"I think we'd better be getting back," said the latter suddenly, in an odd voice, rising in the middle of one of Justin's sentences as Billy came straying in to join the group.

Lois' heart leaped. She had felt that another moment of live bait and reminiscences would be more than she could stand.

"You need some rest," she said gratefully. "You have been tired out in our service."

"Oh, I'm not tired at all," he returned shortly. Her work seemed to catch his eye for the first time, in a desire to change the subject.

"What are you making?"

"A ball for Redge. I made one for Zaidee, and he felt left out-he's of a very jealous disposition," she went on abstractedly. "Are you of a jealous disposition, Mr. Girard?"

"I!" He stopped short, with the air of one not accustomed to taking account of his own attributes, and apparently pondered the question as if for the first time. When he looked up to answer, it was with abrupt decision: "Yes, I am."

"Don't look so like a pirate," said young Billy, giving him a thump on the back that sent them both out of the house, laughing, when Lois rose and went over to Justin's side.

Husband and wife were at last alone.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

In the days that followed, Justin, going away in the morning very early with a set face, coming home very late in the evening with that set face still, hardly seemed to notice the children or Dosia. Some tremulous change had affected Dosia; her eyelashes were often mysteriously wet, though no one saw her weep.

"Justin has so much on his mind." Lois kept repeating the words over and over, as if she found in them something by which to hold fast. Rich in beauty as she was, full of love and tender favor, with the sweetness and the pathos of an awakening soul, her husband seemed to have no eyes, no thought for her. That one murmured sentence in the hallway was all her food to live on-his only personal recognition of her.

On the other hand, he poured out his affairs and his plans to her with a freedom of confidence unknown before, a confidence which seemed to presuppose her oneness of interest with him. He had talked exhaustively about everything but those few days' absence; that was a sore that she must not touch, a wound that could bear no probing. She had striven very hard not to show when she didn't understand, taking her cues for a.s.sent or dissent as he evidently wished her to, letting him think aloud, as it seemed to be a relief to him, and saying little herself. The only time when she broke in on her own account was when he had told her about Cater, and the defective bars, and Leverich's ultimatum. Here was an issue that she could comprehend; here her woman's instinct rang true. A man may juggle with that fluctuating line where sharp practice and honest shrewdness meet, so that he fails to see where one begins and another ends; but a woman of Lois' caliber _knows_. Her "Justin, you wouldn't do that; you wouldn't tell!" met with his quick response: "No, I couldn't."

"Oh, I know that, I know that! I'm glad, whatever comes, that you couldn't do it. I'd rather be a hundred times poorer than we are! Aren't you glad that you couldn't do it?"

"No; I think I'm rather sorry," said Justin, with a half-smile. The peculiar sharpness of the thought that it was between Cater and Leverich-his friends, Heaven save the mark! that he was being pushed toward ruin, had not lost any of its edge.

There had been a tonic in a certain att.i.tude of Cater's mind toward Justin-an unspoken kindliness and admiration and tenderness such as an older man who has been along a hard road may feel toward another who has come along the same way. Cater's kind, un.o.btrusive comradeship, the fair-dealing friendliness of his rivalry, had seemed to be one of the factors of support, of honesty, of commercial righteousness.

Justin was surprised to find out how much the morning greeting with Cater, or the occasional lunch-hour together, had meant to him. Cater and he had mutually understood a great many things. Cater had done nothing wrong now, except to pull the foothold from under his friend's feet. It was not men who were known to be bad who hurt you when they were dishonest; it was the _good_ men who slid over that dividing-line, with apparent unconsciousness that they were on that other, shaming side. To break an unwritten bond is perhaps worse than to break one printed and scheduled, because it presupposes a greater faith and trust.

Justin could smile proudly at Leverich, but he couldn't smile when he thought of Cater-it weighed upon and humiliated him for the man who had been his friend.

"I am glad that you couldn't do it anyway!" said Lois. "It wouldn't have been you if you had! Can't you take a rest now, dear, when _you_ look so ill? No, no; I didn't mean that-of course you can't!"

"A _rest!_" He rose and walked up and down the room. "Lois, do you know that, in some way, I've got to get that money before the thirteenth?

Those days in Chicago-at the worst time! It makes me wild to think of the time I've lost. I'm looking out for a partner who will buy out Leverich and Martin, and we've got a chance yet-I'll swear we have! But Lewiston's note has got to be paid first; then I can take time to breathe. Harker saw a man from Boston from whom we might have borrowed the money, if I had only been here. If we get that we can hold over; if we don't we go to smash, and so does Lewiston. Lewiston _trusted_ me.

I've been to several places to-day to men that would be willing enough to lend the money if they didn't know I needed it."

"George Sutton?" hazarded Lois.

Justin's lips curved bitterly. "Oh, he's a cur. He had some money invested last year when he was sweet on Dosia, and drew it all out afterwards! And, after all, I went to him to-day, like a fool!"

"Can't you go to Eugene Larue?"

"No. We talked about it once, but he fought shy; he didn't think the security enough. If he thought so then, it would be worse than useless now."

"Mr. Girard?"

"There's no use telling things to him, he hasn't any money." Justin turned a dim eye on her. "I tell you, Lois, I haven't left a stone unturned so far, that I could get at. If we could only sell the island!

Girard's looking it up for me; there may be a chance of that. There are lots of chances to be thought out. I don't even know how we keep running, but we do. Harker's a trump! If I can hold up my end, we'll be all right."

"Then go to bed now," said Lois, with a quick dread that gave her courage. "And you must have something to eat first-and to drink, too.

Come, Justin! Do as I say." Her voice had a new firmness in it which he unconsciously obeyed. She crept to her bed at last, aching in every limb, but with her baby pressed close to her, her one darling comfort, the source from which she drew a new love as the child drew its life from her. It was the first time in all her married life that she had borne the burden of her husband's care, a burden from which she must seek no solace from him. Yet the thought of him was in itself solace-her faith in him so strong that she simply knew he must succeed.

A king of men! If only he did not look so badly!

She bent all her energies, these next days, to keeping him well fed, and ordering everything minutely for his comfort when he came home, aided and abetted by Dosia. The two women worked as with one thought between them, as women can work, for the well-being of one they love, with fond and minute care. Every detail, from the time he went away in the morning, stooping slightly under the weight of something mysterious and unseen, was ordered with reference to his homecoming at night-the husband and father on whose strength all this helpless little family hung for their own sustenance. The children were shown him at their best, and whisked away the moment they got troublesome.

Lois dressed herself in the colors he had liked. The cloth was laid immaculately for dinner, although the maid had gone and had not been replaced, and dainty dishes for him were concocted with delicate care-the more care, that every penny had to be counted; when Justin took out that lean pocket-book to give her money, Lois winced. If he seemed to relish anything he ate, she and Dosia looked at each other with covert triumph.

Everything that was done for him had to be done covertly, it was found; he disliked any manifestation of undue attention to his wants. Sometimes he was terribly irritable and unjust, and at others almost heartbreakingly gentle and mild. Lois had persuaded him to have the doctor, who told him seriously that he must stay home and rest-a futile prescription which he treated with scorn. Rest! He knew very well that it was not rest that he needed, but money-money, money, the elixir of life! He looked drawn and haggard and old, despite his nervous energy, but a sufficient quant.i.ty of that magic metal would smooth out those premature wrinkles, and round out those hollow checks, and give a cheerful brightness to his eye, and take ten years from his age.

Both women came to know the days when the prospects for selling the island looked well or ill, with those telegrams of Girard's. Lois poured out her heart about him to Dosia, her minute anxieties and fears.

William came around several times to see Dosia-his visit almost invariably followed by one from Mrs. Snow, to see if her William were there. For the rest, there were few callers.

It was near the end of this week when Justin came home, as Lois could see at once, revived and encouraged, though still abstracted. He had an invitation to take a ride in the doctor's motor, the doctor being a man who, when the hazard of dangerous cases had been extreme, absented himself for a couple of hours, in which, under a breathless and unholy speed of motoring, he reversed the pressure on his nerves, and came to the renewed sanity of a wind-swept brain when every idea had been rushed out of it.

Lois felt that it would be good for Justin, too, and was glad that he had been persuaded to go; yet she caught him looking at her with such strange intentness a couple of times during the dinner that it discomposed her oddly. It made her a little silent; she pondered over it after she had gone up, as usual, to the baby. Was there something wrong with her appearance? She looked anxiously in the gla.s.s, and was annoyed to find that the white fichu, open at the throat, was not on quite straight, and her hair was a little disarranged. She was pale, and there were dark lines under her eyes. She hated not to look nice- Yet it might not be that. Was it, perhaps, that something else was wrong-that he had bad news which he did not like to tell? Was he to leave her again on some journey? She turned white for a moment, and sat down, to get the baby to sleep, and then resolutely tried to drive the thought from her.

Yet, as she sat there rocking gently, the thought still came back to her, oddly, puzzlingly. Why had he looked at her like that? The smoke of his pipe down-stairs kept her still aware of his presence.

Presently he came up-stairs and tiptoed into the room in clumsy fashion, for fear of waking the baby, in his quest for a handkerchief in a chiffonier drawer. After finding it, he stopped for a moment in front of her, with that odd, arrested expression once more.

"You don't mind my going out to-night and leaving you?" he murmured.

"The doctor ought to have asked _you_ to go instead; you need it more than I."

"Oh, no, no!" she hastened to rea.s.sure. "I don't mind at all, really!"

Her eyes gazed up at him limpidly clear, and emptied of self. "I have to run up and down stairs so many times to baby now that I couldn't go, no matter how much I was asked to. I'm only glad that you will have the distraction-you need it. I hope you'll have a lovely time."

She listened to his descending footsteps, and after a moment or two arose and laid the sleeping child down in his crib. From across the hall she could hear Redge and Zaidee prattling to each other from their beds with an elfish glee that began to have long waits between its outbursts.

In the dim light she went about the room, picking up toys and little discarded garments left by the children, folding the clothes away, her tall, graceful figure, in the large curves of its repeated bending and straightening, seeming to exemplify some unpainted Millet-like idea of mother-work, emblematic of its unceasing round. She was hanging up a tiny cloak in the half-gloom of her closet, when she heard her husband's step once more stealing into the room, and the next moment saw him beside her.

"What's the matter?" she asked, with quick premonition.

"Nothing, nothing at all; we haven't started yet." He put one arm around her, and with the other lifted her face up toward his. "I only came back to tell you-"His voice broke; there seemed to be a mist over the eyes that were bent on hers. "I can't talk. I can't be as I ought to be, Lois, until all this is over-but-I don't know what's getting into me lately, you look so beautiful to me that I can't take my eyes off you! I went around all to-day counting the hours, like a foolish boy, until it was time to come back to you; I grudge every minute that I spend away from my lovely wife."%

Sometimes we have a happiness so much greater, so much more blessed than our easily imagined bliss that we can only hide our eyes from it at first, like those of old, when in some humble and unthought-of place they were visited by angels.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE