Part 14

At last, however, Grace went upstairs, and Sue and Matt beamingly bade them good night; Tim had not yet awakened with the first of his repeated demands to go downstairs and see whether "Santy" had come. Eleanor threw herself wearily into a big chair, and Rosamund perched on its arm.

"Well, who did you see, and where did you go, and what did you do?" she demanded.

Eleanor laughed. "I saw Mrs. Maxwell, for one, and she was looking exceedingly pretty and youthful."

"Was she in a good humor?"

"Well, she invited me to luncheon!"

"Oh, then she was! I suppose she had gotten my Christmas check. I've sent to Tiffany's for some emeralds for her, besides. She'll get them as a surprise, to-morrow morning."

"Emeralds! How munificent you are!"

Rosamund laughed. "I'm afraid I'm only following the line of least resistance, Eleanor! Cissy's an angel when she's pleased. But didn't you see her more than once?"

Eleanor's pause was scarcely perceptible. "Mr. Flood asked us all to dinner at the Ritz," she said.

"How nice of him! You and Cissy--and Marshall, I suppose?"

"Of course!"

"Then you saw them together. Tell me, Eleanor, do Cissy and Marshall really care for each other, do you think?"

"Oh, my dear! Don't ask me such a question as that!"

"Why not? I've wondered sometimes whether they would marry, if there were more money between them. I'd like Cissy to be happy; but, of course, she'd have to be happy in her way!" She thought for a while, then added, "Marshall intimated that 'dear Cecilia' was setting her cap for Mr. Flood! What do you think about that?"

"I don't think anything at all, and it's bed-time," Eleanor answered, trying to rise.

But Rosamund's arm across her shoulder restrained her. "Not yet! I want a long talk. I have missed you so dreadfully, old precious!"

Eleanor reached up for the hand on her shoulder, and looked up into the girl's face. "I didn't miss you, sweet! I took you with me!"

Rosamund laughed, more joyously than in weeks. "Oh, what a lover-like speech from Eleanor!" she cried. "Who has been coaching you?"

It was the most innocent of questions; but instantly Eleanor's usual whiteness vanished. A wave of pink crept up from her throat to her cheeks, to her temples, to the line of her gold hair. Rosamund watched, amazed beyond expression. Then Eleanor sprang up.

"We really must go to bed!" she cried.

But Rosamond had her by the shoulders. "Eleanor!" she gasped. "Why--Eleanor--who?"

But Eleanor had broken away, and was running up the stairs, leaving Rosamund to a bewilderment which ended in a little gasp of understanding and delight.

XIX

The first weeks of the new year passed rather drearily. Christmas had been a day of disappointment for her, although she threw herself into the carefully planned festivities with a feverish gayety. The Carys had come across the valley to see the tree, and before dinner-time every gift had found its way to the one it was intended for, except the big net stocking which the children had filled for the doctor. He had promised Tim to come that morning; yet the day passed without him. He sent word that he was called over the mountain; yet, legitimate though the excuse was, Rosamund became gayer than before--for anger always acted as a goad to her self-control.

After Christmas his calls grew farther and farther apart; sometimes a week passed without his coming at all. When they met upon the road their greeting was cheerful enough--too cheerful! Eleanor watched her, wondered, and said nothing. Rosamund was aware that something new had come into her friend's life, and rejoiced, for Eleanor fell into the way of wanting to go for the mail; or if any one else brought it, she would take the letter that was addressed to herself in a characteristic handwriting that Rosamund knew, and ran off with it to read it alone. Had it not been for Grace's growing need of her, and for the new friendliness of the mountain people, Rosamund would have deserted the brown house, for a time at least. But the increasing confidence of her neighbors was unmistakable; and she told herself that she would remain throughout the winter, if only to prove John Ogilvie's forebodings wrong.

But all the while, as time passed, more and more, on her walks and in her own house at night, she was becoming haunted with that feeling of being watched and followed. She spoke of it to no one. Grace alone, her most constant companion, might have offered some explanation; but Joe Tobet's trial was approaching, and Grace was in no condition to be needlessly alarmed. Mother Cary was showing herself increasingly anxious about Ogilvie; and the teething grandchild kept her away from home much of the time. So Rosamund confided in no one; but especially whenever she was out alone, or towards twilight, she was possessed by the sense of a shadowy something watching, following, haunting her. It amounted to an obsession, a fear that was all the more terrifying because it could not be faced. She tried to persuade herself that it was a trick of overwrought nerves, a wild phantasy of the imagination; and the better to convince herself of that she laid little traps--sprinkling fresh snow over the path to the house, for one thing, only to find a man's footprints on it in the morning.

When the time came that she would wake in the night in horror, from a dream of something unseen creeping upon her out of the dark, she knew that she must somehow find and face the elusive presence, whatever it might be, or become utterly unnerved. Moved by the impulse of a frightened creature at bay, she had tried to do so before, but in vain; now, however, in her determination she laid a plan which was more likely to succeed.

There were two ways from the brown house to the post-office; by the road it was a countryman's long mile, and until the leaves fell she had not discovered that there was a shorter way by one of the hidden paths worn by the mountaineers. This little path ran along beside the highway at times, though higher up on the mountain-side, so that anyone walking upon it could look down, unseen, on the road; now and again it cut across turns, through woods, often with sharp turnings to avoid some bowlder or fallen tree.

Although at the thought of it her heart beat with something more closely related to fear than she cared to admit, Rosamund determined to take the little frozen path, and when she felt the presence lurking back of her to turn, at one of the points where the path bent aside, and, her movements hidden by the nature of the path, to retrace her steps and face whatever was following her.

At first she thought the Thing must in some ghostly way have divined her purpose; all the way to the Summit she knew that she was unfollowed. But on the way back, scarcely had she turned into the path when her heart gave a leap. There was the sound, so detestably familiar of late, of a stealthy footstep, which stopped when hers did, and which came on, quietly, relentlessly, when she started forward again. Nerving herself to courage, she walked quickly on until she came to a place where the path turned sharply; there for a moment or two she paused, to let the pursuer gain upon her, then quietly and quickly retraced her steps.

The ruse was successful. She could hear the footsteps come on, the man plainly unaware of her returning. Suddenly she stepped a little out of the path and waited. The man came nearer, was opposite her--and with a cry, her hand on her heart, she faced--John Ogilvie.

For a long minute they stared at each other. She could scarcely believe the evidence of her eyes, yet it was surely Ogilvie. "Is it you who have been following me?" she gasped.

His shoulders drooped as guiltily as a schoolboy's caught in mischief; he looked at her dumbly, wistfully.

"I--it--Yes!" he stammered.

For a moment she could not speak, so amazed was she. When she did, he flushed deeply at the scorn in her voice, but at once grew pale again.

"Has it amused you to frighten me?" she demanded.

He took off his cap, and ran his fingers through his hair in the old perturbed gesture. There was a pale intensity of yearning on his face, a dark gleam of hungering pain, something of the bewildered misery of the lost child, an agony of renunciation with none of that exaltation which makes renunciation beautiful. Despite the sharp cold of the closing day he looked hot, disheveled, as one hard pressed. His breath came quickly and painfully, as if he had been running a race. Every vestige of color left his face as he stood there, his look not faltering from hers.

"Oh, how could you do it?" she cried, tears starting to her eyes.

"I didn't think you knew," he said, hoarsely.

"Not know? Not know!" she gave a little laugh that was half a sob. "I have gone in terror--for weeks!"

"I am sorry," was all he found strength to say; and it seemed as if the words could scarcely pass his lips.

In the sudden revulsion of feeling she was becoming shaken with anger. He saw that she misjudged him; but she had never seemed to him so beautiful as in her scorn and anger and resentment. The appeal of her beauty only added to his distress. The moment was as tense as that earlier one when their hearts had been disclosed; but now no one came to break the spell. Instead, Rosamund turned, and walked away from him.

He had believed, during these weeks, that he had schooled himself to silence and restraint; but she heard him call, hoarsely, chokingly,

"Rosamund! I had to--know you were safe! I had to--see you!"

Then, for her, the world threw off the horror that had befogged it for weeks, and once more opened to light and life. Anger, resentment, doubt, all--all were swept away at his cry, were as if they had never existed. She heard the love in his voice, and with a little answering cry of her own she turned and ran toward him. Shyness and restraint had no place in this new happiness.

In a moment she would have been in his arms, for they were opened toward her. But before she had quite reached him he threw them upward, across his face, as if to shut off the sight of her, and with a cry she could never forget turned and ran, stumbling down from the little path to the highway, crashing through the bushes, running, running, in the desperate haste of a man fleeing from temptation, over the frozen ruts, sometimes stumbling, almost falling, recovering, running still--running away from her.

She could never tell how she got back to the cottage, how she found her way to her own room through the blind agony of the hour. What stood between them she could not surmise; yet now she knew, beyond all doubt, that he loved her. His cry still rang in her ears. There might remain wonder, distress, sorrow, even separation; but doubt had been forever swept away.

Somehow she got through the evening, and, later, slept. She awoke before dawn as if someone were calling; and, as in answer, she slipped from the bed and went to her window. She thrust her feet into her fur-lined bedroom slippers; the heavy coat she used for driving lay across a chair; she fastened it around her, and turned the full collar up about her bare white throat. The air was very cold, but so still that it held no sting. Over the sleeping whiteness of the valley, the snowy steeps of the lower hillsides, the dark crests of the mountains, myriads of stars shone with a pale radiance more lovely far than moonlight. Mother Cary's lamp burned, small and clear, on the side of the opposite mountain, which at night seemed so like a huge crouching beast; little farmsteads in the valley and the nearer cottages were alike dark and slumbering patches of shadow. She watched the steady brilliance of a planet pass towards the horizon and sink over the mountain. A star fell. After a while, from somewhere far away, a cock crowed. The earth was waiting for the day.

Then a subtle change began. The stars grew dim; the sky deepened its blue, and again slowly paled. The western mountains were faintly crowned with light, and under the base of those to the eastward shadows gathered more closely. Again a cock called, and was answered from near at hand. Over the eastern mountain tops an iridescent wave of color spread upward. So still was the air, so silent lay the earth, that it might have been the expectant hush of creation, the quiet of some new thing forming in the Thought which gives love birth. Dawn was there; and through the stillness something stirred, or dimly echoed; almost a pulse it seemed, or the first faint throbs of life. Then gaining strength, or coming nearer, the sound came up to her more clearly. She knew where the road lay, white on white; along its winding lift something was moving. Surely the sound came from there! Nearer, more clearly, beat upon beat, she heard it. At last she made out the form, and watched it with straining eyes and heart that yearned toward it.

From some night errand of ministration his old white mare was wearily bringing him homeward.

XX

Yetta, a pretty girlish figure in soft gray, was leaning on the rail of the box, lost in the absorption of her first opera. For three or four exciting days they had been in the city, and Yetta felt as if she had been swept into fairyland. Everything was wonderful. Miss Randall had blossomed into a princess in marvelous raiment. The most beautiful lady in the world, Miss Randall's sister, had taken her to shops and bought her various garments as fine as Miss Randall's own. She had been whirled about in warm, closed automobiles. Footmen at whom, less than a year ago, she would have been pleased to smile, had opened doors for her while she haughtily passed through, outwardly oblivious of their magnificence. Miss Randall's friends, while they asked various questions about her as if she had possessed neither eyes nor ears, were mostly very kind and gentle to her. It was wonderful, and Yetta felt that the greatest day of her life had been the one when Miss Randall, coming down to breakfast, had surprised them all by declaring that she was going to New York that afternoon for a week or two, that Yetta was to accompany her, and that neither Mrs. Reeves, nor Grace, nor Timmy, nor Aunt Sue, nor Matt must divulge to a soul among their neighbors that she had gone, because she would be back before they had had time to think twice about it. And the crowning glory of it all was this, that to-night she was in the great Opera House in a box, leaning out toward the stage, and listening, listening, listening! She was certainly herself, Yetta; but it seemed as if she must also be someone else--someone in a lovely soft gray gown to whom Miss Randall's friends, coming into the box from time to time, bowed formally, as if she were a lady, and asked how she was enjoying herself; and quite secretly, though with all the intensity of her soul and her imagination she knew it, she was still another person who should, some day, be there on the stage, charming these hundreds of people as she herself was now bewitched, by the joy and beauty of a voice--her voice, Yetta's! But to-night it was enough to be a fairy princess!

Rosamund had not stopped to speculate upon Yetta's readiness for the great experience until they were on the north-bound train, on the day after her last encounter with Ogilvie. Her own need had been too pressing to admit of any other speculation or demand. She knew, when she turned back from the window after her vigil of the dawn, that she must get away for a time, away from the very thought of him, if she was to be able to continue to think at all. So she had bound the remaining members of the household to secrecy, and, with Yetta, started for New York.

The girl was really presentable, she thought. A child of no other race could have adjusted herself so quickly to the new demands; she believed that Yetta was now ready for a wider horizon, for she spoke and moved so well that Rosamund was sure even Cecilia's fastidiousness could find little fault in her. She meant to give her a glimpse of the larger world, to have her voice "tried" by a competent critic, and then to return to the little brown house, perhaps with a governess for the girl, someone who could do more for her education than the little school-teacher. At any rate, the trip would give her time to recover herself, to think, perhaps to decipher something of the puzzle of John Ogilvie's conduct.

So, to-night, Yetta was listening to her first opera, and Cecilia was chattering away at her side, their friends coming in from time to time to greet the returned one. It all seemed as unreal to Rosamund as to Yetta, so sudden had been the transposition.

Pendleton came late into a box across the semi-circle; Cecilia shrugged and pretended to be unaware of him. It was the first time Rosamund had seen him since her return, and she was beginning to wonder with some amusement whether he had transferred his attentions from Cecilia of his own accord or at the lady's suggestion, when she saw him hastily borrow his hostess's glass, take one look through it, and dart from the box. She knew what was coming.

"Rosy!" he cried, with his familiar impertinence, only grinning at Cecilia, who in turn just raised her eyebrows and became absorbed in the aria. But he, unabashed, bent over Rosamund. "Rosy! It can't be you! And--by all the saints, is that, is that the creature who yelped at Benny a few short months ago?"

"Be quiet," Rosamund whispered, laughing, in spite of herself, at his nonsense. "Don't be so absurd, Marshall!"

"Absurd!" he cried, in mock indignation. "Is it absurd to greet the dawn? Here we've all been living in the darkness of your absence, and now you're back at last, and you tell me not to be absurd! I like that!"

At his voice Yetta had turned for an instant to smile a recognition.

"Good Heavens!" he whispered, "what have you done to her?"

"It's nothing to what I am going to do," Rosamund told him. "But you are not to make love to Yetta, my dear Marshall; I'm not going to have the child told she's beautiful. Who knows but she might take you in earnest?"

Pendleton grinned cheerfully, and drew a little chair to her side. "All right, my dear," he said, "I won't say 'boo' to her!"

There were other visitors off and on, but for two acts he flagrantly deserted the woman he had come with, and sat back of Rosamund's chair, talking over her shoulder.

"How's Eleanor?" he asked.

Rosamund thought of Eleanor in the quiet room in the brown house, while she was here, with the song of the goose-girl in her ears--and her heart warmed as our hearts are apt to warm toward those we have left behind.

"Eleanor is well, and lovelier than ever," she told him.

Pendleton screwed up his face. "You aren't the only one who thinks she is lovely, old lady! If you don't watch out she'll spike your guns with Benny! He followed her around like Mary's lamb when she was up before Christmas; and I've known too many men and women in my time, Rosy dear, to believe they found nothing better to do than to sing your praises!"

Rosamund looked at him, and smiled tantalizingly. "Oh, we all know how experienced you are, Marshall," she teased him.

"Why don't you ask after Flood?" he pursued, ignoring her taunt; she smiled, and meekly said, "Well, how is he?"

"Bloody-thirsty!" he said, in a sepulchral tone.

"What?" she laughed. "What on earth do you mean?"

"Fact. He's had a lust for killing, a sort of Berserker rage against everything and everyone, ever since we got back from your place, except while your Eleanor was here. Finally he got into a regular fury with me, said he'd do various things to me--sort of speech you'd expect from a navvy, you know. Queer how those fellows revert. I told him to go west and shoot wild beasts, and, d'you know, he took me at my word! Now what do you think of that?"

Rosamund was greatly amused. "I think everyone ought to take your word with a grain of salt," she said.

He shook his head at her with mock reproach. "What makes you so incredulous, Rose?" he asked, sadly. "It's a lamentable trait in a woman!"

"I, at least, don't fly into rages with you," she retorted.

At that, he put on an air of intense depression. "It's well you don't," he said. "Two rages on your account are enough."

"On my account? Two?"

"Oh, yes, yes, wholly on your account. You little know, Rosamund, what I've tried to do for you!"

"Marshall, you are too absurd!"

"Now there's that lamentable trait of yours again, Rose! Really, it's time you came down from your mountains, if that's what they do to you!"

"Oh, well, Marshall, I'll believe anything you tell me! What have you been doing now?"

He drew his chair a little closer to hers, and lowered his voice to a more confidential tone. "Rosamund, I'm a misunderstood man," he said, mournfully. "Whenever I try to do anything for you, people seem to turn against me. Now there's Cecilia--look at those shoulders, will you? Did you ever see anything so frigid? Make me feel as if there's a draught on my neck, just to look at them. That's the way she treats me, ever since I told her to let Flood alone, because he's your preserve!"

Rosamund laughed; the mystery was made clear. "Good gracious, Marshall! You never did that?"

But he pretended the utmost seriousness. "That wasn't all," he declared. "One day I tried to jolly Benny along, cheer him up a bit, you know! He'd been so awfully down. I tried to tell him something about the best fruit hanging high, that there was nothing like perseverance, and all that sort of thing. He told me to mind only my own business. Yes, he really did, Rose! Wasn't it perfectly shocking of him? I told him it was, and he said he'd like to knock some sense into me. That's when I suggested his going off and shooting things."

"You had a fortunate escape," she said dryly.

"Yes, hadn't I?" he agreed. "But something disagreeable always happens when I try to do you a kindness, Rose! There was that chap Ogilvie; he seemed to turn against me from the moment I put him wise."

At the unexpected mention of the name, her heart seemed to stand still; but a flash of insight warned her that she was upon the clue to the mystery that had so tormented her. She managed to smile at Pendleton, and to ask, "How was that?"

"Oh, that last afternoon, you know, you've no idea how well you and Benny looked, seated up there on that red blanket. I called Ogilvie's attention to it--awfully hard to make conversation with a fellow like him, you know. I said something about you and Flood being well suited to each other, and he seemed rather surprised, and actually had the nerve to ask me what I meant. The way he spoke, or something, put it into my head that he--er--he--well, that I would be doing you a good turn by telling him a thing or two. I did."

"What?" she managed to ask, to his dramatic pause.

"Oh, I believe I said that you and Flood must be finding it very good to be together these few days; that of course nothing had been announced yet, and something of that sort. I remember he said I must be misinformed, which quite provoked me. A fellow doesn't like to be contradicted, you know. What? I assured him I was in a position to know, and threw in a word or two about your--er--millions being joined to Benny's, or something of that sort. Most combative chap, Ogilvie! Tried to tell me that a woman of your type would not be likely to stay up in the mountains so far from a fiancé. 'Pon my word, I almost thought the fellow must be really hit, himself! I said he probably hadn't had much experience with women of your type; never can tell what freak you girls will take to next. Oh, we had quite a word or two, I assure you. Ended in his being huffy. Wouldn't walk up the hill beside me, and all that, you know. What?"