A Master's Degree Part 20

"Because Lloyd Fenneben's the man she loved years ago, and her folks wouldn't let her marry," Bond Saxon said sadly.

Burgess felt as if the limestone ridge was giving way beneath him.

"Where is she now?"

"She's gone, n.o.body knows where. I hope to heaven she will never come back," the old man replied.

"And it was she who saved Dr. Fenneben's life? Does he know who she is?"

"No, no. She's never let him know, and if she does n't want him to know, whose business is it to tell him?" Saxon urged. "I have hung about and protected her when she never knew I was near. But when I'm drunk, I'm an idiot and my mind is bent against her. I'd die to save her, and yet I may kill her some day when I don't know it." Bond Saxon's head was drooping pitifully low.

"But why live in such slavery? Why not tell all you know about this man and let the law protect a helpless woman?" Burgess urged.

Old Bond Saxon looked up and uttered only one word--"Dennie!"

Vincent Burgess turned away a moment. Dennie! Yes, there was Dennie.

"This woman had a husband, you say?" he asked presently.

Bond Saxon stared straight at him and slowly nodded his head.

"What became of him? Do you know?" Vincent questioned.

Saxon leaned forward, and, clutching Vincent Burgess by the arm, whispered hoa.r.s.ely, "He's dead. I killed him. But I was drunk when I did it. And this man knows it and holds me bound."

SERVICE

_If you were born to honor, show it now; if put upon you, make the judgment good that thought you worthy of it_.

--SHAKESPEARE

CHAPTER XI. THE SINS OF THE FATHERS

_They enslave their children's children who make compromise with sin_.

--LOWELL

IT was mid-December before Lloyd Fenneben saw Lagonda Ledge again. In the murderous attempt upon his life, he had been hurled, head-downward, upon the hidden rock-ledge with such force that even his strong nervous system could barely overcome the shock. Hours of unconsciousness were followed by a raging brain fever, and paralysis, insanity, and death strove together against him. His final complete recovery was slow, and he was wise enough to let nature have ample time for rebuilding what had been so cruelly wrenched out of line. It was this very patience and willingness to take life calmly, when most men would have been in a fever of anxiety about neglected business, that brought Lloyd Fenneben back to Lagonda Ledge in December, a perfectly well man; and aside from the holiday given in honor of the event, aside from the display of flags and the big "Welcome" done in electric lights awaiting him at the railroad station, where all the portable population of Lagonda Ledge and most of the Walnut Valley, headed by the Sunrise contingent, en ma.s.se, seemed to be waiting also--aside from the demonstration and general hilarity and thanksgiving and rejoicing, there seemed no difference between the Dean of the days that followed and the Dean of the years before. His black hair was as long and heavy as ever. His black eyes had lost nothing of their keenness. His smile was just the same old, genial outbreak of good will, as he heard the wildly enthusiastic refrain:

Rah for Funnybone!

Rah for Funnybone!

Rah for Funnybone!

_Rah!_ RAH!! RAH!!!

It was twilight when the train pulled up to the station. The December evening was clear and crisp as southern Kansas Decembers usually are.

The lights of the town were twinkling in the dusk. Out beyond the river a gorgeous purple and scarlet after-sunset glow was filling the west with that magnificence of coloring only the hand of Nature dares to paint.

Several pa.s.sengers left the train, but the company had eyes only for the Pullman car where Fenneben was riding. n.o.body, except Bond Saxon, and a cab driver on the edge of the crowd, noticed a gray-haired woman who alighted so quietly and slipped to the cab so quickly that she was almost out to Pigeon Place before Fenneben had been able to clear the platform.

Behind the Dean was his niece, who halted on the car steps while her uncle went into the outstretched arms of Lagonda Ledge. At sight of her, the hats went high in air, as she stood there smiling above the crowd.

It was Maytime when she went away. They had remembered her in dainty Maytime gowns. They were not prepared for her in her handsome traveling costume of golden brown, her brown beaver hat, and pretty furs. A beautiful girl can be so charming in her winter feathers. She had expected that Burgess would be first to meet her, and she was ready, she thought, to greet him, becomingly. But as the porter helped her to the platform, the crowd closed in, shutting him away momentarily, and a hand caught hers, a big, strong hand whose clasp, so close and warm, seemed to hold her hand by right of eternal possession. And Victor Burleigh's brown eyes full of a joyous light were looking down at her. It was all such a sweet, shadowy time that n.o.body crowding about them could see clearly how Elinor, with shining face, nestled involuntarily close to his arm for just one instant, and her low murmured words, "I am glad you were first," were lost to all but the big fellow before her, and a bigger, vastly lazy fellow, Trench, just behind her. It was Trench's bulk that had blocked the way for the professor a moment before. Then she was swallowed in the jolly greetings of goodfellowship, and Vincent Burgess carried her away to the carriage where her uncle waited.

"The thing is settled now," the young folks thought. But Dennie Saxon and Trench, who walked home together, knew that many things were hopelessly unsettled. By the law of natural fitness, Dennie and Trench should have fallen in love with each other. They were so alike in goodness of heart. But such mating of like with like, is rare, and under its ruling the world would grow so monotonously good, on the one hand, and bad, on the other, that life would be uninteresting.

During Dr. Fenneben's absence, Professor Burgess was acting-dean. For a man who, two years before, had never heard of a Jayhawker, who hoped the barren prairies would furnish seclusion for profound research in his library, and whose interest in the student body lay in its material to furnish "types," Dean Burgess, on the outside, certainly measured up well toward the stature of the real Dean--broad-minded, beloved "Funnybone."

And as Vincent Burgess grew in breadth of view and human interest, his popularity increased and his opportunities multiplied. Sunrise forgot that it had ever regarded him as a walking Greek textbook in paper binding. Next to Dr. Lloyd Fenneben, his place at Sunrise would be the hardest to fill now; and withal, sometime in the near future, there was waiting for him the prettiest girl that ever climbed the steps from the lower campus to the Sunrise door. Burgess had never dreamed that life in Kansas could be so full of pleasure for him.

And all the while, on the inside, another Burgess was growing up who quarreled daily with this happy outer Burgess. This inner man it was who held the secret of Bond Saxon's awful crime; the man who knew the life story of the would-be a.s.sa.s.sin of Lloyd Fenneben, and who knew the tragedy that had turned a fair-faced girl to a gray-haired woman, yet young in years. He knew the tragedy, but the woman herself he had never seen, save in the darkness and rain of that awful night when she had held Lloyd Fenneben's head above the fast rising waters of the Walnut.

He had never even heard her voice, for he had sustained the limp body of Dr. Fenneben while Saxon helped the woman from the river and as far as to her own gate. But these were secret things outside of his own conscience. Inside of his conscience the real battle was fought and won, and lost, only to be won and lost over and over. So long as Elinor Wream was away, he could stay execution on himself. The same train that brought her home to Lagonda Ledge, brought a letter to Professor Vincent Burgess, A.B. The letter heading bore as many of Dr. Joshua Wream's t.i.tles as s.p.a.ce would permit, but the cramped, old-fashioned handwriting belonged to a man of more than fourscore years, and it was signed just "J. R."

Burgess read this letter many times that night after he returned from dinner at the Fenneben home. And sometimes his fists were clinched and sometimes his blue eyes were full of tears. Then he remembered little Bug, who had declared once that "Don Fonnybone was dood for twoubleness."

"I can't take this to Fenneben," he mused, as he read Joshua Wream's letter for the tenth time. "Nor can I go to Saxon. He's never sure of himself and when he's drunk, he reverses himself and turns against his best friends. And who am I to turn to a man like Bond Saxon for my confidences?"

"What about Elinor?" came a voice from somewhere. "The woman you would make your wife should be the one to whose loving sympathy you could turn at any of life's angles, else that were no real marriage."

"Elinor, of all people in the world, the very last. She shall never know, never!" So he answered the inward questioner.

Dimly then rose up before him the picture of Victor Burleigh on the rainy May night when he stood beside little Bug Buler's bed--Victor Burleigh, with his white, sorrowful face, and burning brown eyes, telling in a voice like music the reason why he must renounce athletic honors in Sunrise.

Burgess had been unconsciously exultant over the boy's confession. It would put the confessor out of reach of any claim to Elinor's friendship when the truth was known about his poverty and his professional playing.

And yet he had followed Bond Saxon's lead the more willingly that night that he was hating himself for rejoicing with himself.

On this December night, with Elinor once more in Lagonda Ledge, Victor Burleigh must come again to trouble him. What a price that boy must have paid for his honesty! But he paid it, aye, he paid it! And then the rains put out the game and n.o.body knew except Burleigh and himself.

Burgess almost resented the kindness of Fate to the heroic boy. But all this solved no problems for Vincent Burgess, except the realization that here was one fellow who had a soul of courage. Could he confide in Burleigh? Not in a thousand years!

In utter loneliness, Vincent Burgess put out his light and stared at the window. The street lamps glowed in lonely fashion, for it was very late, and n.o.body was abroad. Up on the limestone ridge, the Sunrise beacon shone bravely. Down in town beside the campus gate--he could just catch a glimpse of one steady beam. It was the faithful old lamp in the hallway of the Saxon House, and beyond that unwavering light was Dennie.

"Dennie! Why have I not thought of her? The only one in the world whom I can fully trust. That ought to be a man's sweetheart, I suppose, but she is not mine. She is just Dennie. Heaven bless her! I've sworn to care for her. She must help me now." And with the comforting thought, he fell asleep beside the window.

The December sunset was superb in a glory of endless purple mists and rose-tinted splendor of far-reaching skies. The evening drops down early at this season and the lights were gleaming here and there in the town where the shadows fall soonest before the day's work is finished up in Sunrise.

Victor Burleigh, who had been called to Dr. Fenneben's study, found only Elinor there, looking out at the radiant beauty of the sunset sky beyond the homey shadows studded with the twinkling lights of Lagonda Ledge at the foot of the slope. The young man hesitated a little before entering.

All day the school had been busy settling affairs for Professor Burgess and "Norrie, the beloved." Gossip has swift feet and from surmise to fact is a short course. Twenty-four hours had quite completely "fixed things" for Elinor Wream and Vincent Burgess, so far as Sunrise and Lagonda Ledge were able to fix them. So Burleigh, whose strong face carried no hint of grief, held back a minute now, before entering the study.

"I beg your pardon, Elinor. Dr. Fenneben sent for me."

Somehow the deep musical voice and her name p.r.o.nounced as n.o.body else ever could p.r.o.nounce it, and the big manly form and brave face, all seemed to complete the spell of the sunset hour. Elinor did not speak, but with a smile made room for him beside her at the window, and the two looked long at the deepening grandeur of the heavens and the misty shadows of heliotrope and silver darkening softly to the twilight below them.

"And G.o.d saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the fourth day," Victor said at last.

"Your voice grows richer with the pa.s.sing years, Victor," Elinor said softly. "I wanted to hear it again the first time I heard you speak out there one September day."

"It is well to grow rich in something," Victor said, half-earnestly, half-carelessly.