Claire Part 42

"I--sorrow--why?" She stared at him wonderingly.

He looked surprised, then understood. Claire listened silently to his brief, sincere sympathy as he told her how her husband had died during the winter of pneumonia.

"It has been nearly six months now," he finished, "and, of course, I am very sorry for you. If I can do anything to help you, don't hesitate to call on me, please."

"Thank you. I--I won't."

She heard her own voice change. Stifled, she fled up-stairs.

Her grief was sincere, unshaded by any selfish thought that it made her own course easier or more justifiable in the eyes of society. To her, Howard Barkley's death changed nothing save that the man whom she had once loved sincerely was now no more.

But the living remained, and to the call of the living her life was henceforth joyfully dedicated.

(The end.)

[Transcriber's Note: The following typographical errors present in the original edition have been corrected.]

In Chapter V, "tenements she had visted in her charity work" was changed to "tenements she had visited in her charity work".

In Chapter VII, a missing quotation mark was added after "What, indeed, is moral law?"

In Chapter IX, "disdiscover what she was" was changed to "discover what she was".

In Chapter X, "Disliking him as he did" was changed to "Disliking him as she did".

In Chapter XI, "as abnormal as her depondency had been before" was changed to "as abnormal as her despondency had been before".

In Chapter XVIII, "I promise to an emotionless judge" was changed to "I promise to be an emotionless judge", and "harded and harder to wait" was changed to "harder and harder to wait".

In Chapter XX, "clearly defined discusion" was changed to "clearly defined discussion", and "the overwelming appreciation of beauty in nature" was changed to "the overwhelming appreciation of beauty in nature".

[Transcriber's Note: The following summary originally appeared at the beginning of the serial's second installment.]

PRECEDING CHAPTERS BRIEFLY RETOLD

When the City of Panama foundered off the coast of Chile, Lawrence Gordon suddenly realized he had been left, in the frenzy of the disaster, alone on the deck.

Then, before he had fully recovered from the lash of the wind and the violence of the waves, he was swept overboard and into the seething maelstrom of an angry sea.

As he came up from the depths he struck a heavy timber, and with the strength of desperation he dragged his weight up on it and clung fast.

"Land may be in sight," was his thought, "and I shall never know!"

Lawrence Gordon was blind.

Hours had pa.s.sed. The wind-lashed water beat him as he lay on the timber. Fear and the cold drove him to rave at life and death alike.

Finally, over the roar of the wind, he caught the tumbling of breakers.

His plank was spun round, the swell lifted him from his position, and the next breaker rolled him past the water-line.

Once with the feel of the sand beneath his feet he ran until a rock caught him above the knees and sent him headlong.

When he regained consciousness he returned to the water to hunt for clams. As he came ash.o.r.e again he tripped over an object that on investigation proved a woman.

Claire Barkley answered to his ministrations, and recognized the blind man she had observed on the boat. She could furnish the eyes for an investigation of their situation inland, but her ankle had been sprained in the wreck and she was unable to walk.

When months after, just as they had reached the limit of human endurance--what with hunger, the cold, and privation--they stumbled into the cabin of Philip Ortez. The Spanish mountaineer declared it no less than a miracle that a blind man should have carried a woman in his arms half across the Andes--from the coast to the borders of Bolivia.

Then they settled down to spend the winter in Philip's cabin. And now the latent antagonism of the woman, who was so curiously stirred by the apparent coldness of this blind sculptor to her charm, began to plan the man's punishment.

[Transcriber's Note: The following summary originally appeared at the beginning of the serial's third installment. The summary at the beginning of the serial's fourth installment, if one was present, was not available when preparing this electronic edition.]

PRECEDING CHAPTERS BRIEFLY RETOLD

When Lawrence Gordon, numb with cold and hunger, after weeks of weary wandering through the mountains in a desperate effort to find a habitation, came in sight of the mountaineer's little cabin, he dropped the woman from his breaking arms and fell, exhausted and unconscious, in the snow.

Flung into the sea when the ship foundered, he had eventually found his way to the beach, and here he stumbled on the unconscious form of Claire Barkley.

Mrs. Barkley's ankle had been sprained in the wreck and she was unable to walk. The man was strong, dominant, and unafraid; but he was blind.

Carrying the woman in his arms the blind man had stumbled half across the Andes, for the boat was wrecked off the coast of Chile, and Philip Ortez, whose cabin they had reached, declared they were on the borders of Bolivia, about two hundred miles from the nearest railroad station.

This Spanish scholar, gentleman, and recluse readily welcomed two such promising guests for the winter. A charming woman of twenty-six, with a mind as well as emotions, and a man not much older, who was both a philosopher and an artist, promised no end of diversion for the winter.

And diversion, not to say, drama, came--the eternal triangle.

Lawrence was slow in admitting his love for Claire, even to himself. And Claire, who was affronted by the seeming cold and calculating indifference of this big, blind G.o.d, suddenly realized his apparent coldness held the very heart of pa.s.sion itself.

In the playful scramble of a snow-fight before the cabin, Lawrence had taken her by the waist to wash her face with snow, and the contact of her tightly held body betrayed the tensity of the man's feeling. Claire broke from his grasp to look into the eyes of Philip, who had stood in the doorway to watch the fun. In the eyes of the Spaniard she detected the emotion she felt in the touch of the blind sculptor.

The next day, to relieve the suppressed pa.s.sion in her own as well as Lawrence's soul, she proposed to go with Philip, as she sometimes did, when he went out to spend the day with his traps.

On the return journey, when the conversation was fast drifting into the personal, Philip, carried off his feet by the nearness of the woman and the madness in his blood, s.n.a.t.c.hed Claire up in his arms and covered her full lips with his kisses.

The indignant woman brought him to an abject apology after his wild confession of love, and entered into a compact of friendship with him.

Reaching the cabin, the blind man, whose acute soul and senses had long told him of Philip's pa.s.sion, held out the finished carving he had been at work on all these weeks--a winged cherub.

In his eyes it was the symbol of his love for her. But her words of acceptance made him think in her eyes it was rather a symbol of her love for the mountaineer.