"See here," he said, bluntly. "I've never had a bit of adventure in my life--I'm a stick. I don't know what you will think of me; I don't care much; but you've started something in me; it's nothing I'm ashamed of, either, and you needn't be afraid. But won't you talk to me some time--about--well, this stunt and some other things?"

"Certainly not!" Joan drew back and added: "and I am not in the least afraid."

CHAPTER XIV

"_But after it comes our lives are changed._"

And just when winter was turning to spring in the southern hills something happened to Nancy.

The winter at Ridge House had revealed many things. It had been lonely, and it had brought conviction about Joan's absence. The girl was not coming back to them, that must be an accepted fact. She would, undoubtedly, when she became adjusted, return on visits--but they must not expect her as a fixture, for she was succeeding! This realization had caused Doris many silent hours of thought, but never once had she known bitterness or a sense of injustice. Joan had as much right as any other human soul to her own development. Doris was glad that Joan had never known what Nancy knew about the need for coming to The Gap. The knowing would have held Joan back. With Nancy it was different. Nancy was not held from anything she wanted.

David Martin spent as much time as he could at Ridge House. He came to the hard conclusion, at length, that Doris, in her new environment, had reached her high-water mark. Detached from strain and care, living quietly, and largely in the open, she had responded almost at once--to her limit, and there she remained. How long this improved state would hold was the main thing to be considered; nothing more comforting could be looked for.

"Then, what next?" thought David, and his jaw grew grim.

And Nancy, with a winter far too quiet and uneventful even for her, had contrived to do some thinking for herself. Not for the world would the girl have accepted Joan's choice. The safe and sheltered life was wholly to her taste, but she wanted others to fall into line. Like many another, she was not content to hold her own views, she was unhappy unless she was approved and imitated. She wanted the spice and thrill of Joan in her life; Joan was part of it all--the rightful part. With this Nancy took to self-pity in order to establish her claim.

"Why should I be taken for granted and be obliged to give up all the fun and brightness while Joan does as she pleases?"

Doctor Martin, even Doris, expected Nancy to come when she was called and go to bed when the clock struck ten, while Joan could follow her own sweet will.

At this point Nancy re-read Joan's letters--all letters from Joan were common property. If ever there was innocent jugglery Joan's letters were. They were vivid and interesting; they carried one along on a stream as clear as crystal, but they arrived at nothing.

The studio was left to the imagination of the reader. Doris saw it as a safe and artistic home for earnest young girlhood; Nancy saw it as an open sesame to fun, rather wilder than school bats, but with the same delicious tang. Doctor Martin viewed the place as most dangerous, and those young people gathered there as perilous offsprings of a much-deplored departure from conservative youth.

"Fancy Joan helping in a restaurant!" groaned Nancy when Joan had particularized about her "job." "Joan, of all people!"

"It will be good practice," Doris remarked in reply. "When Joan marries, she will have had some experience."

"Marry?" David Martin broke in--he was on one of his flying visits. "If anything could unfit a girl for marriage, the thing Joan is doing is that."

"Very well," Doris said, quietly; "marriage isn't everything, David."

Doris was beginning to defend Joan, and it hurt her to be obliged to do so. She did not regret the relinquishing of the girl, but she had hoped, in her deepest love, that the experiment might either prove a failure or that it might carry Joan to a peak--not a dead level. It was beginning to seem that the sacrifice on her part meant simply separating Joan from her--not giving Joan to anything worth while.

There were moments, rather vague, elusive ones, to be sure, when Doris turned from Joan and contemplated Nancy.

"The child is perfectly content and happy," she thought; "but ought she to be so--at her age? Nancy should marry--she will, of course, some day.----" Then Doris wondered whom Nancy could marry.

"Next winter I may be able to go to New York," she comforted herself; "or I'll send Nancy to Emily Tweksbury; the child shall have her life chance."

But with Doris the inevitable was happening: she was sliding gracefully down the inclined plane which others had arranged for her. She was making no effort, because none was required of her. The peace and comfort of the old house in restoring comparative health had placed its mark upon her. It was wonderful to lie on the porch and watch the beauty of The Gap change from season to season. The sound of the river was always in her ears, and there was a dramatic appeal in kneeling at the altar in the tiny chapel to pray for them whom she loved so tenderly.

And Nancy was so sweet and companionable! Poor little Nancy! She was playing Doris's minor accompaniment as once she had played Joan's more vivid one. But the youth in her was surging and rebelling--not against love and service, but inequality.

"Joan should bear half, anyway!"

Just what it was that Joan should share Nancy could not have told, she simply knew that she wanted Joan--wanted what Joan represented.

With the pa.s.sing of winter and the early coming of spring Nancy and Doris reacted to the charm of The Gap. The shut-in days were past.

Almost before one could hope for it, the dogwood and laurel and azalea burst into bloom and the windows and doors were flung back in welcome to spring.

The grounds around Ridge House needed much attention, and Doris contrived to make Uncle Jed believe that he was the gardener. Nancy, surrounded by dogs, no longer pups, wandered on the Little Road and timidly took to the trails. It was quite exciting to go a little farther each day into the mysterious gloom that was pierced by the golden sunlight. Gradually the girl felt the joy of the mountaineer; vaguely the emotion took shape.

What lay just around the curve ahead? What could one see from that mysterious top? Was there a "top"? If one went on, overcoming obstacles, what might there not be? These ambitions were quite outside the by-paths once or twice taken with Father n.o.ble.

Doris was glad to see the light and colour in Nancy's pretty face; she was grateful, but inclined to be anxious when Nancy wandered far.

"Is it quite safe?" she questioned Jed.

"Dat chile is as safe as she is with Gawd," Jed reverently replied--and perhaps she was, for G.o.d's ways are often like the trails of the high places--hidden until one treads them.

Nancy, by May, had lost all fear of the solitude, and with seeking eyes she wandered farther and higher day by day. She brought back wonderful flowers and ferns to Ridge House; she grew eloquent about the "lost cabins" as she called them, secreted from any gaze but that which, like hers, sought them out. She took gifts to the old people and timid children.

"It's such fun, Aunt Dorrie," she explained, "to win the baby things. At first they are so frightened. They run and hide--they never cry or scream, and bye and bye they come to meet me; they bring me little treasures, the darlings! One gave me a tiny chicken just hatched."

But beyond the last cabin that Nancy conquered was a hard, rocky trail that led, apparently, to the sharp crest called by Uncle Jed Thunder Peak.

"Does any one live on Thunder Peak?" asked Nancy of Jed.

The old man wrinkled his brow. He had not thought of Becky Adams for years; at best the woman had been but a landmark, and landmarks had a habit of disappearing.

"No, there ain't no reason for folks to live on Thunder Peak. It's a right sorry place for living."

Jed found comfort, now he came to think of it, in knowing that Becky had departed.

"Whar?" he asked himself, when Nancy, followed by two of her dogs, went away; "whar dat old Aunt Becky disappeared to?" Then he pulled himself together and went to deliver the message Nancy had confided to him.

"Tell Aunt Doris I'm going for a long walk and not to worry if I'm not home for luncheon."

Jed repeated this message over and over aloud. He fumbled it, corrected it, and then finally gripped it long enough to speak the words automatically to Doris and Doctor Martin.

"That old fellow," Martin said, looking keenly after him, "is going to go all to pieces some day like the one-hoss shay. He looks about a hundred. I wonder how old he is?"

Doris smiled.

"I imagine," she said, "that he is not as old as he looks. He told me that his grandfather was married in short trousers and never lived to get in long ones. They begin life so early and just shuffle through it."

"You find that thing in the South more than anywhere else." Martin was nodding understandingly. "It's like a dream--more like looking at life than living it. I suppose when they die they wake up and stretch and have a laugh at what they feared and pa.s.sed through in their sleep."

"We will all do that, more or less, Davey."

"More or less--yes!" Then suddenly: