Chapter 11

"But, Mother, you mustn't take it when there is no need for it. He never meant for you to take it after you were cured. Besides, you might have the same trouble again when we couldn't get hold of him."

"How'm I to have it again?" demanded Miss Mattie, pricking up her ears, "when I'm cured? If I take all the medicine, I'll stay cured, won't I? You ain't got no logic, Roger, no more'n your pa had."

"I wish you wouldn't, Mother," pleaded the boy, genuinely distressed. "It's the medicine that makes you sleep so."

"I reckon," responded Miss Mattie, settling herself comfortably back among the pillows, "that he wanted me to have some sleep. In all my life I ain't never had such sleep as I'm havin' now. You go away, Roger, and study law. You ain't cut out for medicine."

The last words died away in an incoherent whisper. Miss Mattie slept again, with the box tightly clutched in her hand. As her fingers gradually loosened their hold, Roger managed to gain possession of it without waking her. He did not dare dispose of it, for he well knew that the maternal resentment would make the remainder of his life a burden. Besides, she might have another attack, when the ministering mind-reader was not accessible. If it were possible to give her some harmless substitute, and at the same time keep the "searching medicine" for a time of need.

[Sidenote: A Bright Idea]

A bright idea came to Roger, which he hastened to put into execution. He went to the druggist and secured a number of empty capsules of the same size. At home, he laboriously filled them with flour and replaced those in the box with an equal number of them. He put the "searching medicine" safely away in his desk at the office, and went to work, his heart warmed by the pleasant consciousness that he had done a good deed.

When he went home at night, Miss Mattie was partially awake and inclined to be fretful. "The strength is gone out of my medicine," she grumbled, "and it ain't time to take more. I've got to set here and be deprived of my sleep until eight o'clock."

Roger prepared his own supper and induced his mother to eat a little. When the clock began to strike eight, she took two of the flour-filled capsules, confidently climbed upstairs, and--such is the power of suggestion--was shortly asleep.

[Sidenote: Favourable Opportunity]

Having an unusually favourable opportunity, Roger went over to see Barbara. He had not seen her since the night before the operation, but Doctor Conrad had told him that in a few days he might be allowed to talk to her or read to her for a little while at a time.

Miriam opened the door for him, and, he thought, looked at him with unusual sharpness. "I guess you can see her," she said, shortly. "I'll ask her."

In the pathetically dingy room, out of which Barbara had tried so hard to make a home, he waited until Miriam returned. "They said to come up," she said, and disappeared.

Roger climbed the creaking stairs and made his way through the dark, narrow hall to the open door from whence a faint light came. "Come in," called Barbara, as he paused.

Ambrose North sat by her bedside holding her hand, but she laughingly offered the other to Roger. "Bad boy," she said; "why haven't you come before? I've lain here in the window and watched you go back and forth for days."

"I didn't dare," returned Roger. "I was afraid I might do you harm by coming and so I stayed away."

"Everybody has been so kind," Barbara went on. "People I never saw nor heard of have come to inquire and to give me things. You're absolutely the last one to come."

[Sidenote: Last but Not Least]

"Last--and least?"

"Not quite," she said, with a smile. "But I haven't been lonely. Father has been right beside me all the time except when I've been asleep, haven't you, Daddy?"

"I've wanted to be," smiled the old man, "but sometimes they made me go away."

"Tell me about the Judge's liver," suggested Barbara, "and Fido. I've been thinking a good deal about Fido. Did his legal document hurt him?"

[Sidenote: Fido]

"Not in the least. On the contrary, he thrived on it. He liked it so well that he's eaten others as opportunity offered. The Judge is used to it now, and doesn't mind. I've been thinking that it might save time and trouble if, when I copied papers, I took an extra carbon copy for Fido. That pup literally eats everything. He's cut some of his teeth on a pair of rubbers that a client left in the office, and this noon he ate nearly half a box of matches."

"I suppose," remarked Barbara, "that he was hungry and wanted a light lunch."

"That'll be about all from you just now," laughed Roger. "You're going to get well all right--I can see that."

"Of course I'm going to get well. Who dared to say I wasn't?"

"Nobody that I know of. Do you want me to bring Fido to see you?"

"Some day," said Barbara, thoughtfully, "I would like to have you lead Fido up and down in front of the house, but I do not believe I would care to have him come inside."

So they talked for half an hour or more. The blind man sat silently, holding Barbara's hand, too happy to feel neglected or in any way slighted. From time to time her fingers tightened upon his in a reassuring clasp that took the place of words.

Acutely self-conscious, Roger's memory harked back continually to the last evening he and Barbara had spent together. In a way, he was grateful for North's presence. It measurably lessened his constraint, and the subtle antagonism that he had hitherto felt in the house seemed wholly to have vanished.

At last the blind man rose, still holding Barbara's hand. "It is late for old folks to be sitting up," he said.

"Don't go, Daddy. Make a song first, won't you? A little song for Roger and me?"

He sat down again, smiling. "What about?" he asked.

"About the pines," suggested Barbara--"the tallest pines on the hills."

There was a long pause, then, clearing his throat, the old man began.

[Sidenote: Small Beginnings]

"Even the tall and stately pines," he said, "were once the tiniest of seeds like everything else, for everything in the world, either good or evil, has a very small beginning.

"They grow slowly, and in Summer, when you look at the dark, bending boughs, you can see the year's growth in paler green at the tips. No one pays much attention to them, for they are very dark and quiet compared with the other trees. But the air is balmy around them, they scatter a thick, fragrant carpet underneath, and there is no music in the world, I think, like a sea-wind blowing through the pines.

"When the brown cones fall, the seeds drop out from between the smooth, satin-like scales, and so, in the years to come, a dreaming mother pine broods over a whole forest of smaller trees. A pine is lonely and desolate, if there are no smaller trees around it. A single one, towering against the sky, always means loneliness, but where you see a little clump of evergreens huddled together, braving the sleet and snow, it warms your heart.

"In Summer they give fragrant shade, and in Winter a shelter from the coldest blast. The birds sleep among the thick branches, finding seeds for food in the cones, and, on some trees, blue, waxen berries.

[Sidenote: A Love Story]

"Before the darkness came to me, I saw a love story in a forest of pines. One tree was very straight and tall, and close beside it was another, not quite so high. The taller tree leaned protectingly over the other, as if listening to the music the wind made on its way from the hills to the sea. As time went on, their branches became so thickly interlaced that you could scarcely tell one from the other.

"Around them sprang up half a dozen or more smaller trees, sheltered, brooded over, and faithfully watched by these two with the interlaced branches. The young trees grew straight and tall, but when they were not quite half grown, a man came and cut them all down for Christmas trees.

"When he took them away, the forest was strangely desolate to these two, who now stood alone. When the Daughters of Dawn opened wide the gates of darkness, and the Lord of Light fared forth upon the sea, they saw it not. When it was high noon, and there were no shadows, even upon the hill, it seemed that they might lift up their heads, but they only twined their branches more closely together. When all the flaming tapestry of heaven was spread in the West, they leaned nearer to each other, and sighed.

[Sidenote: Bereft]

"When the night wind stirred their boughs to faint music, it was like the moan of a heart that refuses to be comforted. When Spring danced through the forest, leaving flowers upon her way, while all the silences were filled with life and joy, these two knew it not, for they were bereft.

"Mating calls echoed through the woods, and silver sounds dripped like rain from the maples, but there was no love-song in the boughs of the pines. The birds went by, on hushed wings, and built their nests far away.

"When the maples put on the splendid robes of Autumn, the pines, more gaunt and desolate than ever, covered the ground with a dense fabric of needles, lacking in fragrance. When the winds grew cool, and the Little People of the Forest pattered swiftly through the dead and scurrying leaves, there was no sound from the pines. They only waited for the end.

"When storm swept through the forest and the other trees bowed their heads in fear, these two straightened themselves to meet it, for they were not afraid. Frightened birds took refuge there, and the Little People, with wild-beating hearts, crept under the spreading boughs to be sheltered.

"Vast, reverberating thunders sounded from hill to hill, and the sea answered with crashing surges that leaped high upon the shore. Suddenly, from the utter darkness, a javelin of lightning flashed through the pines, but they only trembled and leaned closer still.

"One by one, with the softness of falling snow, the leaves dropped upon the brown carpet beneath, but there was no more fragrance, since the sap had ceased to move through the secret channels and breathe balm into the forest. Snow lay heavily upon the lower boughs and they broke, instead of bending. When Spring danced through the world again, piping her plaintive music upon the farthest hills, the pines were almost bare.

[Sidenote: As One]

"All through the sweet Summer the needles kept dropping. Every frolicsome breeze of June carried some of them a little farther down the road; every full moon shone more clearly through the barrier of the pines. And at last, when the chill winds of Autumn chanted a requiem through the forest, it was seen that the pines had long been dead, but they so leaned together and their branches were so interlaced, that, even in death, they stood as one.

"They had passed their lives together, they had borne the same burdens, faced the same storms, and rejoiced in the same warmth of Summer sun. One was not left, stricken, long after the other was dead; their last grief was borne together and was lessened because it was shared. I stand there sometimes now, where the two dead trees are leaning close together, and as the wind sighs through the bare boughs, it chants no dirge to me, but only a hymn of farewell.

[Sidenote: Together with Love]

"There is nothing in all the world, Barbara, that means so much as that one word, 'together,' and when you add 'love' to it, you have heaven, for God himself can give no more joy than to bring together two who love, never to part again."

"Thank you," said Barbara, gently, after a pause.

"I thank you too," said Roger.

Ambrose North rose and offered his hand to Roger. "Good-night," he said. "I am glad you came. Your father was my friend." Then he bent to kiss Barbara. "Good-night, my dear."

"Friend," repeated Roger to himself, as the old man went out. "Yes, friend who never betrayed you or yours." The boy thrilled with passionate pride at the thought. Before the memory of his father his young soul stood at salute.

Barbara's eyes followed her father fondly as he went out and down the hall to his own room. When his door closed, Roger came to the other chair, sat down, and took her hand.

"It's not really necessary," explained Barbara, with a faint pink upon her cheeks. "I shall probably recover, even if my hand isn't held all the time."

"But I want to," returned Roger, and she did not take her hand away. Her cheeks took on a deeper colour and she smiled, but there was something in her deep eyes that Roger had never seen there before.

"I've missed you so," he went on.

"And I have missed you." She did not dare to say how much.

"How long must you lie here?"

"Not much longer, I hope. Somebody is coming down next week to take off the plaster; then, after I've stayed in bed a little longer, they'll see whether I can walk or not."

[Sidenote: The Crutches]

She sighed wistfully and a strange expression settled on her face as she looked at the crutches which still leaned against the foot of her bed.

"Why do you have those there?" asked Roger, quickly.

"To remind me always that I mustn't hope too much. It's just a chance, you know."

"If you don't need them again, may I have them?"

"Why?" she asked, startled.

"Because they are yours--they've seemed a part of you ever since I've known you. I couldn't bear to have thrown away anything that was part of you, even if you've outgrown it."

"Certainly," answered Barbara, in a high, uncertain voice. "You're very welcome and I hope you can have them."

"Barbara!" Roger knelt beside the bed, still keeping her hand in his. "What did I say that was wrong?"

"Nothing," she answered, with difficulty. "But, after bearing all this, it seems hard to think that you don't want me to be--to be separated from my crutches. Because they have belonged to me always--you think they always must."

"Barbara! When you've always understood me, must I begin explaining to you now? I've never had anything that belonged to you, and I thought you wouldn't mind, if it was something you didn't need any more--I wouldn't care what it was--if----"

"I see," she interrupted. A blinding flash of insight had, indeed, made many things wonderfully clear. "Here--wouldn't you rather have this?"

[Sidenote: A Knot of Blue Ribbon]

She slipped a knot of pale blue ribbon from the end of one of her long, golden braids, and gave it to him.

"Yes," he said. Then he added, anxiously, "are you sure you don't need it? If you do----"

"If I do," she answered, smiling, "I'll either get another, or tie my braid with a string."

Outwardly, they were back upon the old terms again, but, for the first time since the mud-pie days, Barbara was self-conscious. Her heart beat strangely, heavy with the prescience of new knowledge. When Roger rose from his chair with a bit of blue ribbon protruding from his coat pocket, she laughed hysterically.

But Roger did not laugh. He bent over her, with all his boyish soul in his eyes. She crimsoned as she turned away from him.

[Sidenote: Please?]

"Please?" he asked, very tenderly. "You did once."

"No," she cried, shrilly.

Roger straightened himself instantly. "Then I won't," he said, softly. "I won't do anything you don't want me to--ever."

XVI

Betrayal

The long weeks dragged by and, at last, the end of Barbara's imprisonment drew near. The red-haired young man who had previously assisted Doctor Conrad came down with one of the nurses and removed the heavy plaster cast. The nurse taught Miriam how to massage Barbara with oils and exercise the muscles that had never been used.

"Doctor Conrad told me," said the red-haired young man, "to take your father back with me to-morrow, if you were ready to have him go. The sooner the better, he thought."

[Sidenote: Love and Terror]

Barbara turned away, with love and terror clutching coldly at her heart. "Perhaps," she said, finally. "I'll talk with father to-night."

Her own forgotten agony surged back into her remembrance, magnified an hundred fold. Fear she had never had for herself strongly asserted itself now, for him. "If it should come out wrong," she thought, "I could never forgive myself--never in the wide world."

When the doctor and nurse had gone to the hotel and Miriam was busy getting supper, Ambrose North came quietly into Barbara's room.

"How are you, dear?" he asked, anxiously.

"I'm all right, Daddy, except that I feel very queer. It's all different, some way. Like the old woman in _Mother Goose_, I wonder if this can be I."

There was a long pause. "Are they going back to-morrow," he asked, "the doctor and nurse who came down to-day?"

"Yes," answered Barbara, in a voice that was little more than a whisper.

The old man took her hand in his and leaned over her. "Dear," he pleaded, "may I go, too?"

Barbara was startled. "Have they said anything to you?"

[Sidenote: Long Waiting]

"No, I was just thinking that I could go with them as well as with Doctor Conrad. It is so long to wait," he sighed.

"I cannot bear to have you hurt," answered Barbara, with a choking sob.

"I know," he said, "but I bore it for you. Have you forgotten?"

There was no response in words, but she breathed hard, every shrill respiration fraught with dread.

"Flower of the Dusk," he pleaded, "may I go?"

"Yes," she sobbed. "I have no right to say no."

"Dear, don't cry." The old man's voice was as tender as though she had been the merest child. "The dream is coming true at last--that you can walk and I can see. Think what it will mean to us both. And oh, Barbara, think what it will be to me to see the words your dear mother wrote to you--to know, from her own hand, that she died loving me."

[Sidenote: Systematic Lying]

Barbara suddenly turned cold. The hand that seemingly had clutched her heart was tearing unmercifully at the tender fibre now. He would read her mother's letter and know that his beloved Constance was in love with another; that she took her own life because she could bear it no more. He would know that they were poor, that the house was shabby, that the pearls and laces and tapestries had all been sold. He would know, inevitably, that Barbara's needle had earned their living for many years; he would see, in the dining-room, the pitiful subterfuge of the bit of damask, one knife and fork of solid silver, one fine plate and cup. Above all, he would know that Barbara herself had systematically lied to him ever since she could talk at all. And he had a horror of a lie.

"Don't," she cried, weakly. "Don't go."

"You promised Barbara," he said, gently. Then he added, proudly: "The Norths never go back on their spoken or written word. It is in the blood to be true and you have promised. I shall go to-morrow."

Barbara cringed and shrank from him. "Don't, dear," he said. "Your hands are cold. Let me warm them in mine. I fear that to-day has been too much for you."

"I think it has," she answered. The words were almost a whisper.

[Sidenote: If the Dream Comes True]

"Then, don't try to talk, Barbara. I will talk to you. I know how you feel about my going, but it is not necessary, for I do not fear in the least for myself. I am sure that the dream is coming true, but, if it should not--why, we can bear it together, dear, as we have borne everything. The ways of the Everlasting are not our ways, but my faith is very strong.

[Sidenote: If the Dream Comes True]

"If the dream comes true, as I hope and believe it will, you and I will go away, dear, and see the world. We shall go to Europe and Egypt and Japan and India, and to the Southern islands, to Greece and Constantinople--I have planned it all. Aunt Miriam can stay here, or we will take her with us, just as you choose. When you can walk, Barbara, and I can see, I shall draw a large check, and we will start at the first possible moment. The greatest blessing of money, I think, is the opportunity it gives for travel. I have been glad, too, so many times, that we are able to afford all these doctors and nurses. Think of the poor people who must suffer always because they cannot command services which are necessarily high-priced."

Barbara's senses reeled and the cold, steel fingers clutched more closely at the aching fibre of her heart. Until this moment, she had not thought of the financial aspects of her situation--it had not occurred to her that Doctor Conrad and the blue and white nurses and even the red-haired young man would expect to be paid. And when her father went to the hospital--"I shall have to sew night and day all the rest of my life," she thought, "and, even then, die in debt."

[Sidenote: The Lie]

But over and above and beyond it all stood the Lie, that had lived in her house for twenty years and more and was now to be cast out, if--Barbara's heart stood still in horror because, for the merest fraction of an instant, she had dared to hope that her father might never see again.

"I could not have gone alone," the old man was saying, "and even if I could, I should never have left you, but now, I think, the time is coming. I have dreamed all my life of the strange countries beyond the sea, and longed to go. Your dear mother and I were going, in a little while, but--" His lips quivered and he stopped abruptly.

[Sidenote: Three Things]

"What would you see, Daddy, if you had your choice? Tell me the three things in the world that you most want to see." With supreme effort, Barbara put self aside and endeavoured to lead him back to happier things.

"Three things?" he repeated. "Let me think. If God should give me back my sight for the space of half an hour before I died, I should choose to see, first, your dear mother's letter in which she says that she died loving me; next, your mother herself as she was just before she died, and then, dear, my Flower of the Dusk--my baby whom I never have seen. Perhaps," he added, thoughtfully, "perhaps I should rather see you than Constance, for, in a very little while, I should meet her past the sunset, where she has waited so long for me. But the letter would come first, Barbara--can you understand?"

"Yes," she breathed, "I understand."

The hope in her heart died. She could not ask for the letter. He took it from his pocket as though it were a jewel of great price. "Put my finger on the words that say, 'I love him still.'"

Blinded with tears and choked by sobs, Barbara pointed out the line. That, at least, was true. The old man raised it to his lips as a monk might raise his crucifix when kneeling in penitential prayer.

"I keep it always near me," he said, softly. "I shall keep it until I can see."

* * * * *

Long after he had gone to bed, Barbara lay trembling. The problem that had risen up before her without warning seemed to have no possible solution. If he recovered his sight, she could not keep him from knowing their poverty. One swift glance would show him all--and destroy his faith in her. That was unavoidable. But--need he know that the dead had deceived him too?

The innate sex-loyalty, which is strong in all women who are really fine, asserted itself in full power now. It was not only the desire to save her father pain that made Barbara resolve, at any cost, to keep the betraying letter from him. It was also the secret loyalty, not of a child to an unknown mother, but of woman to woman--of sex to sex.

[Sidenote: To-Day and To-Morrow]

The house was very still. Outside, a belated cricket kept up his cheery fiddling as he fared to his hidden home. Sometimes a leaf fell and rustled down the road ahead of a vagrant wind. The clock ticked monotonously. Second by second and minute by minute, To-Morrow advanced upon Barbara; that To-Morrow which must be made surely right by the deeds of To-Day.

"If I could go," murmured Barbara. She was free of the plaster and she could move about in bed easily. Ironically enough, her crutches leaned against the farther wall, in sight but as completely out of reach as though they were in the next room.