CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

“Justin has come home ill, he was taken with a chill as soon as he got to town; he drove back in a carriage from the station. I want you to telephone for the doctor, and ask him to get here as soon as he can.” Lois spoke with rapid distinctness, stooping as she did so to pick up the scattered toys on the floor and push the chairs into place, as one who mechanically attends to the usual duties of routine, no matter what may be happening. “And, Dosia!” she arrested the girl as she was disappearing, “I may not be down-stairs again. Will you see about what we need for meals? My pocket-book is in the desk. And see about the children. They’re in the nursery now, but I’ll send them down; they had better play outdoors, where he won’t hear them.”

“Oh, yes, yes; I’ll attend to everything,” affirmed Dosia hurriedly, while Lois disappeared up-stairs. For a man to stop work and come home because he is not well argues at once the most serious need for the act. It is the public crossing of the danger zone.

With all her anxiety, Dosia was filled now with a wondering knowledge of something unnatural about Lois, not to be explained by the fact of Justin’s illness. There was something newly impassioned in the duskiness of her eyes, in the fullness of her red lips, in every sweeping movement of her body, which seemed caused by the obsession of a hidden fiery force that held her apart and afar, goddess-like, even while she spoke of and handled the things of every-day life. She looked at the commonplace surroundings, at the children, at Dosia; but she saw only Justin. When she was beside him, she smiled into his gentle, stricken eyes, telling him little fondly-foolish anecdotes of the children to make him smile also; patting him, talking of the summer, when they would go off together—anything to make him forget, even though the effort left her breathless afterwards. When she went out of the room and came back again, she found him still watching the place where she had been, with haggard, feverish, burning eyes. He would not go to bed, but lay on the outside of it in his dressing-gown, so that he might get ready the more quickly to go down-town again if the doctor “fixed him up,” though now he felt weighted from head to foot with stones.

There was a ring at the door-bell in the middle of the morning, which might have been the doctor, but which turned out surprisingly to be Mr. Angevin L. Cater.

“I heard Mr. Alexander was taken ill this morning and had gone home, and as I had to come out this way on business, I thought I’d just drop in and see if there was anything I could do for him in town,” he stated to Dosia.

“I’ll find out,” said Dosia, and came down in a moment with the word that Justin would like to see the visitor.

Cater himself had grown extraordinarily lean and yellow. The fact that his clothes were new and of a fashionable cut seemed only to make him the more grotesque. He looked oddly shrunken; the quality of his smile of greeting appeared to have shrunk also—something had gone out of it.

“Well, Cater, you find me down,” said Justin, with glittering, cold cheerfulness.

“I hope not for long,” said the visitor.

“Oh, no; but, when I get up, you won’t see me going past much longer; I’ll soon be out of the old place. I guess the game is up, as far as I’m concerned. Your end is ahead.”

“Mr. Alexander,” began Cater, clearing his throat and bending earnestly toward Justin, who, with the folds of his blue dressing-gown around him, had the unnatural surroundings of the flowered-chintz-covered bedroom furniture, and Lois’ swinging-glassed, mahogany dressing-table with its silver appointments. The room had already the cleared-up neatness with which one prepares for illness, with everything irrelevant put away. A cluster of white tulips was in a thin glass vase on the mantel; the shades were drawn to an inch, so that an unglaring yet dimly cheerful light came through them; on the little mahogany stand by Cater there was a glass of water and a watch, ticking face upward. Cater’s elbow jostled into the light table as he turned, and he steadied it before bracing himself to go on. “I hope you ain’t going to hold it up against me that I had to make a different business deal from what we proposed; I’ve been thinking about it a powerful lot. There wasn’t any written agreement, you know.”

“No, there was no written agreement,” assented Justin; “there was nothing to bind you.”

“That’s what I said to myself. If there had been, I’d ’a’ stuck to it, of course. But a man’s got to do the best he can for himself in this world.”

“Has he?” asked the sick man, with an enigmatic questioning smile.

“I’d be mighty sorry to have anything come between us. I reckon I took a shine to you the first day I met up with you,” continued Cater helplessly. “I’d be mighty sorry to think we weren’t friends.”

Justin’s brilliant eyes surveyed him serenely. Something sadly humorous, yet noble and imposing, seemed to emanate from his presence, weak and a failure though he was. “I can be friends with you, but you can’t be friends with me, Cater; it isn’t in you to know how,” he said. “Good-by.”

“Well, good-by,” said the other, rising, his long, angular figure knocking awkwardly against chairs and tables as he went out, leaving Justin lying there alone, with his head throbbing horribly. Yet, strangely enough, in spite of it, his mind felt luminously clear, in that a certain power seemed to have come to him—a power of correlating all the events of the past eighteen months and placing them in their relative sequence. A certain faith—the candid, boyish, unquestioning faith in the adequacy of his knowledge of those whom he had called his friends—was gone; the face of Leverich came to him, brutal in its unveiled cupidity, showing what other men felt but concealed, yet his own faith in honor and honesty remained, stronger and higher than ever before. Nothing, he knew, could take it from him; it was a faith that he had won from the battle with his own soul. If other so-called material things had to go, then they had to—he couldn’t pay the price, for one! He saw now that he had been foredoomed from the start. Men who ventured on a capital controlled by others, hadn’t any chance of free movement.

By to-morrow night that note of Lewiston’s would be protested, and then—the burning pain of failure gripped him in its racking clutches once more, though he strove to fight it off. He would have to get well quickly, so as to begin to hustle for a small clerkship somewhere, to get bread for Lois and the babies. Men of his age who were successful were sought for, but men of his age who were not had a pretty hard row to hoe.

Lois was long gone—probably she was with the baby. He missed his handkerchief, and rose and went over, with a swaying unsteadiness, to his chiffonier drawer in the farther corner to get one. A pistol lying there in its leather case, as it had done any time this five years, for a reserve protection against burglars, caught his eyes. He took it out of its case, examining the little weapon carefully, with his finger on the trigger, half cocking it, to see if it needed oil. It was a pretty little toy. Suddenly, as he held it there, leaning against the chiffonier, his thin white face with its deep black shadows under the eyes reflected by the high, narrow glass, the four walls faded away from him, with their familiar objects; his face gleamed whiter and whiter; the shadows grew blacker; only his eyes stared——

A room, noticed once a year and a half ago, came before him now with a creeping, all-possessing distinctness—that loathsome, dreadful room (long since renovated) which, with its unmentionable suggestion of horror, had held him spellbound on that morning when he had begun his career at the factory. It held him spellbound now, evilly, insidiously. He stood by that blackened, ashy hearth in the foul room, with its damp, mottled, rotting walls, his eyes fastened on that hideous sofa to which he was drawn—drawn a little nearer and a little nearer; the thing in his hand—did it move itself? Cold to his touch it moved——

The door opened, and Lois, with a face of awful calm, glided up to him. She took the pistol from his relaxed hold; her lips refused to speak.

“Why, you needn’t have been afraid, dear,” he said at once, looking at her with a gentle surprise. “I’m not a coward, to go and leave you _that_ way. You need never be afraid of that, Lois.”

“No,” said Lois, with smiling, white lips. She could not have told what made the frantic, overmastering fear, under the impulse of which she had suddenly thrown the baby down on the bed and fled to Justin—what strange force of thought-transference, imagined or real, had called her there.

She busied herself making him comfortable, divining his wants and getting things for him, simply and noiselessly, and then knelt down beside him where he lay, putting her arms around him.

“You oughtn’t to be doing this for me; I ought to be taking care of _you_,” he said, with a tender self-reproach that seemed to come from a new, hitherto unknown Justin, who watched her face to see if it showed fatigue, and counted the steps she took for him.

The doctor came, and sent him off sternly to bed, and came again later. The last time he looked grave, ordered complete quiet, and left sedatives to insure it. Grip, brought on by overwork, had evidently taken a disregarded hold some time before, and must be reckoned with now. What Mr. Alexander imperatively needed was rest, and, above all things, freedom from care. Freedom from care!

Every footfall was taken to-day with reference to this. An impression of Justin as of something noble and firm seemed to emanate from the room where he lay and fill the house; in his complete abdication, he dominated as never before. More than that, there seemed to be a peculiar poignancy, a peculiar sweetness, in every little thing done for him; it made one honorable to serve him.

The light was still brightly that of day at a quarter of seven, when Dosia, who had been putting Zaidee and Redge to bed, came into Lois’ room, and found her with crimson cheeks and eyes red from weeping. At Dosia’s entrance she rose at once from her chair, and Dosia saw that she was partially dressed in her walking-skirt; she flared out passionately as she was crossing the room, as if in answer to some implied criticism:

“I don’t care what you say—I don’t care what anybody says. I can’t stand it any longer, when it’s _killing_ him! He _can’t_ rest unless he has that money. Am I to just sit down and let my husband die, when he’s in such trouble as this? Is _that_ all I can do? Why, whose trouble is it? Mine as well as his! If it’s his responsibility, it’s mine, too—mine as well as his!”

She hit her soft hand against the sharp edge of the table, and was unconscious that it bled. “If there’s nobody else to get that money for him, _I’ll_ rise up and get it. He’s stood alone long enough—long enough! He says there is no help left, but he forgets that there’s his wife!”

“Oh, Lois,” said Dosia, half weeping. “Oh, Lois, what can _you_ do? There, you’ve waked the baby—he’s crying.”

“Get me the waist to this skirt and my walking-jacket. No, give me the baby first; he’s hungry.”

She spoke collectedly, bending over the child as she held him to her, and straightening the folds of the little garments. “There, there, dear little heart, dear little heart, mother’s comfort—oh, my comfort, my blessing! Get my things out of the closet now, Dosia, and my gloves from that drawer, the top one. Oh, and bring me baby’s cloak and cap, too. I forgot that I couldn’t leave him. I must take him with me.” She had sunk her voice to a low murmur, so as not to disturb the child.

“Where are you going?” asked Dosia.

“To Eugene Larue.”

“Mr. Larue!”

“Yes. He’ll let me have the money—he’ll understand. He wouldn’t let Justin have it, but he’ll give it to me—if I’m not too proud to ask for it; and I’m not too proud.” She spoke in a tone the more thrilling for its enforced calm. “There are things a man will do for a woman, when he won’t for a man because then he has to be businesslike; but he doesn’t have to be businesslike to a woman—he can lend to her just because she needs it.”

“Lois!”

“Oh, there’s many a woman—like me—who always knows, even though she never acts on the knowledge, that there is some man she could go to for help, and get it, just because she was _herself_—a woman and in trouble—just for that! Dosia, if I go to Eugene Larue myself in trouble—_such_ trouble——”

“But he’s out at Collingswood!” said Dosia, bewildered.

“Yes, I know. The train leaves here at seven-thirty, it connects at Haledon. It only takes three quarters of an hour to get to the place; I’ve looked it up in the time-table. I’ll be back here again by ten o’clock. I——” She stopped with a sudden intense motion of listening, then put the child from her and ran across the hall to the opposite room.

When she came back, pale and collected, it was to say: “Justin’s gone to sleep now. The doctor says he will be under the influence of the anodynes until morning. Mrs. Bently is in there—I sent for her; she says she’ll stay until I get back.” Mrs. Bently was a woman of the plainer class, half nurse, half friend, capable and kind. “If the children wake up they won’t be afraid with her; but you’ll be here, anyway.”

“Leave the baby with me,” implored Dosia.

“No, I can’t—suppose I were detained? _Then_ I’d go crazy! He won’t be any bother, he’s so little and so light.”

“Very well, then; I’ll go, too,” stated Dosia in desperation. “I am not needed here. You must have some one with you if you have baby! Let me go, Lois! You _must!_”

“Oh, very well, if you like,” responded Lois indifferently. But that the suggestion was an unconscious relief to her she showed the next moment, as she gave some directions to Dosia, who put a few necessaries and some biscuits in a little hand-bag, and an extra blanket for the baby if it grew chilly.

The train went at seven-thirty. The house must be lighted and the gas turned down, and the new maid impressed with the fact that they would be back at a little after nine, though it might really be nearer ten. After Lois was ready, she went in once more to look at Justin as he slept—his head thrown forward a little on the pillow, his right hand clasped, and his knees bent as one supinely running in a dream race with fate. Lois stooped over and laid her cheek to his hair, to his hand, as one who sought for the swift, reviving warmth of the spirit.

Then the two women walked down the street toward the station, Lois absorbed in her own thoughts, and Dosia distracted, confused, half assenting and half dissenting to the expedition.

“Are you sure Mr. Larue will be at Collingswood?” she asked anxiously.

“Justin saw him Saturday. He said he was going out there then for the summer.”

So far it would be all right, then. They had passed the Snows’ house, and Dosia looked eagerly for some sign of life there; she hesitated, and then went on. As they got beyond it, at the corner turning, she looked back, and saw Miss Bertha had come out on the piazza.

“I’ll catch up to you in a moment,” she said to Lois, and ran back quickly.

“Miss Bertha!”

“Why, Dosia, my dear, I didn’t see you; don’t speak loud!” Miss Bertha’s face, her whispering lips, her hands, were trembling with excitement. “We’ve been under quite a strain, but it’s all over now—I’m sure I can tell _you_. Dear mother has gone up-stairs with a sick-headache! Mr. Sutton has just proposed to Ada—in the sitting-room. We left them the parlor, but they preferred the sitting-room. Mother’s white shawl is in there, and I haven’t been able to get it.”

“Oh!” said Dosia blankly, trying to take in the importance of the fact. “Is Mr. Girard in? No? Will he be in later?”

“No, not until to-morrow night,” said Miss Bertha as blankly, but Dosia had already gone on. She did not know whether she were relieved or sorry that Girard was not there. She did not know what she had meant to say to him, but it had seemed as if she _must_ see him. She caught up to Lois and the baby in a few steps, and drew back into the station as Billy passed it. She had felt anxiously as if some one ought to know where they were going, but not Billy—Billy, who was always now either too melancholy or too joyous, as she rebuffed or relented.

Lois did not ask her why she had stopped; her spirit seemed to be wrapped in an obscurity as enshrouding as the darkness that was gathering around them. Only, when they were at last in the train, she threw back her veil and smiled at Dosia, with a clear, triumphant relief in the smile, a sweetness, a lightness of expression that was almost roguish, and that communicated a similar lightness of heart to Dosia.

“He will lend me the money,” said Lois, with a grateful, touching confidence that seemed to shut out every conventional, every worldly suggestion, and to breathe only of her need and the willingness of a friend to help—not alone for the need’s sake, but for hers.

Dosia tried to picture Eugene Larue as Lois must see him; his bearded lips, his worn forehead, his quiet, sad, piercing eyes, were not attractive to her. The whole thing was very bewildering.

It was twenty miles, a forty-minute ride, to Haledon, where they changed cars for the little branch road that went past Collingswood—a signal station, as the conductor who punched their tickets impressed on Lois. Haledon itself was a junction for many lines, with a crowd of people on the platform continually coming and going under the electric lights. As Lois and Dosia waited for their train, an automobile dashed up, and a man and a woman, getting out of it with wraps and bundles, took their place among those who were waiting for the westbound express. The woman, large and elegantly gowned, had something familiar in her outline as she turned to her companion, a short, ferret-faced man with a fair mustache—the man who lately had been seen everywhere with Mrs. Leverich. Yes, it was Mrs. Leverich. Dosia shrank back into the shadow. The light struck full athwart the large, full-blown face of Myra as she turned to the man caressingly with some remark; his eyes, evilly cognizant, smiled back again as he answered, with his cigar between his teeth.

Dosia felt that old sensation of burning shame—she had seen something that should have been hidden in darkness. They were going off together. All those whispers about Mrs. Leverich had been true.

There were only a few people in the shaky, rattling little car when Lois and Dosia entered it, whizzing off, a moment later, down a lonely road with wooded hills sloping to the track on one side and a wooded brook on the other. The air grew aromatic in the chill spring dusk with the odor of damp fern and pine. Both women were silent, and the baby, rolled in his long cloak, slept all the way. It was but seven miles to Collingswood, yet the time seemed longer than all the rest of the journey before they were finally dumped out at the little empty station with the hills towering above it. A youth was just locking up the ticket-office and going off as they reached it. Dosia ran after him.

“Mr. Larue’s place is near here, isn’t it?” she called.

“Yes, over there to the right,” said the youth, pointing down the board walk, which seemed to end at nowhere, “about a quarter of a mile down. You’ll know when you come to the gates. They’re big iron ones.”

“Isn’t there any way of riding?”

“I guess not,” said the youth, and disappeared into the woods on a bicycle.

“Oh, it will be only a step,” said Lois, starting off in the direction indicated, followed perforce by Dosia with the hand-bag, both walking in silence.

The excursion, from an easily imagined, matter-of-fact daylight possibility, had been growing gradually a thing of the dark, unknown, fantastic. A faint remnant of the fading light remained in the west, vanishing as they looked at it. Above the treetops a pale moon hung high; there seemed nothing to connect them with civilization but that iron track curved out of sight.

The quarter of a mile prolonged itself indefinitely, with that strangely eternal effect of the unknown; yet the big iron gates were reached at last, showing a long winding drive within. It was here that Eugene Larue had built a house for his bride, living in it these summers when she was away, alone among his kind, a man who must confess tacitly before the world that he was unable to make his wife care for him—a darkened, desolate, lonely life, as dark and as desolate as this house seemed now. An undefined dread possessed Dosia, though Lois spoke confidently:

“The walk has not really been very long. We’ll probably drive back. It’s odd that there are no lights, but perhaps he is sitting outside. Ah, there’s a light!”

Yet, as she spoke, the light left the window and hung on the cornice above—it was the moon and not a lamp that had made it. They ascended the piazza steps; there was no one there.

“There is a knocker at the front door,” said Lois. She pounded, and the noise vibrated terrifyingly through the stillness. At the same instant a scraping on the gravel walk behind them made them turn. It was the boy on the bicycle, who, having sped back to them, was wheeling around at the moment that he might lose no impetus in retracing his way, while he leaned over to call:

“Mr. Larue ain’t there. The woman who closed up the house told me he had a cable from his wife, and he sailed for Europe this afternoon. She says, do you want the key?”

“No,” said Lois, and the messenger once more disappeared.

“I wish he had waited until we could have asked him some questions,” said Dosia, vexed. “Don’t let’s stay here; it’s too dark and too dreadfully lonely under these trees. We had better get back to the station and wait for the train.”

“I suppose so,” said Lois drearily. This, then, was the end of her exaltation—for this she had passionately nerved herself! There was to be neither the warmth of instant comprehension of her errand, nor the frank giving of aid when necessity had been pleaded; there was nothing. She shifted the baby over to the other shoulder, and they retraced their way, which now seemed familiar and short. There was, at any rate, a light on a tall pole in front of the little station, although the station itself was deserted; they seated themselves on the bench under it to wait. The train was not scheduled for nearly an hour yet. The watch that Lois carried showed that it was a quarter to nine.

“Oh, if I could only fly back!” she groaned. “I don’t see how I can wait—I don’t see how I can wait! Oh, why did I come?”

“Perhaps there is a train before the one you spoke of,” said Dosia, with the terribly self-accusing feeling now that she ought to have prevented the expedition at the beginning. She got up to go into the little box of a house, in search of a time-table. As she passed the tall post that held the light, she saw tacked on it a paper, and read aloud the words written on it below the date:

NOTICE

NO TRAINS WILL RUN ON THIS ROAD TO-NIGHT AFTER 8.30 P.M., ON ACCOUNT OF REPAIRS

Dosia and Lois looked at each other with the blankness of despair—the frantic, forlornly heroic impulse, uncalculating of circumstances, began to show itself in all its piteous woman-folly.