'They turned and faced me as I came. d.i.c.k's face was red, and in his eyes was agony--no less. Cynthy was very white, her little head held high on her slender neck. Her eyes was brave and clear. Mebbe I was excited, but it seemed to me that she was shinin' from head to foot. You see, to her it was so wonderful.

'We stood there silent for a long minute, lookin' clean into one another's souls. d.i.c.k's eyes and mine met and wrestled. I never fought a fight like that,--without a word nor a blow,--and yet we were fighting for more than our lives.

'His eyes didn't fall. He didn't look shamefaced. Oh, he too had pluck!

'As my brain cleared of the queer mist, that cry of his seemed to sound pitifully in my ears.

'"_O Cynthy, just one kiss!_"

'I don't suppose there's a man on earth that ain't said that from once to fifty times, just as much in earnest as d.i.c.k, and just as little thinkin' them words are the key in the Door--the door that gives on the road runnin' down to h.e.l.l or up to Heaven. You've got to move one way or the other if you open that door. It ain't a road to linger on. Love marches.

'That was the way it come to me then. For most men, love marches.--But me. How about me? The love that come to me had been silent and patient.

It'd sat in my heart like a bird on its nest. Was I different from other men? Did I ask less, give more? I was just a boy--how was I to know?

'It was Cynthy broke the tension. She was always a bit of a mischief.

Suddenly she smiled an' dimpled like the sun comin' out from a cloud.

She caught d.i.c.k's finger-tips quick an' brushed 'em across her lips.

'"Well, Seth!" she says to me, cheerful and confident again.

'"Is he your choice, Cynthy?" said I. "Dare you leave us--_all_ of us--an' go to him forever?" I asked her, steadying my voice.

'She looked a little hurt and a little puzzled.

'"Has it come to that?" she asked me.

'"Mebbe it hasn't with you," I answered, "but it has with d.i.c.k--an' with me, Cynthy."

'She looked at me as if she didn't know what I meant, and then the color rushed up into her face in a glorious flood.

'"Not--not you too, Seth?" she cried. "Oh--not you too!"

'"Yes, Cynthy,--now and always."

'She looked from me to d.i.c.k an' back to me again. In her face I saw she was uncertain.

'"Why didn't you tell me before?" she cried out sharply. "Why didn't--_you_--teach me? O Seth, he needs me most!"

'd.i.c.k's eyes and mine met and clashed again like steel on steel. But it was mine that fell at last.

'We all went back to the house together without saying any more.

'It come to me just like this. d.i.c.k was tangled in his feelings, and the feelings are the strongest cords that ever bind a boy like him. Cynthy was drawn to him, because to her d.i.c.k was a thing of splendor and it was so wonderful he needed her! I needn't tell you what it was tied me. I still had a fighting chance to get her away from him, but was it fair of me to make the fight?

'Every drop of blood in my body said, Yes! Every cell in my brain said, No! For, you see, life had us in a net--but I was the strong one and _I could break the net_.

'I went off and walked by myself. Sundown come, and milking-time, and supper. But I forgot to eat or work. I walked.

'No man can tell you what he thinks and feels in hours like them. There ain't no words for the awful hopes or the black despairs or the gleams that begin like lightning-flashes and grow to something like the breaking dawn. I couldn't get away from it anyhow I turned. It wasn't a situation I _dared_ leave alone, not with d.i.c.k at white heat and Cynthy so confident of herself and so pitiful. It wasn't safe to let things be.

I must s.n.a.t.c.h her from him or give her to him.--It was my turn now to cry out, _O my G.o.d_!

''T was long after dark when I come back. My mind was made up. They should have each other. I'd do what I could to make the thing easy.

"After all," I told myself, "you ain't completely stripped. Don't think it! You have the other thing. You can carry the torch. You can bring down the flame. Folks will thank you yet for the sacred fire!"

'I laid that thought to my heart like something cool and comforting. And it helped me to come through.

'When I got back to the house, it was late and everybody was abed but my father. He was sitting right here where we are, waiting up for me. There was a moon, some past the full, rising yonder. I sat down on the step below him and put it to him straight.

'"Father," said I, "d.i.c.k's in love with Cynthy. She's eighteen an' he's twenty. I judge we'd better help 'em marry."

'He give a heartbroken kind of groan. "Don't I know she's eighteen?" he said. "Ain't it worryin' the life right out of me?"

'"Whatever do you mean?" I asked pretty sharp, for I sensed bad trouble in his very voice.

'"It's her two thousand dollars," he said. "She's due to have it. If she marries, she's got to have it right away. And I ain't got it to give her, that's all!"

'"Where is it? What's become of it?"

'"I bought the store at the Crossroads with it, and give her my note.

But I hadn't no business to do it that way. And the store ain't done well, and the farm ain't done well. The summer's been so cold and wet, corn ain't more 'n a third of a crop, and I put in mainly corn this year. I can't sell the store. I dunno's I can mortgage the farm. I dunno what _to_ do. If you leave home like you talk of, I shall go under.

Somebody's got to take hold an' help me. I can't carry my load no longer."

'So--there was that! And I had to face it alone.

'I didn't despair over the money part of it, like father did. I knew he'd neglected the farm for the store, and the store for the farm. If I'd been with him either place, instead of teaching, things would have gone on all right. I thought d.i.c.k could have his choice of the store or a part of the land to clear up the debt to Cynthy. But, whichever he took, father'd need me to help out. I could see he was beginning to break. And d.i.c.k would need me too, till he got broke in to work and earnin'. So--now it was me that life had in the net, and there was no way I could break out.

'Father went off to bed a good deal happier after I told him I'd stand by. He even chippered up so he said this: "You're all right, Seth, and teachin''s all right. But I've thought it all over and I've come to the conclusion that teachin' and studyin''s like hard cider. It goes to your head and makes you feel good, but after all, there ain't nothing nourishing about it. I'd like to see you make some money."

'I sat on those steps the rest of the night, I guess, while that waning moon climbed up the sky and then dropped down again. 'T ain't often a man is called on to fight two such fights in a single day. I ain't been able to look at a moon past the full since that night.

'And yet--toward morning there come peace. I saw it this way at last. To help is bigger yet than to teach. If Prometheus could be chained to that rock a thousand years while the vultures tore his vitals just so that men might _know_, couldn't I bear the beaks an' the claws a little lifetime so that father and Cynthy and d.i.c.k might _live_? I thought I could--an' I have.'

Mr. Miles stopped short. Something gripped my throat. I shall never see again such a luminous look as I caught on his face when he turned it toward the darkening west. The black clouds had rolled up rapidly while we were talking and, if you'll believe me, when he had finished, it thundered on the right!

'Is--is that all?' I said chokily.

'Cynthy's had a happy life,' he said. 'd.i.c.k made good in the store, and he's made good out yonder in the world. d.i.c.k has gone very far. And as for me, there's only one thing more I want in this world. If--if I could see her boy and his pick up the torch I dropped, and carry on that sacred fire--'

It was mighty queer, but I found I was shaking all over with an excitement I hardly understood. Something that had been hovering in the air while he talked came closer and suddenly showed me its face.

'But,' I said thick and fast, 'but--why, _mother's_ name is Cynthia!'

'Yes, Richard.'

'And father--_father_--?'