Joyce of the North Woods Part 54

Poor Dale could not comprehend in his new birth and life, that such women as Ruth Dale are Accomplished Achievements of heredity and ultra refinement. Generations ago Ruth's type had been perfected; she and others of her kind, were but repet.i.tions.

Her girlhood had been a brief pause before she had entered her fore-ordained womanhood--a mere waiting for the inevitable. Thus, Dale had _last_ beheld her--so his photograph of her had fixed her in his mind. He saw her now the same, outwardly, and the placidity of the oft-repeated type held her afar from his rugged place.

Dale himself had been tossed into the fire of temptation, in the rough.

He had fallen to the depths but to rise--a better and stronger man with the dross burned out. The strong, primitiveness of him was as alien to anything that was in Ruth as if the two had never seen each other before.

Like a man struggling with the recollections of a pre-incarnation, Dale sought to find a semblance of the old pa.s.sion and fire this woman had once roused in him. Not even a reflection of them could he summon. Had she entered his life two years before she might still have been able to fan the embers into flame among the ashes; now she was powerless! Love, a great overpowering love, a love having its roots in the life of the woods and primitive things--held the man for its own.

Looking into the deep eyes that once had pleaded with hers, Ruth Dale, sitting in the lonely shack, wondered why she could not cope with this critical situation. It grieved and perplexed her--but it did not daunt her. Sweet and retiring as she was, and _consciously_ self-forgetful as she believed herself, Ruth was what ages had made her. Had her subconscious self a.s.serted itself, it would have boldly proclaimed its absolute superiority over other women of such make as poor Joyce Lauzoon. Not merely in the other's shocking lack of moral sense--but in very essence.

John Dale had suffered--and had tried, in weak man-fashion, to solace himself. The world had helped to train Ruth Dale. While not admitting that there should be any palliation for the double code--or even the appearance of it--such women as she recognized it, and were able, under sufficiently convincing circ.u.mstances, to deal with it. There were reasons, heaven knew, why she, Ruth Dale, should be lenient with this silent man across the hearth. The white-souled innocence in her thanked G.o.d, in this brief silence, that the man was _not_ as evil as many a man, under the circ.u.mstances, might have been. She believed Joyce's statement. It was wonderful, it was most weirdly romantic--and it could be overlooked!

It would have been absolutely impossible for Ruth Dale to conceive that John Dale had so far outgrown her in the great human essentials of life, that he had no further need of her. The life of which she was a part, the life of which she was, she and her detached kind, the shining centre, had not enough vitality to hold this man of nature to it. But the pause was growing painful.

"John--I have come to tell you all."

He overleaped the poor past, and in his hunger to know of her part in the present, said eagerly:

"Ruth, I am waiting to hear. I might have known you would come."

Then, to his surprise, the pretty sleek head was bent upon the arm of the chair, and Ruth Dale wept, as the man opposite had forgotten women _could_ weep. The sobs shook the slender form until pity for her moved him to touch and soothe her; while the savage in him held him back.

Somehow, in a rough way, it seemed retribution. He was glad she could suffer. But presently the flood ceased, Ruth looked up, tear-dimmed and quivering. The torrent had borne away much sentiment; she was able to face reality.

She told of Philip's dying confession. She delicately and graphically told of the broken life--after he, John, had pa.s.sed out of it--and they, who remained, bravely wound the tangled ends into a n.o.ble whole.

Dale followed her words as if the story were of another--and of a life he had never shared.

"Philip wanted you to have all--everything--of which his weakness had deprived you!"

Dale started.

"Oh! Yes," he said vaguely; "I see. Well, I can understand that. But Ruth--not even G.o.d could accomplish that miracle. In all such cases it has to be what a man himself can get out of the wreck. It has to be _other_ things. New things--or he is--d.a.m.ned."

It was the word more than the thought that caused the shudder in the crouching woman.

"You have never forgiven us," she whispered.

"Yes, I have, Ruth. When I got to a place, cleansed by suffering, where I could forgive myself--everything else was easy."

"Oh! John, why could you not have trusted me with your--your brave secret?"

Why, indeed? John Dale could not have told; he only knew he had never paused to consider when it came to telling Joyce Lauzoon. The thought gripped him hard.

"It had to be, Ruth, I imagine. All the ugly factors had to be taken into consideration when the plan for re-making Phil and me was designed."

A grim smile touched the corners of the stern mouth.

"He left his fortune to you!"

"I cannot take it." Dale raised one hand as if pushing aside an insulting offering.

"John--I have my share--and my father's money. Think! Philip meant that you should prove your forgiveness by--finishing his work. I never saw greater anguish than in his desire. Can you, dare you, refuse?"

A mist rose in Dale's eyes. Ruth saw it, and it gave her courage.

Strangely enough, now that she groped toward this new man she saw before her, her aversion to the man she once knew was lost sight of. A dim fear arose that her sacrifice might escape him and her. Not through any unwillingness on their parts, but through a misunderstanding. She bravely strove to down the menace.

"John--I came to this house a few days ago to help a weak, erring woman, if I could. That is all I knew. Almost at once she made me see the strange thing that had happened here through the goodness of a strong man, and the simplicity of--a weak, but loving woman.

"All unknowingly I yearned to help her--save her, but she wanted to save herself more than I understood at first. She was so brave and direct; once she saw where her weakness had placed her and the man she loved, she was strong in her determination to right the wrong. For her, poor soul, there was but one way--she returned to her husband!

"John--_she_ told me who you were. In some way she knew who I was. I was so distressed and surprised at the time that I did not question how she knew me--but she did and"--Ruth could not bring herself to say, "she gave you back to me."

"John--let the cruel, cruel past be forgotten. Come back to your own.

The world will see you righted. John, say that it shall be as I--as Philip--desire."

She looked like a spirit as she bent toward him full of compa.s.sion, of entreaty, and the kinship with that which she believed was still in him, and only waiting for her to call to action.

The minutes pa.s.sed--her call brought forth no rush of checked emotion and controlled pa.s.sion.

Dale looked at her coldly. He was far too simple a man, intrinsically, to gather the true, inward drift of her thought. He was now seeking to understand the change that had overcome him. She, the girl of his Past who had held his love, hope and desire; she no longer moved him except in wonder and aversion. But he felt that it was due her that he should meet her as far as possible on this new way they were travelling. He shifted his position. He knew something more was expected of him than he could give; but he must give as he could.

"Ruth," he began, and, because his inclination was to move away, he purposely drew nearer; "I am sure you meant nothing but kindness in coming to Joyce Lauzoon; I can see that you mean only great good to me--but you cannot understand. You haven't even touched upon the truth.

I suppose some people are born complete in the little; they only have to develop. Others are--well--thrown together, and they cannot a.s.sume form and shape until by blows and chiselling they come through the machine--moulded. You have always been good and true; what you knew of me, long ago, died and was thrown aside; what little survived, was nourished apart from, and upon a life you have no conception of. I think only lately have I realized this myself. I'm a bigger and a smaller man than you knew, Ruth; I'm stronger and weaker; better and worse," his hand clenched over the arm of her chair, and her eyes dilated. She was frightened. She felt his blood rising and she shrank back. It was horrible to be there--with him alone!

"You cannot understand, but that old life seems to me now to be--used up, colourless and flabby. The people seem small and--all alike. This life--is big, free and--in the making. There are souls here that are only touched by sins that have drifted to them--they are possible of great things. They are new and keen, and they ring true when you strike them. The woman who left this house--the other day," Dale's words came hard and quick, "is the most glorious creature that ever lived. The life back there could not produce her. Strong, tender, and love itself! Not for one instant did she pause when she knew who and what I was--she loved--that was enough! G.o.d! how she loved. You--and women like you, Ruth, might lead the men you love toward heaven; she would go her way alone to perdition to add to the happiness of the man she loved. But it would be alone, mind you.

"She's gone back to such a man as your books, even, forbear to portray.

Jude is one of the creatures up here who was born without a soul. She's gone to him to save me, as she thought--but she'll live alone, alone as long as she lives at all.

"So you see what trouble comes from such civilization as yours grafted on to the primitive pa.s.sions of the backwoods."

"John!"

There was no fear in Ruth Dale now, only a horrible conviction that John Dale, the man she had come to reclaim and give back to his own, would have none of her!

"John! John!" So he had sunk so low.

"Do you know where she is?" Dale looked at his companion without noting her pallid astonishment.

"No; I do not."

"Then--and you will let me see you back to Drew's? I must go and find her. She shall have the truth, the whole truth, by G.o.d! to cool the fires of that h.e.l.l she has been thrust into."

Ruth covered her face with her trembling hands. Never before had she been so near the bare, throbbing heart of things.

Oh! from what had she been saved? And yet--he was standing above her and he was superb in his strength and power. He was holding her cloak for her; helping to rid himself of her. The old half-dead, but vital call of the aboriginal woman rose in her, then ebbed away at birth in a feeble flickering jealousy.