CHAPTER x.x.xIV

WE GO BACK TO THE BEGINNING

"Sylvia was reading in her grandfather's library when the bell tinkled."

With these words our chronicle began, and they again slip from the pen as I begin these last pages. When Morton Ba.s.sett left her at the door of Elizabeth House she had experienced a sudden call of the truant spirit.

Sylvia wanted to be alone, to stand apart for a little while from the clanging world and take counsel of herself. Hastily packing a bag she caught the last train for Montgomery, walked to the Kelton cottage, and roused Mary, who had been its lone tenant since the Professor's death.

She sent Mary to bed, and after kindling a fire in the grate, roamed about the small, comfortable rooms, touching wistfully the books, the pictures, the scant bric-a-brac. She made ready her own bed under the eaves where she had dreamed her girlhood dreams, shaking from the sheets she found in the linen chest the leaves of lavender that Mary had strewn among them. The wind rose in the night and slammed fitfully a blind that, as long as she could remember, had uttered precisely that same protest against the wind's presumption. It was all quite like old times, and happy memories of the past stole back and laid healing hands upon her.

She slept late, and woke to look out upon a white world. Across the campus floated the harsh clamor of the chapel bell, and she saw the students tramping through the swirling snow just as she had seen them in the old times, the glad and happy times when it had seemed that the world was bounded by the lines of the campus, and that nothing lay beyond it really worth considering but Centre Church and the court-house and the dry-goods shop where her grandfather had bought her first and only doll. She bade Mary sit down and talk to her while she ate breakfast in the little dining-room; and the old woman poured out upon her the gossip of the Lane, the latest trespa.s.ses of the Greek professor's cow, the escapades of the Phi Gamma Delta's new dog, the health of Dr. Wandless, the new baby at the house of the Latin professor, the ill-luck of the Madison Eleven, and like matters that were, and that continue to be, of concern in Buckeye Lane. Rumors of the sale of the cottage had reached Mary, but Sylvia took pains to rea.s.sure her.

"Oh, you don't go with the house, Mary! Mrs. Owen has a plan for you.

You haven't any cause for worry. But it's too bad to sell the house. I'd like to get a position teaching in Montgomery and come back here and live with you. There's no place in the world quite like this."

"But it's quiet, Miss, and the repairs keep going on. Mr. Harwood had to put a new downspout on the kitchen; the old one had rusted to pieces.

The last time he was over--that was a month ago--he came in and sat down to wait for his train, he said; and I told him to help himself to the books, but when I looked in after a while he was just sitting in that chair out there by the window looking out at nothing. And when I asked him if he'd have a cup of tea, he never answered; not till I went up close and spoke again. He's peculiar, but a good-hearted gentleman. You can see that. And when he paid me my wages that day he made it five dollars extra, and when I asked him what it was for, he smiled a funny kind of smile he has, and said, 'It's for being good to Sylvia when she was a little girl.' He's peculiar, very peculiar, but he's kind. And when I said I didn't have to be paid for that, he said all right, he guessed that was so, but for me to keep the money and buy a new bonnet or give it to the priest. A very kind gentleman, that Mr. Harwood, but peculiar."

The sun came out shortly before noon. Sylvia walked into town, bought some flowers, and drove to the cemetery. She told the driver not to wait, and lingered long in the Kelton lot where snow-draped evergreens marked its four corners. The snow lay smooth on the two graves, and she placed her flowers upon them softly without disturbing the white covering. A farmboy whistling along the highway saw her in the lonely cemetery and trudged on silently, but he did not know that the woman tending her graves did not weep, or that when she turned slowly away, looking back at last from the iron gates, it was not of the past she thought, nor of the heartache buried there, but of a world newly purified, with long, broad vistas of hope and aspiration lengthening before her. But we must not too long leave the bell--an absurd contrivance of wire and k.n.o.b--that tinkled rather absently and eerily in the kitchen pantry. Let us repeat once more and for the last time:--

Sylvia was reading in her grandfather's library when the bell tinkled.

Truly enough, a book lay in her lap, but it may be that, after all, she had not done more than skim its pages--an old "Life of Nelson" that had been a favorite of her grandfather's. Sylvia rose, put down the book, marked it carefully as on that first occasion which so insistently comes back to us as we look in upon her. Mary appeared at the library door, but withdrew, seeing that Sylvia was answering the bell.

Some one was stamping vigorously on the step, and as Sylvia opened the door, Dan Harwood stood there, just as on that other day; now, to be sure, he seemed taller than then, though it must be only the effect of his long ulster.

"How do you do, Sylvia," he said, and stepped inside without waiting for a parley like that in which Sylvia had engaged him on that never-to-be-forgotten afternoon in June. "You oughtn't to try to hide; it isn't fair for one thing, and hiding is impossible for another."

"It's too bad you came," said Sylvia, "for I should have been home to-morrow. I came just because I wanted to be alone for a day."

"I came," said Dan, laughing, "because I didn't like being alone."

"I hope Aunt Sally isn't troubled about me. I hadn't time to tell her I was coming here; I don't believe I really thought about it; I simply wanted to come back here once more before the house is turned over to strangers."

"Oh, Aunt Sally wasn't worried half as much as I was. She said you were all right; she has great faith in your ability to take care of yourself.

I'm pretty sure of it, too," he said, and bent his eyes upon her keenly.

There was nothing there to dismay him; her olive cheeks still glowed with color from her walk, and her eyes were clear and steady.

"Did you see the paper--to-day's paper?" he asked, when they were seated before the fire.

"No," she replied, folding her arms and looking at the point of her slipper that rested against the bra.s.s fender.

"You will be glad to know that the trouble is all over. Ramsay has the senatorship, all but the confirmation of the joint session, which is merely a formality. They've conferred on me the joy of presenting his name. Ramsay is clean and straight, and thoroughly in sympathy with all the new ideas that are sound. Personally I like him. He's the most popular and the most presentable man we have, and his election to the Senate will greatly strengthen the party."

He did not know how far he might speak of the result and of the causes that had contributed to it. He was relieved when she asked, very simply and naturally,--

"I suppose Mr. Ba.s.sett made it possible; it couldn't have been, you couldn't have brought it about, without him."

"If he hadn't withdrawn he could have had the nomination himself!

Thatcher's supporters were growing wobbly and impatient. We shouldn't any of us care to see Thatcher occupy a seat in the Senate that has been filled by Oliver Morton and Joe MacDonald and Ben Harrison and Dave Turpie. We Hoosiers are not perfect, but our Senators first and last have been men of brains and character. Ramsay won't break the apostolic succession; he's all right."

"You think Mr. Ba.s.sett might have had it; you have good reason for believing that?" she asked.

"I could name you the men who were ready to go to him. He had the stampede all ready, down to the dress rehearsal. He practically gave away a victory he had been working for all his life."

"Yes; he is like that; he can do such things," murmured Sylvia.

"History has been making rapidly in the past twenty-four hours. Ba.s.sett has bought Thatcher's interest in the 'Courier,' and he proposes editing it himself. More than that, he was at my office this morning when I got there, and he asked me, as a special favor to him, to take a few shares in the company to qualify me as secretary of the corporation, and said he wanted me to help him. He said he thought it about time for Indiana to have a share in the general reform movement; talked about it as though this were something he had always intended doing, but had been prevented by press of other matters. He spoke of the Canneries case and wanted to know if I cared to reconsider my refusal to settle it. He put it quite impersonally--said Fitch told him he couldn't do more than prolong the litigation by appeals, and that in the end he was bound to be whipped. And I agreed, on terms that really weren't generous on my part. He said all right; that he wanted to clear up all his old business as quickly as possible. As he left my office I almost called him back to throw off the last pound I had exacted; he really made me feel ashamed of my greed. The old spell he had for me in the beginning came back again. I believe in him; I never believed in any man so much, Sylvia!

And if he does throw his weight on the right side it will mean a lot to every good cause men and women are contending for these days. It will mean a lot to the state, to the whole country."

"And so much, oh, so much to him!"

Just what had pa.s.sed between Ba.s.sett and Sylvia he only surmised; but it was clear that the warmth with which he had spoken of his old employer was grateful to Sylvia. He had not meant to dwell upon Ba.s.sett, and yet the brightening of her eyes, her flash of feeling, the deep inner meaning of her e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n, had thrilled him.

"I've said more than I meant to; I didn't come to talk of those things, Sylvia."

"I'm glad you thought I should like to know--about him. I'm glad you told me."

They were quiet for a little while, then he said, "Sylvia!" very softly.

"Not that, Dan; please! I can't bear to hear that. It will break my heart if you begin that!"

She rose and faced him, her back to the wall.

He had come to complete the declaration which the song had interrupted on the lake, and at the first hint the chords that had been touched by the unknown singer vibrated sharply, bringing back her old heartache. He crossed to her quickly that he might show her how completely the memory of that night had been obliterated; that it had vanished utterly and ceased to be, like the ripple stirred to a moment's life by the brush of a swallow's wing on still water. He stood beside her and took both her hands in his strong clasp.

"We are going to be married, Sylvia; we are going to be married, here, now, to-day!"

"No, no!"

She turned away her head, but his arms enfolded her; he bent down and kissed her forehead, her eyes, and her lips last of all.

"Yes; here and now. Unless you say you don't care for me, that you don't love me. If you say those things I shall go away."

She did not say them. She clung to him and looked long into his face, and kissed him.

Harwood had chosen the hour well. Sylvia had met bravely the great crisis of her life, and had stood triumphant and satisfied, weary but content in the clear ether to which she had climbed; but it was a relief to yield herself at last to the sway of emotions long checked and stifled. Save for her grandfather's devoted kindness, and the friendship of Mrs. Owen, her experiences of affection had been singularly meagre.

She had resolved that if Dan should speak of love again she would be strong enough to resist him; but she had yielded unhesitatingly at a word. And it was inexpressibly sweet to yield, to feel his strong arms clasping her, to hear his protestations and a.s.surances, to know that her life had found shelter and protection. She knew that she had never questioned or doubted, but that her faith had grown with her love for him. Not only had he chosen the hour well, but there was a fitness in his choice of place. The familiar scene emphasized her sense of dependence upon him and gave a sweet poignancy to the memories of her childhood and youth that were enshrined within the cottage walls. In this room, in the garden outside, on the campus across the Lane, she had known the first tremulous wonderings and had heard the first whispered answers to life's riddles and enigmas; and now she knew that in Love lives the answer to all things.

After a little she rested her hands on his shoulders, half-clinging to him, half-repelling him, and he pressed his hands upon her cheeks, to be ready for the question he had read in her eyes.

"But," she faltered, "there are things I have promised to do for Aunt Sally; we shall have to wait a long time!"

"Not for Aunt Sally," he cried happily. "Here she is at the door now. I left her and John Ware at Dr. Wandless's."

"Well, well!" exclaimed Mrs. Owen, advancing into the room and throwing open her coat. "You said you meant to get back to the city in time to catch that limited for New York, and you haven't got much margin, Daniel, I can tell you that!"