nod.

"Did he say anything more?"

"He said he'd go up and see."

"Hm--m--"

Mrs. Caukins turned a rather white face to Aileen; the two, looking into each other's eyes, read there a common fear.

"Perhaps you'll take the jelly over for me, Aileen; I'll just step to the back door and holler to 'Lias to bring in the collie and the hound--'t isn't always safe to let the dogs out after dark if there _should_ happen to be anything stirring in the quarry woods."

"I'll go," said Aileen. She went into the pantry to get the glass of jelly.

"We'll go with you, we won't mind a bit with you or Luigi," chorussed the twins.

"You don't go one step," said their mother, entering at that moment from the kitchen, and followed by the two dogs; "you'll stay right where you are, and what's more, you'll both go to bed early to make you remember that I mean what I say about your being out so long another time after sundown--no good comes of it," she muttered.

The twins knew by the tone of her voice that there was no further appeal to be made.

"You can wash up the dishes while Aileen's gone; my head is so bad.--Don't be gone too long, Aileen," she said, going to the door with her.

"I sha'n't stay unless I can do something--but I'll stop a little while with Ellen, poor girl; she must be tired of all this excitement, sitting there alone so much as she has this last week."

"Of course, but Aurora won't see you; it's as much as ever I can do to get a look at her, and as to speaking a word of comfort, it's out of the question.--Why!" she exclaimed, looking out into the dusk that was settling into night, "they never light the quarries so early, not with all the arc-lights, I wonder--Oh, Aileen!" she cried, as the meaning of the great illumination in The Gore dawned upon her.

The girl did not answer. She ran down the road to the bridge with every nerve in her strained to its utmost.

XIV

She hurried over to the brick house across the Rothel; rapped at the kitchen door and, upon the girl's opening it, gave the jelly to her with Mrs. Caukins' message. She assured Ellen, who begged her to come in, that she would run over if possible a little later in the evening. A low whine and prolonged snuffing made themselves audible while the two talked together in low tones at the door. They seemed to proceed from the vicinity of the dining-room door.

"Where's Rag?" said Aileen, listening intently to the muffled sounds.

"I shut him up in the dining-room closet when I see you come up the walk; he goes just wild to get with you any chance he can, and Mrs. Googe told me she wanted to keep him round the house nights."

"Then be careful he doesn't get out to-night--supposing you chain him up just for once."

"Oh, I couldn't do that; Mrs. Googe wouldn't let me; but I'll see he doesn't follow you. I do wish you would come in--it's so lonesome," she said again wistfully.

"I can't now, Ellen; but if I can get away after eight, I may run over and sit with you a while. I'm staying with Mrs. Caukins because the Colonel is away to-night."

"So I heard; 'Lias told me just now on his way down to the village. He said he wouldn't be gone long, for the Colonel wasn't to home.--I wonder what they've turned on all the lights for?" she said, craning her neck to look farther up the road.

Aileen made no reply. She cautioned her again to keep Rag at home. A series of muffled but agonized yelps followed her down the walk.

She stood still in the road and looked about her. Everywhere the great quarry arc-lights were sending their searching rays out upon the quarries and their approaches.

"What shall I do--oh, what _shall_ I do!" was her hopeless unuttered cry.

It seemed to Aileen Armagh, standing there in the road at the entrance to the bridge, as if a powerful X-ray were being directed at that moment upon her whole life so far as she remembered it; and not only upon that, but upon her heart and soul--her thoughts, desires, her secret agony; as if the ray, in penetrating her body and soul, were laying bare her secret to the night:--she still loved him.

"Oh, what shall I do--what _shall_ I do!" was the continual inner cry.

Life was showing itself to her in this experience, as seen through the lens of a quickened imagination, in all its hideousness. Never had she experienced such a sense of loneliness. Never had she realized so forcibly that she was without father and mother, without kin in a foreign country, without a true home and abiding-place. Never had it been brought home to her with such keen pain that she was, in truth, a waif in this great world; that the one solid support for her in this world, her affections, had been ruthlessly cut away from under her by the hand of the man she had loved with all the freshness and joy of her young loving heart. He had been all the more to her because she was alone; the day dreams all the brighter because she believed he was the one to realize them for her--and now!

She walked on slowly.

"What shall I do--what shall I do!" was her inward cry, repeated at intervals. She crossed the bridge. All was chaotic in her thoughts. She had supposed, during the last two months, that all her love was turned to hate,--she hoped it was, for it would help her to bear,--that all her feeling for him, whom she knew she ought to despise, was dead. Why, then, if it were dead, she asked herself now, had she spoken so vehemently to Luigi? And Luigi--where was he--what was he doing?

What was it produced that nervous shock when she learned the last truth from Dulcie Caukins? Was it her shame at his dishonor? No--she knew by the light of the X-ray piercing her soul that the thought of his imprisonment meant absence from her; after all that had occurred, she was obliged to confess that she was still longing for his presence. She hated herself for this confession.--Where was he now?

She looked up the road towards the quarry woods--Thank God, those, at least, were dark! Oh, if she but dared to go! dared to penetrate them; to call to him that the hours of his freedom were numbered; to help--someway, somehow! A sudden thought, over-powering in its intimation of possibilities, stopped her short in the road just a little way beyond the Colonel's; but before she could formulate it sufficiently to follow it up with action, before she had time to realize the sensation of returning courage, she was aware of the sound of running feet on the road above her. On a slight rise of ground the figure of a man showed for a moment against the clear early dark of the October night; he was running at full speed.

Could it be--?

She braced herself to the shock--he was rapidly nearing her--a powerful ray from an arc-light shot across his path--fell full upon his hatless head--

"_You!_--Luigi!" she cried and darted forward to meet him.

He thrust out his arm to brush her aside, never slackening his pace; but she caught at it, and, clasping it with both hands, hung upon it her full weight, letting him drag her on with him a few feet.

"Stop, Luigi Poggi!--Stop, I tell you, or I'll scream for help--stop, I say!"

He was obliged to slacken his speed in order not to hurt her. He tried to shake her off, untwist her hands; she clung to him like a leech. Then he stopped short, panting. She could see the sweat dropping from his forehead; his teeth began to chatter. She still held his arm tightly with both hands.

"Let me go--" he said, catching his breath spasmodically.

"Not till you tell me where you've been--what you've been doing--tell me."

"Doing--" He brought out the word with difficulty.

"Yes, doing, don't you hear?" She shook his arm violently in her anxious terror.

"I don't know--" the words were a long groan.

"Where have you been then?--quick, tell me--"

He began to shake with a hard nervous chill.

"With him--over in the quarry woods--I tried to take him--he fought me--" The chill shook him till he could scarcely stand.

She dropped his arm; drew away from him as if touching were contamination; then her eyes, dilating with a still greater horror, fixed themselves on the bosom of his shirt--there was a stain--

"Have you killed him--" she whispered hoarsely.

The answer came through the clattering teeth:

"I--I don't know--you said--you said you--never wanted to see him again--"

Luigi found himself speaking the last words to the empty air; he was alone, in the middle of the road, in the full glare of an electric light. He was conscious of a desire to escape from it, to escape detection--to rid himself of his over-powering misery in the quietest way possible. He gathered himself together; his limbs steadied; the shivering grew less; he went on down the road at a quick walk. Already the quarrymen were coming out in force to see what might be up. He must avoid them at all hazards.

* * * * *

One thought was the motive power which sent Aileen running up the road towards the pastures, by crossing which she could reach in a few minutes the quarry woods: "I must know if he is dead; if he is not dead, I must try to save him from a living death."

This thought alone sent her speeding over the darkened slopes. She was light of foot, but sometimes she stumbled; she was up and on again--the sheepfold her goal. The quarry woods stood out dark against the clear sky; there seemed to be more light on these uplands than below in The Gore; she saw the sheepfold like a square blot on the pasture slope. She reached it--should she call aloud--call his name? How find him?

She listened intently; the wind had died down; the sheep were huddling and moving restlessly within the fold; this movement seemed unusual. She climbed the rough stone wall; the sheep were massed in one corner, heads to the wall, tails to the bare centre of the fold; they kept crowding closer and more close.

In that bared space of hoof-trampled earth she saw him lying.

She leaped down, the frightened sheep riding one another in their frantic efforts to get away from the invaders of their peace. She knelt by him; lifted his head on her knee; her hands touched his sleeve, she drew back from something warm and wet.

"Champney--O Champney, what has he done to you!" she moaned in hopeless terror; "what shall I do--"

"Is it you--Aileen?--help me up--"

With her aid he raised himself to a sitting posture.

"It must have been the loss of blood--I felt faint suddenly." He spoke clearly. "Can you help me?"

"Yes, oh, yes--only tell me how."

"If you could bind this up--have you anything--"

"Yes, oh, yes--"

He used his left hand entirely; it was the right arm that had received the full blow of some sharp instrument. "Just tear away the shirt--that's right--"

She did as he bade her. She took her handkerchief and bound the arm tightly above the wound, twisting it with one of her shell hairpins. She slipped off her white petticoat, stripped it, and under his directions bandaged the arm firmly.

He spoke to her then as if she were a personality and not an instrument.

"Aileen, it's all up with me if I am found here--if I don't get out of this--tell my mother I was trying to see her--to get some funds, I have nothing. I depended on my knowledge of this country to escape--put them off the track--they're after me now--aren't they?"

"Yes--"

"I thought so; I should have got across to the house if the quarry lights hadn't been turned on so suddenly--I knew they'd got word when I saw that--still, I might have made the run, but that man throttled me--I must go--"

He got on his feet. At that moment they both started violently at the sound of something worrying at the gate; there was a rattle at the bars, a scramble, a frightened bleating among the sheep, a joyous bark--and Rag flung himself first upon Aileen then on Champney.

He caught the dog by the throat, choking him into silence, and handed him to Aileen.

"For God's sake, keep the dog away--don't let him come--keep him quiet, or I'm lost--" he dropped over the wall and disappeared in the woods.

Here and there across the pastures a lantern shot its unsteady rays. The posse had begun their night's work.

The dog struggled frantically to free himself from Aileen's arms; again and again she choked him that he might not bark and betray his master. The terrified sheep bleated loud and long, trampling one another in vain efforts to get through or over the wall.

"Oh, Rag, Rag,--stop, or I must kill you, dear, dear little Rag--oh, I can't choke you--I can't--I can't! Rag, be still, I say--oh--"

Between his desire to free his limbs, to breathe freely, and the instinctive longing to follow his master, the dog's powerful muscles were doing double work.

"Oh, what shall I do--what shall I do--" she groaned in her helplessness. The dog's frantic struggles were proving too much for her strength, for she had to hold him with one hand; the other was on his windpipe. She knew 'Lias would soon be coming home; he could hear the sheep from the road, as she already heard the subdued bay of the hound and the muffled bark of the collie, shut--thanks to Mrs. Caukins' premonition of what might happen--within four walls. She looked about her--a strip of her white skirt lay on the ground--_Could she--?_

"No, Rag darling--no, I can't, I can't--" she began to cry. Through her tears she saw something sticking up from the hoof-trampled earth near the strip of cotton--a knife--

She was obliged to take her hand from the dog's throat in order to pick it up--there was one joyous bark....

"O Rag, forgive me--forgive!" she cried under her breath, sobbing as if her heart would break.

* * * * *

She picked up the piece of skirt, and fled with the knife in her hand--over the wall, over the pastures, that seemed lighter beneath the rising stars, down the highroad into the glare of an arc-light. She looked at the instrument of death as she ran; it was a banana knife such as Luigi used continually in his shop. She crossed the bridge, dropped the knife over the guard into the rushing Rothel; re-crossed the bridge and, throwing back the wings of the Scotch plaid cape she wore, examined in the full light of the powerful terminal lamp her hands, dress, waist, cuffs.--There was evidence.

She took off her cape, wrapped it over head and shoulders, folded it close over both arms, and went back to the house. She heard carriages coming up the road to The Gore.

Mrs. Caukins, in a quivering state of excitement, called to her from the back porch:

"Come out here, Aileen; 'Lias hasn't got back yet--the sheep are making the most awful noise; something's the matter over there, you may depend--and I can see lights, can you?"

"Yes," she answered unsteadily. "I saw them a few minutes ago. I didn't stay with Ellen, but went up the road a piece, for my head was aching too, and I thought a little air would do me good--and I believe I got frightened seeing the lights--I heard the sheep too--it's dreadful to think what it means."