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?"
rosamund was never more grateful in her life than to the unsuspecting man whose coming into the box ended pendleton's chatter. during the rest of the evening she dared not let herself think of his revelations. on the way home, however, she made herself sure of the truth of part of them.
"what happened between marshall and mr. flood?" she asked cecilia.
mrs. maxwell gave an exclamation of impatience. "oh, my dear! marshall has been altogether too insufferable! mr. flood has spoiled him. he got to the point where he thought he owned mr. flood. oh, yes, there was a fight, of course." she raised her eyebrows towards yetta, who, opposite them, was peering out at the receding street-lights with eyes still bright with wonder. rosamund, catching the signal, said,
"it is perfectly safe to talk."
then cecilia, rather more circumstantially than pendleton, told her of the triangular quarrel. "and now," she said, "marshall is absurd enough to think i mind his dangling after that mrs. halley! she's welcome to him! did he happen to say where mr. flood had gone?"
"he said he had gone west to shoot things," rosamund told her, and cecilia became very thoughtful. later, while rosamund was undressing, she came into her room, and said,
"rose, the whartons have asked me to go on their yacht to the mediterranean. if you are sure you will not need me for a month or two i believe i'll go."
they talked for a while of plans, with no mention of flood. rosamund had small difficulty in adding the sum of two and two; it was plain enough that her sister had accepted the hint of the defeat of any hopes she might have had, and now was aiming somewhere else; but cecilia, in a blue negligée, her hair down and her cheeks still delicately flushed, looking intently at the toe of her silver slipper, was bewitchingly pretty, and she had not the heart to laugh. when rosamund announced her intention of leaving new york next morning, cecilia, in turn, ignored any suspicions she might have had. she even offered to keep yetta for a week, to take her to the master who was to hear her voice, to find the suitable governess and to send her back in the governess's charge before she sailed. she had taken a strange liking to the girl; perhaps the adoration in the black eyes had something to do with it.
then, at last, rosamund was alone. do we ever, she wondered, look back upon our doubts and misunderstandings, when once they are dissolved, with anything but scorn and disgust for our own stupidity, our blindness? pendleton's part in the affair was too mean to be given a second thought. such people, she supposed, there must be, content to feed upon the crumbs of society, winning their way by their very silliness, which amuses more by its vociferous nonsense than by inherent wit. she could dismiss him as a meddler, knowing him too well to credit him with worse intentions; he was not bad at heart, and she knew that he would not have been merely spiteful toward herself. he had meant her no harm. it was her own part in it, and above all ogilvie's, that were hard to think about. it was not for the woman to move with courage high enough to overcome misunderstandings; it was ogilvie who had failed there. he at least had known what pendleton had said, while she had been unaware of it. after that hour of wordless revelation, she asked herself, how could he have doubted her? in their walks and drives she had been so sincerely herself with him, had given him so many opportunities of knowing her character—even, she blushingly told herself, of knowing her heart. was it possible that any man, after that, could so misunderstand her as to believe her capable of such deception? how could he have believed her engaged to flood? yet she realized that if he did indeed believe it, he would not have pressed his own claims. whatever his feeling for her, he would not have tried to win her from the friend whom he placed so high, whom he knew to be so worthy a man, for whom he had told her that he would make any sacrifice. she was sorely wounded; yet there was that quality in her blood which refused to be vanquished. it would have been natural enough to scorn him for his doubt, to punish him for his neglect, to condemn him for his lack of courage, when a word or two, scarcely a question, would have made everything clear between them. to blame him, she told herself, would be the easier way. but her courage was higher than that. beyond every other consideration, she knew very well that she must give precedence to the love that was in his heart and hers.
she recalled mother cary's words, "i reckon there's a door o' distrust most of us has to pass through, before we can stand in the land where there's only content, an' love, an' trust." her heart warmed anew to the wise, tender old woman whose wisdom was large and loving enough to illumine every shadow.
she fell asleep pondering upon it all, and carried the same thoughts with her to the train next morning. she left new york before yetta was awake, having said farewell to a very drowsy and very charming cecilia.
it seemed strange that here the busy life of the city could be rushing on, crowding and grinding and shrieking, while there, in her mountains, as she knew so well, only quiet stretches of snow and lines of black pines and bare treetops, only the sun and the stars, only the few slowly moving people, an old white mare bringing home a tired man, the call of the man or boy crossing the fields, the lowing of cattle from the barnyards—only these made up the world! here every second was crowded with activity; the deeper workings of human hearts were drowned in noise. there, nothing ever hastened; life matured normally, like the winter wheat; grew slowly, and to a largeness impossible in the cities.
she had forgotten that the trains, in winter, were less frequent. she missed the last one, and had to spend the night in baltimore, and make a late start the next morning. she had been thinking, thinking, during every waking moment since the hour of pendleton's disclosure, and in the station she bought an armful of papers and magazines; even pictures of criminals, financiers and actresses were better company than her own thoughts! there was no pullman car on the train in winter, and she welcomed the changing company of the day-coach; but passengers happened to be few, and she was soon forced to take up her papers.
she was no exception among the women of her sort; newspapers made uninteresting reading. she looked first with a slight distrust at the flaring headlines on the front page, then turned to the social notes. those exhausted, an advertisement or two caught her attention; and then there seemed to leap at her the words: "tobet free." she read, almost at a glance, the short paragraph which followed.
"the federal authorities have failed to obtain sufficient evidence to convict joseph tobet, of long mountain, of the charge of illicitly distilling the so-called 'white lightning.' tobet had been under suspicion for some months, and was arrested last october, but the charge against him has been dismissed, and the man was set at liberty yesterday."
the paper dropped to her feet. she wondered what effect this would have upon grace, and remembered the note of warning. but, just from new york as she was, such doubts or fears seemed too utterly trivial to be of account. joe might threaten, doctor ogilvie might shake his head, and grace, poor soul, might tremble; but the arm of the law was, after all, a sure protection. there was really nothing that joe could do; and she dismissed the thought of him for the more welcome one of ogilvie.
the day before, her impatience had been boundless. she had not doubted that she should seek him out at once, as the most courageous thing to do, tell him what pendleton had said, and of flood's absence in the west; that, she told herself, would surely be enough. he would then understand.
but to-day, as she drew nearer the end of her journey, her resolution faltered. he had been stupid; his doubts had wronged her; his restraint, if such it had been, was unfair to them both, and had stolen something from their love which there would never be time enough to replace. it was not the woman's part to offer apologies; it was the man's part to have faith, or, at the very worst, to seek explanation. if he could so deny himself, if her love was so small a thing to him that he could bring himself to do without it, was it for her to urge it upon him?
her revulsion of feeling went still farther. life, she told herself, was after all pretty much the same, wherever it was lived. to give happiness to eleanor and tim, to care for yetta—that was what had justified her spending the winter in the mountains; she could have done as much in town. if she had not found sincerity of purpose and singleness of aim among her earlier friends, it was because she had not learned to look for it. she had only chosen the easier part, not the higher; it was easier to be sincere and simple in the mountains than in town where life was more crowded. it was she who had been at fault in not finding in the old life what was more plainly to be seen in the new; she was so small a creature that she could not reach high purpose through confusing interventions, but must have it laid before her in bareness and singleness. and what was, in truth, her feeling for this man who could so readily doubt her, or, at the very least of his offending, hold himself aloof from her through any consideration whatever? aside from his belief in her baseness, had he not been willing to sacrifice her for his friend? would not love, such love as she felt herself worthy of receiving, have put aside without a thought of misgiving anything and everything but the glory and necessity of its own demands?
all the way her mind was busy with such problems of its own making. the journey seemed long. she told herself that her impatience was only to end it, to reassure herself by the sight of him; yet the impatience was there. it was mid-afternoon when she alighted, remembering her last return. she wondered whether white rosy would be there, and bent, on her way down the car, to look along the platform.
but the only familiar form was the important person who combined the functions of station master, storekeeper and retailer of news. he grinned when he saw her, and came towards her with unusual alacrity.
"well, i declare," he said, "got the news a'ready, have ye? bad news sho'ly does travel fast!"
she stood still and looked at him. his eyes brightened still more when he perceived that he was to be the first to inform her.
"why, ain't ye heard?" he cried. "yer house was burnt down to the groun' las' night. thought ye was in it, the doctor did. that's how he so nigh got killed."
