There was one thought that kept popping into his head, but it was too hideous for a moment's belief. He stamped on it as he would a snake and hurried on to other possibilities. There was but one thing he could do and that was to await with increasing dread her first move.

CHAPTER XVI

THE LARGER VISION

His mind had just settled into this att.i.tude of alert watchfulness toward Cleo when the first danger the doctor dreaded for his wife began to take shape.

The feverish brightness in her eyes grew dimmer and her movements less vigorous. The dreaded reaction had come and the taut strings of weakened nerves could bear the strain no longer.

With a cry of despair she threw herself into his arms:

"Oh, Dan, dear, it's no use! I've tried--I've tried so hard--but I can't do it--I just don't want to live any more!"

He put his hands over the trembling, thin lips:

"Hush, dearest, you mustn't say that--it's just a minute's reaction. You're blue this morning, that's all. It's the weather--a dreary foggy day. The sun will be shining again to-morrow. It's shining now behind the mists if we only remember it. The trees are bare, but their buds are swelling and these days of cold and fog and rain must come to make them burst in glory.

Come, let me put your shawl around you and I'll show you how the flowers have pushed up in the sheltered places the past week."

He drew the hands, limp and cold, from his neck, picked up her shawl, tenderly placed it about her shoulders, lifted her in his strong arms, and carried her to the old rose garden behind the house.

Don sniffed his leg, and looked up into his face with surprise at the unexpected frolic. He leaped into the air, barked softly and ran in front to show the way.

"You see, old Don knows the sun is shining behind the clouds, dear!"

She made no answer. The blonde head drooped limply against his breast. He found a seat on the south side of the greenhouse on an old rustic bench his father had built of cedar when he was a boy.

"There," he said cheerfully, as he smoothed her dress and drew her close by his side. "You can feel the warmth of the sun here reflected from the gla.s.s. The violets are already blooming along the walks. The jonquils are all gone, and the rose bushes have begun to bud. You mustn't talk about giving up. We haven't lived yet."

"But I'm tired, Dan, tired----"

"It's just for a moment, remember, my love. You'll feel differently to-morrow. The world is always beautiful if we only have eyes to see and ears to hear. Watch that smoke curling straight up from the chimney! That means the clouds are already lifting and the sun will burst through them this afternoon. You mustn't brood, dearest. You must forget the misery that has darkened our world for a moment and remember that it's only the dawn of a new life for us both. We are just boy and girl yet. There's nothing impossible. I'm going to prove to you that my love is the deathless thing in me--the thing that links me to G.o.d."

"You really love me so?" she asked softly.

"Give me a chance to prove it. That's all I ask. Men sometimes wait until they're past forty before they begin to sow their wild oats. I am only twenty-five now. This tragic sin and shame has redeemed life. It's yours forever--you must believe me when I say this, dearest----"

"I try," she broke in wearily. "I try, Dan, but it's hard to believe anything now--oh, so hard----"

"But can't you understand, my love, how I have been headstrong and selfish before the shock of my fall brought me to my senses? And that the terror of losing you has taught me how deep and eternal the roots of our love have struck and this knowledge led me into the consciousness of a larger and more wonderful life--can't--can't you understand this, dearest?"

His voice sank to the lowest reverent whisper as he ceased to speak. She stroked his hand with a pathetic little gesture of tenderness.

"Yes, I believe you," she said with a far-away look in her eyes. "I know that I can trust you now implicitly, and what I can't understand is that--feeling this so clearly--still I have no interest in life. Something has snapped inside of me. Life doesn't seem worth the struggle any longer----"

"But it is, dear! Life is always good, always beautiful, and always worth the struggle. We've but to lift our eyes and see. Sin is only our stumbling in the dark as we grope toward the light. I'm going to be a humbler and better man. I am no longer proud and vain. I've a larger and sweeter vision. I feel my kinship to the weak and the erring. Alone in the night my soul has entered into the fellowship of the great Brotherhood through the gates of suffering. You must know this, Jean--you know that it's true as I thus lay my heart's last secret bare to you to-day.

"Yes, Dan," she sighed wearily, "but I'm just tired. I don't seem to recognize anything I used to know. I look at the baby and he don't seem to be mine. I look at you and feel that you're a stranger. I look at my room, the lawn, the street, the garden--no matter where, and I'm dazed. I feel that I've lost my way. I don't know how to live any more."

For an hour he held her hand and pleaded with all the eloquence of his love that she would let him teach her again, and all she could do was to come back forever in the narrow circle her mind had beaten. She was tired and life no longer seemed worth while!

He kissed the drooping eyelids at last and laughed a willful, daring laugh as he gathered her in his arms and walked slowly back into the house.

"You've got to live, my own! I'll show you how! I'll breathe my fierce desire into your soul and call you back even from the dead!"

Yet in spite of all she drooped and weakened daily, and at the end of a fortnight began to complain of a feeling of uneasiness in her throat.

The old doctor said nothing when she made this announcement. He drew his beetling eyebrows low and walked out on the lawn.

Pale and haggard, Norton followed him.

"Well, doctor?" he asked queerly.

"There's only one thing to do. Get her away from here at once, to the most beautiful spot you can find, high alt.i.tude with pure, stimulating air. The change may help her. That's all I can say"--he paused, laid his hand on the husband's arm and went on earnestly--"and if you haven't discussed that affair with her, you'd better try it. Tear the old wound open, go to the bottom of it, find the thing that's festering there and root it out if you can--the thing that's caused this break."

The end of another week found them in Asheville, North Carolina.

The wonderful views of purple hills and turquoise sky stretching away into the infinite thrilled the heart of the little invalid.

It was her first trip to the mountains. She never tired the first two days of sitting in the big sun-parlor beside the open fire logs and gazing over the valleys and watching the fleet clouds with their marvelous coloring.

The air was too chill in these early days of spring for her to feel comfortable outside. But a great longing began to possess her to climb the mountains and feel their beauty at closer range.

She sat by his side in her room and held his hand while they watched the glory of the first cloud-flecked mountain sunset. The river lay a crooked silver ribbon in the deepening shadows of the valley, while the sky stretched its dazzling scarlet canopy high in heaven above it. The scarlet slowly turned to gold, and then to deepening purple and with each change revealed new beauty to the enraptured eye.

She caught her breath and cried at last:

"Oh, it is a beautiful world, Dan, dear--and I wish I could live!"

He laughed for joy:

"Then you shall, dearest! You shall, of course you shall!"

"I want you to take me over every one of those wonderful purple hills!"

"Yes, dear, I will!"

"I dream as I sit and look at them that G.o.d lives somewhere in one of those deep shadows behind a dazzling cloud, and that if we only drive along those ragged cliffs among them we'd come face to face with Him some day----"

He looked at her keenly. There was again that unnatural brightness in her eyes which he didn't like and yet he took courage. The day was a glorious one in the calendar. Hope had dawned in her heart.

"The first warm day we'll go, dear," he cried with the enthusiasm of a boy, "and take mammy and the kid with us, too, if you say so----"

"No, I want just you, Dan. The long ride might tire the baby, and I might wish to stay up there all night. I shall never grow tired of those hills."

"It's sweet to hear you talk like that," he cried with a smile.