"You see, old man," said Parkman, sharply, "what you've got ahead of you?"

But he only murmured, happily, faintly, as one about to fall asleep: "She loved me--like that."

It terrified her; it seemed, not as though the great idea were holding him, but as though he were taking it away with him, even as though well content to go, having this to take with him from life.

"Karl--Karl!" she sobbed--"don't you _see _how I love you?--don't you see you _must _live now--for me?"

But he had far transcended all sense of suffering or loss, even her suffering and loss. Her plea--she herself--could not reach him. He and the great idea were going away together. And that light did not leave his face.

It was so that he sank into a sleep. He did not hear Ernestine's sobs; he knew nothing of her pleading cries. In a frenzy of grief she felt him going out to where she could not reach him. She called to him, and he did not answer. She pressed close to him, and he did not know that she was there.

But the great idea was with him. It lighted his face to the last. It was as if that were what he was taking with him from life. It was as if that, and that alone, he could keep.

"Karl--Karl!" she cried, terrorised--"look at me! Speak to me! I am here!

Ernestine is here!"--And then, the strongest word of woman to man--"I'm frightened! Oh take care of me--Karl--take care of me!"

Dr. Parkman tried to take her away, but she resisted fiercely, and they let her stay. And during the few hours which followed she never ceased her pleading--to him to come back to her, to them to help. Crazed with the consciousness of his slipping from her, wild beyond all reason with the thought that her kisses could not move him, her arms could not hold him, her pa.s.sion lashed to the uttermost in the thought that she must claim him now or lose him forever, she pleaded with all the eloquence of human voice and human tears. She could not believe it--that he was there beside her and would not listen to her pleadings. Again and again she told him that she was frightened and alone; that--surely that--he must hear. It could not be that he was there beside her, breathing, moving a little now and then, and did not hear her call for help.

And when at last she heard some one speak a low word, and saw some one bend over him to close his eyes, she uttered one piercing, heartbreaking cry which they would bear with them so long as they lived. And then, throwing herself upon him, shielding him, keeping him, there came the wild, futile call of life to death--"Karl!--Karl!--_Karl!_"

PART THREE

CHAPTER x.x.xVII

BENEATH DEAD LEAVES

The cold March rain drove steadily against the car window. His thoughts were like that,--cold, ugly, driving thoughts. Looking out at the bleak country through which they were pa.s.sing he saw that dead leaves were hanging forlornly to bare trees. His hopes were like that,--a few dead hopes clinging dismally to the barren tree of experience. So it seemed to Dr. Parkman as he looked from the car window at the country of hills and hollows through which he was pa.s.sing. The out-lived winter's snow still in the hollows, last summer's leaves blown meaninglessly about, denied even the repose of burial, the cheerless wind and the cheerless rain--it matched his mood.

Almost a year had gone by, and Dr. Parkman was going out to see Ernestine. Every mile which brought him nearer, brought added uncertainty as to what he should say when he reached her. What was there for him to say? The dead leaves of her hopes were all huddled in the hollow. Was he becoming so irrational as to think he could give life to things dead? Was she not right in wishing to cover them up decently and let them be? Was anything to be gained in blowing them about as last summer's leaves were being blown about now by the unsparing, uncaring winds of March?

She was out where she had lived as a girl,--living in the very house which had once been her home. He had understood her going. It was the simple law of living things. The animal wounded beyond all thought of life seeks only a place of seclusion.

But when Georgia returned from her visit to Ernestine the month before, she came to him with:

"Dr. Parkman, you _must_ do something for Ernestine!" And after she had told him many things, and he questioned still further, she said, in desperate desire to make it plain--"She is becoming a great deal like you!"

And from then until the time of starting on this trip he had had no peace.

He understood; understood far more deeply than she who would have him see. Was any one better qualified to understand that thing than he?

Well,--what then? What now? Was there any other thing to expect? Was he, of all men, going to her with plat.i.tudes about courage and faith? And even so, would sophistry avail anything? Did he not know Ernestine far too well far that?

His own face bore the deep marks of hard and bitter things. But the loss and the sorrow showed themselves in strange ways, little understood as manifestations of grief. He ran his automobile faster, showed even less caution than before in his business ventures, had less and less to say, was called more and more strange by those a.s.sociated with him. And the thing which mocked him most of all was that the year had been attended with the greatest professional successes of his life. He never heard his plaudits sounded without a curse in his heart.

"It went mighty hard with Parkman not to be able to save Hubers," medical men said with growing frequency as the year advanced. But there were none of them who dreamed into what deep and vital things the cut had gone.

With his own will and his own skill he patched it up on the surface, not the man to leave his wound exposed to other eyes. But he knew its hopelessness too well ever to try and reach the bottom of the wound. It was not a good, clean, straight cut such as time expects to heal. Indeed it was not a cut at all; nothing so wholesome and reachable as that. It was a destroying force, a thing burrowing at the springs of life, a thing which made its way through devious paths to vital sources. Did a patched up surface mean anything to a thing like that?

The evening of the day he had seen Georgia, and she told him of Ernestine, he sat a long time in his office alone. The grey ashes of his own life seemed spread around him. And it was he, who was asked, out of this, to rekindle a great flame? And what flame? What was there left for Ernestine? Ask her to come back--to what? Fight--for what?

He did not know, or at least he said he did not know, and yet he, like Georgia, saw it as all wrong, unendurable, not to be countenanced, that Ernestine should shut herself out from life.

Perhaps he was going to her because he knew so well the desolation of ashes. Was it because he had lived so long among them that he hated to see another fire go out? Could it be that a man who had dwelt long among ashes knew most surely the worth of the flame?

He had reached the end of his journey. He had come to the western college town for which he had set out. From the window he could see some of the college buildings. Yes, this was the place.

He rose and put on his coat. A few minutes later he was standing on the station platform, watching the on-going train. Then he turned, with decision, in the direction Georgia had bade him go.

CHAPTER x.x.xVIII

PATCHWORK QUILTS

And now that the first ten minutes had pa.s.sed he felt anew the futility of his errand. His first look into her face made him certain he might better have remained in Chicago. The thing which cut off all approach was that she too had done some work on the surface.

It seemed to him as he sat there in utter silence that he had been brutal, not alone to her heart, but to his own, that he asked too much, not only of her command, but of his. He had come to talk of Ernestine and the future; the things about him drew him overmasteringly to Karl and the past.

She had taken him to her little sitting room up stairs, forced to do so because the fire down stairs had gone out. He understood now why it was she had faltered so in asking him to come up here. Here was Karl's big chair--many things from their library at home. It was where she lived with her past. She wanted no one here.

She would make no attempt at helping him. She sat there in silence, her face white, almost stern. In her aloofness it was as though she were trying to hold herself, from the consciousness of his presence.

He too remained silent. For he was filled with the very things against which he had come to protest.

It was Karl who was very close; it was the thoughts of Karl's life which filled him. His heart had never been so warm for his friend, his appreciation had never been so great as now. Karl, and all that Karl meant, had never been so close, and so dear. And the words he finally said to Ernestine, words of pa.s.sionate tenderness spoken in utter unconsciousness of how far he had gone from his purpose, were: "I do not believe any of us half appreciated Karl!"

Startled, she gave him a long, strange look. "No, Dr. Parkman,"--very low--"neither do I."

"I have been looking into it since. I wanted to throw Karl's results to the right man. He was head and shoulders above them all."

There was a slow closing of her eyes, but she was not shrinking from him now;--this the kind of hurt she was able to bear.

"If he had been left to work out his life--" but he stopped, brought suddenly to a sense of how far he had lost himself.

She too saw it. "Dr. Parkman,"--with a smile which put him far from her--"_this_ is what you came to say? You think _I_ need any incitement?

You needn't, Dr. Parkman,"--with rising pa.s.sion--"you needn't. Every time I leave this room two things are different. I have more love for Karl--more hate for his destroyers. And those two pa.s.sions will feed upon me to the end of my life!"

Instinctively he put out a protesting hand. It was too plain that it was as she said.

"More love for Karl--more hate for his destroyers,"--she repeated it with a pa.s.sionate steadfastness as though it comprehended the creed of her life.