Joyce of the North Woods Part 40

"And Billy, there's another thing. I want you to go to Gaston's shack; tote water and wood for Joyce--and keep your mouth shut. And lay this by in your const.i.tution. Gaston is a man so far above anything G.o.d ever created round here, that you can't understand him, but you _can_ try to chase off the dirty insects that want to sting him. Catch on?"

"Yes"; murmured Billy, while unfulfilled duty clutched his vitals with remorse.

"I'm--I'm going up to Gaston's to-morrow," he said.

"And now, you old rip," Filmer shook off his strange mood, "walk up to a fellow's bunk with him. It's good to keep clean company when you can--and for as long as you can."

"Shall--shall I stay all night with you?"

Billy asked this doubtfully from the new instinct that was stirring within him. For an instant a gleam of pleasure lighted Filmer's face. It almost seemed like a yearning, then he said roughly:

"No, get home! You're afraid? If you are I'll turn back."

"What you take me for?" Billy sniffed scornfully, and then they parted company.

It was just when the hands of the clock in Drew's study pointed to half-past twelve, that the young master, sitting before the glowing logs, bestirred himself preparatory to turning in for the night.

A satisfied feeling had kept him up after the others had bade good night. He always enjoyed the anticlimax of pleasure, and the day had been a happy one.

He felt well. The companionship of the widowed wife of his closest friend, added interest to the new life in the woods. She had brought news and had awakened memories, but she had timed the Past and the Present to perfect measure. At last he could hope that the old wound was healed and that he could live among his people--his people! the thought thrilled him--with purpose and content. The rough men and women about him were drawing closer. He knew it in the innermost places of his heart. He was brightening their lives. He was holding their children for them, and opening a way for them to seek higher paths. It would all come out as he desired. It was a splendid field of work that had been given him--and he had rebelled so in his ignorance!

How he wished that Philip Dale could have lived to see and know. Of all the men whom he had known, Dale was the one man who could have comprehended this opening for service. What a n.o.ble fellow he had been!

How his personality and charm struck one at the first glance. He had been one of those men who claimed friends as they came his way, without pledge of time or intimacy. He knew what was his own in life, and gripped it without question or explanation. He had been the first to understand Drew's ambition, so different from the ones of the social set in which they both moved.

"You'll always find me at your elbow, Drew," he had said, "in any scheme you start." But when the time came--Dale had slipped out of life as bravely and cheerfully as he had always lived. "And he had his own deep trouble," Drew mused as he prepared to bank the fire; "he never talked about it; but it made him what he was. One must go through some sort of fire to be of real service."

A light tap on the door startled him. He had been, in thought, far, far from St. Ange.

"Come!"

The door opened slowly and Ruth Dale entered.

She was all in white--a soft, long, trailing gown. Her hair had been loosened from the coronet, and fell in two shining braids over her shoulders. She looked very girlish as she came to the fire and dropped into a deep chair.

"Please put on more logs," she said softly. "Father Confessor, I've come to confess." There was something under the playfulness that touched Drew. "I told Connie that I wanted to talk to you about a plan of mine; well, so it is, but I want you to put the stamp of your sage approval upon it."

Drew shook his head.

"Hardly that," he said with a laugh, "but I'm willing to plot with you."

"I always think of you now," Ruth Dale continued, leaning toward the crackling logs, and holding her little benumbed hands open to the heat, "as 'the man who lives in his house by the side of the road, and is a friend to man'. Ralph, I need a friend! I must have one or I shall fail in that which I have set myself to do."

There was no lightness in the woman's manner now. She looked tragic; almost desperate.

Ralph Drew waited for her to go on. He was prepared to follow, but he could not lead.

Her youthfulness of appearance struck him now as it often had before; but the worn look in the eyes emphasized it to-night.

"You look tired, Ruth," he said kindly; "won't to-morrow--or"--for he saw it was well on toward one o'clock--"later in the day do?"

"Unless you are too weary to bide with me one little hour?" she replied wistfully; "it had better be now."

"You know what an owl I am, Ruth. With returning health my old habits seem to gain strength. I sleep more satisfactorily if I do it after midnight." He settled back comfortably in his chair, and the fire, encouraged by several small logs, rose to the occasion.

"I've been thinking about--Philip to-night."

"Poor girl. It was a year ago! To remember Phil best, we should be cheerful, but the subconscious sadness ran through all the evening's fun for you--and me, Ruth."

"Yes. Ralph, you only knew Phil a few years--never before he was married?"

"No, but he was one of those men who do not belong to time limit nor letters of introduction. His own knew him at a glance. There was no time to be lost with Phil. I've often noticed that faculty for deep and ready friendship among people who are here for only a short life. Others can afford to weigh and consider; they must garner quickly, and the Master seems to have equipped them."

"Ralph, was Phil a man that you felt you knew, really knew, I mean?"

"Yes; as to essentials. I never saw any one so positive as to the high lights. Honesty, truth, good faith, and a broad humanity. I always knew he had trouble that he did not talk about; he hinted that much to me once or twice, but the silence regarding it only intensified his own personality, of which he gave lavishly."

The woman bending toward the fire, shivered, and as her head sank lower, one shining braid of hair dropped forward, shielding her face.

"Ralph--I sometimes think the thing I have to do is the--hardest that ever woman had to do." The words were uttered with a moan that drove Drew into a silence more eloquent than any question he could have put.

He realized that the woman beside him must tread the rough path of confession alone, and as she could. In his heart he prayed for strength to be beside her when all was done.

"If ever a sin saved, Philip's sin saved him, and yet he counted it as nothing at the last. He bade me do for him what he could not do for himself--I have never been able to begin until--to-night. He said--he had no right to friends nor the trust and favour of love. But he never was able to renounce them; I must strike them down one by one--now he is gone.

"I must do as he would have me do--I see the justice, if the end is to be obtained, but thank G.o.d, I, who loved him--can still love him--and he has been dead a year!"

The pain-racked eyes looked straight into Drew's with a sort of challenge. But Drew was too sincere a man to give, even to friendship, a blind comfort and a.s.surance. He merely smiled at the troubled glance, and said quietly:

"I am sure where you loved, there was much to love."

"Yes; yes; that is true; and I begin to think the n.o.bility of it all lay in his unconsciousness of the splendid character he builded so patiently and laboriously out of all the wreck.

"Philip had a brother, Ralph! His name was never spoken. He was two years older than Philip, and as different as it was possible for a brother to be.

"John was all strength and concentration; Philip all brightness and charm--in the beginning! Their mother adored Philip; she never understood John, and yet he was a good son, brave and faithful. But he could not show his nature--it lay so far below the surface. It was always easy for Philip. His charm attracted nearly everyone. My father always liked John better. He said there was splendid power in him, and--I must keep nothing from you, Ralph--I loved John--loved him, oh!

how I loved him. I pitied him because he could not win what should have been his--I loved him for myself, and for all the others who were too dull to realize his worth. It was like mother love and all the rest, in one."

"Yes; the most G.o.d-like love of all. Only women know it, I fancy," Drew murmured.

"And then"; the agonized eyes seemed to plead even while they confessed, "then the awful thing happened. John took--he stole many thousands of dollars from men who trusted and honoured him."

"Ruth!"

"I could never have believed it, but he told me so himself. To the day of his death my father believed the half had never been told, but how could I think that, when John told me himself that he was guilty? Father was a judge--he was to have been the judge before whom John Dale was tried, but they relieved him of that horrible duty. John Dale was sentenced to five years--in prison! They said it was a light sentence."

"My G.o.d! Poor Phil! How terrible for you all!"