CHAPTER X

The following day Truedale heard the will read. Directly after, he felt like a man in a quicksand. Every thought and motion seemed but to sink him deeper until escape appeared impossible.

He had felt, for a moment, a little surprise that the bulk of his uncle's great fortune had gone to Dr. McPherson--an already rich and prosperous man; then he began to understand. Although McPherson was left free to act as he chose, there had evidently been an agreement between him and William Truedale as to the carrying out of certain affairs and, what was more startling and embarra.s.sing, Conning was hopelessly involved in these. Under supervision, apparently, he was to be recognized as his uncle's representative and, while not his direct heir, certainly his respected nephew.

Truedale was confounded. Unless he were to disregard his uncle's wishes, there was no way open for him but to follow--as he was led. Far from being dissatisfied with the distribution of the fortune, he had been relieved to know that he was responsible for only a small part of it; but, on the other hand, should he refuse to cooperate in the schemes outlined by McPherson, he knew that he would be miserably misunderstood.

Confused and ill at ease he sought McPherson later in the day and that genial and warm-hearted man, shrinking always behind so stern an exterior that few comprehended him, greeted him almost affectionately.

"I ordered six months for you, Truedale," he exclaimed, viewing the result of his prescription keenly, "and you've made good in a few weeks.

You're a great advertis.e.m.e.nt for Pine Cone. And White! Isn't he G.o.d's own man?"

"I hadn't thought of him in just that way"--Conning reverted to his last memory of the sheriff--"but he probably showed another side to you. He has a positive reverence for you and I imagine he accepted me as a duty you had laid upon him."

"Nonsense, boy! his health reports were eulogies--he was your friend.

"But isn't he a freebooter with all his other charms? His contempt for government, as we poor wretches know it, is sublime; and yet he is the safest man I know. The law, he often told me, was like a lie; useful only to scoundrels--torn-down scoundrels, he called them.

"I tell you it takes a G.o.d's man to run justice in those hills! White's as simple and direct as a child and as wise as a judge ought to be. I wouldn't send some folk I know to White, they might blur his vision; but I could trust him to you."

Silently Truedale contemplated this image of White; then, as McPherson talked on, the dead uncle materialized so differently from the stupid estimate he had formed of him that a sense of shame overpowered him.

Lynda had somewhat opened Truedale's eyes, but Lynda's love and compa.s.sion unconsciously coloured the picture she drew. Here was a hard-headed business man, a man who had been close to William Truedale all his life, proving him now, to his own nephew, as a far-sighted, wise, even patient and merciful friend.

Never had Truedale felt so small and humble. Never had his past indifference and false pride seemed so despicable and egotistical--his return for the silent confidence reposed in him, so pitifully shameful.

He must bear his part now! There was no way but that! If he were ever to regain his own self-respect or hope to hold that of others, he must, to the exclusion of private inclination, rise as far as in him lay to the demands made upon him.

"Your uncle," McPherson was saying, "tied hand and foot as he was, looked far and wide during his years of illness. I thought I knew, thought I understood him; but since his death I have almost felt that he was inspired. It's a d.a.m.nable pity that our stupidity and callousness prevent us realizing in life what we are quick enough to perceive in death--when it is too late! Truedale's faith in me, when I gave him so little to go by, is both flattering and touching. He knew he could trust me--and that knowledge is the best thing he bequeathed to me. But I expect you to do your part, boy, and by so doing to justify much that might, otherwise, be questioned. To begin with, as you have just heard, the sanatorium for cases like your uncle's is to be begun at once. Now there is a strip of land, which, should it suit our purpose, can be had at great advantage if taken at once, and for cash. We will run down to see it this week and then we'll know better where we stand."

"I'd like," Truedale coloured quickly, "to return to Pine Cone for a few days. I could start at once. You see I left rather suddenly and brought--"

But McPherson laughed and waved his hand in the wide gesture that disposed of hope and fear, lesser business and even death itself, at times.

"Oh! Jim won't tamper with anything. Certainly your traps are safe enough there. Such things can wait, but this land-deal cannot. Besides there are men to see: architects, builders, etc. The wishes of your uncle were most explicit. The building, you recall, was to be begun within three months of his death. Having all the time there was, himself, he has left precious little for others."

Again the big laugh and wide gesture disposed of Pine Cone and the tragic affairs of little Nella-Rose. Unless he was ready to lay bare his private reasons, Truedale saw he must wait a few days longer. And he certainly had no intention of confiding in McPherson.

"Very well, doctor," he said after a slight pause, "set me to work. I want you to know that as far as I can I mean--too late, as you say--to prove my good intentions at least to--my uncle."

"That's the way to talk!" McPherson rose and slapped Conning on the back. "I used to say to old Truedale, that if he had taken you more into his confidence, he might have eased life for us all; but he was timid, boy, timid. In many ways he was like a woman--a woman hurt and sensitive."

"If I had only known--only imagined"; Conning was walking toward the door; "well, at least I'm on the job now, Dr. McPherson."

And then for an hour or two Truedale walked the city streets perplexed and distraught. He was being absorbed without his own volition. By a subtle force he was convinced that he was part of a scheme bigger and stronger than his own desires and inclinations. Unless he was prepared to play a coward's role he must adjust his thoughts and ideas to coincide with the rules and regulations of the game of life and men.

With this knowledge other and more blighting convictions held part. In his defiance and egotism he had muddled things in a desperate way. In the cold, clear light of conventional relations the past few weeks, shorn of the glamour cast by his romantic love and supposed contempt for social restrictions, stood forth startlingly significant. At the moment Truedale could not conceive how he had ever been capable of playing the fool as he had! Not for one instant did this realization affect his love and loyalty to Nella-Rose; but that he should have been swept from his moorings by pa.s.sion, reduced him to a state of contempt for the folly he had perpetrated. And, he thought, if he now, after a few days, could so contemplate his acts how could he suppose that others would view them with tolerance and sympathy?

No; he must accept the inevitable results of his action. His love, his earnest intention of some day living his own life in his own way, were to cost him more than he, blinded by selfishness and pa.s.sion in the hills, had supposed.

Well, he was ready to pay to the uttermost though it cost him the deepest heart-ache. As he was prepared to undertake the burden his uncle's belief in him entailed, so he was prepared, now that he saw things clearly, to forego the dearest and closest ties of his old life.

He wondered how he could ever have dreamed that he could go to Lynda and Brace with his amazing confession and expect them, in the first moment of shock, to open their hearts and understand him. He almost laughed, now, as he pictured the absurdity. And just then he drew himself up sharply and came to his conclusion.

He could not lay himself bare to any one as a sentimental a.s.s; he must arrange things as soon as possible to return South; he would, just before starting, tell Lynda and Brace of his attachment for Nella-Rose.

They would certainly understand why, in the stress and strain of recent events, he had not intruded his startling news before. He would neither ask nor expect sympathy or cooperation. He must a.s.sume that they could not comprehend him. This was going to be the hardest wrench of his life, Truedale recognized that, but it was the penalty he felt he must pay.

Then he would go--for his wife! He would secure her privately, by all the necessary conventions he had spurned so madly--he would bring her to his people and leave to her sweetness and tender charm the winning of that which he, in his blindness, had all but lost.

So, in this mood, he returned to his uncle's house and wrote a long letter to Nella-Rose. He phrased it simply, as to a little child. He reminded her of the old story she had once told him of her belief that some day she was to do a mighty big thing.

"And now you have your chance!" he pleaded. "I cannot live in your hills, dear, though often you and I will return to them and be happy in the little log house. But you must come with me--your husband. Come down the Big Road, letting me lead you, and you must trust me and oh! my doney-gal, by your blessed sweetness and power you must win for me--for us both--what I, alone, can never win."

There was more, much more, of love and longing, of tender loyalty and pa.s.sionate rea.s.surance, and having concluded his letter he sealed it, addressed it, and putting it in an envelope with a short note of explanation to Jim White as to its delivery, etc., he mailed it with such a sense of relief as he had not known in many a weary day.

He prepared himself for a period of patient waiting. He knew with what carelessness mail matter was regarded in the hills, and winter had already laid its hold upon Pine Cone, he felt sure. So while he waited he plunged eagerly into each day's work and with delight saw how everything seemed to go through without a hitch. It began to look as if, when Nella-Rose's reply came, there would be no reason for delay in bringing her to the North.

But this hope and vision did not banish entirely Truedale's growing sorrow for the part he must inevitably take when the truth was known to Lynda and Brace. Harder and harder the telling of it appeared as the time drew near. Never had they seemed dearer or more sacred to him than now when he realized the hurt he must cause them. There were moments when he felt that he could not bear the eyes of Lynda--those friendly, trusting eyes. Would she ever be able, in the years to come, to forgive and forget? And Brace--how could that frank, direct nature comprehend the fever of madness that had, in the name of love, betrayed the confidence and faith of a lifetime? Well, much lay in the keeping of the little mountain girl whose fascination and loveliness would plead mightily. Of Nella-Rose's power Truedale held no doubt.

Then came White's devastating letter at the close of an exhausting day when Conning was to dine with the Kendalls.

That afternoon he had concluded the immediate claims of business, had arranged with McPherson for a week's absence, and meant in the evening to explain to Brace and Lynda the reason for his journey. He was going to start South on the morrow, whether a letter came or not. He had steeled himself for the crucial hour with his friends; had already, in his imagination, bidden farewell to the relations that had held them close through the past years. He believed, because he was capable of paying this heavy price for his love, that no further proof would be necessary to convince even Lynda of its intensity.

They dined cheerfully and alone and, as they crossed the hall afterward, to the library, Lynda asked casually:

"Did you get the letters for you, Con? The maid laid them on the stand by the door."

Then she went on into the bright room with its long, vacant chair, singing "To-morrow's Song" in that sweet contralto of hers that deserved better training.

There were three letters--one from a man whose son Truedale had tutored before he went away, one from the architect of the new hospital, and a bulky one from Dr. McPherson. Truedale carried them all into the library where Brace sat comfortably puffing away before the fire; and Lynda, some designs for interior decoration spread out before her on a low table, still humming, rocked gently to and fro in a very feminine rocker. Conning drew up a chair opposite Kendall and tore open the envelope from his late patron.

"I tell you, Brace," he said, "if any one had told me six weeks ago that I should ever be indifferent to a possible offer to tutor, I would have laughed at him. But so it is. I must turn down the sure-paying Mr. Smith for lack of time."

Lynda laughed merrily. "And six weeks ago if any one had come to me in my Top Shelf where I carried on my profession, and outlined this for me"--she waved her hand around the room--"I'd have called the janitor to put out an unsafe person. Hey-ho!" And then the brown head was bent over the problem of an order which had come in that day.

"Oh! I say, Lyn!" Truedale turned from his second letter. "Morgan suggests that _you_ attend to the decorating and furnishing of the hospital. I told him to choose his man and he prefers you if I have no objection. Objection? Good Lord, I never thought of you. I somehow considered such work out of your line, but I'm delighted."

"Splendid!" Lynda looked up, radiant. "How I shall revel in those broad, clean s.p.a.ces! How I shall see Uncle William in every room! Thank him, Con, and tell him I accept--on his terms!"

Then Truedale opened the third envelope and an enclosed letter fell out, bearing the postmark of the Junction near Pine Cone!

There was a small electric reading lamp on the arm of Truedale's chair; he turned the light on and, while his face was in shadow, the words before him stood out illumined.

"Sir--Mister Truedale." The sheriff had evidently been sorely perplexed as to the proper beginning of the task he had undertaken.

"I send this by old Doc McPherson, not knowing any better way."