At the Crossroads Part 29

The large golden eyes turned slowly and rested upon Northrup.

"I do not think I ever joke"--Mary-Clare's words fell softly--"about such things. Why, it would seem like seeing a soul get into a body.

You do not joke about that."

"You make me horribly afraid about my book. People do not usually take the writing of a book in just that way."

"I wish they did. You see, my doctor often said that books would live if they only held truth. He loved these words, 'And above all else--Truth taketh away the victory!' I can see him now waving his arms and singing that defiantly, as if he were challenging the whole world. He said that truth was the soul of things."

"But who knows Truth?"

"There is something in us that knows it. Don't you think so?"

"But we see it so differently."

"That does not matter, if we know it! Truth is fixed and sure. Isn't that so?"

"I do not know. Sometimes I think so: then--good Lord! that is what I'm trying to find out."

Northrup's face grew tense.

"And so am I."

"All right, then, let's go on the quest together!" Northrup stood up and offered his hand to Mary-Clare as if actually they were to start on the pilgrimage. "Where and when may I begin to read to you?"

The children were coming nearer.

"While this weather lasts, I'd love the open. Wouldn't you? Logs, like this, are such perfect places."

"I thought perhaps"--Northrup looked what he dared not voice--"I thought perhaps in that cabin of yours we might be more comfortable, more undisturbed."

Mary-Clare smiled and shook her head.

"No, I think it would be impossible. That cabin is too full--well, I'm sure I could not listen as I should, to you, in that cabin."

And so it was that the book became the medium of expression to Northrup and Mary-Clare. It justified that which might otherwise have been impossible. It drugged them both to any sense of actual danger.

It was like a shield behind which they might advance and retreat unseen and unharmed. And if the shield ever fell for an unguarded moment, Northrup believed that he alone was vouchsafed clear vision.

He grew to marvel at the simplicity and purity of Mary-Clare's point of view. He knew that she must have gone through some gross experiences with a man like Rivers, but they had left her singularly untouched.

But, while Northrup, believing himself shielded from the woman near him, permitted his imagination full play, Mary-Clare drew her own conclusions. She accepted Northrup without question as far as he personally was concerned. He was making her life rich and full, but he would soon pa.s.s; become a memory to brighten the cold, dark years ahead, just as the memory of the old doctor had done: would always do.

Desperately Mary-Clare clung to this thought, and reinforced by it referred constantly to her own position as if to convince Northrup of perfect understanding of their relations.

But the book! That was another matter. In that she felt she dared contemplate the real nature of Northrup. She believed he was unconsciously revealing himself, and with that keenness of perception that Northrup had detected, she threshed the false notes from the true and, while hesitating to express herself--for she was timid and naturally distrustful of herself--she was being prepared for an hour when her best would be demanded of her.

Silently Mary-Clare would sit and listen while Northrup read. Without explanation, the children had been eliminated and, if the day was too cool to sit by the trail side, they would walk side by side, the crushed leaves making a soft carpet for their feet; the falling leaves touching them gently as they were brushed from their slight holdings.

Mary-Clare had suddenly abandoned her rough boyish garb. She was sweet and womanly in her plain little gown--and a long coat whose high collar rose around her grave face. She wore no hat and the light and shade did marvellous things to her hair. There were times when Northrup could not take his eyes from that shining head.

"Why are you stopping?" Mary-Clare would ask at such lapses.

"My writing is diabolical!" Northrup lied.

"Oh! I'm sorry. The stops give me a jog. Go on."

And Northrup would go on!

Without fully being aware of it, until the thing was done, Mary-Clare got vividly into the story.

And Northrup was doing some good, some daring work. His man, born from his own doubts, aspirations, and cravings, was a live and often a blundering creature who could not be disregarded. He was safe enough, but it was the woman who now gave trouble.

Northrup saw, with fear and trembling, that he had drawn her, so he devoutly believed, so close to reality that he felt that Mary-Clare would discover her at once and resent the impertinence. But he need not have held any such thought. Mary-Clare was far too impersonal; far too absorbed a nature to be largely concerned with herself, and Northrup had failed absolutely in his deductions, as he was soon to learn.

What Mary-Clare did see in Northrup's heroine was a maddening possibility that he was letting slip through his fingers. At first this puzzled her; pained her. She was still timid about expressing her feeling. But so strong was Northrup's touch in most of his work that at last he drove his quiet, silent critic from her moorings. She asked that she might have a copy of a certain part of the book.

"I want to think it out with my woman-brain," she laughingly explained. "When you read right at this spot--well, you see, it doesn't seem clear. When I have thought it out alone, then I will tell you and be--oh! very bold."

And Northrup had complied.

He had blazed for himself, some time before, a roundabout trail through the briery underbrush from the inn to within a few hundred feet of the cabin. Often he watched from this hidden limit. He saw the smoke rise from the chimney; once or twice he caught a glimpse of Mary-Clare sitting at the rough table, and, after she had taken those chapters away, he knew they were being read there.

Alone, waiting, expecting he knew not what, Northrup became alarmingly aware that Mary-Clare had got a tremendous hold upon him. The knowledge was almost staggering. He had felt so sure; had risked so much.

He could not deceive himself any longer. Like other men, he had played with fire and had been burnt. "But," he devoutly thought, "thank G.o.d, I have started no conflagration."

CHAPTER XI

There had been five days in which to face a rather ugly and bald fact before Northrup again saw Mary-Clare. He had employed the time, he tried to make himself believe, wisely, sanely.

He had spent a good portion of it at the Point. He had irritated Larry beyond endurance by friendly overtures. In an effort to be just, he tried to include Rivers in his reconstruction. The truth, he sternly believed, would never be known, but if it were, certainly Rivers might have something to say for himself, and with humiliation Northrup regarded himself "as other men." He had never, thank heaven! looked upon himself as better than other men, but he had thought his struggle, early in life, his unhappy parenthood, and later devotion to his work, had set him apart from the general temptations of many young men and had given him a distaste for follies that could hold no suggestion of mystery for him.

Well, Fate had merely bided its time.

With every reason for escaping a pitfall, he had floundered in. "Like other men?" Northrup sneered at himself. No other man could be such a consummate fool, knowing what he knew.

Viewed from this position, Larry was not as contemptible as he had once appeared.

But Rivers resented Northrup's advances, putting the lowest interpretation upon them. In this he was upheld by Maclin, who was growing restive under the tension that did not break, but stretched endlessly on.

Northrup resolved to see Mary-Clare once more and then go home. He would make sure that the fire he himself was scorched by had not touched her. After that he would turn his back upon the golden selah in his life and return to his niche in the wall.

This brought his mother and Kathryn into the line of vision. How utterly he had betrayed their confidence! His whole life, from now on, should be devoted to their service. Doubtless to other men, like himself, there were women who were never forgotten, but that must not blot out reality.

And then Northrup considered the task of unearthing Maclin's secrets, and ridding the Forest of that subtle fear and distrust that the man created. That was, however, too big an undertaking now. He must get Twombley to watch and report. Northrup had a great respect for Twombley's powers of observation.