Only an Episode

IN TWO PARTS. PART TWO.

THE blackbirds sang on in the lowlands by the lake, and the fields were flushed with the yellow dawn of California poppies. Great and glorious distances, that were brimful of sunlight, led the eye away to where shadowy mountains assembled on an unbelievably remote horizon. But to Nora these things were nothing.

“All this is mine, and it is spring, and it is nothing, ” she said to herself, and looked at the world with desperate pain in her eyes.

It had been decreed that Larrie should stand aside in life, while others lived, and he had learned to play the part of an observer with some humor and much philosophy. But with ordinary beings humor and philosophy are chiefly to be relied upon when least required, and in this hour of need he found his comforters useless. John was foolish and reckless ; but his friend saw nothing humorous in his condition, neither could he wring philosophy from the contemplation of his probable future. And once or twice he surprised a look in Nora’s eyes that made him think of some wild, miserable thing caught when off its guard. It might be possible to smile at a man who will wreck a life to fill an hour, but it would be impossible to smile at this particular look in Nora’s eyes.

One day John received a letter. He found it at the post office, on his weekly visit to the nearest town, and held it as though it contained an explosive.

Larrie remarked that John had not received a letter since coming to the ranch, and John, climbing into the cart, said that he was sorry to receive one now. But when he had read it, he laughed and crushed it into his pocket. Being a man Larrie asked no questions; being human he was curious, and fortunately for his humanity, John, after pulling reflectively at his pipe for some moments, volunteered the information that, though he might not look it, he, John, was a rich man.

He proceeded to explain that on leaving Colorado, where he had worked six months in a gold mine, part of his wages had been confided to a friend, with instructions to invest them. The friend had shown business tact, and the result was a small fortune.

“ He only got on my track through that Eastern friend of yours who was here last year,” added John; “for I never sent him my address, partly because I supposed the money to be lost. Now that it is found, and in a somewhat inflated condition, what the dickens am I to do with it ? ”

“ Why not come into partnership with me? ” suggested Larrie.

But John shook his head gravely. “That could never be, ” he said. “ But thanks, awfully, just the same; and I don’t pretend to say that wouldn’t be one of the few things that could make living more worth while.”

“What’s the objection, then? ”

“Your name mustn’t stand beside mine, and it might some day turn out that I was not drowned.”

“I will risk the chance and the consequences, ” said Larrie.

John was silent.

“We ’ve both made a big miss, ” continued Larrie, “and the best that’s left is n’t good enough to be overcareful of. Think it over.”

“I cannot even think it over,” said John; and the drive home was accomplished in silence, broken only by the remark on Larrie’s part that the weather was going to change.

At the ranch nothing was said of John’s money.

That evening he took Evelyn on the lake as usual, and as usual Nora, from her seat on the piazza step, watched them go. When Larrie drew near she lowered her eyes, suddenly conscious that he must not see them.

“It is n’t like you to sit with your hands idle so much,” he remarked. “Evelyn says you sit so for hours.”

“I am thinking,” said Nora, “and resting. ”

“Yet you look more tired every day. At first there was something vivid and electric about you; but while I was away you lost it, and now you look almost ill. I don’t like the life you lead. You ought to marry.”

The eyes that met his were haggard in the twilight. “ I shall never marry, ” she said.

“And yet there are few women who could bring a man the wit and tenderness and power that you could bring.”

“I know, I know,” she whispered a little wildly. Then she rose, with a sudden change of manner. “ While we are talking, I am forgetting to boil the coffee, ” she said, and went into the house.

The next day Larrie’s prophecy was fulfilled, and the weather changed. The air was full of wind and rain and scudding mist, and the cold was of the damp, dreary nature that denies exhilaration and defies protection. By the combined efforts of John and Nora Larrie was kept in the house, and John went out alone into the storm. Evelyn, seated by the window, watched him go, and her work lay untouched on her knees.

“Your hands are as idle as mine,” said Nora, who was watching her.

“It is different with me,” answered Evelyn softly. “I was thinking.”

“So have I been thinking.”

“And dreaming.”

“And I also have been dreaming.”

“You?” The blue eyes turned to Nora wonderingly. “What can you have been dreaming of ? ”

Nora looked at her silently and strangely before she spoke again. Then she mentioned the weather. “It is a bad storm,” she said, “and Larrie thinks it may last several days. We shall have to put off our journey till it clears.”

“Our journey?” repeated Evelyn vaguely.

“Our journey home.”

Evelyn raised a startled face. “Oh, but I cannot go home now.”

“I am afraid that you must,” answered Nora.

“I cannot! I cannot!” she insisted.

“Why not? ”

“ Because ” — Her breath caught, and the blood came and went swiftly in her face. By a sudden birth of feeling she was bewildered and frightened, as some lost creature.

Nora stood and watched her remorselessly. “And if he is guilty?” she said. “If he is guilty? ”

Evelyn shivered. “How can you say such things?” she cried. “How can you be so suspicious ? I trust him. I know that he is innocent.”

“ How do you know ? ”

“Because he is a good man.”

“Child! do you think no good man ever sinned ? Do you think ” — Nora turned abruptly, and the sentence remained unfinished.

During that long day she found herself face to face with the moment for fearless thinking and swift action. Evelyn loved John, — loved his poverty, his unhappiness, his strength, his worship of her — For a breathless instant Nora drew back her thought, but it was only for an instant. Evelyn was his shrine, the serenity above his storm, the purity above his passion. For him she held the divine mystery of the unattainable, and to her he could bring only his highest thought: for which reasons he worshiped her, and loved as men love only where they worship, also.

Nora told Larrie these things, with an odd monotony of voice and manner; and as there were certain matters in which he was wise, with wisdom beyond his condition and sex, he showed as little surprise as he felt, nor did he make the usual masculine protest against sudden change of action when unjustified by anything but feminine intuition.

“I must take Evelyn away to-morrow,” said Nora. “I am only sorry that we cannot go to-day.”

Larrie acquiesced by a silence, in which was heard only the dreary insistence of falling rain.

“Why do you say that she is in love with his poverty, his strength, his devotion ? ” he questioned at last. “ Don’t you consider that by any chance she is in love with himself? ”

“She is in love with the setting rather than the man, with his attributes rather than his qualities.”

“Your expression is rather involved, but I think I follow your idea. So you go away to-morrow ? ”

Nora assented. But before the morrow came the world had changed.

There are women who have outgrown feminine weaknesses ; who can be relied on in times of emergency; who do not faint at the sight of blood, or shrink from knowledge, or fear sin. But since the beginning of the world men have loved the ones who cling and tremble, who fear pain, and need help on the rough places. Therefore it was natural that Nora, and not Evelyn, should be in demand when the Chinaman, with much gesture and excitement, brought news of the escape of a sick bull, the goring of one of the horses, and the wounding of John. It was also natural that John should think of Evelyn while Nora knelt beside him, in the big barn, and bandaged his arm.

“No one must frighten her about it, ” he said sternly, resenting a possible annoyance that the unfeeling might inflict upon Evelyn. Then his face changed, and Nora, with her fingers on the bandage, looked up at him once or twice. She had seen this new look on his face grow and deepen during the past week. The bitterly won hardness of the past years was breaking like ice in the spring, and the strength that had been turned to repress and endure was suddenly transformed to tenderness. The hour of strife was not yet, and love was as a streaming glory in his life.

“You must be quiet for just a moment; this is a bad place,” Nora’s touch on the wounded arm was swift and sure, and divinely tender. There seemed to be power of healing in her finger tips.

“How did you learn it?” John asked wonderingly. “I mean this way of handling a wound.”

“I learned from those who needed it,” she answered, without raising her head; and he looked down at her with new understanding, born of his new birth.

When the last pin was in the bandage, he rose and looked through a notch in the barn door.

“Do you see the bull? ” she asked.

“Unhappily, he is now at large.”

“I am not afraid to go back.”

“It is n’t a question of being afraid, ” he answered. “The point is merely whether or not you care to risk being killed.”

His eye was yet at the hole, when he gave a great cry and flung the door wide, as Evelyn, panting and trembling, fell into his arms. She lay there helpless as a frightened bird, sobbing and clinging to him.

“I thought that you were killed! They told me you were killed! ” she cried.

John, motionless and silent, still held her.

“ But you are hurt! ” she continued, seeing the bandaged arm. “You are hurt! Is it dangerous ? Oh, tell me what has happened!”

For one instant John bent his head over her, and his strong face worked pitifully. Then he straightened himself and put her from him.

“ It is nothing, ” he said quietly, and pulled the shirt sleeve over his arm that she might not be troubled by the red stain. “It is nothing,” and he turned from her.

“What have I done? What have I done ? ” he whispered.

Evelyn crept up behind him. “You are in great pain, ” she said, sobbing, “and you will not tell me.”

It was then that Nora pushed back the barn door and slipped silently out into the storm. Larrie ran from the house to meet her.

“You were a fool to risk your life in that field! ” he cried. “Why did you do it? You ought to be ” —

“Come in out of the rain; you will take cold,” said Nora. “Evelyn and John are in the barn. She had an idea that he had been killed, and she went down — forgetting the bull. When she saw him, she — They are there now, ” she repeated, “ and I thought that I had better come away.”

Larrie’s eyes questioned and Nora’s answered, after which they entered the house in silence.

Nora’s face seemed paler than ever, and the dark eyes were heavy with a deadly weariness, but she did not forget to hold Larrie’s coat to the fire.

“ What are you going to do about the bull ? ” she asked.

“He must be shot. Do you think that you will go to-morrow ? ”

Nora answered nothing, while Larrie suddenly remembered John’s money and the possible significance of it.

Down in the twilight of the old barn, where the hay was piled to shadowy eaves and the dust lay peacefully on plough and axe, John sat with his head bowed over Evelyn’s hands.

“Sweetheart,” he said slowly, — “sweetheart.” The deep-spoken word trembled with its weight of feeling, and then there was silence save for the falling of rain on the roof.

“ You say that you know, ” the broken voice went on, — “that you know, and that you love me! ”

Evelyn trembled a little. “You must never ask me how I knew, ” she said. “The one thing I am afraid of in the world is that you will find it out.”

“Are you sure that you know it all ? ”

“Yes, yes. But you must never question me about it, never speak of it. It is the one thing I ask.”

“You have only to ask,” he said. Then he raised his head and lifted his eyes to her face. The look of the eyes awed.

“You know — and you love me.” His voice was hushed and full of wonder, and his manner strangely still. It was as if he stood in a holy place.

“ Do you know what this means ? ” he asked her.

“Why, yes,” she answered.

“ Can you be happy at the other side of the world ? ”

“Yes, with you.” The last words fluttered timidly on the edge of a deepdrawn breath.

“And you know that I am a hunted man ? ”

“You will be safe in the new country.”

“That I should be in prison as a criminal? ”

“Hush! hush! Why will you speak of these things ? I have said that I know, and you have promised never to ask me how I know.” Her lips were tremulous and appealing. “Let us be happy and forget. And — and you must be very good to me, because I have only you in all the world. I have no home since papa died, and it is so lonely in New York, because Nora does not love me. I wonder why she does not love me ? ”

He could not answer. In this first wonderful hour his joy was solemn and touched with awe, so completely had thought or hope of happiness been banished from his life.

In the dim light her hair was as a silver nimbus about her face. John put out his rough hand and touched it, timidly, for his strength made him afraid with her.

“ Do you like it ? ” she asked.

“Like it?”

“I mean my hair.”

“It is wonderful,” he said gravely, and Evelyn laughed.

“I wish that you would smile,” she said. “I like you when you smile.”

And John smiled, obediently.

It was part of the eternal juxtaposition of great and little things, of the sublime and the trivial, that a bull must be shot and umbrellas must be brought before John and Evelyn, who were spelling immortal words in the barn, could be brought back to human beings and the mundane necessity of tea. It was little that they thought of the bull or the supper; but hours are inexorable, even to those who are realizing eternity. Dusk stole into the barn, and shadows, growing bold, came from the corners to envelop the lovers till they could not see each other’s eyes.

Reluctantly they opened the great door, and by the light from the darkening west made use of the waterproofs that Nora had sent down an hour ago,— or was it a moment, or a year? John winced as he swung the door back on its hinges, and Evelyn put her hand out to him.

“Ah, you have hurt your arm! ” she cried pityingly. “You must not use it; you must let me do for you now.”

He laughed and held the hand. “ This rose leaf on that rough door! ” he said. “You must not think of my arm. I could move the world with it to-night. What shall I do for you, sweetheart? Swing an ocean aside ? or unhook a star or two and hang it in your bedroom ? ”

That evening it was Evelyn who made the explanations and discussed the plans, while John, in worshiping silence, sat on the floor, near her. Larrie had wrung his friend’s hand when he told him the news, and finding himself — by reason of a certain look on John’s face

— unable to speak the few words that were in his heart, had clapped him forcibly on the back before turning to kiss Evelyn. Nora looked at John with enigmatic eyes.

“So you are to drink ' of Life’s great cup of wonder, ’ after all ? ” she said, and John’s eyes gave back a deep assent.

When removed from her lover’s presence, Evelyn was perfectly serene, and appeared to have slight need of the overeager sympathy and friendly confidences that are given and taken at these times. That night, as she was brushing her hair tranquilly, she looked up to meet Nora’s eyes in the glass.

“What is it ? ” she asked, unaccountably startled.

“ Are you sure that you love him ? ”

“Why, Nora! ”

With a swift movement Nora knelt beside her, and took the delicate face between her hands. “Do you love him ? ” she repeated, with odd stillness.

“Nora, you frighten me! Let me go!”

“Would you love him if he were a guilty man? Look at me. Would you love him if you found that he had sinned ? ”

The brush fell to the floor. “Nora” —

“ Answer me. ” The dark eyes looked into the blue, holding them terrified and unwilling captives.

“I cannot while you look at me so

— you frighten me — you ” —

“Child! child! ” cried Nora bitterly, as she rose and turned away.

Evelyn sobbed with fear and indignation. “You have no right to speak so,” she said. “I could not love him if I did not trust him.”

Nora walked to and fro in the shadow of the room. She did not speak, and Evelyn gained courage.

“It is wicked of you to try to make me doubt him,” she continued.

Nora was silent.

“It is an insult to doubt him.”

Still was Nora silent.

“But I love him too well.”

“One might love him well enough to doubt, and love on,” said Nora from the shadow.

“And that would not be love.” The blue eyes were very serious, and the tears were dry. “That would not be love.”

Then Nora spoke with swift passion. “I thank God that I could love well enough to dare to doubt! ” she said.

The next day was born fresh and glorious out of a stormy night, and before the sun rode high Evelyn and John were out and away over the hills and pastures. Nora was walking to and fro on the slope in front of the house when Larrie joined her.

“You have been walking here pretty much all the morning, ” he remarked. “When a man or a woman walks ten miles or so on a space no larger than a farm lawn, it is safe to conclude that something is wrong.”

She put her hand to her head. “It’s the call of the mourning dove, ” she said. “It is driving me wild. I have tried to escape it I have been off over the pastures and up among the hills, but I heard it just the same. I think I must be nervous.” She laughed slightly. “Let us go into the house,” she added.

Larrie was looking at her with questioning gravity, but she did not notice him. “ Where are Evelyn and John ? ” she asked.

“Out,” he answered. “Heaven knows where. It is very pretty to see her cut up his food and do a hundred little things for him that she likes to think he cannot do for himself without hurting his arm. She seems very much in love with him, don’t you think so? ”

“Love is a wonderful thing,” said Nora.

“That sounds like the beginning of a disquisition,” interrupted Larrie. “Love is a wonderful thing. It is as the wind, for no man may prophesy the coming or the going thereof. Please continue. ”

Nora was unsmiling. “I only mean that even a little love is electric enough to change a world,” she said.

“But the child forgot about the bull when she heard that John was hurt. Oh, I think she loves him all right. And he loves her enough, God knows.”

Larrie had dropped his tone of banter, and Nora, looking into his face, realized how weary he was, and how sad. She put her hand on his arm.

“Poor boy,” she said softly.

“It knocks me up, rather,” he admitted. “He must take her out of the country, and I shall be alone. But I shall get used to it. I always get used to things, you know.”

He smiled down at her, and she met the smile with a look of passionate wistfulness. “I am beginning to think that you only pretend to get used to them, ” she said.

“Perhaps I do ; and perhaps some day I shall cease pretending, and go home to be happy for a year or two — and die.”

“No, Larrie.”

He sighed impatiently. “No, I suppose I shall be miserable here for many years — and live. It would be interesting, merely on theoretical grounds, to know why a man should believe in his conscience, obey the call of a duty that his reason does not justify, and trust in a Being whom his senses cannot perceive nor his mind grasp.”

During the next few days John seemed more or less mad; “rather more than less,” as Larrie remarked. “But I wish he would n’t look at her as if she were his religion,” he added. “It troubles me. What will he do the first time that she is cross ? And who would have thought he was an idealist ? ”

Evelyn was serene and self-possessed ; she even evinced a surprising realization of practical necessities to which John was wholly oblivious. He was living through flushed, immortal hours, and such details as the transference of his fortune or a choice of the swiftest and most convenient route to Australia found scant foothold in his mind. Larrie was to live with or near them when the distant home had been found. This was settled by every one but Larrie himself, who smiled and said that he would “see about it.”

One evening Evelyn retreated to Larrie’s “den” to write the news of her engagement to some Eastern friends, while Larrie read the papers by a fire in the smoking room, and Nora sat near him, hemming linen for the Australian home. John placed himself so that he could see Evelyn through the doorway. The days at the ranch were numbered, and the future lay before them clear and glorious as the path of the sun.

Larrie frowned suddenly over his newspaper.

“Here are some of the workings of ‘ Providence, ’ ” he said, and read aloud :

“Much excitement has been caused this week by the arrest of David Freeman for the murder of one Richard Billingsworth, who was killed ten years ago in this city. It may be remembered that a well-known college man, Robert Copley by name, was arrested and convicted of the same crime. The evidence against the present prisoner is said to be strong.’ Rough on Robert Copley, was n’t it ? ”

“Poor fellow,” said Nora. “I remember hearing of it at the time. The authorities gave it out that he died in prison, but some people say that he got away. ”

John was smoking a pipe, and his face was hidden by the shadow of his hand. “ Read it again, ” he said.

Larrie read it again, and John did not move or make further remark.

The night was very still. Seconds slipped into minutes, and the minutes multiplied, till half an hour passed, and John had not moved. He was telling himself that he would let the other man go. He, John Peters, had paid his debt and served his term, if misery could count, and now great happiness was his, to have and to hold. But in the shadow of his hand his face was gray and damp by reason of a deadly fear, —fear of himself, fear that he would give up this happiness and go back, to save the other man.

The moments passed by in silence, save for the purr of sap in the burning logs. Suddenly there was a sound in the room, and Nora raised her head quickly.

“Did you hear that, Larrie?”

“Yes.”

They listened intently, and Nora shivered. “It sounded like a drowning man trying to breathe,” she said.

“I don’t believe anybody ever heard such a thing, ” answered Larrie, and going to the window he pushed aside the curtain. “There is nothing out there, ” he added, and reseated himself by the fire.

Nora glanced at John, but he sat as he had been sitting for the last half hour, with his pipe in his mouth and his hand shading his face. The room dropped back into silence.

John became conscious that his mind was staggering like some creature that has received its deathblow ; but now he was fighting with reeling senses and laboring breath, while the woman he loved sat before him. There were moments when he seemed to be hanging over some place of huge desolation, and the angels of God were pushing him into it. Once he realized that Evelyn had raised her head from her letter and was smiling at him.

After all, there was no occasion for this agony. It was only necessary for him to keep silent, and all would be as it had been. He could have laughed with relief; for how simple it Was, to keep silent! No difficult action, no struggle, no risk, — just silence. And the other man? Then his mind swayed again, and the air seemed full of hideous tumult. But in the room where he fought his battle there was only silence, — a silence that deepened till it became oppressive, overcharged, almost palpable. The fire burned low, and a chill, as of dread, came in from the night. Nora shivered once or twice, without knowing why.

No one had spoken or moved since the sound that had first startled her, and nearly an hour had gone by since then. Suddenly John’s pipe slipped from his lips to the floor.

“He must have gone to sleep,” said Larrie. His voice was strange and intense, as human voices are when they fall unexpectedly in a great stillness. He rose and stretched himself, adding that it was time all of them were in bed.

Evelyn sealed her last letter, and came in to say that she was sleepy. Then she noticed John’s pipe on the floor.

“ Careless boy, ” she said lightly, as she stooped to pick it up. “Why, how curious! It is n’t all here. You must have broken off the stem with your teeth; and it’s quite cold, too ! Why, John! ” She was still on the floor, at his feet.

“John! John!” The cry shivered off into silence, for John had taken his hand from his face. Very slowly he rose, slowly and unsteadily, as though stricken blind. Then he lifted his head and looked straight at Larrie.

“I am Robert Copley,” he said, “and I killed Richard Billingsworth ten years ago.”

It was over, and Robert Copley, standing at last for what he was, looked into white, awestruck faces, and felt his strength return.

“I must go back,” he continued, “for the other man is innocent.”

He did not look at Evelyn, but he saw that Larrie seemed to support himself against the mantelpiece, and he met Nora’s eyes, dark, burning, and compassionate. In neither face was there horror or shrinking. “I dare say you knew, or suspected, all along, ” he went on. “I would have told you everything, but your ignorance was our safety. If you had not felt this, you would have known seven years ago what you know to-night.”

“Why did you kill him, John?” asked Larrie quietly.

“I was in love, and mad, and twentyone, ” he answered. “She was one of the women who make hell here — and after. And I believed in her, God knows ” — The hoarse voice broke. “I believed in her — I was going to marry her. Then came doubts, and one evening I waited outside of her house and saw Billingsworth go up the steps. I spoke to him, and he told me what she was. Then I shot him — through the heart — and he dropped like a stone at my feet. He was my friend ” — The man whom we have known as John was shaking like a woman, and he turned his haggard eyes to Nora. “He was my friend, ” he repeated, “and I shot him through the heart — and saw him drop dead at my feet. I was mad to think of happiness after that. He was my friend ” —

He bowed his head, and in the room was the terrible sound of a strong man sobbing; not for dead happiness, but for living remorse, for memory of the act of one swift, black, hideous moment, that was done for all eternity.

There was no help to give him, and no voice was raised to comfort or reproach. When he had mastered himself he turned to Evelyn, who was swaying like a storm-beaten flower.

“What can I say to you? ” His deep voice was humble and beseeching. “What can I say to you?” He did not attempt to touch or even approach her; but she put out her hand as if to keep him away, and there was terror in her eyes.

“You are a guilty man! ” she cried, shuddering.

He looked at her silently, while he read fear and loathing in her face.

“My God! ” he whispered, “did n’t you know ? ”

“ Do you think I could have loved you — if I had known ? ” she said, shivering and wringing her hands.

For one instant John seemed uncertain of his foothold; then he raised himself slowly and stood erect.

“I may not even ask your pardon? ” he said. “The wrong is too great. But without your assurance that you knew all I should never have approached you with a word or a look of my love. I must ask you to believe this.”

But Evelyn continued to shudder.

“I must ask you to believe me,” he repeated, quietly but proudly, — more as one who dictates than one who solicits.

She looked at him unwillingly, and most unwillingly she answered him: “Yes, I believe you.”

“I thank you,” he said gravely, and held the door open for her to pass.

She hesitated on the threshold and looked appealingly at Nora. “I hope you do not think I would have been willing to marry him if I had known he was a guilty man? ” she said.

“I do not wrong you to that extent for an instant,” was Nora’s answer.

When he turned to look at the two who were left, his face was quiet, but rather terrible because of the aloofness and isolation that were written upon it.

That night John and Larrie said good-by, and the words they spoke were characteristically few.

“I wanted you to know that I was a guilty man. I thought you did know, ” said John.

“I have suspected it for seven years, ” answered Larrie.

Their eyes met above the clasped hands, as the eyes of friends who understand.

Under the strain of the last few hours Larrie seemed to have withered and grown old, for his delicacy was suddenly and pitifully evident. John’s face might have been hewn from gray rock as he looked at him.

Larrie put a hand on his shoulder. “Good-by, John. Good-by, old man, ” he said. “I shan’t live to see you through it.”

John wrung his hand in silence, and in silence turned and went from the house.

While he saddled his horse by the light of a stable lantern, a shadow, darker than the night, slipped from the house to the barn. It was Evelyn seeking John. He looked up to see her standing, with a face like a foam wreath; and already she was as some being from a world not his own, some spirit in a dream that was strange and dead.

She looked at him steadily, with blue eyes that were distant and pale; and when she spoke, her voice was frail, illusive, and inadequate in the solemn night. “I wanted to say that I do not blame you,” she said. “It was my fault. Nora told me I trusted too much. I shall never trust again.”

John paused, with the bridle in his hand. He did not answer her.

“I wanted to make amends if I had spoken hastily, ” she added, and waited as if for him to speak; but he did not speak. They looked at each other in silence across the great dim space in the barn where they had first spoken their love.

She put her hand to her throat suddenly. “Why won’t you speak to me? ” she said. “You are cruel! ”

“I am sorry,” said John kindly. “ What shall I say ? ”

“I do not want you to go back to prison. I cannot bear to think of it.”

He looked at her silently.

“ It is not that I feel what — what I thought I felt, or that I could ever see you again: you don’t think that? ”

“ No, I do not think that, ” he assured her gravely.

She could not drag her gaze from his eyes. Were the eyes accusing?

“But we have been friends,” she continued hysterically, “and one can’t forget at once — even if one has been mistaken. It will make me unhappy all my life to think that any one I know is in prison — and — and — you ought to think of me in the matter — if you love me at all.”

She buried her head in her hands and sobbed. “You are cruel!” she cried again. “You do not think of my feelings at all. Why don’t you speak to me ? ”

“You forget that the other man is innocent, ” he said.

Evelyn looked up through her tears. “But I do not know the other man,” she answered.

He looked at her strangely, and she was afraid.

“What is it?” she whispered. “ What are you thinking of me ? ” She began to tremble and cry again.

“Listen to me,” he said gently. “You are cold and very tired. You must have sleep. To-morrow you will have forgotten me and my trouble, and after more to-morrows I shall be only an episode in your life. If you ever think of me in after years, ” — he hesitated, but continued in the same tone, •— “it must be only to remember that you gave me the happiest hours of my life. Do you understand? ”

“Yes.”

He walked with her to the house, holding the lantern and guiding her footsteps in silence. At the door she paused, sobbing a little, because she felt ashamed, and did not know why.

“Are you going back, in spite of what I said? ” she asked.

“Yes.”

“And there is nothing more to say ? ”

“Nothing,” answered John.

And so it was that they passed from each other’s lives.

The night was still black when another shadow slipped from the house, and John, tightening his saddle girths, looked up to see Nora. In the dim light her face was strange and almost beautiful.

“You go to-night? ” she asked.

“I must catch to-morrow night’s train. There is not a day to lose. ”

“Of course not,” she said, very quietly. “I have made you some coffee, ” she added. “You will need it in the morning, and you can warm it over my spirit lamp.”

“And how am I to return the spirit lamp ? ”

“I will make you a present of that.” She smiled faintly, and they fastened the lamp and the bottle of coffee to the saddle as casually as if in preparation for a day’s excursion, though the man was going to lifelong servitude, and the woman’s heart was breaking.

In the east the sky was growing pale.

“Is everything ready ? ” asked Nora.

“I think so.”

She stood with her hand on the horse’s neck and looked at John in silence. The look was sad with more than the sadness of death, — the sadness of life, — and wise with the wisdom of great love, and compassionate as the heart of eternal motherhood. It was also tender and steadfast with the unrewarded courage of a noble woman.

“ How long is your sentence ? ” she asked.

“Thirty years.”

Nora leaned heavily against the horse. “It is your life,” she said, “it is your life.” The low-voiced words seemed to have been wrung from her, and as she spoke them she trembled. But when she raised her head, her eyes were as steadfast as before. “ Good - by, John Peters,” she said, stretching out her hand to him.

But he did not move. “You forget that I am not John Peters, but Robert Copley, the criminal,” he said slowly.

She smiled. “Good-by Robert Copley. ” The hand was still stretched to him, and he took it.

“ It was a crime, ” he said, looking at her with shadowy eyes.

“It was a great crime,” she answered.

“ And you do not condemn me ? ”

“I leave that to God.”

There was a short silence while he kept her hand. “It is women like you who help one to believe in God, ” he said, very low, and, looking into her eyes, he realized suddenly that there were many things he wished to say to her, and that they must remain unsaid through all eternity.

Robert Copley rode alone through the darkness. For his crime there could be no atonement; but his life was forfeited in retribution, and so it was that he fulfilled the law of the prophets.

Evelyn knelt in her room, trying to pray, but confused, stung, and terrified by a sense of lost identity, and a haunting, indefinite shame that she understood as little as she acknowledged.

Nora lay face downward on the ground.

The rim of the world was black against the brightening east, and a waning moon, lustreless, yellow, distorted, wandered through a starless sky.

Nora stirred, and stretched her empty hands to the heavens.

“God! God! God!” she called.

Eugenia Brooks Frothingham.

(The end.)