Part 16

"This child is not mine. I swear it before my God. Her father left me for another woman. Marcel can testify to that. My heart broke within me, and later, when my poor sister died, I went away. I went to--to Langley's cabin in the woods. I fought out my trouble there, and then came back to my years of labour, that you all know of. I never knew, until long after, the black thoughts that were held against me. I lived alone--alone." Here Jo rose majestically, threw back her head, and let her flaming eyes rest upon the two petrified listeners. Her hand was still touching with a marvellously gentle touch the bent head of Donelle, who was crouched on the floor at her feet, and was listening, listening, her breath coming in quick, soft little gasps.

"And then," the stern voice went on, "Pierre Gavot did me the most hideous wrong a man can do a woman, Gavot, Pierre Gavot, a man unworthy of looking at an honest woman, offered to--to marry me, for my money! He sought to get control of the only thing that I had won from life for my own protection. But out of his foul lips something was sent to guide me. He somehow made me see that I might yet have what my soul had hungered and almost died for--a child! I went to St. Michael's. I meant to take what some other woman had disinherited. I meant to take a man-child, because I felt I could not see another woman endure what I had endured! But God worked a miracle. He drove me aside, He sent"--and here Jo's eyes fell upon Donelle with a glance of supreme pity and of worship--"He sent this girl to me, I found her in the woods. During the weeks of her sickness, which followed her coming to my house, she revealed--her identity. It was marvellous. I was frightened, but in my soul I knew God was having His way with me. He had sent me the child of the man I had loved, of the woman who had betrayed me!

"I went, when I could, to St. Michael's and got the Sisters' story, and I found----" Jo paused. Even now she hesitated before delivering her best beloved to the danger she long had feared. Then she remembered Tom Gavot and lifted her eyes.

"This girl's father had been accused of taking the life of his wife. He was bringing his child to me because he knew I would understand. He died before he could reach me. But a man, who, before God, I believe was the guilty one, was after the girl, wanted to get possession of her. For what reason, who can tell? The Sisters saved her. When I took her, I tried to save her by giving her my name. I felt that I was less harmful to her than--than the things the world might say. But I see," poor Jo's voice quivered, almost broke, "I see I was wrong. How could I prove my belief in the innocence of Henry Langley, though I could stake my soul's salvation on my belief that he did not kill his wife?"

Donelle was slowly rising to her feet. A dazed but brilliant light flooded her eyes, she reached out to Jo as she used to do in those first nights of delirium and fever.

"Mamsey, Mamsey, he did not! It was this way. My father came into the cabin, he had been hunting. My mother was there. I was there, and--and the man! I cannot, oh! Mamsey, I cannot remember his name, but I hated him. I was afraid. He used to say he would carry me off if--if I told! When my father came into the cabin--I cannot remember it all, for I ran and hid behind a door. But yes, I can remember this: the man said I was--his! Then my father ran toward him and he screamed something, and my mother," Donelle was crouching, looking beyond Mantelle and Marcel, at what no eyes but hers could see, "and my mother cried out that what the man said was a lie! And then my father and the man struggled. They fought and the gun went off--and--and--my mother fell!

"Mamsey, I--I cannot remember the rest. I was always tired, always going somewhere, but my father did not do that awful thing!"

A sudden stillness filled the dim room, a silence that hurt. Then Jo's tones rang out like a clanging bell:

"Father, this girl is Tom Gavot's wife?"

"She is." The priest was as white as death. Marcel was silent.

"Then no harm can reach her from that man, wherever, whoever, he is?"

"None."

"And that boy took my girl believing what the world thinks is the worst?" Jo's voice suddenly softened, her eyes dimmed. There was no reply to this. Marcel was crying softly, persistently, her face covered by her poor, wrinkled hands. The priest's white face shone in the shadowy room.

Then Jo laughed and lifted Donelle up.

"Child, you have seen the worst and the best in man. We still have Tom Gavot and he will keep all harm from you." Then she turned to Marcel. "Margot would have been proud of Tom, could she have known," she said. Marcel groped her way across the room. Her eyes were hidden, her sobs choked her.

"Mam'selle," she faltered, "Mam'selle Jo!"

Then the two women clung together. Father Mantelle watched them. What he thought no one could know, but a radiance overspread his face.

"Mam'selle Morey," he said quietly at last, "you have opened my eyes. God's peace be with you."

Then, as if leaving a sacred place, he turned and went out into the early evening.

Marcel soon followed, but she was not crying when she went. Donelle had kissed her, Jo had held her hands and smiled into her eyes. Marcel had received her blessing from them.

Then, when they were alone, Jo lighted the lamp and piled wood in the stove.

"And now we will eat, child," she said. Donelle was still dazed, trembling.

"I remember!" was what she kept repeating. "How strange, Mamsey, but I see it clear and true after all these years."

"And now, forget it, Donelle. The vision was given to you from God. It has done its work. We must forget the past." And for years it was never talked of between them.

"But, Mamsey----"

"Not another word, Donelle. We must eat and then talk of Tom."

It was after eight when, the work indoors and out finished, Jo and Donelle talked of Tom Gavot. By that time Donelle was quiet and strangely at peace.

"All night, Mamsey, while Nick and I were in his cabin," she said, "he was out in the rain! I crept to the window many times and always he was there walking about or sitting by a little fire that he made in a dry spot to warm his poor, wet body. Mamsey, he told me to put the bar across the door, and I wanted to, but I did not." Donelle's eyes shone. "Somehow I felt safer with the bar off. And then, when it was morning, Tom was gone."

"He will come again!" breathed Jo, her breast heaving. "And what then will you do with him, child?"

"I do not know, Mamsey."

"He has done the greatest thing for you that it is possible for man to do."

"Yes, I know, I know. But, Mamsey," the agony of deadly hurt shook Donelle's voice, "Mamsey, for a little time I want, I must stay with you. And we must never speak of the other! You kept still when, when my father----"

"Yes, yes, Donelle, I understand," Jo clutched the girl to her. "You shall stay with me for a little time, but I think the day will come when you will go to Tom Gavot on bended knees."

"Perhaps, Mamsey, perhaps. I love Tom for his great goodness. I see him always, so safe, so kind, so splendid, but just now---- Oh! Mamsey," the girl shuddered, "the love has me! I know I am wrong and wicked to let it hold me. I know I was selfish and bad to let Tom save me. You see I had to do something quick; I was so alone. But by and by, Mamsey, the way will be easier and then I will think only of Tom Gavot. I promised."

In the upper chamber were a few articles belonging to Norval. Jo put them under lock and key the following day, and set the room in its sweet, waiting orderliness once more. The cabin in the wood too, was securely closed against prying eyes and hands. A few sketches and pictures were still there--"The Road" among them. The others had been hastily gathered together. Books rested on a shelf and table, the oil-stained coat hung on a peg. Jo longed, with human revolt, to set fire to the place where she and Langley's child had known Gethsemane, but her hand was held.

And still Tom Gavot did not return. No word came from him for a week, and a great fear rose in Jo's heart. Then came a brief note to Donelle.

You know you can trust me. Father Mantelle has written to me about you and Mam'selle; it's a big thing. And, Donelle, I'm never going to take anything you don't want to give! I didn't marry you to hurt you. I did it to help you. It seemed the only way, in the hurry.

I'm staying here in Quebec for a few months. Nothing can harm you now and I am thinking of longer and bigger roads, farther away, where I can make more money and get ahead. It can't harm you, Donelle, to tell you that, always from the first time I saw you, I loved you better than anything else. I love you now better than myself, my roads, anything! And because I love you this way, I'm leaving you with Mam'selle.

How they all evaded Norval. It was as if he had never been. Point of Pines was like that.

Since Tom had not killed him, he was able to blot him out.

"Tom is a man, a big one!" murmured Jo. "Donelle, you will be able to see him by and by."

"Yes, Mamsey, by and by."

Then summer came warmly, brightly, over the hills, but with it stalked a grim, black shadow. A shadow that no one dared speak about aloud, though they whispered about it at Dan's Place, on the roads, and in the quiet houses. Father Mantelle felt his old blood rising hot and fierce. He remembered his France; but he remembered that his France had driven his Order from its fasthold. He remembered England, with traditional prejudice. Then he gazed into the depth of the black shadow that would not depart, and preached "peace, peace," even before his people had thought of anything else but peace. It was full summer. The States' people filled Marcel's house, the Point of Pines hamlet throbbed and waited. Then the shadow stood revealed--War! And from over the sea England called to her sons. And they no longer paused. They lifted up their stern young faces and turned from field, river, and woods, turned back again Home!

And the women! At first they were stunned; horrified. It could not be! It could not be!

Soon, soon, they were to learn the lesson of patience, bravery, and heroism, but at first they saw only their boys going away. They saw the deserted houses, farms, and river, their own great helplessness, their agony of fear.

They saw their children grow old in a night with the acceptance of this call they could not quite comprehend, but which could not be disregarded. It was such a strange call, it sounded depths they, themselves, had never known. It found an answer in their untried youth. They simply had to go.

The old men were sobered, exalted. Even Pierre Gavot forgot the tavern, put on his best clothes, and waited for Tom. Were all the others going, and not his son? Gavot was full of anxiety. He did not want to drink and forget. He was obliged to stay clearheaded and watch for Tom's return. He even forgot himself and his demands on Tom. He'd manage somehow, but he could not endure the shame of Tom's not going overseas.

It was an hour when souls were marching up to the Judgment Seat, each according to its kind.

And one day Jo Morey met Pierre on the high-road, her burning woman-heart not yet adjusted to the shock that was reverberating through Canada.

"And so, Gavot," she said, "'tis taking this cause to bring you to your senses? I hear of your talking of Tom as if he was a big thing. Why, he's been big ever since he was born, and you took no heed."

Pierre drew back. Tom was not yet revealed as a hero, but Gavot could not conceive of the boy being anything else.

"I'm ready to lay my only son on the altar," mumbled Pierre grandiloquently. "I can sacrifice my all for my country."

Jo laughed, a hard, bitter laugh.

"You men!" she sneered, "ever since Abraham carried his poor boy up the mountain to lay him on the altar, you've all been alike, you fathers! You don't lay yourselves on the fire, not you! You don't even live your decent best when you might, but you're ready enough with the sacrifice of your young. Gavot, have you ever noticed that the Sarahs of the world don't carry their sons to the altar?" Jo's feelings choked her.

Gavot looked at the woman before him with bleared and strangely serious eyes. "That's wild talk," he mumbled, "bad talk. The right has to be done. Could such as _I_ fight?"

Jo looked at the wretched creature by the roadside and she did not laugh now. That intangible something that was settling on the faces of her people hushed her.

*CHAPTER XX*

*GAVOT GETS HIS CALL*

And Tom Gavot was in Quebec. The alarm had stilled, for an instant, his very heart, and the first terrible sense of fear that always came to him in danger rose fiercely within him. His vivid imagination began to burn and light the way on ahead. Horrors that he had read of and shuddered at clutched at his brain and made it ache and throb.

No one knew of his sad marriage. He was going about his work bearing his heavy secret as best he could, but now he began to view it in a new light. He was married; he could remain behind with honour. But could he?

"Going to enlist, Tom?" the head of his firm asked one day. "We'd hate to lose you, we want to send you to Vancouver. There's something special to do there. After all, the matter will soon be settled and we need some boys here."

"I'm thinking it over," Tom replied, and so he was, over and over while his quivering flesh challenged his bright spirit.

He walked daily in front of the Chateau Frontenac and watched and watched the gallant boys, oh! so pitifully young, marching, drilling with that look in their eyes that he could not comprehend. He went to the Plains of Abraham and stood spellbound while the past and present flayed his fevered imagination. He stood in front of the pictured appeals that the Government posted on fences and buildings, and still his flesh held his spirit captive. Then one day, quite unconsciously, the Government reached him--him, Tom Gavot! There was a new picture among the many, an old mother with a transfigured face, her hand on the shoulder of her boy.

"My son, your country needs you."

Tom looked, and turned away. It did not seem fair to--to bully fellows like that. He was angry, but he went back. The boy's face seemed to grow like his own! Poor Tom, he could not realize that it was the face of young Canada. The woman why, she was like the long-dead mother! Tom felt sure, had his mother lived, that she would have been old and saintly. Yes, saintly in spite of everything, for would not he have seen to that? He, and his roads?

Tom thought of his roads, his peaceful, beautiful roads. Would he be fit to plan them, travel on them if he let other men make them safe for him?

Then one September day he said quietly--and the man to whom he spoke never forgot his eyes--"I'm going to enlist. I'm going back to my home place. I'd like to start with the boys from there." So Tom went back to Point of Pines. He almost forgot that he was the husband of Donelle Langley. He had taken farewell of many, many things without realizing it: his own fear, his wife, his roads, his hope of Donelle.

He went back very simply, very quietly, and with that new look in his sad young eyes he seemed like a stranger. Not for him was the glory and the excitement. He was going because he dared not stay. His soul was reaching out to an ideal that was screened in mystery, he had only just courage enough to press on. Pierre looked at his boy pleadingly.

"Tom," he whimpered, "I'm not much of a father. I can't send you off feeling proud of me, I've held you back all your life. But I can make you feel easier about me by telling you that I've got work. You won't have to fash yourself about that."

Tom regarded his father with a vague sense of gladness; then he reached out falteringly and took his hand!

Marcel drew Tom to her heart. All her motherhood was up in arms.

"Tom," she whispered, "all through the years I've broken my heart over those little graves on the hill, but to-day I thank God they're there!"

Tom held the weeping woman close.

"Aunt Marcel," he asked quietly, "if they, the children, were here, instead of on the hill, would you bid them stay?"

"That's it, Tom, I couldn't, and that's why I thank God He's taken the choice from me."

Tom kissed her reverently with a mighty tenderness.

"Aunt Marcel," he went on, "when I'm over there I shall think of you and of the children on the hill. I'll try and do my best for you and them. I may fail, but I'll try."

And at last Tom went up the road to Mam'selle and Donelle. They saw him coming and met him on the way. Jo's head was bent; her breast heaving. A terrible fear and bitterness made her face hard and almost cruel.

All night she had been recalling Tom's pitiful youth. And now this renunciation! But on Donelle's face shone the glory of the day.

Quietly, firmly she took Tom's hands and lifted her eyes.

"Oh! but you are splendid," she whispered. "I thought perhaps you might feel you ought to stay back for me! But, Tom, everything is all right and safe! Always you are going to grow bigger, nearer, until you make me forget everything else. Why, Tom now, now I would go with you on your road, if I could! You must believe that, dear."

Tom looked at her. He saw the thrill of life, adventure, and youth shake her. He saw with an old, old understanding that because he was going away, alone, upon the road, he meant to her what he never could have meant had he remained. He saw that his renunciation had awakened her sympathy and admiration, but he saw that love lay dead in her eyes.

And then Tom bent and kissed her. He could in all honour because something deep in his heart told him that he was indeed bidding her good-bye.

"When I come back," he was saying, while he felt far, far away, "we'll just try the road, Donelle. I know you'll do your part. And always keep this in mind: when I look back home I'll see you at the other end of the road, girl. Your eyes will have the yellow light in them that will brighten the darkest night I'll ever tramp through. I had to tell you that."

"Thank you, Tom."

"It wasn't the honest thing to marry you the way I did. I had no right."

"Yes, you had, Tom. Yes. Yes!"

"No. I think we could have found a better way, if we had taken time, but I was sort of blinded."

"And so was I, Tom, blinded and crazed."

"Donelle--"

"Yes, Tom."

"I've got to tell you something--now that I'm going. He--he came back that night. He came to me and he would not believe, until I let him look in the window to see you as you lay there asleep. He wanted to tell me something, and I wouldn't let him! But, Donelle, before God, I think we need not hate him and if he ever gets a chance let him tell you what he wanted to tell me."

"Tom, oh! Tom!" Donelle was weeping now in Gavot's arms. "Thank you, thank you, my own good Tom! And when you come back, I'll be waiting for you, no matter what I hear."

But Tom understood. Again he bent and kissed her pretty hair, her little white face, then gently pushed her toward Jo.

"Mam'selle," he said and smiled his good smile: "I'm going, with heaven's help, to make up to my mother."

"You have, Tom, you have!" Jo rushed to him. "You have by your clean, fine life and they have no right to take that young life; they have no right, no right!"

But Tom went away, smiling, with the little company of Point of Pines' men. The women watched the going with still faces and folded hands. Those boys going on, on to what, they knew not; just going! Some looked self-centred, proud, senselessly uplifted. Others looked grim, not knowing all, but sensing it.

Tom looked at his group, his father, Marcel, Longville, Jo, and Donelle, turned a last glance at the white, set face of Father Mantelle, and so said good-bye to Point of Pines.

Together Jo and Donelle returned to the little white house. It was like going back from a freshly made grave.

"I'll not help the bad business, no, not I!" vowed Mam'selle, the hard look still upon her face. Donelle looked piteously at her.

"It is a great evil, a damnable sin; no words can make it right. For us to work and forgive is but to help the sin along. I will not stand for the cursed wrong."

"Mamsey, it is all wrong, but it is not their wrong, Tom's and all the other boys. They are just doing what they have to: holding to that something that won't let go of us. Mamsey, we must go along with them. We cannot leave them alone. I don't quite see yet what we can do, but Mamsey, we, too, must hold on. See, here is the loom. Spin, spin, dear Mamsey."

"No, the loom stands still!" Jo shut her lips. But Donelle led her forward.

"Mamsey, it will save us," she said, "save us. We must work all the time; spin, weave, knit. We've got to. It is all we can do."

"Yes. And because we have always spun and woven and knitted, they are going off there, those boys! Donelle, I will not touch the loom!"

But Donelle was placing her fingers on the frame.

Suddenly, groping for the threads, Jo said, while her voice broke:

"Where's Nick, child?"

"He's following Tom as far as he can, Mamsey. I did not call him back."

At that Jo bent her head until it rested on the loom.

"That's all dogs and women can do!" she moaned; "follow them as far as they can."

"Yes, Mamsey, and catch up with them--somehow. We will, we will."

The two women clung together and wept until only grief was left, the bitterness melted.

And afar in Egypt Anderson Law heard the summons and saw the blackening cloud.

"I'm too old to take a gun," he muttered grimly, "but my place is home! Every man to his hearth, now, unless he can serve his neighbour."

It was October when Law reached New York. In his long-deserted studio lay much that claimed his immediate attention. Norval had had a key to the apartment and had seen that it was kept ready for its absent master. A mass of mail lay upon the table, among it a note from Norval himself.

ANDY, when you can, go to Point of Pines. If any man in God's world can mend the mischief I made there, it is you! I went innocently enough and at a time when I was down and out. I managed to evolve about as much hell as possible. I don't expect you will ever be able to excuse or, in any sense, justify my actions. I am only thinking of that little girl of Alice Lindsay's, the only love of my life.

Law was petrified. This was a letter Norval had written from Point of Pines, it had got no farther than New York, for Norval in his abstraction had addressed it there.

For an instant even the war sank into insignificance as Law read on:

The divorce that Katherine desired was about to be consummated. I reckoned without Katharine's sense of justice and duty, which got active just when I thought the road was clear. Well, Andy, you know how damnable truth can become when it is handled in the dark? Katherine came to Point of Pines; saw Donelle alone. Need I say more? Only this, Andy: I did not wrong the girl, I only loved her.

I've left a picture. I want you to see it before you leave for Canada. You'll find it by your north window.

I'm going to the Adirondacks with Katherine. She's developed tuberculosis, this is her only chance, and, short or long, I've sworn to go the rest of the way with her.

Law went across the room to his north window. With fumbling hands he uncovered the canvas standing there and placed it on an easel before he dared look at it.

A bit of paper was attached to the picture. Law read: