"Your face and voice, young lady, bring it all back now, and stir me to speak of it again--the things of which I have spoken to no one before--not even to Robin."

"To Robin!" The words came involuntarily from Constance.

"Yes, Robin Farnham, now of the Lodge. He found his way here once, just as you did. It was in his early days on the mountains, and he came to me out of a white mist, just as you came, and I knew him for her son."

Constance started, but the words on her lips were not uttered.

"I knew him for her son," the hermit continued, "even before he told me his name, for he was her very picture, and his voice--the voice of a boy--was her voice. He brought her back to me--he made her live again--here, in this isolated spot, even as she had lived in my dreams--even as a look in your face and a tone in your voice have made her live for me again to-day."

There was something in the intensity of the man's low speech, almost more than in what he said, to make the listener hang upon his words.

Frank, who had drawn near Constance, felt that she was trembling, and he laid his hand firmly over hers, where it rested on the seat beside him.

"Yet I never told him," the voice went on, "I never told Robin that I knew him--I never spoke his mother's name. For I had a fear that it might sadden him--that the story might send him away from me. And I could have told nothing unless I told it all, and there was no need. So I spoke to him no word of her, and I pledged him to speak to no one of me. For if men knew, the curious would come and I would never have my life the same again. So I made him promise, and after that first time he came as he chose. And when he is here she who was a part of my happy dream lives again in him. And to you I may speak of her, for to you it does not matter, and it is in my heart now, when my days are not many, to recall old dreams."

CHAPTER X

THE HERMIT'S STORY

The hermit paused and gazed into the bed of coals on the hearth. His listeners waited without speaking. Constance did not move--scarcely did she breathe.

"As I said, it may have been thirty years ago," the gentle voice continued. "It may have been more than that--I do not know. It was on the Sound sh.o.r.e, in one of the pretty villages there--it does not matter which.

"I lived with my uncle in the adjoining village. Both my parents were dead--he was my guardian. In the winter, when the snow fell, there was merry-making between these villages. We drove back and forth in sleighs, and there were nights along the Sound when the moon path followed on the water and the snow, and all the hills were white, and the bells jingled, and hearts were gay and young.

"It was on such a night that I met her who was to become Robin's mother.

The gathering was in our village that night, and, being very young, she had come as one of a merry sleighful. Half way to our village their sleigh had broken down, and the merry makers had gayly walked the remainder, trusting to our hospitality to return them to their homes. I was one of those to welcome them and to promise conveyance, and so it was that I met her, and from that moment there was nothing in all the world for me but her."

The hermit lifted his eyes from the fire and looked at Constance.

"My girl," he said, "there are turns of your face and tones of your voice that carry me back to that night. But Robin, when he first came here to my door, a stripling, he was her very self.

"I recall nothing of that first meeting but her. I saw nothing but her.

I think we danced--we may have played games--it did not matter. There was nothing for me but her face. When it was over, I took her in my cutter and we drove together across the snow--along the moonlit sh.o.r.e. I do not remember what we said, but I think it was very little. There was no need. When I parted from her that night the heritage of eternity was ours--the law that binds the universe was our law, and the morning stars sang together as I drove homeward across the hills.

"That winter and no more holds my happiness. Yet if all eternity holds no more for me than that, still have I been blest as few have been blest, and if I have paid the price and still must pay, then will I pay with gladness, feeling only that the price of heaven is still too small, and eternity not too long for my grat.i.tude."

The hermit's voice had fallen quite to a whisper, and he was as one who muses aloud upon a scene rehea.r.s.ed times innumerable. Yet in the stillness of that dim room every syllable was distinct, and his listeners waited, breathless, at each pause for him to continue. Into Frank's eyes had come the far-away look of one who follows in fancy an old tale, but the eyes of Constance shone with an eager light and her face was tense and white against the darkness.

"It was only that winter. When the spring came and the wild apple was in bloom, and my veins were all a-tingle with new joy, I went one day to tell her father of our love. Oh, I was not afraid. I have read of trembling lovers and halting words. For me the moments wore laggingly until he came, and then I overflowed like any other brook that breaks its dam in spring.

"And he--he listened, saying not a single word; but as I talked his eyes fell, and I saw tears gather under his lids. Then at last they rolled down his cheeks and he bowed his head and wept. And then I did not speak further, but waited, while a dread that was cold like death grew slow upon me. When he lifted his head he came and sat by me and took my hand. 'My boy,' he said, 'your father was my friend. I held his hand when he died, and a year later I followed your mother to her grave.

You were then a little blue-eyed fellow, and my heart was wrung for you.

It was not that you lacked friends, or means, for there were enough of both. But, oh, my boy, there was another heritage! Have they not told you? Have you never learned that both your parents were stricken in their youth by that scourge of this coast--that fever which sets a foolish glow upon the cheek while it lays waste the life below and fills the land with early graves? Oh, my lad! you do not want my little girl.'"

The hermit's voice died, and he seemed almost to forget his listeners.

But all at once he fixed his eyes on Constance as if he would burn her through.

"Child," he said, "as you look now, so she looked in the moment of our parting. Her eyes were like yours, and her face, G.o.d help me! as I saw it through the dark that last night, was as your face is now. Then I went away. I do not remember all the places, but they were in many lands, and were such places as men seek who carry my curse. I never wrote--I never saw her, face to face, again.

"When I returned her father was dead, and she was married--to a good man, they told me--and there was a child that bore my name, Robin, for I had been called Robin Gray. And then there came a time when a stress was upon the land--when fortunes tottered and men walked the streets with unseeing eyes--when his wealth and then hers vanished like smoke in the wind--when my own patrimony became but worthless paper--a mockery of scrolled engravings and gaudy seals. To me it did not matter--nothing matters to one doomed. To them it was shipwreck. John Farnham, a high-strung, impetuous man, was struck down. The tension of those weeks, and the final blow, broke his spirit and undermined his strength. They had only a pittance and a little cottage in these mountains, which they had used as a camp for summer time. It stood then where it stands to-day, on the North Elba road, in view of this mountain top. There they came in the hope that Robin's father might regain health to renew the fight. There they remained, for the father had lost courage and only found a little health by tilling the few acres of ground about the cottage. There, that year, a second child--a little girl--was born."

It had grown very still in the hermitage. There was only a drip of the rain outside--the thunder had rolled away. The voice, too, ceased for a little, as if from weariness. The others made no sign, but it seemed to Frank that the hand locked closely in his had become quite cold.

"The word of those things drifted to me," so the tale went on, "and it made me sad that with my own depleted fortune and failing health I could do nothing for their comfort or relief. But one day my physician said to me that the air and the alt.i.tude of these mountains had been found beneficial for those stricken like me. He could not know how his words made my heart beat. Now, indeed, there was a reason for my coming--an excuse for being near her--with a chance of seeing her, it might be, though without her knowledge. For I decided that she must not know.

Already she had enough burden without the thought that I was near--without the sight of my doleful, wasting features.

"So I sold the few belongings that were still mine--such things as I had gathered in my wanderings--my books, save those I loved most dearly--my furnishings, my ornaments, even to my apparel--and with the money I bought the necessaries of mountain life--implements, rough wear and a store of food. These, with a tent, my gun, the few remaining volumes, and my field gla.s.s--the companion of all my travels--I brought to the hills."

He pointed to the gla.s.s and the volumes lying on the stone at his hand.

"Those have been my life," he went on. "The books have brought me a world wherein there was ever a goodly company, suited to my mood. For me, in that world, there are no disappointments nor unfulfilled dreams.

King, lover, courtier and clown--how often at my bidding have they trooped out of the shadows to gather with me about this hearth! Oh, I should have been poor indeed without the books! Yet the gla.s.s has been to me even more, for it brought me her.

"I have already told you that their cottage could be seen from this mountain top. I learned this when I came stealthily to the hills and sought out their home, and some spot amid the overhanging peaks where I might pitch my camp and there unseen look down upon her life. This is the place I found. I had my traps borne up the trail to the foot of the little fall, as if I would camp there. Then when the guides were gone I carried them here, and reared my small establishment, away from the track of hunters, on this high finger of rock which commanded the valley and her home. There is a spring here and a bit of fertile land. It was State land and free, and I pitched my tent here, and that summer I cleared an open s.p.a.ce for tillage and built a hut for the winter. The st.u.r.dy labor and the air of the hills strengthened my arm and renewed my life. But there was more than that. For often there came a clear day, when the air was like crystal and other peaks drew so near that it seemed one might reach out and stroke them with his hand. On such a day, with my gla.s.s, I sought a near-by point where the mountain's elbow jutted out into the sky, and when from that high vantage I gazed down on the roof which covered her, my soul was filled with strength to tarry on. For distance became as nothing to my magic gla.s.s. Three miles it may be as the crow flies, but I could bring the tiny cottage and the door-yard, as it stood there at the turn of the road above the little hill, so close to me that it seemed to lie almost at my very feet."

Again the speaker rested for a moment, but presently the tale went on.

"You can never know what I felt when I first saw _her_. I had watched for her often, and I think she had been ill. I had seen him come and go, and sometimes I had seen a child--Robin it was--playing about the yard.

But one day when I had gone to my point of lookout and had directed my gla.s.s--there, just before me, she stood. There she lived and moved--she who had been, who was still my life--who had filled my being with a love that made me surrender her to another, yet had lured me at last to this lonely spot, forever away from men, only that I might now and again gaze down across the tree tops, and all unseen, unknown to her, make her the companion of my hermit life.

"She walked slowly and the child walked with her, holding her hand. When presently she looked toward me, I started and shrank, forgetting for the moment that she could not see me. Not that I could distinguish her features at such a range, only her dear outline, but in my mind's eyes her face was there before me just as I had seen it that last time--just as I have seen yours in the firelight."

He turned to Constance, whose features had become blurred in the shadows. Frank felt her tremble and caught the sound of a repressed sob.

He knew the tears were streaming down her cheeks, and his own eyes were not dry.

"After that I saw her often, and sometimes the infant, Robin's sister, was in her arms. When the autumn came, and the hills were glorified, and crowned with snow, she stood many times in the door-yard to behold their wonder. When at last the leaves fell, and the trees were bare, I could watch even from the door of my little hut. The winter was long--the winter is always long up here--from November almost till May--but it did not seem long to me, when she was brought there to my door, even though I might not speak to her.

"And so I lived my life with her. The life in that cottage became my life--day by day, week by week, year by year--and she never knew. After that first summer I never but once left the mountain top. All my wants I supplied here. There was much game of every sort, and the fish near by were plentiful. I had a store of meal for the first winter, and during the next summer I cultivated my bit of cleared ground, and produced my full need of grain and vegetables and condiments. One trip I made to a distant village for seeds, and from that day never left the mountain again.

"It was during the fifth winter, I think, after I came here, that a group of neighbors gathered in the door-yard of the cottage, and my heart stood still, for I feared that she was dead. The air dazzled that day, but when near evening I saw a woman with a hand to each child re-enter the little house I knew that she still lived--and had been left alone.

"Oh, then my heart went out to her! Day and night I battled with the impulse to go to her, with love and such comfort and protection as I could give. Time and again I rose and made ready for the journey to her door. Then, oh, then I would remember that I had nothing to offer her--nothing but my love. Penniless, and a dying man, likely to become a helpless burden at any time, what could I bring to her but added grief.

And perhaps in her unconscious heart she knew. For more than once that winter, when the trees were stripped and the snow was on the hills, I saw her gaze long and long toward this mountain, as if she saw the speck my cabin made, and once when I stretched my arms out to her across the waste of deadly cold, I saw a moment later that her arms, too, were out-stretched, as if somehow she knew that I was there."

A low moan interrupted the tale. It was from Constance.

"Don't, oh, don't," she sobbed. "You break my heart!" But a moment later she added, brokenly, "Yes, yes--tell me the rest. Tell me all. Oh, she was so lonely! Why did you never go to her?"

"I would have gone then. I went mad and cried out, 'My wife! my wife! I want my wife!' And I would have rushed down into the drifts of the mountain, but in that moment the curse of my heritage fell heavily upon me and left me powerless."

The hermit's voice had risen--it trembled and died away with the final words. In the light of the fading embers only his outline could be seen--wandering into the dusk and silence. When he spoke again his tone was low and even.

"And so the years went by. I saw the st.u.r.dy lad toil with his mother for a while, and then alone, and I knew by her slow step that the world was slipping from her grasp. I did not see the end. I might have gone, then, but it came at a time when the gloom hung on the mountains and I did not know. When the air cleared and for days I saw no life, I knew that the little house was empty--that she had followed him to rest. They two, whose birthright had been health and length of days, both were gone, while I, who from the cradle had made death my bed-fellow, still lingered and still linger through the years.

"I put the magic gla.s.s aside after that for my books. Nothing was left me but my daily round, with them for company. Yet from a single volume I have peopled all the woods about, and every corner of my habitation.