the morning after the departure of flood and pendleton, eleanor and rosamund went out to the veranda for their usual after-breakfast "breath of air," and stood arm in arm, looking over the long slopes which had been the theater of their wonderful ten days' sport. apparently the same thought came to them simultaneously. they looked at each other and smiled.
"did you ever see any place so empty?" eleanor asked.
rosamund shook her head. "i never did," she said. "isn't it absurd?"
"it's like being in a room when the clock stops!" said eleanor, and rosamund laughed.
"isn't it curious how much of the city feeling those two brought with them? before they came i felt as if new york were miles—oh, continents—away. this place was home, the center of the universe. now—well, now this is 'way off in the country'!"
eleanor laughed understandingly. "i know! and yet not once while they were here did we do anything we should have done in town! no one so much as mentioned bridge!"
"it must have been marshall's presence," said rosamund. "certainly mr. flood never suggests town to me!" she flushed, remembering what their last talk of new york had led to. he had taken it so well, proved himself so completely the master of his emotions, shown her so gently that he held her blameless and still supreme, that she had never liked him so much as after having shown him how little she liked him!
eleanor looked at her curiously, for she suspected something of what had passed the day before; but she had cause to look at her wonderingly more and more, in the days that followed, days which, for rosamund, soon became filled with mixed emotions.
"i want to see my doctor," tim said at dinner one day.
the three women looked at one another as if it had just occurred to them that ogilvie had not, indeed, been to the brown cottage that day, nor the day before, nor the one before that. nearly a week in fact, had passed since the departure of the two men, and not once in that time had white rosy stopped before the house.
"why, he has not been here since mr. flood left! he must be ill," said eleanor, trying to speak as if the idea had just occurred to her.
"no, he ain't," said yetta, always willing to give information. "i saw him driving around by the other road yesterday. he ain't sick."
"why, it's five days since he was here," grace said. "he must 'a' forgot you, timmy!"
tim's lip began to tremble, and he turned to the ever ready eleanor to be comforted.
it had been a week of restlessness for rosamund. the visit of flood and pendleton had recalled enough of the old familiar atmosphere of cities to make the solitude of the mountains seem strange. she had been so sure that the new life was the best one! now she was disgusted with herself to find that something of the old restlessness had returned. she told herself, with increasing determination, as the empty days wore on, that she had become dissatisfied with the pleasant monotony of the new life because a breath of the old one had blown toward her. for her admission to flood, drawn from her unawares, as it had been, even before ogilvie himself had demanded it, gave her a self-consciousness which was hard to bear. but apparently her secret was to remain with flood. ogilvie did not come to claim it. it had long become his habit to stop at the cottage whenever he passed there. for the first few days of his absence, she was only sorry that he did not find time to come. she could have no doubts of him. for weeks she had been happily sure that he was only waiting for a sign from her to put into words what his eyes and manner were always saying. to have doubted him would have been to doubt the foundations of the world.
but gradually she became anxious at his prolonged absence. all sorts of womanish fears began to crowd upon her. although for a long time she had heard no mutterings of trouble from among the mountaineers, yet now she imagined all sorts of horrors, with ogilvie as their victim. when mother cary told her, one day, that the doctor certainly must be sick, her fears went beyond bounds. she knew herself to be his own, she believed him to be hers; courageously she ignored her maidenly hesitancies, and went forth to meet him.
all night she had lain awake nerving herself to seek him out; but when morning brought the hour of their meeting she forgot everything save her anxiety for him. she had convinced herself that he was in trouble, and staying away so that no shadow of it should fall on her.
she knew which way white rosy would bring him. it was snowing, but she put on her warm red coat and cap, and went quietly out of the house, walking down the road toward the summit, to meet his sleigh on its way to the valley. she waved to him when he came in sight, but apparently he did not see her; as he drew nearer she waved again, and called.
he answered, for such a greeting had passed between them many times before, and was not to be ignored. but when the sleigh stopped beside her she cried out at the drawn whiteness of his face.
"oh!" she cried, her hand over her heart, "you are ill!"
but he managed to smile, and threw aside his worn old fur rug with an inviting gesture. "ill? not a bit of it! let me give you a lift to the cottage!"
mechanically she took her place beside him, and he urged white rosy on. she looked at him with anxious eyes and parted lips, feeling all the while as if she were in some bewildered dream, where the real was unreal, where everything was distorted—like itself, yet strangely unlike.
always before they had talked as fancy led them, or were comfortably silent; now he was so unlike himself as to manufacture small-talk, commonplaces, nothings. there was no reference to his not having been to the cottage, no hint of having missed her, no least word, in fact, of anything personal between them. he talked on, almost feverishly, without looking at her, while she sat there numbly, dazed at the change in him, but wounded far beyond other thought or speculation.
he stopped the sleigh in front of the brown house, and she got down without looking at him; and still without speaking she went inside. he had not so much as suggested her driving on with him, as she had done half a hundred times before!
grace, in a deep basket chair, was smilingly watching the pretty group before the fire—eleanor, teaching the two children how to pop corn, with tim on her knee vigorously shaking the wire basket. they looked up as rosamund entered, and at sight of the girl's face eleanor put timmy quickly down from her lap and jumped up, with a little anxious cry.
but rosamund blindly, unheeding, went past them and up to her own room. she closed the door and locked it, and made some incoherent answer to eleanor's entreaties. she never knew how long she sat there, silent, motionless, without removing her hat or coat, dumbly trying to control the mingled shame and longing that surged through her. vainly she searched through her memory for an explanation; she had done nothing to offend him, no least thing that should estrange him. even now she could not believe that he would wantonly hurt her; her faith in their love had rooted itself too deep in her heart to be easily disturbed.
at last she called upon her pride for help, only to find that pride itself lay sorely wounded. but it was that which enabled her at last to lay aside hat and coat, to bathe her face and rearrange her hair, even to dress herself in her most becoming gown—that sure refuge of a suffering woman!—and go downstairs to meet eleanor's questioning, anxious eyes. it was not until ogilvie came back later in the day, for a hasty call at an hour when he knew the entire household would be assembled, that anger came, mercifully, to her relief. she saw that he wished to make it seem as if he had always come at that hour, as if his visits were habitually that far apart; she understood that he was determined to make it impossible for her to ask wherein he suspected her of offense. he meant to give her no opportunity to explain or demand explanation; instead, he was taking this way of turning back the hands of the clock. he was deliberately withdrawing from their intimacy, putting their friendship back upon a plane of formality. it would seem as if he were trying to show her that his feelings had changed. yet she had faced her own love too frankly, in her heart's secret communings, to be able to deny it now. she could only, in an agony of shame, tell herself at last that she had been deceived in his.
the days that followed were full of misery for her. all her life she had been the center of a little world of love and admiration. for the first time some one had turned from her; the pain of it was not lessened because the one who spurned her had come to hold first place in her heart. yet such was her attitude that not even eleanor dared say a word which might touch upon the subject ever so remotely. eleanor did, indeed, watch her with yearning eyes, and rosamund, sensitive in her suffering, believed that she talked of her with grace and mother cary; but it was only by their avoidance of ogilvie's name that they showed any suspicion of what was in her heart. had eleanor dared to speak, rosamund would not have been able to silence her; for she needed every atom of her strength to appear unconscious and natural whenever ogilvie came. she would not avoid him. she could only be feverishly gay before him; and eleanor noticed how much more grimly his face set itself after each visit.
the weeks passed, quickly for the rest of the household, slowly enough for rosamund. she took long walks with yetta; as grace grew in strength she went with them, taking them to call on her mountain friends, who had shown themselves more friendly toward rosamund since they had watched her at play—and since the arrest of joe tobet, always a disturbing personality. they came to see grace at the brown house, where rosamund made them feel at home, and gave them coffee and cake and talked to them about their children, and loaned them patterns, which she bought for the purpose, and which eleanor showed them how to use. rosamund's greatest comfort lay in the fact that she was coming to be of use to them, thus fulfilling the desire which had been her excuse for remaining among them.
for other exercise she had no desire; she could not put on snowshoes or skis without recalling a time which she was trying to forget; besides, she had no heart for play. and soon even the walks became not unalloyed pleasure. although no further warnings had come, either to herself or grace, and although the mountain people continued to show themselves more and more friendly, rosamund was conscious of a feeling of uneasiness, a dread of ominous, unseen horrors hovering near, of stealthy presences following her, of eyes peering at her from the leafless undergrowth or through the branches of the scrub pine. she tried to persuade herself that it was all a part of the foolish imaginings of a timid woman, yet had to admit that she had never been timid before; gradually the feeling of uneasiness became almost unbearable, in her increasing nervousness.
she welcomed the relief of christmas, although it was eleanor who went to new york for their christmas shopping. rosamund resolved with herself that she would not leave the summit until she had overcome the vague fear that was now present with her whenever she left the house. she would conquer that, or find out the reason for it, even though the relations between herself and ogilvie were at an end forever. so she sent eleanor in her place, reigning alone for two weeks in the house which had come to seem more eleanor's than her own.
eleanor returned on christmas eve, all prepared to be a most munificent santa claus. it was only after the tree was trimmed, and they had filled bulging stockings for everybody—including the carys and john ogilvie—that she had a moment alone with rosamund.
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.
