Robert Kimberly Part 60

Kimberly did not return home, as was expected, that night. At The Towers they had no definite word as to whether he would be out on the following day. Dolly called up the city office but could only leave a message for him. As a last resort she sent a note to The Towers, asking Robert to join them for the evening in welcoming Lottie. Her failure to receive an answer before the party sat down to dinner rather led Dolly to conclude that they should not see him and she felt no surprise when a note was handed her while the coffee was being served. She tore it open and read:

"DEAR DOLLY:

"I am just home and have your note. I am sorry not to be with you to-night to join in welcoming the Nelsons. I send all good wishes to the little company, but what I have now to tell you will explain my absence.

"I had already made an appointment before I learned of your arrangements for the evening. Father Pauly, the village clergyman, sleeps to-night at The Towers and I am expecting him as I write. He does not know of my intention, but before he leaves I shall ask him to receive me into the Roman Catholic Church.

"ROBERT."

Dolly handed the note to Arthur. He asked if he should read it aloud.

She nodded a.s.sent.

Fritzie, next morning, crossing the lake with flowers for Alice, was kneeling at her grave when Kimberly came up. She rose hastily but could not control herself and burst into tears. Kimberly took her hands as she came to him. "Dear Fritzie," he murmured, "_you_ haven't forgotten."

"I loved you both, Robert."

They walked down the hill together. Fritzie asked questions and Kimberly met her difficulties one after another. "What great difference does it make, Fritzie, whether I work here or elsewhere? I want a year, possibly longer, of seclusion--and no one will bother me at the Islands.

Meantime, in a year I shall be quite forgotten."

Charles Kimberly was waiting at The Towers for a conference. The brothers lunched together and spent the afternoon in the library. Dolly came over as they were parting. "Is it true, Robert," she asked piteously, "that you are going to Molokai?"

"Not for weeks yet, Dolly. Much remains to be arranged here."

"To the lepers?"

"Only for a year or two." He saw the suffering in her face and bent over her with affectionate humor. "I must go somewhere for a while, Dolly. You understand, don't you?"

She shook the tears from her long lashes. "You need not tell me.

Robert, you will never come back."

He laughed tenderly. "My heart is divided, Dolly. Part of it is here with you who love me; part of it, you know, is with her. If I come back, I shall find you here. If I do not come back, I shall find her THERE."

In a distant ocean and amid the vastness of a solitude of waters the winter sun shines warm upon a windward cliff. From the face of this gigantic shape, rising half a mile into the air, springs a tapestry of living green, prodigal with blossoms and overhanging at intervals a field of flowers.

On the heights of the crumbling peak the wild goat browses in cool and leafy groves. In its gra.s.sy chimneys rabbits crouch with listening ears, and on the sheer face of the precipice a squirrel halts upon a dizzy vine. Above its crest a seabird poises in a majesty of flight, and in the blue distance a ship sails into a cloudless sky. This is Molokai.

At the foot of the mountain the morning sun strikes upon a lowland, thrust like a tongue of fire into the cooling sea, and where the lava meets the wave, breakers beat restlessly.

On one sh.o.r.e of this lowland spit, and under the brow of the cliff, a handful of white cottages cl.u.s.ter. On the opposite sh.o.r.e lies a whitewashed hamlet brightened by tropical gardens and shaded with luxuriant trees; it is the leper port. Near the sea stands a chapel surmounted by a cross. Beyond it a larger and solitary cross marks a second village--the village of the leper dead.

An island steamer whistled one summer evening for the port, and a landing boat put out from the pier. It was the thirtieth of June.

Three pa.s.sengers made ready to disembark, two of them women, Sisters of St. Francis, who had offered themselves for the leper mission, and the third a man, a stranger, who followed them over the steamer's side and, rearranging their luggage, made a place for the two women in the stern of the weather-beaten craft.

It was the close of the day and the sun flowed in a glory of gold over the sea. On one edge of the far horizon a rain cloud drifted. In the east the moon was rising full and into a clear sky. A heavy swell lifted the boat from the steamer's side. The three pa.s.sengers steadied themselves as they rose on its crest, and the brown oarsmen, catching the sweep of the sea, headed for the long line of foam that crawled upon the blackened rocks.

On the distant beach a black-robed figure outlined against the evening sky watched with straining eyes the sweep of the dripping oars and with arm uplifted seemed to wait with beating heart upon their stroke for him who was coming. Along the sh.o.r.e, cripples hastening from the village crowded the sandy paths toward the pier. In the west, the steamer was putting out again upon its course, and between the two the little boat, a speck upon the waves, made its way stoutly through the heaving sea.

THE END