CHAPTER X

For perhaps a mile they trudged along in silence. Presently Mary stopped and turned on him.

"A drop of rain fell in my face," she said, looking up at the sky.

His eyes followed hers. Along the brow of a mountain to the west clouds as black and thick as the smoke of pitch were massing. The tops of the trees in the near distance were swaying violently and the breeze had become cooler and was full of swift and contending currents. Little whirlwinds lifted the leaves at their feet and sent them sky-ward in shafts and spiral columns. More drops of rain fell. The brighter spot in the west was becoming cloud-veiled, and it was growing dark on all sides.

"We are sure to get caught," Mary said, in alarm. "It is an awful storm, both wind and rain. They are terrible here in the mountains when they rise suddenly like that. See, it is coming fast. What shall we do?"

He could offer no helpful suggestion. There was no sort of shelter in sight. Still they hurried on breathlessly, Mary leading the way. At times, in her haste, she plunged as aimlessly into tangled undergrowth as a pursued animal, and had to be extricated by his calm, firm hands.

"Running like this won't do any good," he advised her, gravely. "I'm afraid of one thing, very much afraid, and that is that we may lose our way. You see, up to now we had the light in the west to guide us, but it is all gone now. Those shifting clouds are very misleading."

"Oh, I'm sure we are right as to the direction," Mary said, "but I am afraid of the storm. See the lightning over there, and hear the thunder. The storm is getting nearer, and it is dangerous among trees like these at such times. They are shattered and torn up by the roots very often."

It was raining sharply now, and the darkness had thickened so much that it was impossible to discern the landmarks which Charles had made note of as they passed the spot before.

"Ah, we are right!" the girl suddenly cried. "I know that flat-faced boulder there, but it is miles and miles from home. I know the way now, but we can't possibly make it in time to escape the storm."

In a veritable sheet the rain beat down now. The thunder roared and the lightning flashed about them. The black clouds hurtled along the mountainside and drooped down from the threatening sky. The water was running in streams from Mary's bonnet. Charles jerked off his coat and was putting it about her when she protested.

"No, don't!" she cried. "You'll need it." She tried to resist, but, as if she had been an unruly child, he drew the garment about her forcibly and buttoned it at the neck.

"You must," he said, simply; "you must!"

"Must!" she repeated, sharply. "How dare you speak to me like that?"

"Pardon me, Miss Rowland," he said. "I don't want to offend you, but you must keep it on. You are not well. I have noticed your tendency to faintness. Your trouble, loss of sleep, and worry have weakened you. Your feet are wet, and—"

"Thank you; I was wrong," she answered, as the wind bore his words away and the rain dashed into her face.

For a little while they forged their way through the wet bushes, wild vines, and mountain heather. Suddenly she paused again.

"We are in for it," she sighed. "There used to be an old hut of logs near the flat boulder. It is somewhere here. If we could find it we would be sheltered for a while."

"A hut?" he echoed. "Then we must find it if possible. The storm is just beginning. To be exposed to it might cost you your life."

"I think it is over that way," she replied, and they turned sharply in the direction she indicated. It was now so dark that they could scarcely see where they were walking. Streams newly made from the accumulating water on the heights above flooded their feet to the depths of their shoes, and the rain fell upon them as if by the pailful. Once Mary slipped and fell, and he lifted her as tenderly as if she had been a sick child.

"Too bad! too bad!" she heard him saying, and then: "Excuse me, but I must hold you." With that he put his arm around her waist. She shrank back for a moment, but she made no protest, and side to side, like a pair of lovers, they struggled along. Sometimes she stumbled, sometimes he, but the footing of one or the other always held.

"The hut must be here somewhere," Mary said. There was a vivid flash of lightning, and in it Mary saw a giant oak which she remembered. "We are right," she exulted, aloud. "It is just beyond that oak."

But other difficulties were to be met. A torrent of water coming down from the mountain ran between them and the goal. Again he lifted her in his arms, this time without protest on her part, and bore her across. The rain, broken into a mist by the wind, filled their mouths, nostrils, and eyes. They could scarcely breathe, or see. Once he took a clean handkerchief from his pocket, unfolded it, and without apology wiped her face.

"You treat me as if I was a baby," she said, but the act had not displeased her. It was significant that he called her "Miss Rowland" the next moment, and that he wore the same air of humility as when she had "hired" him in the village store.

Another flash of lightning revealed the dark, low roof of the hut, and with his arm around her waist they hastened to it. Its door was closed, but not locked, and he easily pushed it open. Drawing her inside, he stood facing her. Neither spoke; both were panting from the loss of breath.

"This will never do," he said. "You will take cold in those wet things. I must make a fire."

"A fire?" she said. "How could you?"

"I have matches in a water-proof box," he explained. "But I'll have to be careful in opening it. My hands are dripping wet."

"Shake them out on the floor," Mary suggested, "and you can then pick them out separately."

"Good! I shouldn't have thought of it," he laughed. He took the box from the pocket of his coat and carefully emptied the matches on the floor a little away from where they were standing. "Now," he said, picking one up. "Here goes."

It failed, owing to the water dripping from his hands. He tried again. This time he was successful and he raised the burning match above his head. The tiny flame lit up the room. Bare walls of logs from which the dry bark was falling, a floor of planks, a roof of split-oak boards, a chimney of logs plastered over with clay, and a broad stone hearth were all they saw, save a heap of fire-wood and small pieces of pitch-pine in one corner.

"Fine!" he cried. "That wood will burn like tinder. It looks to be very old." A gust of damp wind from the door blew the light out. Again they were in the dark. "Wait," he advised. "I'll gather up some of that dry bark, and then we'll set it on fire."

"Yes; it will burn easily," she agreed.

He noted that she spoke as if she were shivering with cold, and he made haste to get the bark. With his hands full, he groped to the chimney and bent down over the ashes in the fireplace. She picked up a match and succeeded in striking it. She held it against the heap of bark. The bark ignited. He hastened for more, and then, as the flame was now sufficient, he added small pieces of wood, and then larger sticks. Soon a fine fire was crackling and blazing in the crude stone fireplace.

"You must get dry," he said, taking his coat from her shoulders. "Everything depends on it."

She laughed almost merrily, as they stood side by side in the rising steam from their drying clothing.

"You must sit down, and put out your feet to the fire," he declared. "I'll make a seat for you." He brought some logs from the corner and made two heaps of them about five feet apart, and then raised one of the loose floor boards, and laid it across, thus forming a sort of bench. She smiled gratefully; sat down and put out her feet to the flames.

"You must take off your shoes and stockings and dry them," he said, with the firm confidence of a family doctor.

"Must!" She repeated the word to herself, and bit her lip; she made no motion to obey his wishes.

"Surely you are not offended at what I said," he went on, after a little silence. "It is a serious thing, you know. Dry feet at such a time as this are more important than a dry body."

"Oh, I don't mind!" she answered, and she bent down and began to fumble the strings of her shoes; but the water had drawn the knot tight and her fingers were benumbed with cold.

"You must permit me, Miss Rowland," Charles said, calmly. He sank on his knees before her and, without waiting for her consent, he skilfully loosened the knotted string and drew her shoe off. "Now the other, please."

She thrust it out, but rather reluctantly. "You have such a strange way about you!" she said, coldly. "That is, I mean—sometimes."

The string he was now working on seemed to be more tightly tied, and she heard him mutter something impatiently: "I don't want to cut it." (Surely he had not heard her last remark, she thought.)

But he evidently had heard, for when he had removed the other shoe he said, "So you think I have a strange way about me at times, do you?"

He had seated himself on the bench beside her. Her head, neck, and shoulders in the red glow of the fire formed an exquisite picture. She had removed her hat, and her damp hair shone like a mass of bronze cobwebs. She was so dainty, so frail, so appealing! Not only had her young soul been torn to shreds, but the very elements had pounced upon her defenseless body. In her he saw the richest embodiment of a long line of patrician ancestors. How strange the whole situation! There she was storm-bound with a man whom the law held as no better than a felon, a nameless wanderer with no possibility of a respectable future ahead of him. She was silent, and he repeated what he had said.

"I don't mean anything wrong," she replied, smiling on him sweetly. "Now I suppose you will order me to take off my stockings. I don't have to, for they are drying as they are. See!"

She had put her small feet out to the fire. Her whole form was veiled in the rising vapor. It seemed to him to be a mist of enchantment out of which her eyes shone and her voice came like inexplicable music. An exquisite fancy held him in its grasp. His life and hers were but of a night's duration. They were besieged in an impenetrable forest by wild beasts, the prey of elemental forces. For the moment she was his, all his own. Frazier, her family, conventions, his own misfortune, would ultimately part them, but now in his ecstatic vision she was his, and the world might end with the dawn, for aught he cared. But one thing he suddenly began to fear, and that was that thoughts of her brothers' trouble might again depress her. So he bent all his energies toward her entertainment. He told her of a trip to Europe he had made just after leaving college, filling his account with amusing anecdotes. Her eyes were bent on him with a stare of profound interest.

"How wonderful," she exclaimed, "to meet one who has been there so recently! It has always been like a dream of heaven to me. My mother went when she was a girl, and she used to tell us about it when we were children. There were some far-off cousins of hers living in London. The head of the house had a title. I don't remember what it was—my father knows. Strange to say, he is proud of it, as if it would help us now. I suppose—I suppose"—her voice shook and mellowed as it fell deeper into her throat—"that those people over there would not care to keep up with us, now that we are so poor and my brothers are—like they are. I have an idea that old English families are very particular when it comes to the violation of the law."

"Don't think of your brothers' trouble," he pleaded. "Let us try to have cheerful, hopeful thoughts."

"I am trying," she responded, but even while she was speaking her face and tone showed the futility of her effort. "Poor Martin!" she went on. "Do you know, somehow, I feel more for him than for Kensy. Kensy is rougher, harder, less sensitive, less imaginative. Martin has always been my baby of the two. He was sick once several years ago, and I waited on him, nursed him, and petted him nearly to death. This is terrible on him. He may be awake now in that cold, damp cave, and with those ghastly thoughts to keep him company. Oh, life is a tragedy, Mr. Brown! As a child, I thought it was an endless dream of beauty and joy, and I have waked to this—to this!"

He tried again to cheer her with his stories, but her sweet face held shadows which he could not banish. Now and then she would smile faintly, but he saw that she was forcing herself to do so.

Something he said about his school-days evoked a sudden question for which he was not prepared.

"You speak of your home, but you have not yet told me where it was," she said.

He looked down at the pool of water which had dripped from his clothing, and hesitated. His pause brought a quick remark from her.

"Pardon me, I have no right to ask," she sighed.

"But you have the right," he floundered, conscious of the flush on his face and the agitation in his manner. "It is only that—that I have put it behind me forever. It is mine no longer, you see."

"Never mind. I'm sorry I touched upon it." She sighed again and looked through the open door out into the raging wind and rain. "I'm always prying into your personal affairs, as when I spoke of the photograph of the pretty little girl in your room."

"Oh, I'm glad you noticed the picture of Ruth," he said, still embarrassed, "for I love her very dearly."

"You miss her, I know you do," Mary said, softly. "The picture looks as if you had carried it in your pocket for a long time."

"I used to do that," he confessed, "but I found that it kept the past too close to me. Now I see it only just before going to bed."

Suddenly Mary leaned toward him; a portion of her wonderful hair fell against her cheek; her eyes gleamed as if with coming tears. "Mr. Brown," she said, "you are so good and kind and noble that I am going to pray for one thing in particular to happen to you. God may have wise reasons for withholding it from you just at present, but I am going to pray that He will some day give you back your child."

"My child!" He groped for her meaning. "She is not my own child. She is only my niece."

"Oh, then you are not married!"

"No, and I never have been. In fact, I never can be. My conduct in the past has made that impossible. Other men may marry and have children, but I am not like them."

"How strangely you talk—how very strangely!" Mary said, her eyes still tensely strained toward his. "You talk as if—as if there were certain dishonorable things against you. Why"—here she actually laughed in derision—"if you were to lay your hand on an open Bible and say that you were dishonorable, or ever had been, I'd not believe it! It isn't in you; it never was. My intuition tells me so, and I know I am right."

"I am what I am," he said, sighing. "I won't go into it all; it would do no good. I have no right to a decent place in any society. I want you to know me for what I am, Miss Rowland. God knows I'll not make false pretenses while I am under your father's roof. I am here to work for you both. What I was when you picked me up in my filth and squalor I still am and shall continue to be."

Mary stood up and turned her back to the fire, to dry her clothing. He rose as she did and stood beside her. He looked at his watch. It was near midnight. He showed the dial to her in the firelight. She nodded thoughtfully, but was silent. The rain was steadily beating on the roof, a newly made brook was gurgling and swashing past the door. The wind had died down. Drops of water fell through the low chimney into the hot coals, but not in sufficient quantity to depress the fire. He put on some more wood. His vision of the short-lived possession of her companionship still swirled about him like ineffable, soul-feeding light. He could have touched her with his hands; he almost felt that she would not have been deeply offended; the yearning to do so rose from depths that could not be fathomed. She was looking at him steadily from beneath her long lashes, the lashes which gave to her features the evasive expression he could not describe.

"How strange you are!" she said, softly, sincerely. "I don't know why it is, Mr. Brown, but when I'm here with you like this my troubles seem to stand aside. I almost hope. I do—I really do."

"I was wondering if your father will worry, knowing that we are out in the storm," he said.

"No, he won't, but it would have driven my mother crazy with anxiety. Even if she knew we were sheltered here she would worry. She belonged to the old school. The fact"—Mary laughed softly—"that we have no chaperon would be a terrible misfortune. But don't think I care about such things. This is a new age and I'm simply a hang-over from an older one. Even if the rain were to let up we couldn't make our way back in the dark. There is nothing to do but wait till daylight."

"Your clothing is quite dry," he said, touching her sleeve, "and so is my coat. Would you like to recline here by the fire and take a nap? I can put the coat down. It would be a hard couch, but—"

"I'm not sleepy—not a bit!" she assured him; "but you must be, and tired, too, after all you've been through. Suppose you lie down by the fire, and I'll keep watch over you."

He smiled and flushed as he declined, and then his face became grave.

"You touched upon something just now," he faltered, "that perhaps I ought to think about. Since your mother would not have quite approved of your being here like this with a stranger, there may be others in the neighborhood who might gossip about it. If you would not be afraid to remain alone, I could go on home and send some conveyance. I can find the way, and as for the rain, it's nothing. I have often worked all day and part of the night up to my knees in water."

"How silly of me to have said what I did!" she exclaimed, and caught his arm. He felt the warmth of her pulsing fingers through the thin sleeve of his shirt as she turned him toward her. "Why do you hold that against me? I wasn't thinking how it sounded. Why did you speak of it?"

"Because I'd rather die than be the cause of the slightest whisper against you," he said, reverently. "I know how narrow-minded small communities are, Miss Rowland, and I know better than any one else how little I have to recommend me to strangers. I am worse than nothing in the eyes of the world, and it is beyond my power now ever to change their view."

A pained look crossed Mary's face. She sat down again and put her feet out toward the fire. She folded her arms. "I wish," she said, compressing her lips, "that you would stop abusing yourself. The rest of the world may condemn you, as you say they do, but I shall not. I have known a good many gentlemen in my life, but I've never met one in whom I had more confidence. I could swear by you. You may think that strange, but I could. I feel the truth streaming from your whole personality, your voice, your eyes, your very silence at times. I don't know how it was, but in some way you have not been fairly treated. You have not! You have not! I thought it might be perhaps an unfortunate marriage, but since it is not that it is something else. You seem to me to be the loneliest man in all the world, with a great aching heart; but notwithstanding that you are thinking and acting only for me. Do you think I can overlook that sort of thing? Mr. Brown, you are helping me, and if I am not able to help you some day I shall never be content."

He shrugged his broad shoulders. "Don't think of me at all," he sighed. "I am responsible for my position in life, but I am not unhappy—I really am not. There is such a thing, Miss Rowland, as throwing off an old shackled life for a new, freer one; and the new one will be normal, if the old one is crushed out completely. It is simply a psychological fact. The most wonderful thing in the world is autosuggestion. If one holds before himself constantly the thought that things are beautiful they will be so. If he thinks otherwise, he thereby damns himself. When it became necessary for me to adopt my—my present way of living, I determined always to look upon it as a sort of rare adventure, and it has been one full of something like hope. Since I came to work for you and found you in trouble I have thought of nothing but the prospect of seeing you happy again."

The girl was strangely moved. She had lowered her head, and he looked down now only on the mass of wonderful, firelit hair that hid her face from view.

"Sit down, please," she suddenly said, huskily, and he obeyed. She was silent. The rain still beat heavily on the boards overhead; the mountain streams still gurgled and sang. The wind had died down. The darkness was heavy and thick.

Presently Mary seemed to find her voice. She raised her head and smiled sweetly as she remarked: "How strange we two are! Life is beating, pounding, crushing us—you in one way and me in another; and yet here we are like two ants huddled together on a floating chip, drifting we know not where. I cling to you for support, and I wish it were so that you could cling to me. The only difference is—well, you know why I'm on the chip, but I may only surmise why you are on it. I'll bet I know, though; I'll bet I know," was her afterthought.

"You know what?" he asked, startled slightly, and he sat wondering what she would say as she locked her hands and seemed to hesitate.

"Well, I'll bet there is one true explanation. The thing you are—are involved in—the thing that caused you to leave home, has to do with the welfare of others."

"Why do you think that?" he asked, half fearfully.

"Because you are that rare type of man," she returned.

"I have nothing in the way of self-defense to offer," he answered. "My early life was a mistake. I may be atoning for it a little. I sometimes hope so. You are right in one guess—some others are the better and happier for my absence. It is so that I can never return; that is settled for all time. The new life is all that I have, but I assure you it isn't bad. It is heaven compared to the one I renounced."

So the night passed. The rain ceased toward dawn, but there was little light till the sun was up. Then they fared forth over the wet, rain-washed ground for home. The sun was breaking through a cloud when they reached the old house.

Rowland was on the back porch when they appeared before him, wet to the waist from contact with the dripping weeds and bushes through which they had made their way. He seemed not much surprised.

"I thought you'd find shelter somewhere," he said, casually. "I sat up most of the night on my book. I was trying to tie the main branch of the Westleighs to our line through the Barbadoes record, and I noticed how hard it rained."

"How is Tobe Keith?" the girl broke in to ask.

"He is just the same—no better and no worse," Rowland answered. "That is a late report, too. I got it from Tom Gibbs, who passed along just now and stopped to let me know."

"Oh, I'm glad, I'm glad he is not worse!" Mary's face beamed faintly. "I was afraid we'd get bad news. Poor Martin! He may think the worst has happened." She turned to Charles. "Will you get your breakfast now, or wait till you change your clothing?"

"I don't mind the dampness," he smiled. "Is it ready?"

It was on the table and he went in alone, while Mary ran up to her room. Returning half an hour later, she found that he was gone.

"He was in de kitchen des now, young miss," explained Zilla, "en' he seed de basket er stuff I had fixed raidy fer de boys t' eat, en' picked it up en' said he was gwine tek it ter um."

"What?" Mary asked. "You don't mean that he has gone back?"

"Yassum. Mr. Brown say Martin is worried, en' he wants ter tell 'im dat Tobe Keith ain't no wuss dan he was yistiddy. I tol' Mr. Brown ter wait till you come down, but he said dar wasn't no time to lose. He said Martin looked sorter puny-like en' needed 'couragement. Yo' pa seed 'im start out, en' didn't say nothin' erginst it."

It was as if Mary had something further to say, but she restrained herself. She went back to her room, ascending the stairs rapidly. Her window looked out toward the hiding-place of her brothers, and crossing a little glade beyond the barn she saw Charles, the basket on his arm. He was striding vigorously toward the forest. In a moment he was out of sight and Mary turned from the window. By her bureau she stood motionless, full of thought. Presently she heard Zilla calling to her, and, answering, she went slowly down the stairs.