Part 17

"Fairer than morning, lovelier than the daylight."

Then standing in his coldest, most critical attitude, Anderson Law feasted his eyes upon Donelle!

Not only the sweet, appealing beauty of the rare, girlish face held Law, but the masterfulness of the hand that had reproduced it, clutched his senses. Such colour and light! Why, for a moment it seemed almost as if there were movement.

"Good God!" muttered Law. "I stayed in Egypt too long."

It was like him, however, to make ready at once to go to Point of Pines. He did not write to Norval; how could he? Of course he disapproved heartily of what he knew and suspected. No man, he reflected, has a right to take chances at another's expense. Norval was a fool, a damned fool, but he was no merely selfish wretch. That he could swear to. But the girl--well, how could a man keep his senses cool with those eyes fixed upon him?

"That white-flame sort," mused the man in the still room, "is the most far reaching. There's so much soul along with the rest."

A week later the _River Queen_, rather dignifiedly, puffed up to the wharf of Point of Pines. The sturdy boat was doing her bravest bit that summer. She went loaded down the river; she panted back contemplatively, knowing that she must bear yet other loads away. Away, always, away!

"I want Mam'selle Jo Morey's," Anderson Law said as he was deposited, with other freight and bags on the dock. "She takes boarders?"

Jean Duval frowned.

"She took one," he replied, "but he ran away. I'm thinking the Mam'selle Jo is not reaching out for more."

"Then I will go to her," said Law in his most ingratiating manner; "she shall not reach out for me."

Jo was in the barn, but Donelle stood by the gate, her fair, uncovered head shining in the warm October light.

"I am Anderson Law!"

Donelle turned and her wide eyes grew dark.

"I have come late, I'm afraid, child," Law saw that his name was familiar to the girl, saw her lips quiver, "but I'll do my best now to mend the trouble. You must accept me for Alice Lindsay's sake."

Bluntly, but with grave tenderness, he put out his hand.

There are some people who come into the world for no other reason, apparently, than to lighten the burdens of others. The mere sight of them is the signal for the shifting of heavy loads. Weary, lost ones know their deliverers. Donelle gave a long, long look, her eyes filled with sudden and sadly-suppressed tears. All the weight she had borne since the time she had entered the Walled House cried out for support.

"Oh! I am so glad you've come. So glad!"

And Donelle's hands lay in Law's.

And so Mam'selle found them, clinging to each other like shipwrecked souls, when she came up with Nick wheezing at her heels. Nick wheezed now, there was no denying it.

"And, sir, you are----?" she said, standing with her feet astride, her hands reaching down to where her father's old pockets used to be.

"A boarder, Mam'selle, heaven willing."

"I can take no more boarders, sir. But I can hitch up Molly and drive you to Captain Longville's."

"Mam'selle Morey, I am Alice Lindsay's friend, Anderson Law."

Then Jo, who had always been a burden-bearer herself, scented another of her kind. She came a step nearer. Her lifted brows disclosed her wonderful eyes, the eyes of a woman who had suffered and made no cry.

Law held her by a long glance; a searching glance.

"Mam'selle," he said; "I half believe you will reconsider and take me in."

"I half believe I will!" Jo's lips twitched.

Her instinct guided her.

"The upper chamber is ready," she added, "and the noon meal is about to be set on the table."

"And I'll show you the way!" Donelle went on before Law, a new look upon her face, a gladder look than had rested there for many a day.

*CHAPTER XXI*

*DONELLE AT LAST SEES TOM*

"The greatest wrong Norval did was to leave you in the dark."

Law and Donelle sat in the wood-cabin, and the room was warm and bright. Norval's deserted pictures were hung in good light and now some of Law's own had also found a place on the rough walls.

"You are woman enough to have understood."

"Yes, I would have understood," Donelle replied from her seat near the window. She was knitting; knitting, always knitting.

"Love is a thing you cannot always manage. I would have understood. Love just came to us and when it got hurt, I did wrong in going to Tom Gavot, my husband. But you see he had helped me before. It was wrong, but there did not seem to be any other way. I think I felt I had to make it impossible--for--for Mr. Norval to do anything."

"But, my child, of course--Norval wronged you by withholding the whole truth. Still, I wish he could have spoken for himself, not left it for me."

"You have done it beautifully, Man-Andy!"

The name fell lingeringly from Donelle's lips. Law had urged her to call him by it.

It was February now and still Law lingered. He could hardly have told why, but Canada seemed more homelike to him than the States. He was one of the first to resent his country's holding back from entering the terrific struggle that was sucking the other countries into its hellish maw.

"If I cannot bear a gun," Law often vowed in Jo's upper chamber, "I'll hang around close to them who are bearing them. The boys will be coming back soon, some of the hurt chaps, I'll lend a hand here in Canada."

So he remained and the little white house was happy in its welcome.

Law went among the people. He became a constant visitor in Father Mantelle's house; went with the old priest to the homes, already bereaved, because of the son or father who had marched away and would never come back. The war dealt harshly with the men of Canada who, counting not the cost, went grimly to the front and took the heavier blows with no thought of turning back.

"And, Man-Andy," Donelle was talking quietly while Law smoked by the fire, "I have often thought that Mr. Norval"--the stilted words were shy--"might have felt that I came first. He might have."

"I think he might." The cloud of smoke rose higher. "That would have been like him."

"But it wouldn't have been right. The big love we couldn't help, but he once told me that it was our part to keep it holy. If--if--he forgot for a minute, Man-Andy, it was for me to remember. I think I was afraid I might _not_, and that was why something drove me to Tom, my husband."

Law winced at the constant reiteration of the "husband." It was as if she were forcing him to keep the facts clearly in mind.

"I wouldn't have had my love be anything but what I knew him, Man-Andy. And now I am almost happy thinking of him doing what is right. It's better, even if it is hard."

"Yes, I suppose so!" And Law knew whereof he spoke.

"But you?" he lifted his eyes to Donelle's white, sweet face.

"I? Why, it is all right for me, Man-Andy. You see, there are many kinds of love, and Tom, my husband, why, I love him. He is strong, and oh! so safe. When his country does not need him any more, I will make him happy. I can. I am sure I can, for Tom is not one who wants all. He has had so little in his life that he will be glad, very glad with me. He has the big love, too, Man-Andy."

"You are quite beyond me!" muttered Law. "You and your Mam'selle, you are a pair."

"I love to think that. Mam'selle has been more than a mother to me. I am so glad you know all about us."

Law did know, from Father Mantelle.

"I feel, wrong as it may seem," the priest had once confided to Law, "like making the sign of the cross whenever I come in the presence of Mam'selle Morey."

"Well, crosses have apparently been quite in her line," Law laughed back, "she'd naturally take it as a countersign."

Law had a habit that reminded Jo of Langley, of Donelle and, indeed now that she reflected, of others besides, who knew her more or less intimately. He would sit and watch her while she worked and then, without rhyme or reason, smile. Often, indeed, he laughed.

"Am I so amusing?" she asked Law once.

"Not so amusing, Mam'selle, as consumedly comical."

"Comical, Mr. Law?" Jo frowned.

"No good in scowling, Mam'selle. I mean no reflection. The fact is, you've taken us all into camp, we might as well laugh."

"Camp, Mr. Law?" The brows lifted.

"Yes, you made us look like small beer and then you forgive us, and label us champagne!"

"Mr. Law, you talk!" Jo sniffed.

"I certainly do, Mam'selle."

"I do not understand your tongue."

"I'll wager a dollar to a doughnut that Donelle does."

"Umph! Well, then, Donelle, just you tell me what he means."

They were all sitting around the hot stove, a winter storm howling outside.

"I'm afraid I cannot very well, Mamsey. But I know what he means."

"Do your best, child. I hate to be kept guessing."

"Well, it is something like this:" Donelle looked at Law, getting guidance from his eyes, "some people, not as blessed as you, Mamsey, might not have forgiven all those years when no one knew! You were so big and silent and brave, you made them all look pretty small. And now when they do know, you somehow let them do the large, kind things that you make possible, and you stand aside, praising them."

"Nonsense!" Jo snapped. "Who's blowing my horn, I'd like to know?"

"Oh! Mamsey, it's your horn, but you let others think it isn't. Who was it that made Father Mantelle come out and compel his people to go overseas?"

"That's silly, Donelle. When he came to his senses, he saw he'd be mobbed if he didn't."

"Oh! Mamsey, you bullied him outrageously. And who sees to old Pierre?"

"You, child. You can't see your husband's father want, when it's rheumatism, not bad whiskey, that's laying him low."

"Oh! Mamsey! And who got Marcel little flags to put on--on those graves on the hill because it would make her feel proud?"

"Donelle you _are_ daft. Marcel felt she had to do something to make it her war, too, and she's too busy to weave and knit. Why"--and here Jo turned to Law whose eyes were twinkling through the smoke that nearly hid his face--"in old times the people around here used to light fires on St. John's Day in front of their houses, to show there had been a death. I told Marcel about that and she herself thought of the flags. She would have given her children if they had lived; she's brought herself, like the rest of us, to see there is nothing else to do but give and give!"

Mam'selle choked over her hurried words and Law suddenly changed the subject.

"Mam'selle," he asked, "is there a chimney place behind this red-hot monster?" he kicked the stove.

"There is, Mr. Law, one about twice too large for the house."

"Let's take the stove down and have the chimney place!"

"Take the stove down?" Jo dropped ten stitches. "Take that stove down! Why, you don't know what it cost me! I--I am proud of that stove."

"Really, Mam'selle?"

"Well, I used to be prouder than I am now. It is a heap of trouble to keep clean, but it's going to stay where it is. When things cost what that did, they stay. It's like Nick and the little red cow----"

"And me!" put in Donelle softly.

"You ought to be ashamed, Donelle," Jo turned indignant eyes upon her, "putting yourself beside stoves and dogs and cows."

"And other things that cost too much. Oh! Mamsey."

And still Law stayed on, the peace in his eyes growing each day deeper, surer. He felt, in a vague way, as Norval had, the sense of _living_ for the first time in his life. The wood-cabin he called the co-operative workshop. In time he got Donelle to play there for him. At first she tried and failed. Weeping, she looked at him helplessly and put her violin aside.

"You have no right," he said to her with infinite tenderness, "to let any earthly thing kill the gift God gave you."

The philosophy that had upheld poor Law had given him courage to pass it on to others. It now drove Donelle to her duty.

Old Revelle had prophesied that suffering would develop her and her talent; and it was doing so. Her face became wonderfully strong and fine as the months dragged on and the Fear grew in waiting hearts. In forgetting herself she made place for others and they came to her faithfully. Her music was heard in many a hill cabin; down by the river, where the older men worked, while their thoughts were overseas. She taught little children, helped make the pitiful black dresses which meant so much to the lonely poor who had given their all and had so little with which to show respect to their sacred dead.

Jo watched her girl with eyes that often ached from unshed tears.

"It will be the death of her," she confided to Anderson Law. "She'll break."

"No," Law returned, "she will not break. She's as firm and true as steel; she's getting ready."

"Ready for what?" Jo's voice shook.

"For life. So many, Mam'selle, simply get ready to live. Life is going to use this little Donelle."

"Men have caused a deal of trouble for women," Jo remarked irrelevantly.

"Ah! there you have us, Mam'selle. The best of us know that we're bad bunglers. Most of us, in our souls, are begging your pardon."

"Well, you're all boys, mere children." Jo was clicking her needles like mad. "Sometimes I think it would settle the whole question if we could bunch all the men in one man and give him a good spanking."

Law's eyes twinkled.

"And after that, after the spanking, Mam'selle, what would you do?"

"Give him an extra dose of jam, like as not. We're fools, every last one of us, God help us!"

"Yes, thank God, you are!"

It was March when a letter came from Norval that sent Law to the wood-cabin and to his knees.

ANDY:

It's over! Poor Katherine! I'm going to leave her body here under the snow and the pines. It came quite suddenly at the last. She just could not stand it.

I'm glad I went the rest of the way with her. I never could have done it except that you showed me the path. You've been here with me close, old friend, all these months. I wonder if you can understand me when I say that I am glad for Katherine, for her alone, that she is safe under the snow? It is easier to think of her so, than to remember the losing battle she waged for her health. I'm sure my being here made her less lonely, and she grew so tender and generous, so understanding.

She begged me to return to Point of Pines. She never knew about Gavot.

And now, Andy, before you get this, I will be on my way over-seas to offer what I have to France. I'm strong, well, and have nothing to hold me back. I can do something there, I'm sure.

Law looked at the date on the letter, then noticed that the postmark was nearly a month later. There was no need to hurry back; Norval was gone.

Law did not tell Donelle or Jo of his news. Everything was being tossed into the seething pot; the outcome must be awaited with patience and whatever courage one could muster.

When spring came the little _River Queen_ came regularly to the dock. She came quietly, reverently, bearing now her children home: the sick, the tired, the hopelessly maimed, the boys who had borne the brunt of battle and had escaped with enough mind and body to come back. Some of them had news of others; they had details that waiting hearts craved. Under the soft skies of spring they told their brave stories so simply; oh! so divinely simply. The bravado, the jest were stilled; they had seen and suffered too much to dwell upon glory or upon the tales of adventure.

Poor old Pierre went from one to another with his question:

"Tell me about my Tom."

Tom had been transferred here, there, and everywhere. Only an occasional comrade who had left home with him had been near him overseas. But one or two had stories about Tom that soon became public property.

"Old Tom was always talking about being afraid," said one. "In the trenches, while we were waiting for orders, he'd beg us to see that if he were a coward his home folks might not know the truth. He always expected to be the cur, and then, when the order came, up the old duffer would get and scramble to the front as if he was hell-bound for suicide. It got to be a joke and the funny part was, when it was over, he never seemed to know he'd done the decent thing. He'd ask us how he had acted. He'd believe anything we told him. After awhile we got to telling him the truth."

Marcel wept beside her little row of graves after hearing about Tom and wished, at last, that a son of her own could be near that poor Tom of Margot's.

Jo's eyes shone and she looked at Donelle. She felt the girl's big heart throb with pity, but she knew full well that even in his tragic hour of triumph Tom had not called forth Donelle's love.

Sometimes she was almost angry at Donelle. Why could not the girl see what she had won, and glory in it? What kind of reward was it to be for Tom to have her "keep her promise?"

"Women were not worthy of men!" she blurted out to Anderson Law. "Think of those young creatures offering all they have to make a world safe for a lot of useless women!'

"They ought to be spanked, the useless women," Anderson remarked solemnly.

"That they should!" agreed Jo.

"Ah, well, Mam'selle," Law's face grew stern, "we are all, men and women, getting our punishment alike. But what has the rebel, Donelle, now done?"

"She will not see Tom Gavot, her husband, as he is! She only sees him as a brave soldier. Instead, he is a man!"

"Ah! Mam'selle Jo, wait until he comes home and _needs her_. Then she will give him the best she has to give. Is that not enough?"

"No!" Jo exploded. "No! it is not. She ought to give him, poor lad, what she has not in her power to give."

Then they both laughed.

It was full summer when the word came that Tom Gavot had made the supreme sacrifice.

Law brought the official announcement, the bald, hurting fact. He had, on his way past Dan's Place, rescued Pierre before he had begun drinking.

"Come to Mam'selle Morey's," he commanded calmly. "I have news of your boy."

"And he is still brave? It is good news?"

Gavot shuffled on beside Law.

"He's still brave, yes."

"That's good; that's good. Tom was always one who began by trembling and ended like iron."

Jo was at her loom, Donelle at her knitting, when the two men entered the sunny home-room of the little white house.

"This has come," said Law, and reverently held up the envelope.

They all knew what it was. In Point of Pines the bolt had fallen too often to be misunderstood. By that time every heart was waiting; waiting.

"It's Tom?" asked Donelle and her face shone like a frozen, white thing in the cheerful room.

Law read the few terrible words that could not soften the blow, though they tried hard to do so.

"The war office regrets to announce----"

Pierre staggered to his feet.

"It's a lie!" he said thickly, "a lie!" Then he began to weep aloud like a frightened child.

Law went to him and shook him roughly.

"Stop that!" he said sternly. "Can't you try to be worthy of your boy?"

"But--but I wanted him to know how I have been trying, even when I couldn't quite make it. And now----"

"Perhaps he does know," Law spoke more softly, "perhaps he does."

Jo did not move, but her eyes seemed to reflect all the misery of her stricken country.

"Mam'selle, can you not help us?" Law spoke from his place beside the groaning Pierre.

"I--I'm afraid not, Mr. Law. Not just now." Poor Jo; for the first time in her life she was overpowered. "I somehow," she spoke as if to herself, "I somehow thought I understood how it felt when I saw the others. But I didn't; I didn't." Then she turned to Donelle. "Where are you going?" she asked.

"Mamsey, I'm going down to--to Tom's hut. It seems as if he will be there."

Then Jo bent her head.

"Go, child," she said with a break in her hard voice. "Go."

And later Law found Donelle there in the little river-hut. She was sitting by the open door, her face, tearless and tragically white, turned to the river whose tide was coming in with that silent, mighty rush that almost took away the breath of any one who might be watching.

"Dear, little girl!" said Law soothingly, taking his place at her feet, "I wish you would cry."

"Cry? Why, Man-Andy, I cannot cry."

She was holding an old coat of Tom's, the one he had discarded for the uniform of his country.

"I wish we could have known just how he went--my Tom!"

"We may some day, child. But this we both know: he went a hero."

"Yes, I'm sure of that. He would be afraid, but he would do the big thing. He was like that. I think such men are the bravest. Listen, Man-Andy!"

Law listened. The strange, swift, silent, incoming tide filled his ears.

"I have been thinking," Donelle whispered, "thinking as I sat here of a wide, shining road and a great many, many men and boys rushing along it making the sound of the river. I think it is that way with the many boys who have died so suddenly; so soon. They are hurrying along some safe, happy road; and oh! Man-Andy, it seems as if it were Tom's road. All the afternoon as I have been sitting here in the only place he ever knew as home," Law glanced back into the pitiful, plain, empty room, "I have seen Tom at the head of the great crowd going on and on. He seems to be leading them, showing them the way over the road he loved."

The water was covering the highest black rocks, the rushing, still sound was indeed like the noise of boyish feet hurrying eagerly home.

Law stood up and took Donelle in his arms. She frightened him by her awful calm.

"Little girl," he whispered, "try to cry. For God's sake, try to cry!"

"But, Man-Andy, how can I? If only I could have kissed him just once so he could have remembered----" And then Donelle broke down. She relaxed in Law's arms; she clung to him sobbing softly, wildly.

"Why, Man-Andy, I'm going to remember always that I couldn't give him what he deserved most in all the world."

"My dear, my dear! You gave him of your best, he understands that now as he could not before."

"And oh!" here Donelle lifted her tear-stained face, "I'm so thankful I did not bar the door against him."

Law thought her mind was wandering.

"What door, child?" he asked.

"This door, the night we were married. He--he knew, I am sure he knew, as he watched outside, that I trusted him."

Law's eyes dropped.

"Your husband was a big man," was all he said.

*CHAPTER XXII*

*NORVAL COMES BACK*

Anderson Law was sawing wood behind Mam'selle's little white house. He was mighty proud of his success in manual labour; to help Jo with her wood pile was a delight, altruistically and vaingloriously.

The summer with its heart throbs had made people indifferent to the winter on ahead, but the days were growing colder and shorter and even the most careless were aware that some provision must be made at once if one were to escape needless suffering.

Law was thinking as he worked, and occasionally wiped the perspiration from his brow. There were so many things to think about in Point of Pines; to think about, smile about tenderly, and grieve about.

There was old Pierre, the Redeemed, he was called now. Since Tom's going the wretched father had ceased drinking, was housed by Father Mantelle, and had fallen into a gentle, vague state that called forth pity and tolerance.

Early and late he was on the highway with his shovel or rake making the road easy for the feet of his boy!

If any one came over the hill into Point of Pines the wandering, bleary eyes would be raised and the one question would break from the trembling lips: "Have you seen my Tom?"

If any one went away over the hill, Pierre had a message:

"Tell my Tom I'm filling in the ruts. He won't find it such hard travelling when he comes back."

Anderson Law often kept old Gavot company--for Tom's sake. Even Mam'selle had forgiven him and, quite secretly, helped the priest in his generous support.

The Longvilles, the Captain at least, had forsaken Pierre. Marcel, poor soul, gave what, and when, she could.