Part 19

A week after that, it was a warm, humid day, the windows of the studio were open.

"I suppose you'll go away when summer comes?" Norval asked.

"And you?" Donelle laid down her book.

"No. I'll stay on here. I mean to get a man to look after me. I'm going to send Law on an errand."

"I wish," Donelle's eyes were filled with the yellow glow so like sunlight. "I wish, Mr. Norval, that you would try to walk. Your masseur says you are better."

"What's the use, Miss Walden? At the best it would mean a crutch or a cane. I couldn't bring myself to that. A dog would be better, but I never saw but one dog I'd cotton to for the job."

"Where is that dog, Mr. Norval?"

"The Lord knows. Gone to the heaven of good, faithful pups, probably."

"Mr. Norval?"

"Yes, Miss Walden."

"I wish, while Mr. Law is out every morning for his airing, that you would try--you could lean on my shoulder--to walk! Just think how surprised he'd be some day to find you on your feet by the north window."

"Would that please you, Miss Walden, to act the part of a nice little dog leading a blind man?"

"I'd love it! And you must remember, your doctor says your eyes are better. Mr. Norval," here the words came with almost cruel sternness, "I think it is--it is cowardly for you not to try and make the best of things. Even if you can't see very well, or walk very well, you have no right to hold back from doing the best you can! It is mean and small."

Ah! if Norval could have seen the eyes that were searching his grim face.

"You may be right. I begin to feel I am not going to die!" Norval drew in a deep breath, his lips relaxed.

"The shock is passing," Donelle's voice softened. "You will recover, I know you will--if you are brave."

"The shock! Good God, the shock! It was like hell let loose. For months I heard the splitting noise, the hot sand in my face----!"

It was the first time Norval had spoken of the war, and the drops of perspiration started on his forehead.

"Don't talk of it, Mr. Norval. Please let me help you to your feet. Just a few steps."

Donelle was afraid of the excitement she had aroused.

In self-defense Norval let her help him. He would not lie still and remember. His self-imposed silence, once broken, might overpower him. Something dynamic was surging in him.

"I cannot stand," he said weakly. "You see?"

"Of course the first time is hard. You may fall halfway, but I'll catch you, and I--I won't tell."

Norval laughed nervously.

"You're a brick," he faltered.

"Now then, Mr. Norval. Put your hand on my shoulder, the other hand on this chair. Why, you're not falling. Come on!"

Two, three steps Norval took, while the veins stood out on his temples.

"Good God!" he muttered under his breath, "I'm not crumbling, that's a sure thing."

The next day he did a little better; the tenth day he reached the north window with the aid of the chair and the little shoulder, that felt, under his hand, like fine steel. They kept their mighty secret from Law.

"What's on the easels?" Norval asked on the morning of the fourteenth day when he felt the breeze from the north coming in through the half-opened window.

"One easel has a girl on it; a girl with a fiddle."

Norval breathed hard, then gave a laugh.

"Fairer than morning, lovelier than the daylight," he whispered.

"Yes. Why, yes, Mr. Norval. Those words are on a piece of paper hanging from the frame. How did you know?"

"Miss Walden, I painted that picture. You may not believe it, but I did. It is a portrait of about the purest soul I ever met."

"Can you tell me about her?"

"No, she's not the kind to tell about."

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Norval." But Donelle's face was aglow.

"And the other easel?" Norval was asking. "What's on that?"

"Such a dear, funny woman. She's standing by a big oven, an outdoor oven; she's got loaves of bread on something that looks like a flat spade."

Norval's face was a study.

"Where do they use those ovens?" Donelle asked.

"Oh! somewhere in Canada."

"Did you ever know this dear, funny woman, Mr. Norval."

"She's not the kind one _knows_. I've seen her, thank heaven! I'm glad to be able to recall her when I'm alone."

"Yes--she looks like that kind." Donelle threw a kiss to the pictured Jo.

Another week and then the chair was discarded. Quite impressively Norval, his hand on the small, steady shoulder, did the length of the studio.

"It's great," he said like a happy boy. "Miss Walden, you ought to have the cross, iron, gold, or whatever it is they give to brave women."

"I have," Donelle whispered delightedly; "I have."

"What is it made of, Miss Walden, this cross that you have won?"

"You'll have to guess."

"You're a pert young secretary if that is the title your job goes by. Aren't you afraid I'll bounce you?"

"I'm going to bounce myself."

"What!" The hand on the shoulder tightened. "You're going away?"

"Yes, I cannot stand a summer in the city. That Kicker almost caught me this morning."

"You treat me like a spoiled child, Miss Walden. Amusing me, coaxing me; you'll be bringing me toys next."

"You're a strong man, now, Mr. Norval, that is why I'm going away. Soon you will not need me. The doctor told Mr. Law yesterday that surely you would see."

"Did he? Don't fool me, Miss Walden. I do not want to be eased up. Did he say that?"

"Yes, I heard him."

A growing excitement stirred Norval and that afternoon he met Law halfway across the room! Not even the little shoulder aided him. He stretched out his hand and said:

"Andy, here I am!"

For a moment Law reeled back. Of late he feared that Norval would defeat all their hopes by his indifference.

"You--you've done this?" he said to Donelle, who stood behind Norval, her trembling hands covering her quivering lips.

"No, he did it quite by himself, Mr. Law. He's been so brave," she managed to say, the tears in Law's eyes making her afraid that she might lose control over her own shaking nerves.

"Lord, Jim!" Law was gripping Norval's hand. "I feel as if--well, as if I'd seen a miracle."

The next day the specialist confirmed what Donelle had said about the eyes.

"You're going to see again, Norval," was the verdict. "You'll have to go slow, wear dark glasses for awhile, but most of all, forget what brought this about. Your nerves have played the deuce with you."

"Yes," Norval replied, "for some time I've had that line on my nerves, ever since Miss Walden bullied me into walking."

The afternoon of that same day Norval surprised Donelle by announcing that he was dead tired of reading.

"I want to talk," he said. "Where is Law?"

"He went to--to see Professor Revelle. He said he wanted some music; that you," the pale face broke into a pathetic smile, "that you had got on his nerves. Unless he got out he'd be----"

"What, Miss Walden? What, exactly?"

"Well, he'd be damned! That is what he said, exactly."

"He's beginning to treat me like a human being, Miss Walden. I love Law when he's at his worst. I suppose I've been a big trial, moping here. Have I injured your nerves?"

"No--o! Not for life."

"You're a comical little codjer. Excuse me, Miss Walden. There are times still when you remind me of someone to whom I once dared to speak my mind."

Then, quite suddenly:

"Where are you going this summer?"

"I have not decided yet, Mr. Norval. Why?"

"Nothing, I was only thinking, but I'll have to speak to Law first. One thing is sure, I'm not going to be an ass much longer. See here, Miss Walden, you're a sturdy sort; you've stuck it out with me at my lowest. I'm going to repay you for the trouble I've made you by making more for you. I'm going to go away this summer, too. I've wanted to go lately. I've got to dreaming about it. I'm going to a little place hidden away in Canada. I have something to do there."

"Yes?" The word was a mere breath.

"For a time I couldn't contemplate it; I was too proud to show my battered hulk. Now it seems that I have no longer any right to consider myself. I was going to ask Mr. Law to carry a message for me to a young girl there; the girl on that canvas by the window. Instead--I'm going to carry it!"

Donelle's hands gripped each other. She struggled to keep her voice steady, cold.

"I think you ought to carry your message yourself, if you can. You have no right to consider only yourself," she faltered.

"I wasn't, entirely." This came humbly from Norval. "The girl to whom I am going is the sort who would be deeply sorry for me; she'd go to any lengths to make up to me, if she could. Of course, you understand, I would not let her, but I'd hate to make life harder for her."

"Perhaps she has a right to--to judge for herself." Donelle was holding firm.

"Well, I don't know, Miss Walden. Such a woman as you might judge wisely--even for yourself. She wouldn't. She's the kind that risks everything; she's what you might call a divine gambler."

"Poor girl!"

"Yes, that's what I often say of her--poor girl!"

It was twilight in the quiet studio; there was no one to see Donelle's tears.

"I'm going to tell you something," Norval said suddenly, "something that has been troubling me lately. At first it didn't seem vital, it seemed rather like a detail. I'm wondering how a woman would consider it."

"I'd love to hear unless you'd rather have me read to you, Mr. Norval."

"No, for a wonder, I'd rather tell you a story."

*CHAPTER XXIV*

*THE GLORY BREAKS THROUGH*

And then Norval told Donelle about Tom Gavot.

"You see that girl in Canada is married--was married, I mean; the young fellow is dead. He lies under French earth in a pretty little village that's been battered to the ground. Some day it will rise gloriously again. I like to think of that Canadian boy sleeping there, waiting.

"He was a surveyor and, before a dirty sniper got him, he used to prowl about the desolated country and lay out roads! In his mind, you know. He was a fanciful chap, but a practical worker.

"I ran across him one day; I had known him before. He had never liked me when I knew him in Canada, but most anything goes when you're over there. He got to--to rather chumming with me at last, and many a laugh I've had with him over the roads he saw through the hell about us.

"Once we had silently agreed to ignore the past--and the poor fellow had something to forgive in it, though not all he had supposed--we got on famously. We really got to feel like brothers. You do--there. He was a queer chap through and through. He always expected he was going to do the white-livered thing and he always did the bravest when the snap came. He did his thinking and squirming beforehand. At the critical moment he just acted up like--well, like the man he was.

"Why, he would talk by the hour of what a good idea it was of the Government's to let the families of men, shot as traitors, think them heroes who had died serving their country. He often said it didn't matter, one way or the other, for the man who got what was coming to him, but for them who had to live on it was something to think the best, even if it were not so.

"Then he'd write letters and cards, to be sent home in case he should meet a traitor's death. Poor devil! I have some of those letters now."

A throbbing, aching pause. Then:

"Miss Walden, does this depress you too much?"

"No, it--I--I love it, Mr. Norval. Please go on; it is a beautiful story."

Donelle sat in the deepening shadows, her eyes seeming to hold the sunlight that had long since faded behind the west.

"Well, there isn't much more to tell and the end--unless one happens to know how things are over there: how big things seem little, and little things massive--the end seems almost like a grisly joke.

"We had got to thinking the French place where we were billeted was as safe as New York. I wasn't a trained man, I was doing whatever happened to be lying around loose. They called it reconstruction work. Good Lord! My special job, though, just then was driving an ambulance. Well, quite unexpectedly one night the enemy got a line on us from God knows what distance, and they just peppered us. There was a hospital there, too. They must have known that, the fiends, and, for a time, things were mighty ticklish. The boys knew their duty, however, and did it magnificently. Those Canadians were superb; given a moment to catch their breath, they were as steady as steel. By morning the worst was over, the shelling, you know, and they began to bring the boys in; back from the fight, back to where the hospital used to be. Out in the open doctors and nurses were working; the ones who had escaped I never saw such nerve; they just worked over the poor hurt fellows as if nothing had happened.

"I was jumping about. There was plenty to do even for an unskilled fellow who could only drive an ambulance. I kept bringing in loads--such loads! And I kept an eye open for the chap from Canada that I knew best of all.

"About noon a giant of a fellow who, they said, had fought like a devil all night, came up to me blubbering like a baby. It seems my man had been fighting beside this boy, doing what one might expect, the big thing! The two of them had crawled into a shell-hole and worked from that cover where they were comparatively safe. In a lull--and here comes the grim joke--a poor dog ran in front of them with a piece of barbed wire caught about his haunches. The brute was howling as he ran and my--my chap just went after him, caught him, pulled the wire out, and--keeled over himself. A sniper had done for him!

"He wanted me; had sent his comrade to find me. I got there just before the end.

"'You've heard?' he asked, and when I nodded he whispered that I was to tell his wife; he knew she would understand. He was quite firm about my telling her, he was like a boy over that, and I promised. He only spoke once again.

"'It paid!' he said, and with that he went over to his rest.

"Are you crying, Miss Walden?"

"Yes, yes, but oh! how glorious they are, those boys!"

"I should not have told you this story."

"I thank God you have! And indeed, Mr. Norval it is your sacred duty to tell it to--to that girl in Canada. You promised and she ought to know."

"You, a woman, think that? Don't you think it might be better for her if she didn't know?"

"How dare you! Oh! forgive me, Mr. Norval. I was only thinking of--of--the girl."

"Well, lately, I've been wondering. You see, Miss Walden, soon after I saw my friend safe, I got my baptism shock--gas and the rest. It flattened me out, but now I am beginning to feel, to suffer. Using my legs has brought me to myself."

"And you will go and keep your promise, Mr. Norval, you will?"

"Yes, that is what I've been turning over in my mind."

"You see," Donelle was holding herself tight, "that, that girl in Canada might be thinking, knowing her husband, that he had not played the man at the last. The truth might save so much. And don't you understand how he, that poor boy, had to save the dog? It was saving himself. Another could have afforded to see the folly of exposing himself, but he could not. Had he stayed in the hole he might have been a coward after!"

"I had not thought of that, Miss Walden. The deadly absurdity of the act made me bitter. I saw--just the dog part, you know."

"I believe the girl in Canada will see the man part." The words came solemnly. "Yes, it did pay; it did!"

"You have convinced me, Miss Walden. I must go and keep my promise.

"To-morrow they are going to make a big test of my eyes. After that I will start. I want you and Law to come, too."

"Oh! I----"

"Couldn't you do this just as a last proof of your good heartedness, Miss Walden?"

Donelle struggled with her tears. Her heart was beating wildly; beating for Tom and for the helpless man before her. She, sad little frail thing, stood between the dead and the pitiful living.

"Yes, I will go," she said at length.

"Thank you, Miss Walden."

Norval smiled in the darkness.

The next day the test came--the test to his eyes. Norval meant that his first look should rest upon Miss Walden!

He heard her moving about, getting books and tables out of the doctor's way. He heard Law excitedly directing her, and then--the bandages fell away. There was a moment of tense silence.

"What do you see, Norval?" the doctor asked.

Norval saw a slim, little black-robed back and a red head! But all he said was:

"I see Andy's ugly mug!"

The words were curiously broken and hoarse. Then:

"Andy, old man, get a hold on me; it's almost too good to be true!"

In July they went to Canada. By that time Norval could make quite a showing by walking between Law and Miss Walden. He wore heavy dark glasses and only had periods of "seeing things." At such moments Miss Walden was conspicuously absent.

The _River Queen_ swept grandly up to the dock in the full glory of high noon. Jean Duval was there on his crutches; he was at his old job, grateful and at peace.

"Where are we going?" Norval asked. He had hardly dared put the question.

"Mam'selle Jo Morey is going to take us in," Law replied. "At least she'll feed us. It's a cabin in the woods for us, Jim."

"That sounds good to me, Andy." Norval drew in his breath sharply.

"The pines are corking," he added. Then: "Miss Walden, how do you like the looks of the place?"

Donelle, under a heavy veil, was feasting her eyes on Point of Pines; on a blessed figure waiting by a sturdy cart.

"It looks like heaven!" replied the even voice of Mary Walden.

Jo Morey came to the gang plank, and found her own among the passengers. Then her brows drew close, almost hiding her eyes.

"Those are my boarders!" she proclaimed loudly, seizing Donelle. "This way, please."

Law was the only one who spoke on the drive up. Jo sat on the shaft, the others on the broad seat.

"I miss Nick," he remarked.

Mam'selle turned and gave him a stern look. Could he not know, the stupid man, that Nick would have given the whole thing away? Nick had a sense that defied red wigs and false voices. Nick was at that moment indignantly scratching splinters off the inside of the cow-shed door.

There was a sumptuous meal in the spotless and radiant living room. There was a gentle fire on the hearth, though why, who could tell?

And then, according to orders when the sun was not too bright, Norval announced that he was going to take off his "screens."

"I'm going to look about for a full hour," he said quietly, but with that tone in his voice that always made Donelle bow her head.

"Mam'selle!"

"Yes, Mr.----" Jo wanted to say Richard Alton, instead she managed the Norval with a degree of courtesy that put heart in the man who listened.

"Mam'selle, I haven't noticed Donelle's voice. Where is she?"

"She'll come, if you want her, Mr. Norval."

Want her? Want her? The very air throbbed with the want.

"She's upstairs," added Jo, looking grimmer than ever.

"I--I have something to tell her about Tom Gavot--her husband." Norval smiled strangely.

"I'll call her, Mr. Norval."

Then they all waited.

Law walked to the window and choked. In the distance he could hear the howling demands of the imprisoned Nick and the swishing of the outgoing tide.

Mam'selle stood by the foot of the little winding stairs. She was afraid of herself, poor Jo, afraid she was going to show what she felt!

Norval sat in the best rocker, his hands clasped rigidly. He had not removed his screens, he did not intend to until he heard upon the stairs the step for which he hungered.

And then Donelle came so softly that the listening man did not know she was there until she stood beside him. She had put on a white dress that Mam'selle had spun for her. The pale hair was twisted about her little head in the old simple way; the golden eyes were full of the light that had never shone there until love lighted it.

Law and Jo had stolen from the room.

"Here I am!"

Then Norval took down the screens and opened his arms.

"My love, my love," he whispered, "come!"

"Why----" Donelle drew back, her eyes widened.

"Donelle, Donelle, do you think you could hide yourself from me? Why, it was because I saw you that I wanted to live; wanted to make the most of what I had.

"Child, the day you got me out of the chair I was sure! Before that I hoped, prayed; then I knew! I drew the bandage off a little and I saw your eyes."

"My beloved!"

And Donelle, kneeling beside him, raised her face from his breast.

"I am going to kiss you now, Donelle," he said, "but to think that such as I am is the best that life has for you, is----!"

"Don't," she whispered, "don't! Remember the dear Dream of First Joy, my man. I never lost our First Joy. God let me keep her safe."

From across the road came the wild, excited yelps of the released Nick. Slowly, for Nick was old, he padded up the steps, into the room, up to the girl on the floor beside the chair. Donelle pressed the shaggy head to her.

"Nick always has kept First Joy, too," she whispered. And oh, but her eyes were wonderful.

"And you'll play again for me, Donelle?" Norval still held her, though he heard Law and Mam'selle approaching.

"Sometime, dear man, sometime I'll bring the fiddle to the wood-cabin. Sometime after I get strings. The strings, some of them, have snapped."

Late that evening, quite late, nine o'clock surely, Law and Jo stood near the hearth where the embers still glowed.

"Where are the children?" Law asked as if all the mad happenings of the day were bagatelles.

"Out on the road, the road!" Jo's face quivered. "The moonlight is wonderful, the road is as clear as day." She was thinking of Tom Gavot while her great heart ached with pity of it all.

"Queer ideas that young Gavot had about roads," Law said musingly, "Jim has told me."

"Poor boy, he got precious little for himself out of life," Jo flung back.

The bitterness lay deep in Mam'selle's heart. Almost her love for Donelle, her joy in her, were darkened by what seemed to Jo to be forgetfulness. That was unforgivable in her eyes.

"I wonder!" Law said gently; he was learning to understand the woman beside him.

"If this were all of the road, you might feel the way you do. But it's a mighty little part of it, Mam'selle. To most of us is given short sight, to a few, long. I would wager all I have that young Gavot always saw over the hilltop."

"That's a good thing to say and feel, Mr. Law." Jo tried to control her brows, failed, and let Law look full in her splendid eyes.

"Life's too big for us, Mam'selle," he said, "too big for us. There are times when it lets us run along, lets us believe we are managing it. Then comes something like this war that proves that when life needs us, it clutches us again.

"It needs those two out there on the road in the moonlight, one groping, the other leading; on and on! Life will use them for its own purposes. No use in struggling, Mam'selle; life has us all by the throat."

"You're a strange man, Mr. Law."

Jo was trembling.

"You're a strange woman, Mam'selle."

There was a pause. Out on the road Donelle was singing a little French song, one she had brought with her out of the Home at St. Michael's.

"You and I," Law continued, "have learned some of life's lessons in a hard school, Mam'selle. Many of our teachers have been the same; they've made us _hew_ where others have molded, but I'm thinking we have come to know the true values of things, you and I. The value of labour, companionship on the long road, a hearth fire somewhere at the close of the day."

And now Law held out his hand as a good friend does to another.

"I wish, Mam'selle," his voice grew wonderfully kind, "I wish you could bring yourself to--travel the rest of the way with me."