CHAPTER XXI
Lawanne had been thumping a typewriter for hours, he told Hollister,until his fingers ached. He was almost through with this task, whichfor months had been a curious mixture of drudgery and pleasure.
"I'm through all but typing the last two chapters. It's been a fiercegrind."
"You'll be on the wing soon, then", Hollister observed.
"That depends," Lawanne said absently.
But he did not explain upon what it depended. He leaned back in hischair, a cigarette in his fingers, and stared for a minute up at thetrees.
"I'll get the rest of it pounded out in two or three days," he cameback to his book, "then I think I'll go up the Little Toba, just tosee what that wild-looking gorge is like twenty or thirty miles back.Better come along with me. Do you good. You're sort of at astandstill."
"I can't," Hollister explained. "Doris is coming back next week."
Lawanne looked at him intently.
"Eyes all right?"
"I don't know. I suppose so," Hollister replied. "She didn't say. Shemerely wrote that she was coming on the Wednesday steamer."
"Well, that'll be all right too," Lawanne said. "You'll get over beingso down in the mouth then."
"Maybe," Hollister muttered.
"Of course. What rot to think anything else."
Hollister did not contradict this. It was what he wanted to feel andthink, and could not. He understood that Lawanne, whatever histhought, was trying to hearten him. And he appreciated that, althoughhe knew the matter rested in his wife's own hands and nothing any oneelse could do or say had the slightest bearing on it. His meeting withDoris would be either an ordeal or a triumph.
"I might get Charlie Mills to go with me," Lawanne pursued his ownthought.
"Mills didn't go out with the rest of the crew?" Hollister asked. Heknew, of course, that Charlie Mills was still in the Toba valleybecause he had seen him with his own eyes not more than half an hourearlier. His question, however, was not altogether idle. He wonderedwhether Mills had gone out and come back, or if he had not left atall.
"No. He turned back at the last minute, for some reason. He's campingin one of the old T. & T. shacks below Carr's. I rather like Mills.He's interesting when you can get him to loosen up. Queer, tense sortof beggar at times, though. A good man to go into the hills with--togo anywhere with--although he might not show to great advantage in adrawing-room. By Jove, you know, Hollister, it doesn't seem like ninemonths since I settled down in this cabin. Now I'm about due to goback to the treadmill."
"Do you have to?" Hollister asked. "If this satisfies you, why notcome back again after you've had a fling at the outside?"
"I can't, very well," Lawanne for the first time touched on hispersonal affairs, that life which he led somewhere beyond the Toba. "Ihave obligations to fulfill. I've been playing truant, after afashion. I've stolen a year to do something I wanted to do. Now it'sdone and I'm not even sure it's well done--but whether it's well doneor not, it's finished, and I have to go back and get into the collarand make money to supply other people's needs. Unless," he shruggedhis shoulders, "I break loose properly. This country has that sort ofeffect on a man. It makes him want to break loose from everything thatseems to hamper and restrain him. It doesn't take a man long to shedhis skin in surroundings like these. Oh, well, whether I come back ornot, I'll be all the same a hundred years from now."
A rifle shot cut sharp into the silence that followed Lawanne's lastwords. That was nothing uncommon in the valley, where the crack of agun meant only that some one was hunting. But upon this report therefollowed, clear and shrill, a scream, the high-pitched cry that only afrightened woman can utter. This was broken into and cut short by asecond whip-like report. And both shots and scream came from thedirection of Bland's house.
Hollister rose. He looked at Lawanne and Lawanne looked at him. AcrossHollister's brain flashed a thought that would scarcely have been bornif he had not seen Bland spying from the willows, if he had not seenCharlie Mills approaching that house, if he had not been aware of allthe wheels within wheels, the complicated coil of longings and desiresand smoldering passions in which these people were involved. He lookedat Lawanne, and he could not read what passed in his mind. But when heturned and set out on a run for that shake cabin four hundred yardsdownstream, Lawanne followed at his heels.
They were winded, and their pace had slowed to a hurried walk by thetime they reached the cabin. The door stood open. There was no sound.The house was as still as the surrounding woods when Hollister steppedacross the threshold.
Bland stood just within the doorway, erect, his feet a little apart,like a man bracing himself against some shock. He seemed frozen inthis tense attitude, so that he did not alter the rigid line of hisbody or shift a single immobile muscle when Hollister and Lawannestepped in. His eyes turned sidewise in their sockets to rest brieflyand blankly upon the intruders. Then his gaze, a fixed gaze thatsuggested incredulous disbelief, went back to the body of his wife.
Myra lay in a crumpled heap, her face upturned, open-eyed,expressionless, as if death had either caught her in a moment ofimpassivity or with his clammy hands had forever wiped out allexpression from her features. There were no visible marks on her,--buta red stain was creeping slowly from under her body, spreading acrossthe rough floor.
Mills sat on the floor, his back against the wall, his hands braced onhis knees to keep his body erect. And upon him there was to be seen novisible mark of the murderer's bullet. But his dark-skinned face hadturned waxy white. His lips were colorless. Every breath he drew was alaborious effort. A ghastly smile spread slowly over his face as helooked up at Hollister and Lawanne.
"You fool. You damned, murdering fool!" Lawanne turned on Bland. "Youdid this?"
Bland did not answer. He put his hand to his face and wiped away thesweat that had gathered in a shiny film on his skin, from which allthe ruddiness had fled. Myra's pale, dead face seemed to hold him insome horrible fascination.
Hollister shook him.
"Why did you do that?" he demanded.
Bland heaved a shuddering sigh. He looked up and about him stupidly.
"I don't know," he croaked. "I don't know--I don't know."
A gleam of something like reason came into his eyes.
"I suppose I shall have to give myself up to the authorities," hemumbled. "My God!"
The last two words burst from his lips like a cry, as for the firsttime he saw the full import of what he had done, realized the horror,the madness, and the consequences of his act. He shrank against thewall with a groan, putting out his hands as if to ward off someinvisible enemy. Then, thrusting Hollister aside, he rushed out of thedoor, his rifle still clasped in both hands. He ran down the bank, outinto the shallows of the river, splashing through water to his knees.He gained the opposite side where the heavy woods lifted silent andsolemn, full of dusky places. Into that--whether for sanctuary ordriven by some unreckoning panic, they did not know--but into that heplunged, the last sight either Hollister or Lawanne ever had of him.
They turned to Mills. Myra was dead. They could do nothing for her.But Mills still lived. The sound of his labored breathing filled theroom. He had shifted a little, so that he could reach out and lay onehand on the dead woman's face, where it rested, with a caressingtouch. A red pool was gathering where he sat.
"How bad are you hurt, Charlie?" Hollister said. "Let me see."
"No use," Mills said thickly. "I'm done. He got me right through themiddle. And I wouldn't live if I could. Not now.
"Don't touch me," he protested, as they bent over him. "You can't doanything. There's a hole in me you could put your hand in. But itdon't hurt. I won't last more than a minute or two, anyway."
"How did it happen?" Lawanne asked.
"I was sitting here talking to her," Mills said. "There was nothingwrong--unless it's wrong for a man to love a woman and tell her so. Ifound her sitting here, crying. She wouldn't tell me why. And Isuppose maybe that stirred me up. I h
adn't meant to start itagain--because we'd had that out long ago. But I tried to persuade herto go away with me--to make a fresh start. I wanted her--but I've beendoing that for a long time. She's only stuck to this Bland--because--oh,I don't know why. I don't savvy women. She liked me. But not enough. Iwas trying to persuade her to break loose. I don't remember--maybe Ihad hold of her hand. A man doesn't remember when he's begging for achance. I don't know where he came from. Maybe he heard what I wassaying. Maybe it just didn't look good to him. I know his face waslike a wild man's when I saw him in the door."
Mills paused to catch his breath. The words tumbled out of him as ifhe had much to say and knew his time was short.
"Don't think he meant to kill her. He popped me. Then she screamed andjumped in front of me with her arms out--and he gave it to her."
Mills' voice broke. His fingers stroked feebly at the twisted coils ofMyra's pale, honey-colored hair. His lips quivered.
"Finished. All over--for both of us. Butchered like beef by a crazyfool. Maybe I'm crazy too," he said in a husky whisper. "It don't seemnatural a man should feel like I've felt for months. I didn't want tofeel like that. Couldn't help it. I've lived in hell--you won't savvy,but it's true. I'm glad it's over. If there is any other life--maybethat'll be better. I hope there isn't. I feel as if all I want is tosleep forever and ever. No more laying awake nights thinking till myhead hurts and my heart is like a lump of lead. By God, I _have_ beencrazy."
His body began to sag, and Hollister knelt beside him and supportedhim. He shook his head when Lawanne offered him a drink. His eyesclosed. Only the feeble motion of his fingers on the dead woman's faceand the slow heave of his breast betokened the life that still clungso tenaciously to him.
He opened his eyes again, to look at Hollister.
"I used to think--dying--was tough," he whispered. "It isn't. Likegoing--to sleep--when you're tired--when you're through--for the day."
That was his last word. He went limp suddenly and slid out ofHollister's grasp. And they let him lie, a dead man beside the deadwoman on the floor. They stood up themselves and stared at the bodieswith that strange incredulity men sometimes feel in the face of suddendeath.
Both Lawanne and Hollister were familiar with death, death by thesniper's bullet, by machine gun and shell, by bayonet and poison gas.This was different. It was not war. It was something that touched themmore deeply than any of the killing they had seen in war. The low humof foraging bees about the door, the foxglove swaying in summer airs,the hushed peace of the distant hills and nearer forest,--this was nobackground for violence and death. It shocked them, chilled anddepressed them. Hollister felt a new sort of ache creep into hisheart. His eyes stung. And Lawanne suddenly turned away with a chokingsound muffled in his throat.
They went out into the sunlight. Away down the valley a donkey enginetooted and whirred. High above them an eagle soared, wheeling in greatcircles about his aerial business. The river whispered in its channel.The blue jays scolded harshly among the thickets, and a meadow larkperched on a black stump near at hand, warbling his throaty song. Lifewent on as before.
"What'll we do?" Lawanne said presently. "We've got to do something."
"There's not much we can do, now," Hollister replied. "You go down toCarr's and tell them to send a man with a gas-boat out to Powell Riverwith word to the Provincial Police of what has happened. I'll keepwatch until you come back."
In an hour Lawanne returned with two men from the settlement. Theylaid the bodies out decently on a bed and left the two men to keepvigil until sundown, when Hollister and Lawanne would take up thatmelancholy watch for the night.
"I wonder," Hollister said to Lawanne, as they walked home, "what'llbecome of Bland? Will he give himself up, or will they have to hunthim?"
"Neither, I think," Lawanne answered slowly. "A man like that iscertainly not himself when he breaks out like that. Bland has thecultural inheritance of his kind. You could see that he was stupefiedby what he had done. When he rushed away into the woods I think it wasjust beginning to dawn on him, to fill him with horror. He'll nevercome back. You'll see. He'll either go mad, or in the reaction offeeling he'll kill himself."
They went into Lawanne's cabin. Lawanne brought out a bottle ofbrandy. He looked at the shaking of his fingers as he poured forHollister and smiled wanly.
"I don't go much on Dutch courage, but I sure need it now," he said."Isn't it queer the way death affects you under differentcircumstances? I didn't see such an awful lot of action in France, butonce a raiding party of Heinies tumbled into our trench, and there wasa deuce of a ruction for a few minutes. Between bayonets and bombs wecleaned the lot, a couple of dozen of them. After it was all over, westacked them up like cordwood--with about as much compunction. Itseemed perfectly natural. There was nothing but the excitement ofwinning a scrap. The half-dozen of our own fellows that went west inthe show--they didn't matter either. It was part of the game. Youexpected it. It didn't surprise you. It didn't shock you. Yet death isdeath. Only, there, it seemed a natural consequence. And hereit--well, I don't know why, but it gives me a horror."
Lawanne sat down.
"It was so unnecessary; so useless," he went on in that lifeless tone."The damned, egotistic fool! Two lives sacrificed to a stupid man'swounded vanity. That's all. She was a singularly attractive woman. Shewould have been able to get a lot out of life. And I don't think shedid, or expected to."
"Did you have any idea that Mills had that sort of feeling for her?"Hollister asked.
"Oh, yes," Lawanne said absently. "I saw that. I understood. I wastouched a little with the same thing myself. Only, _noblesse oblige_.And also I was never quite sure that what I felt for her was sympathy,or affection, or just sex. I know I can scarcely bear to think thatshe is dead."
He leaned back in his chair and put his hands over his eyes. Hollistergot up and walked to a window. Then on impulse he went to the door.And when he was on the threshold, Lawanne halted him.
"Don't go," he said. "Stay here. I can't get my mind off this. Idon't want to sit alone and think."
Hollister turned back. Neither did he want to sit alone and think. Foras the first dazed numbness wore off, he began to see himself standingalone--more alone than ever--gazing into a bottomless pit, with Fateor Destiny or blind Chance, whatever witless force was at work,approaching inexorably to push him over the brink.
CHAPTER XXII
To the world outside the immediate environs of the Toba, beyond thosewho knew the people concerned, that double murder was merely anotherviolent affair which provided material for newspapers, a remote eventallied to fires, divorces, embezzlements, politics, and scandals inhigh finance,--another item to be glanced quickly over and as quicklyforgotten.
But one man at least could not quickly forget or pass it over lightly.Once the authorities--coming from a great distance, penetrating thesolitude of the valley with a casual, business-like air--arrived,asked questions, issued orders, sent two men abroad in search of theslayer, and removed the bodies to another jurisdiction, Hollister hadnothing more to do with that until he should be called again to giveformal testimony.
He was left with nothing to do but brood, to sit asking unanswerablequestions of a world and a life that for him was slowly andbewilderingly verging upon the chaotic, in which there was no order,no security, no assurance of anything but devastating changes that hadneither rhyme nor reason in their sequence. There might be logicalcauses, buried obscurely under remote events, for everything that hadtranspired. He conceded that point. But he could not establish anyassociation; he could not trace out the chain; and he revolted againstthe common assumption that all things, no matter how mysterious, workout ultimately for some common good.
Where was the good forthcoming out of so much that was evil, he asked?Looking back over the years, he saw much evil for himself, foreverything and every one he cared about, and mingled with it there waslittle good, and that good purely accidental, the result of fortuitouscircumstances. He knew that unt
il the war broke out he had lived in abackwater of life, himself and Myra, contented, happy, untried byadversity. Once swung out of that backwater they had been swept away,powerless to know where they went, to guess what was theirdestination.
Nothing that he could have done would have altered one iota the marchof events. Nothing that he could do now would have more than theslightest bearing on what was still to come. He was like a man beatento a dazed state in which he expects anything, in which his feebleresistance will not ward off a single blow aimed at him by an unseen,inscrutable enemy.
Hollister, sitting on the bank of the river, looked at the mountainsrising tier upon tier until the farthest ranges were dazzling whitecones against a far sky line. He saw them as a chaos of granite andsandstone flung up by blind forces. Order and logical sequence in theuniverse were a delusion--except as they were the result of orderedhuman thought, effected by patient, unremitting human effort, whichfailed more often than it succeeded.
He looked at one bold peak across the valley, standing so sheer abovethe Black Hole that it seemed to overhang from the perpendicular; amass of bald granite, steep cliff, with glacial ice and perpetual snowlurking in its crevasses. Upon its lower slopes the forest ran up, agreen mantle with ragged edges. From the forest upward the wind waftedseeds to every scanty patch of soil. They took root, became saplings,grew to substantial trees. And every winter the snow fell deep on thatmountain, piling up in great masses delicately poised, until a merenothing--a piece of stone loosened by the frost; a gust of wind;perhaps only the overhanging edge of a snow-drift breaking under itsown weight--would start a slide that gathered speed and bulk as itcame down. And as this insensate mass plunged downward, the smalltrees and the great, the thickets and the low salal, everything thatstood in its path, was overwhelmed and crushed and utterly destroyed.To what end? For what purpose?
It was just the same with man, Hollister thought. If he got in the wayof forces greater than himself, he was crushed. Nature was blind,ruthless, disorderly, wantonly destructive. One had to be alert,far-seeing, gifted with definite characteristics, to escape. Even thenone did not always, or for long, escape being bruised and mauled bythe avalanches of emotion, the irresistible movement of circumstanceover which one could exert no control.
How could it be otherwise? Hollister thought of all that had happenedto all the people he knew, the men he had seen killed and maimed,driven insane by the shocks of war; of Doris, stricken blind in thefull glow of youth; Myra pulled and hauled this way and that becauseshe was as she was and powerless to be otherwise; himself marred andshunned and suffering intolerable agonies of spirit; of Bland, uponwhom had fallen the black mantle of unnecessary tragedy; and Mills,who had paid for his passion with his life.
All these things pressed upon Hollister; a burden of discouragement,of sadness. Not one of all these, himself included, but wantedhappiness according to his conception of happiness. And who and whatwas responsible for each one's individual conception of what hewanted? Not one of them had demanded existence. Each had had existencethrust upon him. Nature, and a thousand generations of life and loveand pain, such environment in which, willy-nilly, they passed theirformative years, had bestowed upon each his individual quota ofcharacter, compounded of desires, of intellect, of tendencies. And thesum total of their actions and reactions--what was it? How could theyhave modified life, bent it purposefully to its greatest fulfilment?
Hollister tried to shake himself free of these morbid abstractions.He was alive. He had a long time yet to live. He was a strong man, inwhom the fire of life burned with an unquenchable flame. He had agreat many imperative requisitions to make on life's exchequer, andwhile he was now sadly dubious of their being honored, either in fullor in part, he must go on making them.
There was a very black hole yawning before him. The cumulative forceof events had made him once more profoundly uncertain. All his propswere breaking. Sometimes he wondered if the personal God of theChristian orthodoxy was wreaking upon him some obscure vengeance forunknown sins.
He shook himself out of this depressing bog of reflection and went tosee Archie Lawanne. Not simply for the sake of Lawanne's society,although he valued that for itself. He had a purpose.
"That boat's due to-morrow at three o'clock," he said to Lawanne."Will you take my big canoe and bring Doris up the river?
"I can't," he forestalled the question he saw forming on Lawanne'slips. "I can't meet her before that crowd--the crew and passengers,and loggers from Carr's. I'm afraid to. Not only because of myself,but because of what effect the shock of seeing me may have on her.Remember that I'll be like a stranger to her. She has never seen me.It seems absurd, but it's true. It's better that she sees me the firsttime by herself, at home, instead of before a hundred curious eyes.Don't you see?"
Lawanne saw; at least, he agreed that it was better so. And after theyhad talked awhile, Hollister went home.
But he was scarcely in his own dooryard before he became aware thatwhile he might plan and arrange, so also could others; that his wifewas capable of action independent of him or his plans.
He glanced down the river and saw a long Siwash dugout sweep aroundthe curve of the Big Bend. It straightened away and bore up the longstretch of swift water that ran by his house. Hollister coulddistinguish three or four figures in it. He could see the drippingpaddles rise and fall in measured beat, the wet blades flashing in thesun.
He gained the porch and turned his glasses on the canoe. He recognizedit as Chief Aleck's dugout from a rancherie near the mouth of theriver, a cedar craft with carved and brilliantly painted high-curvingends. Four Siwash paddlers manned it. Amidships two women sat. One wasthe elderly housekeeper who had been with them since their boy'sbirth. The other was Doris, with the baby in her lap.
A strange panic seized Hollister, the alarm of the unexpected, areluctance to face the crisis which he had not expected to face foranother twenty-four hours. He stepped down off the porch, walkedrapidly away toward the chute mouth, crossed that and climbed to adead fir standing on the point of rocks beyond. From there he watcheduntil the canoe thrust its gaudy prow against the bank before hishouse, until he saw the women ashore and their baggage stacked on thebank, until the canoe backed into the current and shot awaydownstream, until Doris with the baby in her arms--after a lingeringlook about, a slow turning of her head--followed the other woman upthe porch steps and disappeared within. Then Hollister moved back overthe little ridge into the shadow of a clump of young firs and sat downon a flat rock with his head in his hands, to fight it out withhimself.
To stake everything on a single throw of the dice,--and the diceloaded against him! If peace had its victories no less than war, ithad also crushing defeats. Hollister felt that for him the final, mostcomplete _debacle_ was at hand.
He lifted his head at a distant call, a high, clear, sweet"Oh-_hoo-oo-oo_" repeated twice. That was Doris calling him as shealways called him, if she wanted him and thought he was within rangeof her voice. Well, he would go down presently.
He looked up the hill. He could see through a fringe of green timberto a place where the leaves and foliage were all rusty-red from thescorching of the fire. Past that opened the burned ground,--charred,black, desolate. Presently life would be like that to him; all theyears that stretched ahead of him might be as barren as that blackwaste.
His mind projected itself into the future from every possible angle.He did not belittle Doris' love, her sympathy, her understanding. Heeven conceded that no matter how his disfigurement affected her, shewould try to put that behind her, she would make an effort to cling tohim. And Hollister could see the deadly impact of his grotesquefeatures upon her delicate sensibility, day after day, month aftermonth, until she could no longer endure it, or him. She loved thebeautiful too well, perfection of line and form and color. Restoredsight must alter her world; her conception of him must becometransformed. The magic of the unseen would lose its glamor. All thathe meant to her as a man, a lover, a husband, must be stripped bare of
the kindly illusion that blindness had wrapped him in. Even if she didnot shrink in amazed reluctance at first sight, she must soon cease tohave for him any keener emotion than a tolerant pity. And Hollisterdid not want that. He would not take it as a gift--not from Doris; hecould not.
Love, home, all that sweet companionship which he had gained, thecurious man-pride he had in that morsel of humanity that was hisson,--he wondered if he were to see all these slowly or swiftlywithdrawn from him?
Well, he would soon know. He stood up and looked far along the valley.Suddenly it seemed a malevolent place, oppressive, threatening, grimin spite of its beauty. It seemed as if something had been lurkingthere ready to strike. The fire had swept away his timber. In thatbrilliant sunshine, amid all that beauty, Myra's life had been snuffedout like a blown candle flame--to no purpose. Or was there somepurpose in it all? Was some sentient force chastening him, scourginghim with rods for the good of his soul? Was it for some suchinscrutable purpose that men died by the hundred thousand in Europe?Was that why Doris Cleveland had been deprived of her sight? Why Myrahad been torn by contradictory passions during her troubled life andhad perished at last, a victim of passions that burst control? Allthis evil that some hidden good might accrue? Hollister bared histeeth in defiance of such a conclusion. But he was in a mood to defyeither gods or devils. In that mood he saw the Toba valley, the wholeearth, as a sinister place,--a place where beauty was a mockery, whereimpassive silence was merely the threatening hush before someelemental fury. This serene, indifferent beauty was hateful to him inthat moment, the Promethean rock to which circumstance had chained himto suffer. It needed only as a capsheaf the gleam of incredulousdismay which should appear in his wife's eyes when she looked firstupon the mutilated tissue, the varying scars and cicatrices, thetwisted mask that would be revealed to her as the face of herhusband.
This test was at hand. He reassured himself, as he had vainlyreassured himself before, by every resource his mind and courage couldmuster, and still he was afraid. He saw nothing ahead but a black voidin which there was neither love nor companionship nor friendly handsand faces, nothing but a deep gloom in which he should wanderalone,--not because he wished to, but because he must.
He turned with a sudden resolution, crossed the low rocky point andwent down to the flat. He passed under the trestle which carried thechute. The path to the house turned sharply around a clump of alder.He rounded these leafy trees and came upon Doris standing by a lowstump. She stood as she did the first time he saw her on the steamer,in profile, only instead of the steamer rail her elbow rested on thestump, and she stared, with her chin nestled in the palm of one hand,at the gray, glacial stream instead of the uneasy heave of a wintersea. And Hollister thought with a slow constriction gathering in hisbreast that life was a thing of vain repetitions; he remembered sovividly how he felt that day when he stood watching her by the rail,thinking with a dull resentment that she would presently look at himand turn away. And he was thinking that again.
Walking on soft leaf-mold he approached within twenty feet of her,unheard. Then she lifted her head, looked about her.
"Bob!"
"Yes," he answered. He stopped. She was looking at him. She made animperative gesture, and when Hollister still stood like a mantransfixed, she came quickly to him, her eyes bright and eager, herhands outstretched.
"What's the matter?" she asked. "Aren't you glad to see me?"
"Are you glad to see me?" he countered. "_Do_ you see me?"
She shook her head.
"No, and probably I never shall," she said evenly. "But you're here,and that's just as good. Things are still a blur. My eyes will neverbe any better, I'm afraid."
Hollister drew her close to him. Her upturned lips sought his. Herbody pressed against him with a pleasant warmth, a confident yielding.They stood silent a few seconds, Doris leaning against himcontentedly, Hollister struggling with the flood of mingled sensationsthat swept through him on the heels of this vast relief.
"How your heart thumps," Doris laughed softly. "One would think youwere a lover meeting his mistress clandestinely for the first time."
"You surprised me," Hollister took refuge behind a white lie. He wouldnot afflict her with that miasma of doubts and fears which hadsickened him. "I didn't expect you till to-morrow afternoon."
"I got tired of staying in town," she said. "There was no use. Iwasn't getting any better, and I got so I didn't care. I began to feelthat it was better to be here with you blind, than alone in town withthat tantalizing half-sight of everything. I suppose the plain truthis that I got fearfully lonesome. Then you wrote me that letter, andin it you talked about such intimately personal things that I couldn'tlet Mrs. Moore read it to me. And I heard about this big fire you hadhere. So I decided to come home and let my eyes take care ofthemselves. I went to see another oculist or two. They can't tellwhether my sight will improve or not. It may go again altogether. Andnothing much can be done. I have to take it as it comes. So I plannedto come home on the steamer to-morrow. You got my letter, didn't you?"
"Yes."
"Well, I happened to get a chance to come as far as the Redondas on aboat belonging to some people I knew on Stuart Island. I got a launchthere to bring me up the Inlet, and Chief Aleck brought us up theriver in the war canoe. My, it's good to be with you again."
"Amen," Hollister said. There was a fervent quality in his tone.
They found a log and sat down on it and talked. Hollister told her ofthe fire. And when he saw that she had no knowledge of what tragedyhad stalked with bloody footprints across the Big Bend, he put offtelling her. Presently she would ask about Myra, and he would have totell her. But in that hour he did not wish to see her grow sad. He wasjealous of anything that would inflict pain on her. He wanted toshield her from all griefs and hurts.
"Come back to the house," Doris said at last. "Baby's fretting alittle. The trip in a small boat rather upset him. I don't like toleave him too long."
But Robert junior was peacefully asleep in his crib when they reachedthe house. After a look at him, they went out and sat on the porchsteps. There, when the trend of their conversation made itunavoidable, he told her what had overtaken Charlie Mills and MyraBland.
Doris listened silently. She sighed.
"What a pity," she murmured. "The uselessness of it, the madness--likea child destroying his toys in a blind rage. Poor Myra. She told meonce that life seemed to her like swimming among whirlpools. It musthave been true."
How true it was Hollister did not dare reveal. That was finished, forMyra and himself. She had perished among the whirlpools. He scarcelyknew how he had escaped.
"How lucky we are, you and I, Bob," Doris said after a time. She puther arms around him impulsively. "We might so easily be wanderingabout alone in a world that is terribly harsh to the unfortunate.Instead--we're here together, and life means something worth while tous. It does to me, I know. Does it to you?"
"As long as I have you, it does," he answered truthfully. "But if youcould see me as I really am, perhaps I might not have you very long."
"How absurd," she declared--and then, a little thoughtfully, "if Ithought that was really true, I should never wish to see again.Curiously, the last two or three weeks this queer, blurred sort ofvision I have seems quite sufficient. I haven't wanted to see half sobadly as I've wanted you. I can get impressions enough through theother four senses. I'd hate awfully to have to get along without you.You've become almost a part of me--I wonder if you understand that?"
Hollister did understand. It was mutual,--that want, that dependence,that sense of incompleteness which each felt without the other. It wasa blessed thing to have, something to be cherished, and he knew howdesperately he had reacted to everything that threatened its loss.
Hollister sat there looking up at the far places, the high, whitemountain crests, the deep gorges, the paths that the winter slides hadcut through the green forest, down which silvery cataracts poured now.It seemed to have undergone some subtle change
, to have become lessaloof, to have enveloped itself in a new and kindlier atmosphere. Yethe knew it was as it had always been. The difference was in himself.The sympathetic response to that wild beauty was purely subjective. Hecould look at the far snows, the bluish gleam of the glaciers, therestful green of the valley floor, with a new quality of appreciation.He could even--so resilient and adaptable a thing is the humanmind--see himself engaged upon material enterprises, years passing,his boy growing up, life assuming a fullness, a proportion, an orderlyprogression that two hours earlier would have seemed to him only afutile dream.
He wondered if this would endure. He looked down at his wife leaningupon his knee, her face thoughtful and content. He looked out over thevalley once more, at those high, sentinel peaks thrusting up theirwhite cones, one behind the other. He heard the river. He saw thefoxglove swaying in the wind, the red flare of the poppies at hisdoor. He smelled the fragrance of wild honeysuckle, the sharp, sweetsmells blown out of the forest that drowsed in the summer heat.
It was all good. He rested in that pleasant security like a man whohas fought his way through desperate perils to some haven of safetyand sits down there to rest in peace. He did not know what the futureheld for him. He had no apprehension of the future. He was not evencurious. He had firm hold of the present, and that was enough. Hewondered a little that he should suddenly feel so strong a convictionthat life was good. But he had that feeling at last. The road openedbefore him clear and straight. If there were crooks in it, pitfalls bythe way, perils to be faced, pains to be suffered, he was very sure inthat hour that somehow he would find courage to meet them open-eyedand unafraid.
THE END
The Hidden Places Page 21
