He looked at her with startled eyes--his brow wrinkling into sorrowful lines. "For how long?"

"I don't know--it may be a good while. I'm going away to think things over." Then she added, firmly, "I may not come back at all, Mart."

"For G.o.d's sake, don't say that, girlie! You don't mean that!" His voice was husky with the agony that filled his throat. "I can't live without ye now. Don't go--that way."

"I've _got_ to go, Mart. My mind ain't made up to this proposition. I don't know about living with you any more."

"Why not? What's the matter, darlin'? Can't ye put up with me a little longer? I know I'm only a piece of a man--but tell me the truth. Can't you stay with me--as we are?"

She met him with the truth, but not the whole truth. "Everybody thinks I married you for your money, Mart--it ain't true--but the evidence is all against me. The only way to prove it a lie is to just naturally pull out and go back to work. I hate to leave, so long as you--feel about me as you do--but, Mart, I'm 'bleeged' to do it. My mind is so stirred up--I don't enjoy anything any more. I used to like everything in the house--all my nice things--the dresses and trinkets you gave me. It was fun to run the kitchen--now it all goes against the grain some way. Fact is, none of it seems mine."

His eyes were wet with tears as he said: "It's all my fault. It's all because of what I said last night--"

She stopped him. "No, it ain't that--it ain't your fault, it's mine.

Something's gone wrong with _me_. I love this home, and my dogs and horses and all--and yet I can't enjoy 'em any more. They don't belong to me--now that's the fact, Mart."

"I'll make 'em yours, darlin', I'll deed 'em all over to you."

"No, no, that won't do it. My mind has got to change. It's all in my mind. Don't you see? I've got to get away from the whole outfit and think it all out. If I can come back I will, but you mustn't bank on my return, Mart. You mustn't be surprised if I settle on the other side of the range."

"I know," he said, sadly. "I know your reason and I don't blame you.

'Tis not for an old derelict like me to hold you--but you must let me give you some of me money--'tis of no value to me now. If ye do not let me share it with you me heart will break entirely."

"I haven't a right to a cent of it, Mart--I owe you more than I can ever pay. No, I can't afford to take another cent."

In the pause which followed his face took on a look of new resolution.

"Bertie, I've had something happen to me to-day. I've learned something I should have known long since."

Her look of surprise deepened into dismay as he went on: "I know what's the matter with you, girlie. 'Tis after seeing Ben your face always shines. You love him, Bertie--and I don't blame you--"

A carriage driving up to the gate brought diversion, and she sprang up, her face flushed, her eyes big and scared. "There comes Dr. Steele! I'd plumb forgot about his call."

"So had I," he answered, as he rose to meet his visitor.

Dr. Steele, a gray-haired, vigorous man, entered the gate and came hurriedly up the path, something fateful in his stride. He greeted them both casually, smilelessly. "I've got to get that next train," he announced, mechanically looking at his watch, "and that leaves me just twenty minutes in which to thump you."

Bertha was in awe of this blunt, tactless man of science, and as they moved towards the house listened in chilled silence while he continued: "Brent writes me that you were doing pretty well down by the lake. Why didn't you stay? He says he advised you not to come back."

"This is me home," answered Haney, simply.

Lucius took Bertha's place at Mart's shoulder and the three men went into the library, leaving her to wait outside in anxious solitude. There was something in the doctor's manner which awed her, filled her with new conceptions, new duties.

Steele was one of these cold-blooded pract.i.tioners who do not believe in the old-fashioned manner. "Cheery suggestion" was nonsense to him. His examination was to Bertha, as to Haney, a dreaded ordeal. However, Brent had advised it, and they had agreed to submit to it, and now here he was, and upon his judgment she must rest.

For half an hour she waited in the hall, almost without moving, so far-reaching did this verdict promise to be. Her anxiety deepened into fear as Steele came out of the room and walked rapidly towards her.

"He's a very sick man," he burst forth, irritably. "Get him away from here as quickly as you can--but don't excite him. Don't let him exert himself at all till you reach a lower alt.i.tude. Keep him quiet and peaceful, and don't let him clog himself up with starchy food--and above all, keep liquors away from him. He shouldn't have come back here at all. Brent warned him that he couldn't live up here. Slide him down to sea-level--if he'll go--and take care of him. His heart will run along all right if he don't overtax it. He'll last for years at sea-level."

"He hates to leave--he says he won't leave," she explained.

The man of science shrugged his shoulders. "All right! He can take his choice of roads"--he used an expressive gesture--"up or down. One leads to the New Jerusalem and is short--as he'll find out if he stays here.

Good-night! I must get that train."

"Wait a minute!" she called after him. "Is there anything I can do? Did you leave any medicine?"

He turned and came back. "Yes, a temporary stimulant, but medicine is of little use. If you can get away to-morrow, you do it."

She stood a few minutes at the library door listening, waiting, and at last (hearing no sound), opened the door decisively and went in.

Haney, ghastly pale, in limp dejection, almost in collapse, was seated in an easy-chair, with Lucius holding a gla.s.s to his lips. He was stripped to his undershirt and looked like a defeated, gray old gladiator, fallen helpless in the arena, deserted by all the world save his one faithful servant--and Bertha's heart was wrenched with a deep pang of pity and remorse as she gazed at him. The doctor's warning became a command. To desert him in returning health was bad enough, to desert him now was impossible.

Running to him, all her repugnance gone, all her tenderness awake, she put her arm about his shoulders. "Oh, Mart, did he hurt you? Are you worse?"

He raised dim eyes to her, eyes that seemed already filmed with death's opaque curtains, but bravely, slowly smiled. "I'm down but not out, darlin'. That brute of a doctor jolted me hard; I nearly took the count--but I'm--still in the ring. Harness me up, Lucius. I'll show that sawbones the power of mind over matter--the ould croaker!"

He recovered rapidly and was soon able to stagger to his feet. Then, with a return of his wonted humor, he stretched out his big right arm.

"I'm not to be put out of business by wan punch from an old puddin' like Steele. I am not the 'stiff' he thinks. He had me agin the ropes, 'tis true, but I'll surprise him yet."

"What did he say?" she persisted in demanding.

He shook his head. "That's bechune the two of us," he nodded warningly at Lucius. "For one thing, he says me heart can't stand the high country. 'It's you to the deep valley,' says he."

Her decision was ready. "All right, then _we go_!"

He faced her quickly. "Did ye say WE, Bertie? Did ye say it, sweetheart?"

"I did, Mart--I've changed my mind once more. I'm goin' to stick by you--till you're settled somewhere. I won't leave till you're better."

The tears blinded his eyes again, and his lips twitched. "You're G.o.d's own angel, Bertie, but I don't deserve it. No, stay you here--I'm not worth your sacrifice. No, no, I can't have it! Stay here with Ben and look after the mines."

Her face settled in lines that were not girlish as she repeated: "It's up to me to go, and I'm going, Mart! I didn't realize how bad it was for you here--I didn't, really!"

"It's all wrong, I'm afraid--all wrong," he answered, "but the Lord knows I need you worse than ever."

"Shut off on all that!" she commanded. "Lucius, help me take him outside where the air is better."

Mart put the man away. "One is enough," he said, brusquely; and so, leaning on his strong, young wife, he went slowly out into the dusk where the mother and Miss Franklin were sitting, quite unconscious of the deep significance of the doctor's visit. "Not a word to them,"

warned Haney--"at any rate, not to-night."

They were now both facing the pain of instantly abandoning all these beautiful and ministering material conditions which money had called round them. It seemed so foolish, so incredibly silly--this mandate of the physician. Could any place on the earth be more healthful, more helpful to human life than this wide-porched, cool-halled house, this garden, this air? What difference could a few thousand feet make on the heart's action?

The thought of putting away all hope of seeing Ben Fordyce came at last to overtop all Bertha's other regrets as the lordly peak overrode the clouds--and yet she was determined to go. Very quietly she told her mother that she had decided to put off her visit to Sibley, and at 10:30 she drove down to the station and sent her away composedly. At the moment she was glad to get her out of the town, so that she should not share in the grief of next day's departure. To Miss Franklin she then confided the doctor's warning, and together they began to pack.

Haney, with lowering brow and bleeding heart, went to his bed denouncing himself. "I have no right to her. 'Tis the time for me to step out. If the doctor knows his business, 'tis only a matter of a few weeks, anyhow, when my seat in the game will be empty. Why not stay here in me own home and so end it all comfortably?"

This was so simple--and yet he spent most of the night fighting the desire to live out those years the doctor had promised him. It was so sweet to sit opposite that dear girl-face of a morning, to feel her hand on his hair--now and again. "She's only a child--she can wait ten years and still be young." But then came the thought: "'Tis harder for her to wait than it is for me to go. 'Tis mere selfishness. What can I do in the world? I have no interest in the game outside of her. No, Mart, the consumptive is right, 'tis up to you to slip away, genteel and quiet, so that your widow will not be troubled by anny gossip."

To use the pistol was easy, the handle fitted his hand, but to die so that no shock or shame would come to her, that was his problem. "I will not leave her the widow of a suicide," he resolved. "I must go so sly, so casual-like, that no one will be able to point the finger at her or Ben."