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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..35a094e --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #51928 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/51928) diff --git a/old/51928-0.txt b/old/51928-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 6234197..0000000 --- a/old/51928-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,3497 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Dark Fleece, by Joseph Hergesheimer - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - -Title: The Dark Fleece - -Author: Joseph Hergesheimer - -Release Date: May 1, 2016 [EBook #51928] -Last Updated: March 12, 2018 - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DARK FLEECE *** - - - - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by Google Books - - - - - - - - - -THE DARK FLEECE - -By Joseph Hergesheimer - -New York Alfred A. Knopf - -1922 - -Copyright, 1918, By Alfred A. Knopf - -Published, April, 1918, in a volume now out of print, entitled “Gold and -Iron,” and then reprinted twice. - - - - -OLIVE - - -|THE house in old Cottarsport in which Olive Stanes lived was set midway -on the steepness of Orange Street. It was a low dwelling of weathered -boards holding close to the rocky soil, resembling, like practically all -the Cottarsport buildings, the salt weed clinging to the seaward rocks -of the harbor; and Orange Street, narrow, without walks, and dipping -into cuplike depressions, was a type of almost all the streets. The -Stanes house was built with its gable to the public way; the length -faced a granite shoulder thrust up through the spare earth, a tall, -weedy disorder of golden glow, and the sedgy incline to the habitation -above. - -When Hester and Jem and then Rhoda were little they had had great joy of -the boulder in the side yard: it was for them first impossible and then -difficult of accomplishment; but they had rapidly grown into a complete -mastery of its potentialities as a fort, a mansion impressive as that of -the Canderays' on Regent Street, and a ship under the dangerous shore -of the Feejees. Olive, the solitary child of Ira Stanes' first marriage, -had had no such reckless pleasure from the rock---- - -She had been, she realized, standing in the narrow portico that -commanded by two steps the uneven flagging from the street, a -very careful, yes, considerate, child when measured by the gay -irresponsibility of her half brother and sisters. Money had been no more -plentiful in the Stanes family, nor in all Cottarsport, then than now; -her dresses had been few, she had been told not to soil or tear them, -and she had rigorously attended the instruction. - -The second Mrs. Stanes, otherwise an admirable wife and mother, had, to -Olive's young disapproval, rather encouraged a boisterous conduct in her -children which overlooked a complete cleanliness or tidy array. And when -she, like her predecessor, had died, and left Olive at twenty-three to -assume full maternal responsibilities, that serious vicarious parent had -entered into an inevitable and largely unavailing struggle against the -minor damage caused mostly by the activities about the boulder. - -Now Hester and Rhoda had left behind such purely imaginative games, -and Jem was away fishing on the Georges Bank; her duty and worries had -shifted, but not lessened; while the rock remained precisely as it -had been through the children's growth, as it had appeared in her own -earliest memories, as it was before ever the Stanes dwelling, now a -hundred and fifty years in place, or old Cottarsport itself, had been -dreamed of. Her thoughts were mixed: at once they created a vague -parallel between the granite in the side yard and herself, Olive -Stanes--they both seemed to have been so long in one spot, so unchanged; -and they dwelt on the fact that soon--as soon as Jason Burrage got -home--she must be utterly different. - -Jason had written her that, if they cared to, they could build a house -as large as the Canderays'. Under the circumstances she had been obliged -to look on that as, perhaps, an excusable exaggeration, though she -instinctively condemned the dereliction of the truth; yet, more than any -other figure could possibly have done, it impressed upon her, from the -boldness of the imagery, that Jason had succeeded in finding the gold -for which he had gone in search nine years before. He was coming back, -soon, rich. - -The other important fact reiterated in his last letter, that in all his -absent years of struggle he had never faltered in his purpose of coming -to her with any fortune he might chance to get, she regarded with -scant thought. It had not occurred to Olive that Jason Burrage would -do anything else; her only concern had been that he might be killed; -otherwise he had said that he loved her, and that they were to marry -when he returned. - -She hadn't, really, been in favor of his going. The Burrages, measured -by Cottarsport standards, were comfortably situated--Mr. Burrage's -packing warehouse and employment in dried fish were locally called -successful--but Jason had never been satisfied with familiar values; he -had always exclaimed against the narrowness of his local circumstance, -and restlessly reached toward greater possessions and a wider horizon. -This dissatisfaction Olive had thought wicked, in that it had seemed to -criticize the omnipotent and far-seeing wisdom of the Eternal; it had -caused her much unhappiness and prayer, she had talked very earnestly -to Jason about his stubborn spirit, but it had persisted in him, and at -last carried him west in the first madness of the discovery of gold in a -California river. - -Olive, at times, thought that Jason's revolt had been brought about by -the visible example of the worldly pomp of the Canderays--of their great -white house with the balustraded captain's walk on the gambreled roof, -their chaise, and equable but slightly disconcerting courtesy. But she -had been obliged to admit that, after all was said, Jason's bearing was -the result of his own fretful heart. - -He had always been different from the other Cottarsport youths and men: -while they were commonly long and bony, and awkwardly hung together, -thickly tanned by the winds and sun and spray of the sea, Jason was -small, compact, with dead black hair and pale skin. Mr. Burrage, who -resembled a worn and discolored piece of driftwood, was the usual -Cottarsport old man; but his wife, not conspicuously out of the -ordinary, still had a snap in her unfading eyes, a ruddy roundness of -cheek, that showed a lingering trace of a French Acadian intermarriage a -century and more ago. - -Olive always regarded with something like surprise her unquestioned love -for Jason. It had grown quietly, unknown to her, through a number -of preliminary years in which she had felt that she must exert some -influence for his good. He frightened her a little by his hot utterances -and by the manner in which his soul shivered on the verge of a righteous -damnation. The effort to preserve him from such destruction became -intenser and more involved; until suddenly, to her later consternation, -she had surrendered her lips in a single, binding kiss. - -But with that consummation a great deal of her troubling had ceased; -spiritual vision, she had been certain, must follow their sacred union -and subsequent life. Even the gold agitation and Jason's departure for -Boston and the western wild had not given her especial concern. God -was the supreme Master of human fate, and if He willed for Jason to -go forth, who was she, Olive Stanes, to make a to-do? She had quietly -addressed herself to the task of Hester, Jem, and Rhoda, to the ordering -of her father's household--he was mostly away on the sea and a solitary -man at home--and the formal recurrence of the occasions of the church. - -In such ways, she thought, bathed in the keen, pale red glow of a late -afternoon in October, her youth had slipped imperceptibly away. - -A strong salt wind dipped into the hollow, and plastered her skirt, -without hoops, against her erect, thin person. With the instinct, bred -by the sea, of the presence in all calculations of the weather, she -mechanically dwelt on its force and direction, wrinkling her forehead -and pinching her lips--she could hear the rising wind straining through -the elms on the hills behind Cottarsport--and then she turned abruptly -and entered the house. - -There was a small dark hallway within, a narrow flight of stairs leading -sharply up; the door on the right, to the formal chamber, was closed; -but at the left an interior of somber scrubbed wood was visible. On -the side against the hall a cavernous fireplace, with a brick hearth, -blackened with shadows and the soot of ancient fires, had been left -open, but held an air-tight sheet-iron stove. The windows, high on the -walls, were small and long, rather than deep; and a table, perpetually -spread, stood on a thick hooked rug of brilliant, primitive design. - -Rhoda, in a creaking birch rocker, was singing an inarticulated song -with closed eyes. Her voice, giving the impression of being subdued, -filled the room with its vibrant power. She had a mature face for -sixteen years, vividly colored and sensitive, a wide mouth, and heavy -twists of russet hair with metallic lights. The song stopped as Olive -entered. Rhoda said: - -“I wish Hester would hurry home; I'm dreadful hungry.” - -“Sometimes they keep her at the packing house, especially if there's a -boat in late and extra work.” - -“It's not very smart of her without being paid more. They'll just put -anything on you they can in this stingy place. I can tell you I wouldn't -do two men's work for a woman's pay. I'm awful glad Jason's coming -back soon, Olive, with all that money, and I can go to Boston and study -singing.” - -“I've said over and over, Rhoda,” Olive replied patiently, “that you -mustn't think and talk all the time about Jason's worldly success. It -doesn't sound nice, but like we were all trying to get everything we -could out of him before ever he's here.” - -“Didn't he say in the last letter that I was to go to Boston?” Rhoda -exclaimed impatiently. “Didn't he just up and tell me that? Why, with -all the gold Jason's got it won't mean anything for him to send me away. -It isn't as if I wouldn't pay you all back for the trouble I've been. I -know I can sing, and I'll work harder than ever Hester dreamed of----” - -As if materialized by the pronunciation of her name, the latter entered -the room. “Gracious, Hester,” Rhoda declared distastefully, making a -nose, “you smell of dead haddock right this minute.” Hester, unlike -Rhoda's softly rounded proportions, was more bony than Olive, infinitely -more colorless, although ten years the younger. She had a black worsted -scarf over her drab head in place of a hat, its ends wrapped about her -meager shoulders and bombazine waist. Without preliminary she dropped -into her place at the supper table, the shawl trailing on the broad, -uneven boards of the floor. - -“The wind's smartening up on the bay,” she told them. “Captain Eagleston -looks for half a blow. It has got cold, too. I wish the tea'd be ready -when I get in from the packing house. It seems that much could be done, -with Olive only sitting around and Rhoda singing to herself in the -mirror on her dresser.” - -“It'll draw in a minute more,” Olive said in the door from the kitchen, -beyond the fireplace. Rhoda smiled cheerfully. - -“I suppose,” Hester went on, in a voice without emphasis that yet -contrived to be thinly bitter, “you were all talking about what would -happen when Jason came home with that fortune of his. Far as I can see -he's promised and provided for everybody, Jem and Rhoda and his parents -and Olive, every Tom and Noddy, but me.” - -“I don't like to keep on about it,” Olive protested, pained. “Yet you -can't see, Hester, how independent you are. A person wouldn't like to -offer you anything until you had signified. You were never very nice -with Jason anyway.” - -“Well, I'm not going to be nicer after he's back with gold in his -pocket. I guess he'll find I'm not hanging on his shoulder for a -cashmere dress or a trip to Boston.” - -“Pa ought to get into Salem soon,” Rhoda observed. “He said after this -he wasn't going to ship again, even along the coast, but tally fish for -Mr. Burrage. Pa's getting old.” - -“And Jem'll be home from the Georges, too,” Olive added, seating herself -with the tea. “I do hope he won't sign for China or any of those long -voyages like he threatened.” - -“He won't get so far away from Jason,” Hester stated. - -“I saw Honora Canderay today,” Rhoda informed them. “She wasn't in the -carriage, but walking past the courthouse. She had on a small bonnet -with flowers inside the brim and skimpy hoops, gallooned and scalloped.” - -“Did she stop?” Olive inquired. - -“Yes, and said I was as bright as a fall maple leaf. I wish I could look -like Honora Canderay-----” - -“Wait till Jason's back,” Hester interrupted. - -“It isn't her clothes,” Rhoda went on; “they're elegant material, of -course, but not the colors I'd choose; nor it isn't her looks, either, -no one would say she's downright pretty; it's just--just her. Is she as -old as you, Olive?” - -“Let's see, I'm thirty-six, and Honora Canderay was... she's near as -old, a year younger maybe.” - -“She is wonderful to get close to,” said Rhoda, “no cologne and yet a -lovely kind of smell----” - -“Not like dead haddock.” This was Hester again. - -“Do you know,” proceeded the younger, “she seemed to me kind of lonely. -I wanted to give her a hug, but I wouldn't have for all the gold in -California. I can't make out if she is freezing outside and nice in, or -just polite and thinks nobody's good enough for her. She had an India -shawl as big as a sail, with palm leaf ends, and----” - -“Rhoda, I wish you wouldn't put so much on clothes and such corruption.” - Olive spoke firmly, with a light of zeal in her gaze. “Can't you think -on the eternities?” - -“Like Jason Burrage and Honora Canderay,” explained Hester; “Honora -Canderay and Jason Burrage. They're eternities if there ever were any. -If it isn't one it's bound to be the other.” - -***** - -Olive's room had a sloping outer wall and casually placed insufficient -windows; her bed, with a blue-white quilt, was supported by heavy maple -posts; there were a chest of drawers, with a minute mirror stand, a -utilitarian wash-pitcher and basin, a hanging for the protection of her -clothes, and uncompromising chairs. A small circular table with a tatted -cover held her Bible and a devotional book, “The Family Companion, by a -Pastor.” It was cold when she went up to bed; with a desire to linger in -her preparations, she put some resinous sticks of wood into a sheet-iron -stove, and almost immediately there was a busily exploding combustion. A -glass lamp on the chest of drawers shed a pale illumination that failed -to reach the confines of the room; and, for a while, she moved in and -out of its wan influence. - -She was thinking fixedly about Jason Burrage, and the great impending -change in her condition, not in its worldly implications--she thought -mostly of material values in the spirit of her admonitions to Rhoda--but -in its personal and inner force. At times a pale question of her -aptitude for marriage disturbed her serenity; at times she saw it as -a sacrifice of her being to a condition commanded of God, a species -of martyrdom even. The nine years of Jason's absence had fixed certain -maidenly habits of privacy; the mold of her life had taken a definite -cast. Her existence had its routine, the recurrence of Sunday, its -contemplations, duties, and heavenly aim. And, lately, Jason's letters -had disturbed her. - -They seemed filled with an almost wicked pride and a disconcerting -energy; he spoke of things instinctively distressing to her; there were -hints of rude, Godless force and gaiety--allusions to the Jenny Lind -Theatre, the El Dorado, which she apprehended as a name of evil import, -and to the excursions they would make to Boston or as far as New York. - -Jason, too, she realized, must have developed; and California, she -feared, might have emphasized exactly such traits as she would wish -suppressed. The power of self-destruction in the human heart she -believed immeasurable. All, all, must throw themselves in abject -humility upward upon the Rock of Salvation. And she could find -nothing humble in Jason's periods, burdened as they were with a patent -satisfaction in the success of his venture. - -Yet parallel with this was a gladness that he had triumphed, and that he -was coming back to Cottarsport a figure of importance. She could measure -that by the attitude of their town, by the number and standing of the -people who cordially stopped her on the street for the purposes of -congratulation and curiosity. Every one, of course, had known of their -engagement; there had been a marked interest when Jason and a fellow -townsman, Thomas Gast, had departed; but that would be insignificant -compared to the permanent bulk Jason must now assume. Why he and the -Canderays would be Cottarsport's most considerable people. - -As always, at the merest thought of the Canderays, personal facts were -suspended for a mental glance at that separate family. There was no -sense of inferiority in Olive's mind, but an instinctive feeling of -difference. This wasn't the result of their big house, nor because the -Captain's wife had been a member of Boston society, but resided in the -contrariness of the family itself, now centered in Honora, the only one -alive. - -Perhaps Honora's diversity lay in the fact that, while she seldom -actually left Cottarsport, it was easy to see that she had a part in a -life far beyond anything Olive, whose consciousness was strictly -limited to one narrow place, knew. She always suggested a wider and more -elegantly finished existence than that of local sociables and church -activities. Captain Ithiel Canderay, a member of a Cottarsport family -long since moved away, had, from obscure surprising promptings, returned -at his successful retirement from the sea, and built his impressive -dwelling in the grey community. He had always, however different the -tradition of his wife's attitude, entered with a candid spirit into the -interests and life of the town, where he had inspired solid confidence -in a domineering but unimpeachable integrity. Such small civic honors as -the locality had to bestow were his, and were discharged to the last and -most exacting degree. But there had been perpetually about him the aloof -air of the quarter-deck, his tones had never lost the accent of command; -and, while Cottarsport bitterly guarded its personal equality and -independence, it took a certain pride in a recognition of the Captain's -authority. - -Something of this had unquestionably descended upon Honora; her position -was made and zealously guarded by the town. Yet that alone failed to -hold the reason for Olive's feeling; it was at once more particular and -more all-embracing, and largely feminine. She was almost contemptuous -of the other's delicacy of person, of the celebrated fact that Honora -Canderay never turned her hand to the cooking of a dish or the sweeping -of a stair; and at the same time these very things lifted her apart from -Olive's commonplace round. - -Her mind turned again to herself and Jason's home-coming. He had been -wonderfully generous in his written promises to Rhoda and Jem; and he -would be equally thoughtful of Hester, she was certain of that. People -had a way of overlooking Hester, a faithful and, for all her talk, a -Christian character. Rhoda would study to be a singer; striving, Olive -hoped, to put what talent she had to a sanctioned use; and Jem, a -remarkably vigorous and able boy of eighteen, would command his own -fishing schooner. - -The sheet-iron stove glowed cherry red with the energy of its heat, and -a blast of wind rushed against the windows. The wind, she recognized, -had steadily grown in force; and Olive thought of her father in the -barque _Emerald_ of Salem, somewhere between Richmond and the home -port.... The lamplight swelled and diminished. - -She got a new pleasure from the conjunction of her surrender -to matrimony and the good it would bring the others; -that--self-sacrifice--was excellence; such subjection of the pride of -the flesh was the essence of her service. Then some mundane affairs -invaded her mind: a wedding dress, the preparation of food for a small -company after the ceremony, whether she should like having a servant. -Jason would insist on that; and there she decided in the negative. She -wouldn't be put upon in her own kitchen. - -Her arrangements for the night were complete, and she set the stove door -slightly open, shivering in her coarse night dress before the icy cold -drifts of wind in the room, extinguished the lamp, and, after long, -conscientiously deliberate prayers, got into bed. The wind boomed about -the house, rattling all the sashes. Its force now seemed to be buffeting -her heart until she got a measure of release from the thought of the -granite boulder in the side yard, changeless and immovable. - -The morning was gusty, with a coldly blue and cloudless sky. Olive, -reaching the top of Orange Street, was whipped with dust, her hoops -flattened grotesquely against her body. The town fell away on either -hand, lying in a half moon on its harbor. The latter, as blue and bright -as the sky, was formed by the rocky arm of Cottar's Neck, thrust out -into the sea and bent from right to left. Most of the fishing fleet -showed their bare spars at the wharves, but one, a minute fleck of -white canvas, was beating her way through the Narrows. She wondered, -descending, if it were Jem coming home. - -Olive was going to the Burrages'; it was possible that they had had a -later letter than hers from Jason. It might be he would arrive that -very day. She was conscious of her heart throbbing slightly at this -possibility, but from a complexity of emotions which still left her -uneasy if faintly exhilarated. She crossed the courthouse square, where -she saw that the green grass had become brown, apparently over night, -and turned into Marlboro Street. Here the houses were more recent than -the Staneses'; they were four square, with a full second story--a series -of detached white blocks with flat porticoes--each set behind a wood -fence in a lawn with flower borders or twisted and tree-like lilacs. - -She entered the Burrage dwelling without the formality of knocking; and, -familiar with the household, passed directly through a narrow, darkened -hall, on which all the doors were closed, to the dining room and kitchen -beyond. As she had known he would be, Hazzard Burrage was seated with -his feet, in lamb's wool slippers, thrust under the stove. For the rest, -but lacking his coat, he was formally and completely dressed; his corded -throat was folded in a formal black stock, a watch chain and seal hung -across his waistcoat. Mrs. Burrage was occupied in lining a cupboard -with fresh shelf paper with a cut lace border. She was a small woman, -with quick exact movements and an impatient utterance; but her husband -was slow--a man who deliberately studied the world with a deep-set gaze. - -“I thought you might have heard,” Olive stated directly, on the edge of -a painted split-hickory chair. They hadn't, Mrs. Burrage informed her: -“I expect he'll just come walking in. That's the way he always did -things, and I guess California, or anywhere else, won't change him to -notice it. And when he does,” she continued, “he's going to be put out -with Hazzard. I told you Jason sent us three thousand dollars to get the -front of the house fixed up. He said he didn't want to find his father -sitting in the kitchen when he got back. Jason said we were to burn -three or four stoves all at once. But he won't, and that's all there is -to it. Why, he just put the money in the bank and there it lies. I read -him the parable about the talents, but it didn't stir him an inch.” - -“Jason always was quick acting,” Hazzard Burrage declared; “he never -stopped to consider; and it's as like as not he'll need that money. It -wouldn't surprise me if when he sat down and counted what he had Jason'd -find it was less than he thought.” - -“He wrote me,” Olive stated, “that we could build a house as big as the -Canderays'.” - -“Jason always was one to talk,” Mrs. Burrage replied in defense of her -son. - -Olive moved over to the older woman and held the dishes to be replaced -in the cupboard. They commented on the force of the wind throughout the -night. “The tail end of a blow at sea,” Bur-rage told them; “I wouldn't -wonder but it reached right down to the West Indies.” - -“I hope he brings me a grey satinet pelerine like I wrote,” said Mrs. -Burrage. She was obviously flushed at the thought of the possession -of such a garment--a fact which Olive felt, at the other's age, to be -inappropriate to the not distant solemnity of the Christian ordeal of -death. She repeated automatically: “... turn from these vanities unto -the living God.” She rose: - -“I'll let you know if I hear anything, and anyhow stop in tomorrow.” - -Outside, sere leaves were whirling in grey funnels of dust, the intense -blue bay sparkled under the cobalt sky; and, leaving Marlboro Street -with a hand on her bonnet, she ran directly into Honora Canderay. - -“Oh!” Olive exclaimed, breathless and slightly concerned. “Indeed if I -saw you, Honora; the wind was that strong pulling at a person.” - -“What does it matter?” Honora replied. She was wrapped from throat to -hem in a cinnamon colored velvet cloak that, fluttering, showed a lining -of soft, quilted yellow. In the flood of morning her skin was flawless; -her delicate lips and hazel eyes held the faint mockery that was the -visible sign of her disturbing quality. She laid a hand, in a short, -furred kid glove, on Olive's arm. - -“I am so pleased about Jason's success,” she continued, in a clear -insistent voice. “You must be mad with anxiety to have him back. It's -the most romantic thing in the world. Aren't you thrilled to the soul?” - -“I'm glad to--to know he's been preserved,” Olive stammered, confused by -Honora's frank speech. - -“You sound exactly as if he were a jar of quinces,” the other answered -impatiently; “and not a true lover coming back from California with bags -of gold.” - -Olive's confusion deepened to painful embarrassment at the indelicate -term lover. She wondered, hotly red, how Honora could go on so, and made -a motion to continue on her way. But the other's fingers closed and held -her. “I wonder, Olive,” she said more thoughtfully, “if I know you well -enough, if you will allow me, to give you some advice. It is this--don't -be too rigid with Jason when he gets back. For nearly ten years he's -been out in a life very different from Cottarsport, and he must have -changed in that time. Here we stay almost the same--ten or twenty or -fifty years is nothing really. The fishing boats come in, they may -have different names, but they are the same. We stop and talk, Honora -Canderay and Olive Stanes, and years before and years later women will -stand here and do the same with beliefs no wider than your finger. -But it isn't like that outside; and Jason will have that advantage of -us--things really very small, but which have always seemed tremendous -here, will mean no more to him than they are worth. He will be careless, -perhaps, of your most cherished ideas; and, if you are to meet him -fairly, you must try to see through his eyes as well as your own. Truly -I want you to be happy, Olive; I want every one in Cottarsport to be as -happy... as they can.” - -Olive's embarrassment increased: it was impossible to know what Honora -Canderay meant by her last words, in that echoing voice. Nevertheless, -her independence of spirit, the long nourished tenets of the abhorrence -of sin, asserted themselves in the face of even Honora's directions. “I -trust,” she replied stiffly, “that Jason has been given grace to walk in -the path of God----” She stopped with lips parted, her breath laboring -with shock, at the interruption pronounced in ringing accents. Honora -Canderay said: - -“Grace be damned!” - -Olive backed away with her hands pressed to her cheeks. In the midst of -her shuddering surprise she realized how much the other resembled her -father, the captain. - -“I suppose,” Honora further ventured, “that you are looking for a -bolt of lightning, but it is late in the season for that. There are no -thunder storms to speak of after September.” She turned abruptly, and -Olive watched her depart, gracefully swaying against the wind. - -***** - -All Olive's unformed opinions and attitude concerning Honora Canderay -crystallized into one sharp, intelligible feeling--dislike. The breadth -of being which the other had seemed to possess was now revealed as -nothing more than a lack of reverence. She was inexpressibly upset by -Honora's profanity, the blasphemous mind it exhibited, her attempted -glossing of sin. It was nothing less. In the assault on Olive's most -fundamental verities--the contempt which, she divined, had been offered -to the edifice of her conscience and creed--she responded blindly, -instinctively, with an overwhelming condemnation. At the same time she -was frightened, and hurried away from the proximity of such unsanctified -talk. She did not go to Citron Street, and the shops, as she had -intended; but kept directly on until she found herself at the harbor -and wharves. The latter serrated the water's edge, projecting from the -relatively tall, bald warehouses, reeking with the odor of dead fish, -cut open and laid in salt, grey-white areas to the sun and wind. - -A small group of men, with flat bronzed countenances and rough furze -coats, uneasily stirred their hats, in the local manner of saluting -women, and turned to gaze fixedly at her as she passed. Even in her -perturbation of mind she was conscious of their unusual scrutiny. She -couldn't, now, for the life of her, recall what needed to be bought; -and, mounting the narrow uneven way from the water, she proceeded home. - -Some towels, laid on the boulder to dry, had not been sufficiently -weighted, and hung blown and crumpled on a lilac bush. These she -collected, rearranged, complaining of the blindness of whoever might be -about the house, and then proceeded within. There, to her amazement, -she found Hester, in the middle of the morning, and Rhoda bent over the -dinner table, sobbing into her arm. Hester met her with a drawn face -darkly smudged beneath the eyes. - -“The _Emerald_ was lost off the Cape,” she said; “sunk with all on -board. A man came over from Salem to tell us. He had to go right back. -Pa, he's lost.” - -Olive sank into a chair with limp hands. Rhoda continued uninterrupted -her sobbing, while Hester went on with her recital in a thin, blank -voice. “The ship _J. Q. Adams_ stood by the _Emerald_, but there was -such a sea running she couldn't do anything else. They just had to see -the _Emerald_, with the men in the rigging, go under. That's what he -said who was here. They just had to see Pa drown before their eyes.... -The wind was something terrible.” - -A deep, dry sorrow constricted Olive's, heart. Suddenly the details of -packing her father's blue sea chest returned to her mind--the wool socks -she had knitted and carefully folded in the bottom, the needles and -emery and thread stowed in their scarlet bag, the tin of goose grease -for his throat, the Bible that had been shipped so often. She thought of -them all scattered and rent in the wild sea, of her father---- - -She forced herself to rise, with a set face, and put her hand on Rhoda's -shoulder. “It's right to mourn, like Rachel, but don't forget the -majesty of God.” Rhoda shook off her palm and continued in an ecstasy of -emotional relief. Olive hardened. “Get up,” she commanded; “we must fix -things here, for the neighbors and Pastor will be in. I wish Jem were -back.” - -At this Rhoda became even more unrestrained, and Olive remembered that -Jem too was at sea, and that probably he had been caught in the same -gale. “He'll be all right,” she added quickly; “the fishing boats live -through everything.” - -Yet she was infinitely relieved when, two days later, Jem arrived -safely home. He came into the house with a pounding of heavy boots, a -powerfully built youth with a rugged jaw and an intent quiet gaze. “I -heard at the wharf,” he told Olive. They were in the kitchen, and he -pulled off his boots and set them away from the stove. - -“I'm thankful you're so steady and able,” she said. - -“I am glad Jason's coming home--rich,” he replied tersely. Later, after -supper, while they still sat at the table, he went on, “There is a fine -yawl for sale at Ipswich, sails ain't been made a year, fifty-five tons; -I could do right good with that. The fishing's never been better. Do -you think Jason would be content to buy her, Olive? I could pay him back -after a run or two.” - -“He told you he'd do something like that,” she answered. “I guess now it -wouldn't mean much to him.” - -“And I'll be away,” Rhoda eagerly added; “you wouldn't have to give me -anything, Jem. Jason promised me, too.” - -An unreasonable and disturbing sense of insecurity enveloped Olive. But, -of course, it would be all right--Jason was coming back rich, to marry -her. Jem would have the yawl and Rhoda get away to study singing. And -yet all that she vaguely dreaded about Jason himself persisted darkly at -the back of her consciousness, augmented by Honora Canderay's warning. -She was a little afraid of Jason, too; in a way, after so long, he -seemed like a stranger, a stranger whom she was going to wed. - -“He'll be all dressed up,” Rhoda stated. “I hope, Olive, you will kiss -him as soon as he steps through the door. I know I would.” - -“Don't be so shameless, Rhoda,” the elder admonished her. “You are very -indelicate. I'd never think of kissing Jason like that.” - -“I will go over and see the man who owns her,” Jem said enigmatically. -“She's a cockpit boat, but I heard the wave wasn't made that could fill -her. And we have my share of the last run till Jason's here.” - -He paid this faithfully into Olive's hand the next day and then -disappeared. She thought he came through the door again: someone stood -behind her. Olive turned slowly and saw an impressive figure in stiff -black broadcloth and an incredibly high glassy silk hat. - -***** - -She knew instinctively that it must be Jason Burrage, and yet the -feeling of strangeness persisted. All sense of the time which had -elapsed since Jason went was lost in the illusion that the figure -familiar to her through years of knowledge and association had -instantly, by a species of magic, been transformed into the slightly -smiling, elaborate man in the doorway. She stepped backward, -hesitatingly pronouncing his name. - -“Olive,” he exclaimed, with a deep, satisfied breath, “it hasn't changed -a particle!” To her extreme relief he did not make a move to embrace -her; but gazed intently about the room. One of the things that made him -seem different, she realized, was the rim of whiskers framing his -lower face. She became conscious of details of his appearance--baggy -dove-colored trousers over glazed boots, a quince yellow waistcoat in -diamond pattern, a cluster of seals. Then her attention was held by his -countenance, and she saw that his clothes were only an insignificant -part of his real difference from the man she had known. - -Jason Burrage had always had a set will, the reputation of an impatient, -even ugly disposition. This had been marked by a sultry lip and -flickering eye; but now, though his expression was noticeably quieter, -it gave her the impression of a glittering and dangerous reserve; his -masklike calm was totally other than the mobile face she had known. -Then, too, he had grown much older--she swiftly computed his age: it -could not be more than forty-two, yet his hair was thickly stained -with grey, lines starred the comers of his eyes and drew faintly at his -mouth. - -“Are you glad to see me, Olive?” he asked. - -“Why, Jason, what an unnecessary question. Of course I am, more thankful -than I can say for your safety.” - -“I walked across the hills from the Dumner stage,” he proceeded. “It -was something to see Cottarsport on its bay and the Neck and the fishing -boats at Planger's wharf. I'd like to have an ounce of gold for every -time I thought about it and pictured it and you. Out on the placers of -the Calaveras, or the Feather, I got to believing there wasn't any such -town, but here it is.” He advanced toward her; she realized that she was -about to be kissed, and a painful color dyed her cheeks. - -“You'll stop for supper,” she said practically. - -“I haven't been home yet, I came right here; I'll see them and be back. -I'll bet I find them in the kitchen, with the front stoves cold, in -spite of what I wrote and sent. I brought you a present, just for fun, -and I'll leave it now, since it's heavy.” He bent over a satchel at his -feet and got a buckskin bag, bigger than his two fists, which he dropped -with a dull thud on the table. - -“What is it, Jason?” she asked. But of herself she knew the answer. He -untied a string, and, dipping in his fingers, showed her a fine yellow -metallic trickle. “Gold dust, two tumblers full,” he replied. “We used -to measure it that way--a pinch a dollar, teaspoonful to the ounce, a -wineglass holds a hundred, and a tumbler a thousand dollars.” - -She was breathless before the small shapeless pouch that held such a -staggering amount. He laughed. “Why, Olive, it's nothing at all. I just -brought it like that so you could see how we carried it in California. -We are all rich now, Olive--the Burrages, and you're one, and the -Staneses. I have close to a hundred and fifty thousand dollars.” - -This sum was little more to her than a fable, a thing beyond the scope -of her comprehension; but the two thousand dollars before her gaze was -a miracle made manifest. There it was to study, feel; subconsciously she -inserted her hand in the bag, into the cold, smooth particles. - -“A hundred and fifty thousand,” he repeated; “but if you think I didn't -work for it, if you suppose I picked it right out of a pan on the -river bars, why--why, you are wrong.” Words failed him to express the -erroneousness of such conclusions. “I slaved like a Mexican,” he added; -“and in bad luck almost to the end.” She sat and gazed at him with an -easier air and a growing interest, her hands clasped in her lap. “What I -didn't know when I left Cottarsport was wonderful. - -“Why, take the mining,” he said with a gesture; “I mean the bowl -mining at first... just the heavy work in it killed off most of the -prospectors--all day with a big iron pan, half full of clay and gravel, -sloshing about in those rivers. And maybe you'd work a month without a -glimmer, waking wet and cold under the sierras, whirling the pan round -and round; and maybe when you had the iron cleared out with a magnet, -and dropped in the quicksilver, what gold was there wouldn't amalgam. I -can tell you, Olive, only the best, or the hardest, came through.” - -He produced a blunt, tapering cigar and lighted it expansively. - -“A lonely and dangerous business: every one carried his dust right on -his body, and there were plenty would risk a shot at a miner coming -back solitary with his donkey and his pile. It got better when the new -methods came, and we used a rocker-hollowed out of a log. Then four of -us went in partnership--one to dig the gravel, one to carry it to the -cradle, another to keep it rocking, and the last to pour in the water. -Then we drawed off the gold and sand through a plug hole. - -“We did fine at that,” he told her, “and in the fall of 'Fifty cleaned -up eighteen thousand apiece. Then we had an argument: we were in the -Yuba country, where it was kind of bad; two of us, and I was one of -them, said to divide the dust, and get out best we could; but the others -wanted to send all the gold to San Francisco in charge of one of them -and a man who was going down with more dust. We finally agreed to this -and lost every ounce we'd mined. The escort said they were shot by some -of the disbanded California army, but I'm not sure. It seemed to me -like our two had met somewhere, killed the other, and got the gold to -rights.” - -“O Jason!” Olive exclaimed. - -“That was nothing,” he said complacently; “but only a joker to start -with. I did a lot of things then to get a new outfit--sold peanuts on -the Plaza in 'Frisco, or hollered the New York _Tribune_ at a dollar and -a half a copy; I washed glasses in a saloon and drove mules. After that -I took a steamer for Stocton and the Calaveras. You ought to have seen -Stocton, Olive--board shanties and blanket houses and tents, with two -thieves left hanging on a gallows. We went from there, a party of us, -for the north bank of the Calaveras, tramping in dust so hot that it -scorched your face. Sluicing had just started and long Toms--a long Tom -is a short placer--so we didn't know much about it. Looking back I can -see the gold was there; but after working right up to the end of the -season we had no more than a couple of thousand apiece. There were too -many of us to start with. - -“Well, I drifted back to San Francisco.” He paused, and the expression -which had most disturbed her deepened on his countenance, a stillness -like the marble of a gravestone guarding implacable secrets. - -“San Francisco is different from Cottarsport, Olive,” he said after a -little. “Here you wouldn't believe there was such a place; and there -Cottarsport seemed too safe to be true... Well, I went after it again, -this time as far north as Shasta. I prospected from the Shasta country -south, and got a good lump together again. By then placer mining was -better understood; we had sluice boxes two or three hundred feet long, -connected with the streams, with strips nailed across the bottom where -the gold and sand settled as the water ran through. Yes, I did well; and -then fluming began. - -“That,” he explained, “is damming a river around its bed and washing -the opened gravel. It takes a lot of money, a lot of work and men; and -sometimes it pays big, and often it doesn't. I guess there were fifty of -us at it. We slaved all the dry season at the dam and flume, a big wood -course for the stream; we had wing dams for the placers and ditches, -and the best prospects for eight or ten weeks' washing. It was early in -September when we were ready to start, and on a warm afternoon I said -to an old pardner, 'What do you make out of those big, black clouds -settling on the peaks?' He took one look--the wind was a steady and -muggy southwester--and then he sat down and cried. The tears rolled -right over his beard. - -“It was the rains, nearly two months early, and the next day dams, -flume, boards, and hope boiled down past us in a brown mash. That left -me poorer than I'd ever been before; I had more when I was home on the -wharves.” - -“Wait,” she interrupted him, rising; “if you're coming back to supper -I must put the draught on the stove.” From the kitchen she heard him -singing in a low, contented voice: - - “'The pilot bread was in my mouth, - - The gold dust in my eye, - - And though from you I'm far away, - - Dear Anna, don't you cry!'” - -Then: - - “'Oh, Ann Eliza! - - Don't you cry for me. - - I'm going to Calaveras - - With my wash bowl on my knee.'” - -She returned and resumed her position with her hands folded. - -“And that,” Jason Burrage told her, “was how I learned gold mining in -California. I sank shafts, too, and worked a windlass till the holes got -so deep they had to be timbered and the ore needed a crusher. But after -the fluming I knew what to wait for. I kept going in a sort of commerce -for a while--buying old outfits and selling them again to the late -comers--a pick or shovel would bring ten dollars and long boots fifty -dollars a pair. I got twenty-four dollars for a box of Seidlitz powders. -Then in 'Fifty-four I went in with three scientific men--one had been -a big chemist at Paris--and things took a turn. We had the dead wood -on gold. Why, we did nothing but re-travel the American Fork and Indian -Bar, the Casumnec and Moquelumne, and work the tailings the earlier -miners had piled up and left, just like I had south. We did some pretty -things with cyanide; yes, and hydraulics and powder. - -“Things took a turn,” he repeated; “investments in stampers and so on, -and here I am.” - -After he had gone--supper, she had informed him, was at five -exactly--Olive had the bewildered feeling of partially waking from -an extraordinary dream. Yet the buckskin bag on the table possessed a -weighty actuality. - -***** - -She sat for a long while gazing intently at the gold, which, like a -crystal ball, held for her varied reflections. Then, recalling the -exigencies of the kitchen, she hurried abruptly away. Her thoughts -wheeled about Jason Burrage in a confusion of all the impressions she -had ever had of him. But try as she might she could not picture the -present man as a part of her life in Cottarsport; she could not see -herself married to him, although that event waited just beyond today. -She set her lips in a straight line, a fixed purpose gave her courage -in place of the timidity inspired by Jason's opulent strangeness--she -couldn't allow herself to be turned aside for a moment from the way of -righteousness. The gods of mammon, however they might blackly assault -her spirit, should be confounded. - - ”... hide me - - Till the storm of life is past.” - -She sang in a high quavering voice. There was a stir beyond--surely -Jason wasn't back so soon; but it was Jem. - -“What's on the table here?” he called. - -“You let that be,” she cried back in a panic at having left the gift -so exposed. “That's gold dust; Jason brought it, two thousand dollars' -worth.” - -A prolonged whistle followed her announcement. Jem appeared with the -buckskin bag in his hand. “Why, here's two yawls right in my hand,” he -asserted. - -“Mind one thing, Jem,” she went on, “he's coming back for supper, and I -won't have you and Rhoda at him about boats and singing the minute he's -in the house.” - -Rhoda, with exclamations, and then Hester, inspected the gold. “I'd -slave five years for that,” the latter stated, “and then hardly get it; -and here you, have it for nothing.” - -“You'll get the good of it too, Hester,” Olive told her. - -“I'll just work for what I get,” she replied fiercely. “I won't take -a penny from Jason, Olive Stanes; you can't hold that over me, and the -sooner you both know it the better.” - -“You ought to pray to be saved from pride.” - -“I don't ask benefits from any one,” Hester stoutly observed. - -“Hester----” Olive commenced, scandalized, but she stopped at Jason's -entrance. “Hester she wanted a share of the gold,” Jem declared with a -light in his slow gaze, “and Olive was cursing at her.” - -“Lots more,” said Jason Burrage, “buckets full.” In spite of the efforts -of every one to be completely at ease the supper was unavoidably stiff. - -But when Jason had lighted one of his blunt cigars, and begun a vivid -description of western life, the Staneses were transported by the -marvels following one upon another: a nugget had been picked up over -a foot long, it weighed a hundred and ninety pounds, and realized -forty-three thousand dollars. “Why, fifty and seventy-five lumps were -common,” he asserted. “At Ford's Bar a man took out seven hundred -dollars a day for near a month. Another found seventeen thousand dollars -in a gutter two or three feet deep and not a hundred yards long. - -“But 'Frisco was the place; you could see it spread in a day with -warehouses on the water and tents climbing up every hill. Happy Valley, -on the beach, couldn't hold another rag house. The Parker House rented -for a hundred and seventy thousand a year, and most of it paid for -gambling privileges; monté and faro, blazing lights and brass bands -everywhere and dancing in the El Dorado saloon. At first the men danced -with each other, but later----” - -He stopped; an awkward silence followed. Olive was rigid with -inarticulate protest, a sense of outrage--gambling, saloons, and -dancing! All that she had feared about Jason became more concrete, more -imminent. She saw California as a modern Babylon, a volcano of gold and -vice; already she had heard of great fires that had devastated it. - -“We didn't mine on Sunday, Olive,” Jason assured her; “and all the boys -went to the preaching and sang the hymns, standing out on the grass.” - -Hester, finally, with a muttered period, rose and disappeared; Jem went -out to consult with a man, his nod to Olive spoke of yawls; and Rhoda, -at last, reluctantly made her way above. Olive's uneasiness increased -when she found herself alone with the man she was to marry. - -“I don't like Rhoda and Jem hearing about all that wickedness,” she told -Jason Burrage; “they are young and easy affected. Rhoda gives me a lot -of worry as it is.” - -“Suppose we forget them,” he suggested. “I haven't had a word with you -yet; that is, about ourselves. I don't even know but you have gone and -fell in love with some one else.” - -“Jason,” she answered, “how can you? I told you I'd marry you, and I -will.” - -“Are you glad to see me?” he demanded, coming closer and capturing her -hand. - -“Why, what a question. Of course I'm pleased you're back and safe.” - -“You haven't got a headache, have you?” he inquired jocularly. - -“No,” she replied seriously. His words, his manners, his grasp, worried -her more and more. Still, she reminded herself, she must be patient, -accept life as it had been ordained. There was a slight flutter at her -heart, a constriction of her throat; and she wondered if this were -love. She should, she felt, exhibit more warmth at Jason's return, the -preservation, through such turbulent years of absence, of her image. But -it was beyond her power to force her hand to return his pressure: her -fingers lay still and cool in his grasp. - -“You are just the same, Olive,” he told her; “and I'm glad you're what -you are, and that Cottarsport is what it is. That's why I came back: it -was in my blood, the old town and you. All the time I kept thinking of -when I'd come back rich as I made up my mind to be, and get you what -you ought to have--be of some importance in Cottarsport, like the -Canderays. The old captain, too, died while I was away. How's Honora?” - -“Honora Canderay is an ungodly woman,” Olive asserted with emphasis. - -“I don't know anything about that,” he said; “but I always kind of liked -to look at her. She reminded me of a schooner with everything set coming -up brisk into the wind.” Olive made a motion toward the stove, but he -restrained her; rising, he put in fresh wood. Then he turned and again -seemed lost in a long, contented inspection of the quiet interior. Olive -saw that marks of weariness shadowed his eyes. - -“This is what I came back for,” he reiterated; “peaceful as the forests, -and yet warm and human. Blood counts.” He returned to his place by her, -and leaned forward, very earnestly. “California isn't real the way this -is,” he told her; “the women were just paint and powder, like things -you would see in a fever, and then you'd wake up, in Cottarsport, well -again, with you, Olive.” - -She managed to smile at him in acknowledgment of this. - -“I'm desperately glad I pulled through without many scars. But there are -some, Olive; that was bound to be. I don't know if a man had better say -anything about the past, or just let it be, and go on. Times I think one -and then the other. Yet you are so calm sitting here, and so good, it -would be a big help to tell you... Olive, out on the American, and God -knows how sorry I've been, I killed a man, Olive.” - -Slowly she felt herself turning icy cold, except for the hot blood -rushing into her head. She stared at him for a moment, horrified; -and then mechanically drew back, scraping the chair across the floor. -Perhaps she hadn't understood, but certainly he had said---- - -“Wait till I tell what I can for myself,” he hurried on, following her. -“It was when the four of us were working with a rocker. I was shoveling -the gravel, and every one in California knows that when you're doing -that, and find a nugget over half an ounce, it belongs to you personal -and not to the partnership. Well, I came on a big one, and laid it -away--they all saw it--and then this Eddie Lukens hid it out on me. He -was the only one near where I had it; he broke it up and put it in the -cradle, sure; and in the talk that followed I--I shot him.” - -He laid a detaining hand on her shoulder, but she wrenched herself away. - -“Don't touch me!” she breathed. She thought she saw him bathed in the -blood of the man he had slain. Her lips formed a sentence, “'Thou shalt -not kill.'” - -“I was tried at Spanish Bar,” he continued. “Miners' law is better than -you hear in the East. It's quick, it has to be, but in the main it's -serious and right. I was tried with witnesses and a jury and they let me -off; they justified me. That ought to go for something.” - -“Don't come near me,” she cried, choking, filled with dread and utter -loathing. “How can you stand there and--stand there, a murderer, with a -life on your heart!” - -His face quivered with concern; in spite of her words he drew near -her again, repeating the fact that he had been judged, released. Olive -Stanes' hysteria vanished before the cold stability which came to her -assistance, the sense of being rooted in her creed. - -“'Thou shalt not kill,'” she echoed. - -The emotion faded from his features, his countenance once more became -masklike, the jaw was hard and sharp, his eyes narrowed. “It's all over -then?” he asked. She nodded, her lips pinched into a white line. - -“What else could be hoped? Blood guiltiness. O Jason, pray to save your -soul.” - -He moved over to where his high silk hat reposed, secured it, and -turned. “This will be final.” His voice was hard. Olive stood slightly -swaying, with closed eyes. Then she remembered the buckskin bag of -not yellow but scarlet gold. She stumbled forward to it and thrust the -weight into his hand. Jason Burrage's fingers closed on the gift, while -his gaze rested on her from under contracted brows. He was, it seemed, -about to speak, but instead preserved an intense silence; he looked once -more about the room, still and old in its lamplight. Why didn't he go? -Then she saw that she was alone: - -Like the eternal rock outside the door. - -From above came the clear, joyous voice of Rhoda singing. Olive crumpled -into a chair. Soon Jem would be back.... She turned and slipped down -upon the floor in an agony of prayer. - - - - -HONORA - - -|HONORA CANDERAY saw Jason Burrage on the day after his arrival in -Cotarsport: he was walking through the town with a set, inattentive -countenance; and, although she was in the carriage and leaned forward, -speaking in her ringing voice, it was evident that he had not noticed -her. She thought his expression gloomy for a man returned with a fortune -to his marriage. Honora still dwelt upon him as she slowly progressed -through the capricious streets and mounted toward the hills beyond. He -presented, she decided, an extraordinary, even faintly comic, appearance -in Cottarsport, with a formal black coat open on a startling waistcoat -and oppressive gold chain, pale trousers and a silk hat. - -Such clothes, theatrical in effect, were inevitable to his changed -condition and necessarily stationary taste. Yet, considering, she -shifted the theatrical to dramatic: in an obscure but palpable manner -Jason did not seem cheap. He never had in the past And now, while -his inappropriate overdressing in the old town of loose and weathered -raiment brought a smile to her firm lips, there was still about him -the air which from the beginning had made him more noticeable than his -fellows. It had even been added to--by the romance of his journey and -triumph. - -She suddenly realized that, by chance, she had stumbled on the one term -which more than any other might contain Jason. Romantic. Yes, that was -the explanation of his power to stir always an interest in him, vaguely -suggest such possibilities as he had finally accomplished, the venture -to California and return with gold and the complicated watch chain. She -had said no more to him than to the other Cottarsport youth and young -manhood, perhaps a dozen sentences in a year; but the others merged into -a composite image of fuzzy chins, reddened knuckles, and inept, choked -speech, and Jason Burrage remained a slightly sullen individual with -potentialities. He had never stayed long in her mind, or had any actual -part in her life--her mother's complete indifference to Cottarsport -had put a barrier between its acutely independent spirit and the -Canderays--but she had been easily conscious of his special quality. - -That in itself was no novelty to her experience of a metropolitan and -distinguished society: what now kept Jason in her thoughts was the fact -that he had made his capability serve his mood; he had taken himself out -into the world and there, with what he was, succeeded. His was not an -ineffectual condition--a longing, a possibility that, without the power -of accomplishment, degenerated into a mere attitude of bitterness. Just -such a state, for example, as enveloped herself. - -The carriage had climbed out of Cottarsport, to the crown of the height -under which it lay, and Honora ordered Coggs, a coachman decrepit with -age, to stop. She half turned and looked down over the town with a -veiled, introspective gaze. From here it was hardly more than a narrow -rim of roofs about the bright water, broken by the white bulk of her -dwelling and the courthouse square. The hills, turning roundly down, -were sere and showed everywhere the grey glint of rock; Cottar's Neck -already appeared wintry; a diminished wind, drawing in through the -Narrows, flattened the smoke of the chimneys below. - -Cottarsport! The word, with all its implications, was so vivid in her -mind that she thought she must have spoken it aloud. Cottarsport and the -Canderays--now one solitary woman. She wondered again at the curious and -involved hold the locality had upon her; its tyranny over her birth and -destiny. It was comparatively easy to understand the influence the place -had exerted on her father: commencing with his sixteenth year, his life -had been spent, until his retirement from the sea, in arduous voyages to -far ports and cities. His first command--the anchor had been weighed on -his twentieth birthday--had been of a brig to Zanzibar for a cargo of -gum copal; his last a storm-battered journey about, apparently, all the -perilous capes of the world. Then he had been near fifty, and the space -between was a continuous record of struggle with savage and -faithless peoples, strange latitudes and currents, and burdensome -responsibilities. - -Her mother, too, presented no insuperable obstacle to a sufficient -comprehension--a noted beauty in a gay and self-indulgent society, she -had passed through a triumphant period without forming any attachment. -An inordinate amount of champagne had been uncorked in her honor, -compliment and service and offers had made up her daily round; until, -almost impossibly exacting, she had found herself beyond her early -radiance, in the first tragic realization of decline. Stopping, perhaps, -in the midst of slipping her elegance of body into a party dress, she -remembered that she was thirty-five--just Honora's age at present. -The compliments and offers had lessened, she was in a state of weary -revulsion when Ithiel Canderay--bronzed and despotic and rich--had -appeared before her and, the following day, urged marriage. - -Yes, it was easy to see why the shipmaster, desirous of peace after -the unpeaceful sea, should build his house in the still, old port -the tradition of which was in his blood. It was no more difficult to -understand how his wife, always a little tired now from the beginning -ill effects of ceaseless balls and wining, should welcome a spacious, -quiet house and unflagging, patient care. - -All this was clear; and, in a way, it made her own position logical--she -was the daughter, the repository, of such varied and yet unified -forces. In moments of calm, such as this, Honora could be successfully -philosophical. But she was not always placid; in fact she was placid -but an insignificant part of her waking hours. She was ordinarily -filled with emotions that, having no outlet, kept her stirred up, half -resentful, and half desirous of things which she yet made no extended -effort to obtain. - -Honora told herself daily that she detested Cot-tarsport, she intended -to sell her house, give it to the town, and move to Boston. But, after -three or four weeks in the city, a sense of weariness and nostalgia -would descend upon her--the bitterness of her mother lived over -again--and drive her back to the place she had left with such decided -expressions of relief. - -This was the root of her not large interest in Jason Burrage--he, too, -she had always felt, had had possibilities outside the local life and -fish industry; and he had gone forth and justified, realized, them. He -had broken away from the enormous pressure of custom, personal habit, -and taken from life what was his. But she, Honora Canderay, had not had -the courage to free herself from an existence without incentive, without -reward. Something of this might commonly find excuse in the fact that -she was a woman, and that the doors of life and experience, except -one, were closed to her; but, individually, she had little use for -this supine attitude. Her blood was too domineering. She consigned such -inhibitions to pale creatures like Olive Stanes. - -***** - -The sun, sinking toward the plum-colored hills on the left, cast a rosy -glow over low-piled clouds at the far horizon, and the water of the -harbor seemed scattered with the petals of crimson peonies. The air -darkened perceptibly. For a moment the grey town on the fading water, -the distant flushed sky, were charged with the vague unrest of the -flickering day. Suddenly it was colder, and Honora, drawing up her -shawl, sharply commanded Coggs to drive on. - -She was going to fetch Paret Fifield from the steam railway station -nearest Cottarsport. He visited her at regular intervals--although the -usual period had been doubled since she'd seen him--and asked her with -unfailing formality to be his wife. Why she hadn't agreed long ago, -except that Paret was Boston personified, she did not understand. In the -moments when she fled to the city she always intended to have him come -to her at once. But hardly had she arrived before her determination -would waver, and her thoughts automatically, against her will, return to -Cottarsport. - -Studying him, as they drove back through the early dusk, she was -surprised that he had been so long-suffering. He was not a patient type -of man; rather he was the quietly aggressive, suavely selfish example -for whom the world, success, had been a very simple matter. He was not -solemn, either, or a recluse, as faithful lovers commonly were; but -furnished a leading figure in the cotillions and had a nice capacity for -wine. She said almost complainingly: - -“How young and gay you look, Paret, with your lemon verbena.” - -He was, it seemed to her, not entirely at ease, and almost confused at -her statement. Nevertheless, he gave his person a swiftly complacent -glance. - -“I do seem quite well,” he agreed surprisingly. “Honora, I'm the next -thing to fifty. Would any one guess it?” - -This was a new aspect of Paret's, and she studied him keenly, with the -slightly satirical mouth inherited from her father. Embarrassment became -evident at his exhibition of trivial pride, and nothing more was said -until, winding through the gloom of Cottarsport, they had reached her -house. Inside there was a wide hall with the stair mounting on the right -under a panelled arch. Mrs. Coz-zens, Honora's aunt and companion, was -in the drawing room when they entered, and greeted Paret Fifield with -the simple friendliness which, clearly without disagreeable intent, she -reserved for an unquestionable few. - -After dinner, the elder woman winding wool from an ivory swift clamped -to a table, Honora thought that Paret had never been so vivacious; -positively he was silly. For no comprehensible reason her mind turned to -Jason Burrage, striding with a lowered head, in his incongruous clothes, -through the town of his birth. - -“I wonder, Paret,” she remarked, “if you remember two men who went from -here to California about ten years ago? Well, one of them is back -with his pockets full of gold and a silk hat. He was engaged to Olive -Stanes... I suppose their wedding will happen at any time. You see, he -was faithful like yourself, Paret.” - -The man's back was toward her; he was examining, as he had on every -visit Honora could recall, the curious objects in a lacquered cabinet -brought from over-seas by Ithiel Canderay, and it was a noticeably long -time before he turned. Mrs. Cozzens, the shetland converted into a ball, -rose and announced her intention of retiring; a thin, erect figure in -black moiré with a long countenance and agate brown eyes, seed pearls, -gold band bracelets, and a Venise point cap. - -When she had gone the silence in the room became oppressive. Honora was -thinking of her life in connection with Paret Fifield, wondering if she -could ever bring herself to marry him. She would have to decide soon: -it seemed incredible that he was nearing fifty. Why, it must have been -fifteen years ago when he first---- - -“Honora,” he pronounced, leaning forward in his chair, “I came prepared -to tell you a particular thing, but I find it much more difficult than I -had anticipated.” - -“I know,” she replied, and her voice, the fact she pronounced, seemed -to come from a consciousness other than hers; “you are going to get -married.” - -“Exactly,” he said with a deep, relieved sigh. - -She had on a dinner dress looped with a silk ball fringe, and her -fingers automatically played with the hanging ornaments as she studied -him with a composed face. - -“How old is she, Paret?” Honora asked presently. - -He cleared his throat in an embarrassed manner. “Not quite nineteen, I -believe.” - -She nodded, and her expression grew imperceptibly colder. A slight but -actual irritation at him, a palpable anger, shocked her, which she was -careful to screen from her manner and voice. “You will be very happy, -certainly. A young wife would suit you perfectly. You have kept -splendidly young, Paret.” - -“She is really a superb creature, Honora,” he proceeded gratefully. “I -must bring her to you. But I am going to miss this.” He indicated -the grave chamber in which they sat, the white marble mantel and high -mirror, the heavy mahogany settled back in half shadow, the dark velvet -draperies of the large windows sweeping from alabaster cornices. - -“Sometimes I feel like burning it to the ground,” she asserted, rising. -“I would if I could burn all that it signifies, yes, and a great deal of -myself, too.” She raised her arms in a vivid, passionate gesture. “Leave -it all behind and sail up to Java Head and through the Sunda Strait, -into life.” - -After the difficulty of his announcement Paret Fifield talked with -animation about his plans and approaching marriage. Honora wondered at -the swiftness with which she--for so long a fundamental part of his -thought--'had dropped from his mind. It had the aspect of a physical act -of seclusion, as if a door had been closed upon her, the last, perhaps, -leading out of her isolation. She hadn't been at all sure that she -would not marry Paret: today she had almost decided in favor of such a -consummation of her existence. - -A girl not quite nineteen! She had been only twenty when Paret Fifield -had first danced with her. He had been interested immediately. It was -difficult for her to realize that she was now thirty-five; soon forty -would be upon her, and then a grey reach. She didn't feel any older than -she had, well--on the day that Jason Burrage departed for California. -There wasn't a line on her face; no trace, yet, of time on her spirit or -body; but the dust must inevitably settle over her as it did on a vase -standing unmoved on a shelf. A vase was a tranquil object, well suited -to glimmer from a corner through a decade; but she was different. The -heritage of her father's voyaging stirred in her together with the -negation that held her stationary. A third state, a hot rebellion, -poured through her, while she listened to Paret's facile periods. -Really, he was rather ridiculous about the girl. She was conscious of -the dull pounding of her heart. - -The morning following was remarkably warm and still; and, after Paret -Fifield had gone, Honora made her way slowly down to the bay. The -sunlight lay like thick yellow dust on the warehouses and docks, and the -water filled the sweep of Cottar's Neck with a solid and smoothly blue -expanse. A fishing boat, newly arrived, was being disgorged of partly -cured haddock. The cargo was loaded into a wheelbarrow, transferred to -the wharf, and there turned into a basket on a weighing scale, checked -by a silent man in series of marks on a small book, and carried away. -Beyond were heaped corks and spread nets and a great reel of fine cord. - -When Honora walked without an objective purpose she always came finally -to the water. It held no surprise for her; there was practically nothing -she was directly interested in seeing. She stood--as at present--gazing -down into the tide clasping the piles, or away at the horizon, the -Narrows opening upon the sea. She exchanged unremarkable sentences with -familiar figures, watched the men swab decks or tail new cordage through -blocks, and looked up absently at the spars of the schooners lying at -anchor. - -She had put on a summer dress again of white India barège, a little hat -with a lavender bow, and she stood with her silk shawl on an arm. The -stillness of the day was broken only by the creak of the wheelbarrow. -Last night she had been rebellious, but now a lassitude had settled over -her: all emotion seemed blotted out by the pouring yellow light of the -sun. - -At the side of the wharf a small warehouse held several men in the -office, the smoke of pipes lifting slowly from the open door; and, -at the sound of footfalls, she turned and saw Jem Stanes entering the -building. His expression was surprisingly morose. It was, she thought -again as she had of Jason Burrage striding darkly along the street, -singularly inopportune at the arrival of so much good fortune. A burr -of voices, thickened by the salt spray of many sea winds, followed. She -heard laughter, and then Jem's voice, indistinguishable but sullenly -angry. - -Honora progressed up into the town, walked past the courthouse square, -and met Jason at the corner of the street. “I am glad to have a chance -to welcome you,” she said, extending her hand. Close to him her sense of -familiarity faded before the set face, the tightly drawn lips and hard -gaze. She grew a little embarrassed. He had on another, still more -surprising waistcoat, his watch chain was ponderous with gold; but dust -had accumulated unattended on his shoulders, and dimmed the luster of -his boots. - -“Thank you,” he replied non-committally, giving her palm a brief -pressure. He stood silently, without cordiality, waiting for what might -follow. - -“You are safely back with the Golden Fleece,” she continued more -hurriedly, “after yoking the fiery bulls and sailing past the islands of -the sirens.” - -“I don't know about all that,” he said stolidly. - -“Jason and the Argonauts,” she insisted, conscious of her stupidity. He -was far more compelling than she had remembered, than he appeared from a -distance: the marked discontent of his earlier years had given place to -a certain power, repose: the romance which she had decided was his main -characteristic was emphasized. She was practically conversing with a -disconcerting stranger. - -“Olive was, of course, delighted,” she went resolutely on. “You must -marry soon, and build a mansion.” - -“We are not going to marry at all,” he stated baldly. - -“Oh----!” she exclaimed and then crimsoned with annoyance at the -involuntary syllable. That idiot, Olive Stanes, she added to herself -instantly. Honora could think of nothing appropriate to say. “That's a -great pity,” she temporized. Why didn't the boor help her? Hadn't he the -slightest conception of the obligations of polite existence? He stood -motionless, the fingers of one hand clasping a jade charm. However, she, -Honora Can-deray, had no intention of being affronted by Jason Burrage. - -“You must find it pale here after California, if what I've heard is -true,” she remarked crisply, then nodded and left him. That night at -supper she repeated the burden of what he had told her to her aunt. The -latter answered in a measured voice without any trace of interest: - -“I thought something of the kind had happened: the upstairs girl was -saying he was drunk last night. A habit acquired West, I don't doubt. It -is remarkable, Honora, how you remember one from another in Cottarsport. -They all appear indifferently alike to me. And I am tremendously upset -about Paret.” - -“Well, I'm not,” Honora returned. She spoke inattentively, and she was -surprised at the truth she had exposed. Paret Fifield had never become -a necessary part of her existence. Except for the light he had shed upon -herself--the sudden glimpse of multiplying years and the emptiness of -her days--his marriage was unimportant. She would miss him exactly as -she might a piece of furniture that had been removed after forming a -familiar spot. She was more engrossed in what her aunt had told her -about Jason. - -He had been back only two or three days, and already lost his promised -wife and got drunk. The implications of drinking were different in -Cottars-port from what they would be in San Francisco, or even Boston; -in such a small place as this every act offered the substance for talk, -opinion, as long-lived as the elms on the hills. It was foolish of him -not to go away for such excesses. Honora wanted to tell him so. She had -inherited her father's attitude toward the town, she thought, a personal -care of Cottarsport as a whole, necessarily expressed in an attention -toward individual acts and people. She wished Jason wouldn't make a fool -of himself. Then she recalled how ineffectual the same desire, actually -voiced, had been in connection with Olive Stanes. She recalled Olive's -horrified face as she, Honora, had said, “Grace be damned!” It was all -quite hopeless. “I think I'll move to the city,” she informed her aunt. - -The latter sighed, from, Honora knew, a sense of superior knowledge and -resignation. - -After supper she deserted the more familiar drawing room for the chamber -across the wide hall. A fire of coals was burning in an open grate, but -there was no other light. Honora sat at a piano with a ponderous ebony -case, and picked out Violetta's first aria from Traviata. The round -sweet notes seemed to float away palpable and intact into the gloom. -It was an unusual mood, and when it had gone she looked back at it in -wonderment and distrust. Her customary inner rebellion re-established -itself perhaps more vigorously than before: she was charged with energy, -with vital promptings, but found no opportunity, promise, of expression -or accomplishment. - -The warm sun lingered for a day or so more, and then was obliterated -by an imponderable bank of fog that rolled in through the Narrows, over -Cottar's Neck, and changed even the small confines of the town into -a vast labyrinth. That, in turn, was dissipated by a swinging eastern -storm, tipped with hail, which left stripped trees on an ashen blue sky -and dark, frigid water slapping uneasily at the harbor edge. - -Honora Canderay's states of mind were as various and similar. Her outer -aspect, however, unlike the weather, showed no evidence of change: as -usual she drove in the carriage on afternoons when it was not too cold; -she appeared, autocratic and lavish, in the shops of Citron Street; she -made her usual aimless excursions to the harbor. Jem Stanes, she saw, -was still a deck hand on the schooner _Gloriana_. Looking back to the -morning when he had scowlingly entered the office on the wharf, she -was able to reconstruct the cause of his ill humor--a brother-in-law to -Jason Burrage was a person of far different employment from an ordinary -Stanes. She passed Olive on the street, but the latter, except for a -perfunctory greeting, hurried immediately by. - -The stories of Jason's reckless conduct multiplied--he had consumed -a staggering amount of Medford rum and, in the publicity of noon and -Marlboro Street, sat upon the now notable silk hat. He had paid for some -cheroots with a pinch of gold dust as they were said to do in the far -West. He carried a loaded derringer, and shot “for fun” the jar of -colored water in the apothecary's window, and had threatened, with -a grim face, to do the same for whoever might interfere with his -pleasures. He was, she learned, rapidly becoming a local scandal and -menace. - -If it had been any one but Jason Burrage, native born and folded in the -glamour of his extraordinary fortune, he would have been immediately and -roughly suppressed: Honora well knew the rugged and severe temper of the -town. As it was he went about--attended by its least desirable element, -a chorus to magnify his liberality and daring--in an atmosphere of -wonderment and excited curiosity. - -This, she thought, was highly regrettable. Yet, in his present frame of -mind, what else was there for him to do? He couldn't be expected to -take seriously, be lost in, the petty affairs of Cottarsport; beyond a -limited amount the gold for which he had endured so much--she had -heard something of his misfortunes and struggle--was useless here; and, -without balance, he must inevitably drift into still greater debauch in -the large cities. - -He was now a frequently recurring figure in her thought. In the correct -presence of her aunt, Mrs. Cozzens, in delicate clothes and exact -surroundings, the light of an astral lamp on her sharply cut, slightly -contemptuous face, she would consider the problem of Jason Burrage. In -a way, which she had more than once explained and justified to herself, -she felt responsible for him. If there had been anything to suggest, she -would have gone to him directly, but she had no intention of offering -a barren condemnation. Her peculiar position in Cottarsport, while it -indicated certain obligations, required the maintenance of an impersonal -plane. Why, he might say anything to her; he was quite capable of -telling her--and correctly--to go to the devil! - -A new analogy was created between Jason Bur-rage and herself: his -advantage over her had broken down, they both appeared fast in untoward -circumstance beyond their power to alleviate or shape. He had come back -to Cottarsport in the precise manner in which she had returned from -shorter but equally futile excursions. Jason had his money, which at -once established necessities and made satisfaction impossible; and she -had promptings, desires, that by reason of their mere being, allowed her -contentment neither in the spheres of a social importance nor here in -the quiet place where so much of her was rooted. As Honora Canderay -gazed at her Aunt Herriot's hard, fine profile, the thought of her own, -Honora Canderay's, resemblance to the returned miner carousing with -the dregs of the town brought a shade of ironic amusement to her -countenance. - -Honora left the house, walking, in the decline of a November afternoon. -She had been busy in a small way, supervising the filling of camphor -chests for the winter, and, intensely disliking any of the duties of -domesticity, she was glad to escape into the still, cold open. Dusk was -not yet perceptible, but the narrow, erratic ways of Cottars-port were -filling with dear grey shadow. When, inevitably, she found herself at -the harbor's edge, she progressed over a narrow wharf to its end. It had -been wet, and there were patches of black, icy film; the water near by -was grey-black, but about the bare thrust of Cottar's Neck it was green; -the warehouses behind her were blank and deserted. - -She had on a cloak lined with ermine, and she drew it closer about her -throat at the frigid air lifting from the bay. Suddenly a flare of color -filled the somber space, a coppery glow that glinted like metal shavings -on the water and turned Cottar's Neck red. Against the sunset the town -was formless, murky; but the sky and harbor resembled the interior of -a burnished kettle. The effect was extraordinarily unreal, melodramtic, -and she was watching the color fade, when a figure wavered out of -the shadows and moved insecurely toward her. At first she thought the -stumbling progressions were caused by the ice: then she saw that it was -Jason Burrage, drunk. - -He wore the familiar suit of broadcloth, with no outer covering, and a -rough hat pulled down upon his fixed gaze. She stood motionless while he -approached, and then calmly met his heavy interrogation. - -“Honora,” he articulated, “Honora Canderay, one--one of the great -Canderays of Cottarsport. Well, why don't you say something? Too set up -for a civil, for a----” - -“Don't be ridiculous, Jason,” she replied crisply; “and do go -home--you'll freeze out here as you are.” - -“One of the great Canderays,” he reiterated, contemptuously. He came -very close to her. “You're not much. Here they think you.... But I've -been to California, and at the Jenny Lind... in silk like a blue bird, -and sing-. Nobody ever heard of the Canderays in 'Frisco, but they know -Jason Burrage, Burrage who had all the bad luck there was, and then -struck it rich.” - -He swayed perilously, and she put out a palm and steadied him. “Go back. -You are not fit to be around.” - -Jason struck her hand down roughly. “I'm fitter than you. What are you, -anyway?” He caught her shoulder in vise-like fingers. “Nothing but a -woman, that's all--just a woman.” - -“You are hurting me,” she said fearlessly. - -His grip tightened, and he studied her, his eyes inhuman in a stony, -white face. “Nothing more than that.” - -“You are very surprising,” she responded. “Do you know, I had never -thought of it. And it's true; that is precisely what and all I am.” - -His expression became troubled; he released her, stepped back, slipped, -and almost fell into the water. Honora caught his arm and dragged him -to the middle of the wharf. “A dam' Canderay,” he muttered. “And I'm -better, Jason Burrage. Ask them at the El Dorado, or Indian Bar; but -that's gone--the early days. All scientific now. We got the dead wood on -gold... cyanide.” - -“Come home,” she repeated brusquely, turning him, with a slight push, -toward the town settled in darkness. It sent him falling forward in the -direction she wished. Honora supported him, led him on. At intervals he -hung back, stopped. His speech became confused; then, it appeared, his -reason commenced slowly to return. The streets were empty; a lamp shone -dimly on its post at a corner; she guided Jason round a sunken space. - -Honora had no sense of repulsion; she was conscious of a faint pity, but -her energy came dimly from that feeling of obligation, inherited, she -told herself once more, from her father--their essential attitude to -Cottarsport. At the same time she found herself studying his face with a -personal curiosity. She was glad that it was not weak, that rum had been -ineffectual to loosen its hardness. He now seemed capable of walking -alone, and she stood aside. - -Jason was at a loss for words; his lips moved, but inaudibly. “Keep away -from the water,” she commanded, “or from Medford rum. And, some evening -soon, come to see me.” She said this without premeditation, from an -instinct beyond her searching. - -“I can't do that,” he replied in a surprisingly rational voice, “because -I've lost my silk hat.” - -“There are hundreds for sale in Boston,” she announced impatiently; “go -and get another.” - -“That never came to me,” he admitted, patently struck by this course of -rehabilitation through a new high hat. “There was something I had to -say to you, but it left my mind, about a--a gold fleece; it turned into -something else, on the wharf.” - -“When you see me again.” She moved farther from him, suddenly in a great -necessity to be home. She left him, talking at her, and went swiftly -through the gloom to Regent Street. Letting herself into the still hall, -the amber serenity of lamplight in suave spaciousness, she swung shut -the heavy door with a startling vigor. Then she stood motionless, the -cape slipping from her shoulders in glistening and soft white folds -about her arms, to the carpet. Honora wasn't faint, not for a moment -had she been afraid of Jason Burrage, this was not a rebellion of -over-strung nerves; yet a passing blindness, a spiritual shudder, -possessed her. She had the sensation of having just passed through an -overwhelming adventure: yet all that had happened was commonplace, even -sordid. She had met a drunken man whom she hardly knew beyond his name -and an adventitious fact, and insisted on his going home. Asking him to -call on her had been little less than perfunctory--an impersonal act of -duty. - -Yet her being vibrated as if a loud and disturbing bell had been -unexpectedly sounded at her ear; she was responding to an imperative -summons. In her room, changing for supper, this feeling vanished, and -left her usual introspective humor. Jason had spoken a profound truth, -which her surprise had recognized at the time, in reminding her that she -was an ordinary woman, like, for instance, Olive Stanes. The isolation -of her dignity had hidden that from her for a number of years. She had -come to think of herself exclusively as a Canderay. - -Later her sharp enjoyment in probing into all pretensions, into herself, -got slightly the better of her. “I saw Jason Burrage this evening,” she -told Mrs. Cozzens. - -“If he was sober,” that individual returned, “it might be worth -recalling.” - -“But he wasn't. He nearly fell into the harbor. I asked him to see us.” - -“With your education, Honora, there is really no excuse for confusing -the singular and plural. I haven't any doubt you asked him here, but -that has nothing to do with us.” - -“You might be amused by his accounts of California. For, although you -never complain, I can see that you think it dull.” - -“I am an old woman,” Herriot Cozzens stated, “my life was quite normally -full, and I am content here with you. Any dullness you speak of I regret -for another reason.” - -“You are afraid I'll get preserved like a salted haddock. He may not -come.” - -***** - -Honora was in the less formal of the drawing rooms when Jason Burrage -was announced. He came forward almost immediately, in the most rigorous -evening attire, a new silk hat on his arm. - -“You had no trouble getting one,” she nodded in its direction. - -“Four,” he replied tersely. - -Jason took a seat facing her across an open space of darkly flowered -carpet, and Honora studied him, directly critical. Against a vague -background his countenance was extraordinarily pronounced, vividly -pallid. His black hair swept in a soft wave across a brow with indented -temples, his nose was short with wide nostrils, the lower part of -his face square. His hands, scarred and discolored, rested each on a -black-clad knee. - -She was in no hurry to begin a conversation which must either be -stilted, uncomfortable, or reach beyond known confines. For the moment -her daring was passive. Jason Burrage stirred his feet, and she attended -the movement with thoughtful care. He said unexpectedly: - -“I believe I've never been in here before.” He turned and studied his -surroundings as if in an effort of memory. “But I talked to your father -once in the hall.” - -“Nothing has been changed,” she answered almost unintelligibly. “Very -little does in Cot-tarsport.” - -“That's so,” he assented. “I saw it when I came back. It was just the -same, but I----” he stopped and his expression became gloomy. - -“If you mean that you were different, you are wrong,” she declared -concisely. “Just that has made trouble for you--you have been unable to -be anything but yourself. I am like that, too. Every one is.” - -“I have been through things,” he told her enigmatically. “Why look--just -the trip: to Chagres on the Isthmus, and then mules and canoes through -that ropey woods to Panama, with thousands of prospectors waiting for -the steamer. Then back by Mazatlan, Mexico City, and Vera Cruz. A man -sees things.” - -Her inborn uneasiness at rooms, confining circumstance, her restless -desire for unlimited horizons, for the mere fact of reaching, moving, -stirred into being at the names he repeated. Tomorrow she would go away, -find something new-- - -“It must have been horridly rough and dirty.” - -“A good many turned back or died,” he agreed tentatively. “But after you -once got there a sort of craziness came over you--you couldn't wait to -buy a pan or shovel. The bay was full of rotting ships deserted by their -crews, a thicket of masts with even the sails still hanging to them. The -men jumped overboard to get ashore and pick up gold.” - -She thought with a pang of the idle ships with sprung rigging, sodden -canvas lumpily left on the decks, rotting as he had said, in files. The -image afflicted her like a physical pain, and she left it hurriedly. -“But San Francisco must have been full of life.” - -“You had to shout to be heard over the bands, and everything blazing. -Pyramids of nuggets on the gambling tables. Gold dust and champagne and -mud.” - -“Whatever will you find here?” She immediately regretted her query, -which seemed to search improperly into the failure of his marriage. - -“I'm thinking of going back,” he admitted. - -Curiously Honora was sorry to hear this; unreasonably it gave to -Cottarsport a new aspect of barrenness, the vista of her own life -reached interminable and monotonous into the future. And she was -certain that, without the necessity and incentive of labor, it would be -destructive for Jason to return to San Francisco. - -“What would you do?” - -“Gamble,” he replied cynically. - -“Admirable prospect,” she said lightly. Her manner unmistakably conveyed -the information that his call had drawn to an end. He clearly resisted -this for a minute or two, and then stirred. “You must come again.” - -“Why?” he demanded abruptly, grasping his hat, which had reposed on the -carpet at his side. - -“News from California, from the world outside, is rare in Cottarsport. -You must see that you are an interesting figure to us.” - -“Why?” he persisted, frowning. - -She rose, her face as hard as his own, but with a faint smile in place -of his lowering expression. “No, you haven't changed; not even to the -extent of a superficial knowledge of drawing rooms.” - -“I ought to have seen better than come.” - -“The ignorance was all my own.” - -“But once----” he paused. - -“Should be enough.” Her smile widened. Yet she was furious with herself -for having quarreled with him; the descent from the altitude of the -Canderays had been enormous. What extraordinary influence had colored -her acts in the past few days? - -Mrs. Cozzens, at breakfast, inquired placidly how the evening before had -progressed, and Honora made a gesture expressive of its difficulties. -“You will create such responsibilities for yourself,” the elder stated. - -This one, it suddenly appeared to Honora, had been thrust upon her. She -made repeated and angry efforts to put Jason Burrage from her mind; -but his appearance sitting before her, his words and patent discontent, -flooded back again and again. She realized now that he was no impersonal -problem; somehow he had got twisted into the fibres of her existence; he -was more vividly in her thoughts than Paret Fifield had ever been. -She attempted to ridicule him mentally, and called up pictures of his -preposterous clothes, the ill-bred waistcoats and ponderous watch chain. -They faded before the memory of the set jaw, his undeniable romance. - -Wrapped in fur, she elected to drive after dinner; the day was cold but -palely clear, and she felt that her cheeks were glowing with unusual -color. Above the town, on the hills now sere with frost and rock, the -horses, under the aged guidance of Coggs, continually dropped from a jog -trot to an ambling walk. Honora paid no attention to the gait, she was -impervious to the wide, glittering reach of water; and she was startled -to find herself abreast a man gazing at her. - -“I made a jackass out of myself last night,” he observed gloomily. - -She automatically stopped the carriage and held back the buffalo robe. -Jason hesitated, but was forced to take a seat at her side. Honora said -nothing, and the horses again went forward. - -“I'd been drinking a lot and was all on edge,” he volunteered further. -“I feel different today. I can remember your mother driving like this. I -was a boy then, and used to think she was made of ice; wondered why she -didn't run away in the sun.” - -“Mother was very kind, really,” Honora said absently. She was relaxed -against the cushions, the country dipped and spread before her in a -restful brown garb; she watched Coggs' glazed hat sway against the sky. -The old sense of familiarity with Jason Burrage came back: why not, -since she had known him all their lives? And now, after his years -away, she was the only one in Cottarsport who at all comprehended his -difficulties. He was not commonplace, a strong man was never that; and, -in a way, he had the quality which more than any other had made her -father so notable. And he was not unpleasant so close beside her. That -was of overwhelming importance in the formation of her intimate opinion -of him. He had been refined by the bitterness of his early failure in -California; he bore himself with a certain dignity. - -“What'll I do?” he demanded abruptly. - -For the life or her she couldn't tell him. Except for platitudes she -could offer no solution against the future. Actual living, directly -viewed, was like that--hopeless of exterior solution. “I don't know,” - she admitted, “I wish I did; I wish I could help you.” - -“This money, what's it good for? I can't get my family to burn two small -stoves at once; they'd die in the kitchen if they had a hundred parlors; -I've bought more clothes than I'll ever wear, four high hats and so on. -Not going to get married; no use for a big house, for anything more than -the room I have. I get plenty to eat----” - -“You might do some good with it,” she suggested. The base of what she -was saying, Honora realized, was that he would be as well off with his -fortune given away. Yet it was unjust, absurd, for him not to get some -use, pleasure, from what he had worked so extravagantly to obtain. - -“Somehow that wouldn't settle anything, for me,” he replied. - -Coggs had turned at the usual limit of her afternoon driving, and they -were slowly moving back to the town. Cottar's Neck was fading into the -early gloom, and a group of men stared at Jason seated in the Canderays' -carriage as if their eyes were being played with in the uncertain light. - -“Have you thought any more about going West?” she inquired. - -They had stopped for his descent at Marlboro - -Street, and he stood with a hand on the wheel. “I had intended to go -this morning.” - -He held her gaze steadily, and she felt a swift coldness touch her into -a shiver. - -“Tomorrow?” This came in a spirit of perversity against her every other -instinct. - -“Shall I?” - -“Would you be happier in San Francisco?” Jason Burrage made a hopeless -gesture. - -“... for supper,” Honora found herself saying in a rush; “at six -o'clock. If you aren't bound for California.” - -She tried to recall afterward if she had indicated a particular evening -for the invitation. There was a vague memory of mentioning Thursday. -This was Tuesday... Herriot Cozzens would be in Boston. - -***** - -A servant told her that Mr. Burrage had arrived when she was but half -ready. She was, in reality, undecided in her choice of a dress for the -evening; but finally she wore soft white silk, with deep, knotted fringe -on the skirt, a low cut neck, and a narrow mantle of black velvet. Her -hair, severely plain in its net, was drawn back from a bang cut across -her brow. As she entered the room where he was standing a palpable -admiration marked his countenance. - -He said nothing, however, beyond a conventional phrase. Such natural -reticence had a large part in her acceptance of him; he did nothing that -actively disturbed her hypercritical being. He was almost distinguished -in appearance. She had a feeling that if it had been different.... -Honora distinctly wished for a flamboyant touch about him; it presented -a symbol of her command of any situation between them, a reminder of her -superiority. - -The supper went forward smoothly; there were the welcome inevitable -reminiscences of the rough fare of California, laughter at the -prohibitive cost of beans; and when, at her direction, he lighted a -cheroot, and they lingered on at the table, Honora's aloofness was -becoming a thing of the past. The smoke gave her an unexpected thrill, -an extraordinary sense of masculine proximity. There had been no such -blue clouds in the house since her father's death seven years ago. -Settled back contentedly, Jason Burrage seemed--why, actually, he had an -air of occupying a familiar place. - -It was bitterly cold without, the room into which they trailed -insufficiently warm, and they were drawn close together at an open -Franklin stove. The lamps on the mantel were distant, and they had not -yet been fully turned up: his face was tinged by the glow of the fire. -An intense face. “What are you thinking about--me?” she added coolly. -“Nothing,” he replied; “I'm too comfortable to think.” There was a note -of surprise in his voice; he looked about as if to find reassurance -of his present position. “But if I did it would be this--that you are -entirely different from any woman I've ever known before. They have -always been one of two kinds. One or the other,” he repeated somberly. -“Now you are both together. I don't know as I ought to say that, if it's -nice. I wouldn't like to try and explain.” - -“But you must.” - -“It's your clothes and your manner put against what you are. Oh hell, -what I mean is you're elegant to look at and good, too.” - -An expression of the deepest concern followed his exclamation. He -commenced an apology. Hardly launched, it died on his lips. - -Honora was at once conscious of the need for his contrition and of the -fact that she had never heard a more entertaining statement. It was -evident that he viewed her as a desirable compound of the women of the -El Dorado and Olive Stanes: an adroit and sincere compliment. She wanted -to follow it on and on, unfold its every exposition; but, of course, -that was impossible. All this she concealed behind an indifferent -countenance, her slim white fingers half embedded in the black mantle. - -Jason Burrage lighted another cheroot and put his feet up on the -polished brass railing of the iron hearth. This amused her beyond words. -She couldn't remember when she had had another such vitalized evening. -She realized that, through the last years, she had been appallingly -lonely; but with Jason smoking beside her in a tilted chair the solitude -was banished. She got a coal for him in the small burnished tongs, and -he responded with a prodigious puff that set her to coughing. - -When he had gone the house was hatefully vacant; as she went up to her -chamber the empty spaciousness, the semi-dark well of the stair, the -high hall with its low-turned lamp, the blackness of the third story -pouring down over her, oppressed her almost beyond endurance. Her Aunt -Herriot, already old, must be dead before very long, there was none -other of her connections who could live with her, and she would have to -depend on perfunctory, hired companionship. - -Honora saw that she should never escape from the influence which held -her in Cottarsport. - -In her room, the door bolted, it was no better. The interior was large, -uncompromisingly square; and, though every possible light was burning, -still it seemed somber, menacing. - -The following day was a lowering void with gusts of rain driving against -the windows. Mrs. Cozzens would be away until tomorrow, and Honora -met the afternoon alone. At times she embroidered, short-lived efforts -broken by despondent and aimless excursions through the echoing halls. - -She attempted to read, to compose herself with an elaborate gilt and -embellished volume called “The Garland.” But, at a Lamentation on the -Death of Her Canary, by a Person of Quality, she deliberately dropped -the book into the burning coals of the Franklin stove. The satisfaction -of seeing the pages crisp and burst into flame soon evaporated. The day -was a calamity, the approaching murky evening a horror. - -At supper she wondered what Jason Burrage was doing. A trace of the -odor of his cheroot lingered in the dining room. He was an astonishingly -solid, the only, actuality in a nebulous world of lofty, flickering -ceilings and the lash of rain. He might as well smoke in her drawing -room as in the Burrage kitchen. Paret Fifield would have drifted -naturally to the Canderay house, but not Jason, not a native of -Cottarsport.... With an air of determination she sharply pulled the -plush, tasseled bell rope in the corner. - -***** - -She heard the servant open the front door; there was a pause--Jason -was taking off his greatcoat--after which he entered, calm and without -query. - -“I was tired of sitting by myself,” she said with an air of entire -frankness. In a minute or so more it was all as it had been the evening -before--she held a coal for his cheroot as he tilted back beside her -with his feet on the rail. “You are a very comfortable man, Jason,” she -told him. - -He made no reply, although a quiver crossed his lips. Then, after a -little, “It's astonishing how soon you get used to things. Seems as if I -had been here for years, and this is only the third time.'” - -“Have you thought any more of California?” - -He faced her with an expression of surprise. “It had gone clean out of -my mind. I suppose I will shift back, though--nothing here for me. I -can't come to see you every evening.” - -She preserved a silence in which they both fell to staring into a -dancing, bluish flame. The gusts of rain were audible like the tearing -of heavy linen. An extraordinary idea had taken possession of Honora--if -the day had been fine, if she had been out in a sparkling air and sun, -a very great deal would have happened differently. But just what -she couldn't then say: the fact alone was all that she curiously -apprehended. - -“I suppose not,” she answered, so long after his last statement that he -gazed questioningly at her. “I wonder if it has occurred to you,” she -continued, “how much alike we are? I often think about it.” - -“Why, no,” he replied, “it hasn't. Jason Bur-rage and Honora Canderay! I -wouldn't have guessed it, and I don't believe any one else ever has. -I'd have a hard time thinking about two more different. It's--it's -ridiculous.” He became seriously animated. “Here I am--well, you know -all about me--with some money, perhaps, and a little of the world in my -head; but you're Honora Canderay.” - -“You said once that I was nothing but a woman,” she reminded him. - -“I remember that,” he admitted with evident chagrin. “I was drunk.” - -“That's when the truth is often hit on; I am quite an ordinary sort of -woman.” - -He laughed indulgently. - -“You said last evening I had some of a very common quality.” - -“Now you mustn't take that serious,” he protested; “it was just in a way -of speech. I told you I couldn't rightly explain myself.” - -“Anyhow,” she asserted bluntly, “I am lonely. What will you do about -it?” - -His amazement turned into a consternation which even now she found -almost laughable. “Me?” he stammered. “There's no way I can help you. -You are having a joke.” - -She realized, with a feeling that her knowledge came too late, that she -was entirely serious. Jason Burrage was the only being alive who could -give her any assistance, yes, save her from the future. Her hands were -cold, she felt absolutely still, as if she had suddenly turned into -marble, a statue with a heart slightly fluttering. - -“You could be here a lot,” she told him, and then paused, glancing at -him swiftly with hard, bright eyes. He had removed his feet from the -stove, and sat with his cheroot in a poised, awkward hand. She was -certain that he would never speak. - -“We might get married.” - -Honora was startled at the ease with which the words were pronounced, -and conscious of an absurdly trivial curiosity--she wondered just how -much he had been shocked by her proposal? She saw that he was stupefied. -Then: - -“So we might,” he pronounced idiotically. “There isn't any real reason -why we shouldn't. That is----.” He stopped. “Where does the laugh -start?” he demanded. - -Suddenly Honora was overwhelmed, not by what she had said, but by the -whole difficulty and inner confusion of her existence. She turned away -her head with an unintelligible period. A silence followed, intensified -by the rain flinging against the glass. - -“It's a bad night,” he muttered. - -The banality saved her. Again practically at her ease, she regarded him -with slightly smiling lips. “I believe I've asked you to marry me,” she -remarked. - -“Thank you,” said Jason Burrage. He stood up. “If you mean it, I'd like -to very much.” - -“You'd better sit down,” she went on in an impersonal voice; “there -ought to be a lot of things to arrange. For instance, hadn't we better -live on here, for a while anyhow? It's a big house to waste.” - -“Honora, you'll just have to stop a little,” he asserted; “I'm kind -of lost. It was quick in California, but that was a funeral procession -compared with you.” - -Now that it was done, she was frightened. But there was time to escape -even yet. She determined to leave the room quickly, get away to the -safety of her bolted door, her inviolable privacy. She didn't stir. An -immediate explanation that she hadn't been serious--how could he have -thought it for a moment!--would save her. But she was silent. - -A sudden enthusiasm lighted up his immobile face. “I'll get the -prettiest diamond in Boston,” he declared. - -“You mustn't----” she commenced, struggling still to retreat. He -misunderstood her. - -“The very best,” he insisted. - -When he had gone she remained seated in the formal chamber. At any rate -she had conquered the emptiness of her life, of the great square house -above her. It was definitely arranged, they were to marry. How -amazed Herriot Cozzens would be! It was probable that she would leave -Cot-tarsport, and her, Honora, immediately. Jason hadn't kissed her, he -had not even touched her hand, in going. He had been extremely subdued, -except at the thought of the ring he would buy for her. - -There were phases of the future which she resolutely ignored. - -Mrs. Cozzens came back as had been planned, and Honora told her at once. -The older woman expressed her feeling in contained, acid speech. “I am -surprised he had the assurance to ask you.” - -“Jason didn't,” Honora calmly returned. - -“It's your father,” the elder stated; “he had some very vulgar blood. I -felt that it was a calamity when my sister accepted him. A Cot-tarsport -person at heart, just as you are, always down about the water and those -low docks.” - -“I'm sure you're right, and so it's much better for me to find where I -belong. I have tried to get away from Cottarsport, and from the sea and -the schooners sailing in and out of the Narrows, a thousand times. But I -always come back, just as father did, back to this little place from -the entire world--China and Africa and New York. The other influences -weren't strong enough, Aunt Herriot; they only made me miserable; -and now I've killed them. I'll say good-bye to you and Paret and the -cotillions.” She kissed her hand, but not gaily, to a whole existence -irrevocably lost. - -With Jason's ring blazing on her slim finger she drove, the day before -the wedding, for the last time as Honora Canderay. The leaves had -been stripped from the elms on the hills, brown and barren against the -flashing, steely water. She saw that Coggs was so impotent with age that -if the horses had been more vigorous he would be helpless. Coggs had -driven for her father, then her, for thirty years. It was too cold -for the old man to be out today. His cheeks were dark crimson, and -continually wet from his failing eyes. - -Herriot Cozzens had left her; Coggs... all the intimate figures of -so many years were vanishing. Jason remained. He had almost entirely -escaped annoying her, and she was conscious of his overwhelming -admiration, the ineradicable esteem of Cottarsport for the Canderays; -but a question, a doubt more obscure than fear, was taking possession of -her. After all she was supremely ignorant of life; she had been screened -from it by pride and luxurious circumstance; but now she had surrendered -all her advantage. She had given herself to Jason; and he was life, -mysterious and rude. The thunder of large, threatening seas, reaching -everywhere beyond the placid gulf below, beat faintly on her perception. - - - - -JASON - - -|IN an unfamiliar upper room of the Canderays' house Jason stood -prepared for the signal to descend to his wedding. The ceremony was -to occur at six o'clock; it was now only five minutes before--he had -absently looked at his watch a great many times in a short space--and he -was striving to think seriously of what was to follow. But in place -of this he was passing again through a state of silent, incoherent -surprise. This was the sort of thing for which a man might pinch himself -to discover if he were awake or dreaming. In five, no, four, minutes now -Honora Canderay was to become his, Jason Burrage's, wife. - -A certain complacency had settled over him in the past few days, -something of his inborn feeling of the Canderays as a house apart seemed -to have evaporated; and, in addition, he had risen--Honora wouldn't take -any just happen so. Jason was never notable for humility. Yet who, -even after he had returned from California with his riches, could -have predicted this evening? His astonishment was as much at himself, -illuminated by extraordinary events, as at any exterior circumstance. -At times he had the ability to see himself, as if from the outside; and -that view, here, was amazing. Why, only a short while ago he had been -drinking rum in the shed in back of “Pack” Clower's house, perhaps the -least desirable shed in Cottarsport. - -Of one fact, however, he was certain--no more promiscuous draughts of -Medford. He recognized that he had taken so much not from the presence -of desire, but from a total absence of it as well as of any other mental -state. “Pack” and his associates, too, were now a thing of the past, -a bitterly rough and vacant element. The glass lamp on a bureau was -smoking: he stepped forward to lower the wick, when a knock fell on the -door. A young Boston relative of Honora's--a supercilious individual -in checked trousers and lemon-colored gloves--announced that they were -waiting for Jason below. With a determined settling of his shoulders and -tightly drawn lips, he marched resolutely forward. - -The marriage was to be in the chamber across from the one in which he -had generally sat. Smilax and white Killamey roses had been bowed over -the mantel at the farthest end, and there Jason found the clergyman -waiting. The room was half full of people occupying chairs brought from -other parts of the house; and he was conscious of a sudden silence, an -intent, curious scrutiny, as he entered. An instinctive antagonism to -this deepened in him: he felt that, with the exception of his father and -mother, he hadn't a friend in the room. - -Such other local figures as were there were facilely imitating the -cold stare of Honora's connections. He stood belligerently facing Mrs. -Cozzens' glacial calm, the inspection of a man he had seen driving with -Honora in Cottarsport, now accompanied by a pettish, handsome girl, -evidently his wife. His father's weathered countenance, sunken and dry -on its bones, was blank, except for a faint doubt, as if some mistake -had been made which would presently be exposed, sending them about face. -His mother, however, was triumphant pride and justification personified. -Then the music commenced--a harp, violin, and double bass. - -The wedding ring firmly secured, Jason stirred with a feeling of -increasing awkwardness. He glared back, with a protruding lip, at the -fellow with the young wife, at the small, aggressive group from Boston; -and then he saw that Honora was in the room. She was coming slowly -toward him. Her expression of absolute unconcern released him from all -petty annoyance, any thought of the malicious onlookers. As she stopped -at his side she gave him a slight nod and smile; and at that moment a -tremendous, sheer admiration for her was born in him. - -Honora had chosen to be unattended--she had coolly observed that she was -well beyond the age for such sentimentality--and he realized that though -the present would have been a racking occasion for most women, it -was evident that she was not disturbed in the least. He had a general -impression of sugary white satin, of her composed, almost disdainful -face in a cloud of veil with little waxen orange flowers, of slender -still hands, when they turned from the room to the minister. - -They had gone over the marriage service together, he had read it again -in the kitchen at home; he was fairly familiar with its periods and -responses, and got through with only a slight hesitation and half -prompting. But the thickness of his voice, in comparison with Honora's -open, decisive utterance, vainly annoyed him. He wanted desperately to -clear his throat. Suddenly it was over, and Honora, in a swirl of satin, -was sinking to her knees. Beside her he listened with a feeling of -comfortable lull to a lengthy prayer. - -Rising, he perfunctorily clasped a number of indifferent palms, replied -inanely to gabbled expressions of good will and hopes for the future -unmistakably pessimistic in tone. Honora told him in a rapid aside -the names of those approaching. She smiled radiantly at his father -and mother, leaned forward and whispered in the latter's ear; and they -followed the guests streaming into the dining room. - -There champagne was being opened by the caterer's assistants from -Boston. There were steaming platters of terrapin and oysters and fowl. -The table bore pyramids of nuts and preserved fruit, hot Cinderellas -in cups with sugar and wine, black case cake, Savoy biscuits, pumpkin -paste, and frothed creams with preserved peach leaves. A laden plate was -thrust into Jason's hand, and he sat with it in a clatter of voices and -topics that completely ignored him. He was isolated in the absorption of -food and wine, in a conversational exchange as strange to him as if had -been spoken in a foreign language. - -Honora was busily talking to young Mrs. Fifield--he remembered the name -now. Apparently she had forgotten his existence. At first this annoyed -him; he determined to force his way into their attention, but a wiser -realization held him where he was. Honora was exactly right: he had -nothing in common with these people, probably not one of them would come -into his life or house again. And his wife, in the fact of her marriage, -had clearly signified how little important they were to her. His father -joined him. - -“You made certain when the New York packet leaves?” he queried. - -“Everything's fixed,” Jason reassured him. - -“Your mother wanted to see you. But she got set and is kind of timid -about moving.” Jason rose promptly, and, with the elder, found Mrs. -Hazzard Burrage. “I'd like to have Honora, too,” the latter told them, -and Jason turned sharply to find her. When they stood facing the old -couple his mother hesitated doubtfully; then she put out her hand to -the woman in wedding array. But Honora ignored it; leaning forward she -kissed the round, bright cheek. - -“You have to be patient with them at times,” the mother said, looking up -anxiously. - -“I'm afraid Jason will need that warning,” Honora replied; “he is a very -imprudent man.” - -***** - -Jason's mind returned to this later, sitting in the house that had been -the Canderays', but which now was his too. Honora's remark to his mother -had been clear in itself, but it suggested wide speculations beyond -his grasp. For instance--why, after all, had Honora married him? He was -forced to acknowledge that it was not the result of any overwhelming -feeling for him. The manner of their wedding, the complete absence of -the emotion supposed to be the incentive of such consummations, Honora -herself, all, denied any effort to fix such a personally satisfactory -cause. That she might have had no other opportunity--Honora was not so -young as she had been--he dismissed as obviously absurd. Why---- - -His gaze was fastened upon the carpet, and he saw that time and the -passage of feet had worn away the design. He looked about the room, and -was surprised to discover a general dinginess which he had never noticed -before. He said nothing, but, in his movements about the house, examined -the furnishings and walls, and an astonishing fact was thrust upon -him--the celebrated dwelling was grievously run down. It was plain that -no money had been spent on it for years. The carriage, too, and the -astrakhan collar on Coggs' coat, were worn out. - -He considered this at breakfast--his wife behind a tall Sheffield coffee -urn--and he was aware of the cold edge of a distasteful possibility. -The thought enveloped him insidiously, like the fog which often rolled -through the Narrows and over the town, that the Canderays were secretly -impoverished, and Honora had married him only for his money. Jason -was not resentful of this in itself, since he had been searching for -a motive he could accept, but it struck him in a peculiarly vulnerable -spot--his admiration for his wife, for Honora. The idea, although he -assured himself that the thing was readily comprehensible, somehow -managed to diminish her, to tarnish the luster she held for him. It was -far beneath the elevation on which Cottarsport had placed the Canderays; -and he suffered a distinct sense of loss, a feeling of the staleness and -disappointment of living. - -The more he considered this explanation the more he was convinced of -its probability. A great deal of his genuine warmth in his marriage -evaporated. Still--Honora had married him, she had given herself in -return for what material advantage he might bring; and he would have to -perform his part thoroughly. He ought to have known that---- - -What he must do now was to save them both from any painful revelation -by keeping for ever hid that he was aware of her purpose, he must never -expose himself by a word or act; and he must make her understand that -whatever he had was absolutely hers. It would be necessary for her to go -to the money with entire freedom and without any accounting. - -This, he found, was not so easy to establish as he thought. Honora was -his wife, but nevertheless there was a well marked reticence between -them, a formal nicety with which he was heartily in accord. He couldn't -just thrust his fortune before her on the table. He hesitated through -the day, on the verge of various blunders; and then, in the evening, -said in a studied causality of manner: - -“What do you think about fixing some of the rooms over new? You might -get tired of seeing the same things for so long. I saw real elegant -furniture in Boston.” - -She looked about indifferently. “I think I wouldn't like it changed,” - she remarked, almost in the manner of a defense. “I suppose it does seem -worn to you; but I'm used to it; there are so many associations. I am -certain I'd be lost in new hangings.” - -Jason was so completely silenced by her reply that he felt he must have -shown some confusion, for her gaze deliberately turned to him. “Is there -any particular thing you would like repaired?” she inquired. - -“No, of course not,” he said hastily. “I think it's all splendid. I -wouldn't change a curtain, only--but....” He cursed himself for a -clumsy fool while Honora continued to study him. He endeavored to shield -himself behind the trivial business of lighting a cheroot; but he felt -Honora's query searching him out. Finally, to his extreme dismay, he -heard her say: - -“Jason, I believe you think I married you for money!” - -Pretense, he realized, would be no good now. - -“Something like that did occur to me,” he acknowledged desperately. - -“Really,” she told him sharply. “I could be cross very easily. You are -too stupid. Father did wonderfully well on his voyages, and his profit -was invested by Frederic Cozzens, one of the shrewdest financiers of his -day. I have twice, probably three times, as much as you.” - -She confronted him with a faintly sparkling resentment. However, -the pleasure, the reassurance, in what he had just heard made him -indifferent to the rest. It was impossible now to comprehend how he had -been such a block! He even smiled at her, which, he was delighted to -observe, obviously puzzled her. - -“Perhaps I ought to tell you, Jason, and perhaps it is too late already, -that I thought I married you because I was lonely, because I feared the -future. Anyhow, that's what I told myself the night I sent for you. You -might have a right to complain very bitterly about it.” - -“If I have, I won't,” he assured her cheerfully. - -“I thought that then; but now I am not at all sure. It no longer seems -so simple, so easily explained. I used to feel that I understood myself -very thoroughly, I could look inside and see what was there; but in the -last month I haven't been able to; and it is very disturbing.” - -“Anyhow we're married,” he announced comfortably. - -“That's a beautiful way to feel,” she remarked. “I appear to get less -sure of things as I grow older, which is pathetic.” - -He wondered what, exactly, she meant by this. Honora said a great many -little things which, their meaning escaping him, gave him momentary -doubts. He discovered that she had a habit of saying things indirectly, -and that, as the seriousness of the occasion increased, her manner -became lighter and he could depend less on the mere order of her words. -This continually disconcerted him, put him on the defensive and at small -disadvantages: he was never quite at ease with Honora. - -Obversely--the ugly shade of mercenary purpose dispelled--close at hand -his admiration for her grew. Every detail of her living was as fine -as that publicly exposed in the drawing room. She was not rigidly and -impossibly perfect, in, for instance, the inflexible attitude of Olive -Stanes; Honora had a very human impatience, she could be disagreeable, -he found, in the morning, and she undoubtedly felt herself superior to -the commonalty of life. But in the ordering of her person there was a -wonderfully exact delicacy and fragrant charm. Just as she had no formal -manner, so, he discovered, she possessed no “good” clothes; she dressed -evidently from some inner necessity, and not merely for the sake of -impression. She had, too, a remarkable vigor of expression; Honora was -not above swearing at contradictory circumstance; and she was so free of -small pruderies that often she became a cause of embarrassment to him. -At times he would tell himself uneasily that her conduct was not quite -ladylike; but at the same instant his amusement in her would mount until -it threatened him with laughter. - -There was a great deal to be learned from Honora, he told himself; and -then he would speculate whether he were progressing in that acquisition; -and whether she were happy; no, not happy, but contented. Ignorant -of her reason for marrying, he vaguely dreaded the possibility of its -departure, mysterious as it had come, leaving her regarding him with -surprise and disdain. He tried desperately, consciously, to hold her -interest and esteem. - -That was the base of his conception of their married existence, which, -then, he was entirely willing to accept. - -***** - -However, as the weeks multiplied without bringing him any corresponding -increase in the knowledge of either Honora or their true situation, -he was aware of a disturbance born of his very pleasure in her; an -uncomfortable feeling of insecurity fastened upon him. But all this he -was careful to keep hidden. There was evidently no doubt in the minds -of Cottarsport of the enviableness of his position--with all that gold, -wedded to Honora Canderay, living in the Canderay mansion. The more -solid portion of the town gave him a studied consideration denied to the -mere acquisition of wealth; and the rough element, once his companion -but now relentlessly held at a distance, regarded him with a loud -disdain fully as humanly flattering. Sometimes with Honora he passed -the latter, and they grumbled an obscure acknowledgment of his curt -greeting; when he was alone, they openly disparaged his attainments and -qualified pride. - -There were “Pack” Clower, an able seaman whose indolent character had -dissipated his opportunities of employment without harming his slow, -powerful body; Emery Radlaw, the brother of the apothecary and a -graduate of Williams College, a man of vanished refinements and taker of -strange drugs, as thin and erratically rapid in movements as Clower was -slow; Steven, an incredibly soiled Swede; John Vleet, the master and -part owner of a fishing schooner, a capable individual on the sea, but -an insanely violent drunkard on land. There were others, all widely -different, but alike in the bitterness of a common failure and the habit -of assuaging doubtful self-esteem, of ministering to crawling nerves, -with highly potential stimulation. - -Jason passed “Pack” and Emery Radlaw on a day of late March, and a -mocking and purposely audible aside almost brought him to an adequate -reply. He had disposed of worse men than these in California and the -Isthmus. His arrogant temper rose and threatened to master him; but -something more powerful held him steadily and silently on his way. This -was his measureless admiration for Honora, his determination to involve -her in nothing that would detract from her fineness and erect pride. -Brawling on the street would not do for her husband. He must give her -no cause to lessen what incomprehensible feeling, liking, she might -have for him, give life to no regrets for a hasty and perhaps only -half considered act. After this, in passing any of his late temporary -associates, he failed to express even the perfunctory consciousness of -their being. - -***** - -In April he was obliged to admit to himself that he knew no more of -Honora's attitude toward him than on the day of their wedding. He -recognized that she made no show of emotion; it was an essential part of -her to seem at all times unmoved. That was well enough for the face she -turned toward the world; but directed at him, her husband, its enigmatic -quality began to obsess his mind. What Honora thought of him, why she -had married him, became an almost continuous question. - -It bred an increasing sense of instability that became loud, defiant. -More than once he was at the point of self-betrayal: query, demand, -objection, would rise on a temporary angry flood to his lips. But, -struggling, behind a face as unmoved as Honora's own, he would suppress -his resentment, the sense of injury, and smoke with the appearance of -the greatest placidity. - -His regard for his wife placed an extraordinary check on his impulses -and utterance. He deliberated carefully over his speech, watched her -with an attention not far from a concealed anxiety, and was quick to -absorb any small conventions unconsciously indicated by her remarks. She -never instructed or held anything over him; he would have been acutely -sensitive to any air of superiority, and immediately antagonized. But -Honora was entirely free from pretensions of that variety; she was as -clear and honest as a goblet of water. - -Jason's regard for her grew pace by pace with the feeling of baffling -doubt. He was passing through the public square, and his thoughts were -interrupted by a faint drifting sweetness. “I believe the lilacs are -out,” he said unconsciously aloud and stopping. His surrounding was -remarkably serene, withdrawn--the courthouse, a small block of brick -with white corniced windows, flat Ionic portico, and slatted wood -lantern with a bell, stood in the middle of the grassy common shut in by -an irregular rectangle of dwellings with low eaves and gardens. The sun -shone with a beginning warmth in a vague sky that intensified the early -green. It seemed that he could see, against a house, the lavender blur -of the lilac blossoms. - -Then his attention was attracted by the figure of a man, at once strange -and familiar, coming toward him with a dragging gait. Jason studied the -other until a sudden recognition clouded his countenance, filled him -with a swift, unpleasant surprise. - -“Thomas!” he exclaimed. “Whenever did you get back?” - -“Yesterday,” said Thomas Gast. - -Well, here was Thomas returned from California like himself. Yet -the most negligent view of the latter revealed that there was a vast -difference between Jason and this last Argonaut--Thomas Gast's loosely -hung jaw, which gave to his countenance an air of irresolution, was now -exaggerated by an aspect of utter defeat. His ill conditioned clothes, -sodden brogans, and stringy handkerchief still knotted miner-fashion -about his throat, all multiplied the fact of failure proclaimed by his -attitude. - -“How did you strike it?” Jason uselessly asked. - -“What chance has the prospector today?” the other heatedly and -indirectly demanded. “At first a man could pan out something for -himself; but now it's all companies, all capital. The state's interfered -too, claims are being held up in court while their owners might starve; -there are new laws and trimmings every week. I struck it rich on the -Reys, but I was drove out before I could get my stakes in. They tell me -you did good.” - -“At last,” Jason replied. - -“And married Honora Canderay, too.” - -The other assented shortly. - -“Some are shot with luck,” Thomas Gast proclaimed; “they'd fall and skin -their face on a nugget.” - -“How did you come back?” - -“Worked my passage in a crazy clipper with moon-sails and the halliards -padlocked to the rail. Carried away the foretopmast and yard off the -Horn and ran from port to port in a hundred and four days.” - -The conversation dwindled and expired. Thomas Gast gazed about moodily, -and Jason, with a tight mouth, nodded and moved on. His mind turned back -abruptly to Eddie Lukens, the man who had robbed him of his find in the -early days of cradle mining, the man he had killed. - -He had said nothing of this to Honora; the experience with Olive Stanes -had convinced him of the advisability of keeping past accident where, -he now repeated, it belonged. He despaired of ever being able, in -Cottarsport, to explain the place and times that had made his act -comprehensible. How could he picture, here, the narrow ravines cut -by swift rivers from the stupendous slopes and forests of the Sierra -Nevada, the isolation of a handful of men with their tents by a plunging -stream in' a rift so deep that there would be only a brief glimmer of -sunlight at noon? And, failing that, the ignorant could never grasp the -significance of the stillness, the timeless shadows, which the -miners penetrated in their madness for gold. They'd never realize the -strangling passion of this search in a wilderness without habitation -or law or safety. They could not understand the primary justice of such -rude courts as the miners were able to maintain on the more populous -outskirts of the region. - -He, Jason Burrage, had been tried by a jury for killing Eddie Lukens, -and had been exonerated. It had been months since he had reiterated this -dreary and only half satisfying formula. The inner necessity filled him -with a shapeless concern such as might have been caused by a constant, -unnatural shadow flickering out at his back. He almost wished that -he had told Honora at the beginning; and then he fretfully cursed the -incertitude of life--whatever he did appeared, shortly after, wrong. - -But it was obvious that he couldn't go to her with the story today; the -only time for that had been before his marriage; now it would have the -look of a confession of weakness, opportunely timed; and he could think -of nothing more calculated to antagonize Honora than such a crumbling -admission. - -All this had been re-animated by the mere presence of Thomas Gast in -Cottarsport; certainly, he concluded, an insufficient reason for -his troubling. Gast had been a miner, too, he was familiar with the -conditions in the West.... There was a great probability that he hadn't -even heard of the unfortunate affair; while Olive Stanes would be -dragged to death rather than garble a word of what he had told her: -Jason willingly acknowledged this of Olive. He resolutely banished the -whole complication from his mind; and, walking with Honora after supper -over the garden in back of their house, he was again absorbed by her -vivid delicate charm. - -The garden was deep and narrow, a flight of terraces connected by a -flagged path and steps. At the bottom were the bergamot pear trees that -had been Ithiel Canderay's especial charge in his last, retired years. -Their limbs, faintly blurred with new foliage, rose above the wall, -against a tranquil evening sky with a white slip of May moon. The peace -momentarily disturbed in Jason Burrage's heart flooded back, a sense of -great well-being settled over him. Honora rested her hand within his arm -at an inequality of the stone walk. - -“I am really a very bad wife, Jason,” she said suddenly; “self-absorbed -and inattentive.” - -“You suit me,” he replied inadequately. He was extraordinarily moved by -her remark: she had never before even suggested that she was conscious -of obligation. He wanted to put into words some of the warmth of feeling -which filled his heart, but suitable speech evaded him. He could not -shake off the fear that such protestations might be displeasing to her -restrained being. Moving slightly away from him she seemed, in the soft -gloom, more wonderful than ever. Set in white against the depths of the -garden, her face, dimly visible, appeared to be without its customary -faintly mocking smile. - -“Do you remember, Jason,” she continued, “how I once said I thought I -was marrying you because I was lonely, and that I found out it wasn't -so? I didn't know why.” She paused. - -He was enveloped by an intense eagerness to hear her to the end: it -might be that something beyond his greatest hopes was to follow. But -disappointment overtook him. - -“I was certain I'd see more clearly into myself soon, but I haven't; -it's been useless trying. And I've decided to do this--to give up -thinking about things for myself, and to wait for you to show me.” - -“But I can't do that,” he protested, facing her; “more-than half the -time I wonder over almost that same question--why you ever married me?” - -“This is a frightful situation,” she observed with a return of her -familiar manner; “two mature people joined for life, and neither with -the slightest idea of the reason. Anyhow I have given it up.... I -suppose I'll die in ignorance. Perhaps I was too old---” - -He interrupted her with an uncustomary incivility, a heated denunciation -of what she had been about to say. - -“So you are not sorry,” he remarked after a little. - -“No,” she answered slowly, “and I'm certain I shan't be. I'm not that -sort of person. I would go down to ruin sooner than regret.” She said no -more, but went into the house, leaving Jason in the potent spring night. - -There was no longer any doubt about the lilacs: the air was laden with -their scent. An entire hedge of them must have blossomed as he was -standing there. He moved to the terrace below: there might be buds on -the pear trees. But it was impossible to see the limbs. How could Honora -expect him to make their marriage clear? He had never before seen her -face so serene. He thought that he heard a vague stir outside the wall, -and he remembered the presence of a semi-public path. Now there was -a cautious mutter of voices. He advanced a step, then stopped at a -scrambling of shoes against the wall. A vague form shouldered into view, -momentarily clinging above him, and a harsh voice cried: - -“Murderer!” - -Even above the discordant dash of his startled sensibilities rose -the fear, instantaneously born, that Honora had heard. All the vague -uneasiness which had possessed him at Thomas Gust's return solidified -into a recognizable, leaden dread--the conviction that his wife must -learn the story of his misadventure, told with animus and lies. Then a -more immediate dread held him rigidly attentive: there might be a second -cry, a succession of them shouted discordantly to the sky. Honora -would come out, the servants gather, while that accusing voice, -indistinguishable and disembodied by the night, proclaimed his error. -This was not the shooting of Eddie Lukens, but the neglect to comprehend -Honora Canderay. - -Absolute silence followed. He made a motion toward the wall, but, -oppressed by the futility of such an act, arrested himself in the -midst of a step and stood with a foot extended. The stillness seemed to -thicken the air until he could hardly breathe; he was seized by a sullen -anger at the events which had gathered to betray him. The crying tones -had been like a chemical acting on his complexity, changing him to an -entirely different entity, darkening his being; the peace and fragrance -of the night were destroyed by the anxiety that now sat upon him. - -Convinced that nothing more was to follow here, he was both impelled -into the house, to Honora, and held motionless by the fear of seeing -her turn toward him with her familiar light surprise and a question. -However, he slowly retraced his way over the terraces, through a trellis -hung with grape vines, and into the hall. As he hoped, Honora was on -the opposite side of the dwelling. She had heard nothing. Jason sat down -heavily, his gaze lowered and somber. - -The feeling smote him that he should tell Honora of the whole miserable -business at once, make what excuse for himself was possible, and prepare -her for the inevitable public revelation. He pronounced her name, -with the intention of doing this; but she showed him such a tranquil, -superfine face that he was unable to proceed. Her interrogation held for -a moment and then left him, redirected to a minute, colorful square of -glass beads. - -A multiplication of motives kept him silent, but principal among them -was the familiar shrinking from appearing to his wife in any little or -mean guise. It was precisely into such a peril that he had been forced. -He felt, now, that she would overlook a murder such as the one he had -committed far more easily than an intangible error of spirit. He could -actually picture Honora, in his place, shooting Eddie Lukens; but he -couldn't imagine her in his humiliating situation of a few minutes -before. - -He turned to the consideration of who it might be that had called over -the wall, and immediately recognized that it was one of a small number, -one of “Pack” Clower's gang: Thomas Gast would have gravitated quickly -to their company, and their resentment of his, Jason Burrage's, place -in life must have been nicely increased by Gast's jealousy. The latter, -Jason knew, had not washed an honest pan of gravel in his journey and -search for a mythical easy wealth; he had hardly left the littered -fringe of San Francisco, but had filled progressively menial places in -the less admirable resorts and activities. - -With so much established beyond doubt he was confronted by the -necessity for immediate action, the possibility of yet averting all that -threatened him, of preserving his good opinion in Honora's eyes. Clower -and Emery Radlaw and the rest, with the balance of neither property nor -position, lawless and inflamed with drink, were a difficult opposition. -He repeated that he had mastered worse, but out in California, where a -man had been nakedly a man; and then he hadn't been married. There he -would have found them at once, and an explosion of will, perhaps of -powder, would soon have cleared the atmosphere. But in Cottarsport, with -so much to keep intact, he was all but powerless. - -Yet, the following day, when he saw the apothecary's brother enter -the combined drug and liquor store, he followed; and, to his grim -satisfaction, found Thomas Gast already inside. The apothecary gave -Jason an inhospitable stare, but the latter ignored him, striding toward -Gast. “Just what is it you've brought East about me?” he demanded. - -The other avoided the query, his gaze shifting over the floor. “Well?” - Jason insisted, after a pause. Thomas Gast was leaning against a high -counter at one side, behind which shelves held various bottles and paper -boxes and tins. The counter itself was laden with scales and a mortar, -powders and vividly striped candy in tall glass jars. - -“You know well as I do,” Gast finally admitted. - -“Then we're both certain there's no reason for name-calling over my back -wall.” - -“You shot him, didn't you?” the other asked thinly. “You can't get away -from the fact that you killed a pardner.” - -“I did,” said Jason Burrage harshly. “He robbed me. But I didn't shout -thief at him from the safety of the dark; it was right after dinner, the -middle of the day. He was ready first, too; but I shot him. Can you get -anything from that?” - -“You ought to realize this isn't San Francisco,” Radlaw, the drug taker, -put in. “A man couldn't be coolly derringered in Cottarsport. There's -law here, there's order.” He had a harried face, dulled eyes under -a fine brow, a tremulous flabby mouth, with white crystals of powder -adhering to its corners, and a countenance like the yellow oilskins of -the fishermen. - -Jason turned darkly in his direction. “What have you or Clower got to do -with law?” - -“Not only them,” the apothecary interposed, “but all the other men of -the town are interested in keeping it orderly. We'll have no western -rowdyism in Cottarsport.” - -“Then hear this,” Jason again addressed Thomas Gast; “see that you tell -the truth and all the truth. My past belongs to me, and I don't aim to -have it maligned by any empty liar back from the Coast. And either of -you Radlaws--I'm not going to be blanketed by the town drunkards or old -women, either. If I have shot one man I can shoot another, and I care -this much for your talk--if any of this muck is allowed to annoy Mrs. -Burrage I'll kill whoever starts it, spang in the middle of day.” - -“That's where it gets him,” the ex-scholar stated. “Just there,” Jason -agreed; “and this Gast, who has brought so much back from California, -can tell you this, too--that I had the name of finishing what I began.” - -But, once more outside, alone, his appearance of resolution vanished: -the merest untraceable rumor would be sufficient to accomplish all -that he feared, damage him irreparably with Honora. He was far older in -spirit and body than he had been back on Indian Bar; he had passed the -tumultuous years of living. The labor and privation, the continuous -immersion in frigid streams, had lessened his vitality, sapped his -ability for conflict. All that he now wished was the happiness of his -wife, Honora, and the quietude of their big, peaceful house; the winter -evenings by the Franklin stove and the spring evenings with the windows -open and the candles guttering in the mild, lilac-hung air. - -***** - -Together with his uncertainty the pleasure in the sheer fact of his wife -increased; and with it the old wonderment at their situation returned. -What, for instance, did she mean by saying that he must explain her -to herself? He tried again all the conventional reasons for marriage -without satisfaction: the sentimental and material equally failed. Jason -felt that if he could penetrate this mystery his grasp on actuality -would be enormously improved; he might, with such knowledge, -successfully defy Thomas Gast and all that past which equally threatened -to reach out destructively into the future. - -His happiness, in its new state of fragility, became infinitely -precious; a thing to dwell on at nights, to ponder over walking through -the town. Then, disagreeably aware of what overshadowed him, he would -watch such passersby as spoke, searching for some sign of the spreading -of his old fault. Often he imagined that he saw such an indication, -and he would hurry home, in a panic of haste--which was, too, intense -reluctance--to discover if Honora yet knew. - -He approached her a hundred times determined to end his misery of -suspense, and face the incalculable weight of her disdain; but on each -occasion he failed as he had at the first. Now his admission seemed too -damned roundabout; in an unflattering way forced upon him. His position -was too insecure, he told himself.... Perhaps the threat in the -apothecary's shop would be sufficient to shut the mouth of rumor. It had -not been empty; he was still capable of uncalculating rage. How closely -was Honora bound to him? What did she think of him at heart? - -He couldn't bear to remember how he had laid open her dignity, the -dignity and position of the Canderays in Cottarsport, to whispered -vilification. Connected with him she was being discussed in “Pack” - Clower's shanty. His mind revolved endlessly about the same few topics, -he elaborated and discarded countless schemes to secure Honora. He even -considered giving Thomas Gast a sum of money to repair what harm the -latter had wrought. Useless--his danger flourished on hatred and envy -and malice. However exculpable the killing of Eddie Lukens had been, the -results were immeasurably unfortunate, for a simple act of violent local -justice. - -They were in the carriage above Cottarsport; Coggs had died through the -winter, and his place been taken by a young coachman from the city. The -horses rested somnolently in their harness, the bright bits of rubbed -silver plate shining. Honora was looking out over the harbor, a gentian -blue expanse. “Good Heavens,” she cried with sudden energy, “I am -getting old at a sickening rate. Only last year the schooners and sea -made me as restless as a gull. I wanted to sail to the farthest places; -but now the boats are--are no more than boats. It fatigues me to think -of their jumping about; and I haven't walked down to the wharves for six -weeks. Do I look a haggard fright?” - -“You seem as young as before I went to California,” he replied simply. -She did. A strand of hair had slipped from its net, and wavered across -her flawless cheek, her lips were bright and smooth, her shoulders -slimly square. - -“You're a marvelous woman, Honora,” he told her. - -She gazed at him, smiling. “I wonder if you realize that that is your -first compliment of our entire wedded life?” - -“Ridiculous,” he declared incredulously. - -“Isn't it?” - -“I mean I'm complimenting you all the time. I think----” - -“You can hardly expect me to hear thoughts,” she interrupted. - -He silently debated another--it was to be about the ribbon on her -throat--but decided against giving it voice. Why, like the reasons for -so much else, he was unable to say; they all had their root in the blind -sense of the uncertainty of his situation. - -Throughout the evening his thoughts shifted ceaselessly from one -position to another. This, he realized, could not continue indefinitely; -soon, from within or out, Honora and himself must be revealed to each -other. He was permeated by the weariness of constant strain; the peace -of the past months had been destroyed; it seemed to him that he had -become an alien to the serenity of the high, tranquil rooms and of his -wife. - -He rose early the following morning, and descended into a rapt purity of -sunlight and the ecstatic whistling of robins. The front door had not -been opened; and, as he turned its shining brass knob, his gaze fell -upon a sheet of paper projecting below. Jason bent, securing it, and, -with a premonition of evil, thrust the folded scrap into his pocket. -He turned through the house into the garden; and there privately -scrutinized a half sheet with a clumsily formed, disguised writing: - -“This,” he read, “will serve you notice to move on. Dangerous -customers are not desired here. Take a suggestion in time and skip bad -consequences. You can't hide back of your wife's hoops.” It was signed -“Committee.” - -A robin was thrilling the air with melody above his head. Jason -listened mechanically as the bird ended his song and flew away. Then -the realization of what he had found overwhelmed him with a strangling -bitterness: he, Jason Burrage, had been ordered from his birthplace, -he had been threatened and accused of hiding behind a woman, by the -off-scouring of the alleys and rum holes. A feeling of impotence thrust -its chilling edge into the swelling heat of his resentment. He would -have to stand like a condemned animal before the impending fatal blow; -he was held motionless, helpless, by every circumstance of his life and -hopes. - -He crumpled the warning in a clenched hand. How Cottarsport would point -and jeer at him, at Jason Burrage who was Honora Canderay's husband, a -murderer; Jason, who had returned from California with the gold fleece! -It wasn't golden, he told himself, but stained--a fleece dark with -blood, tarnished from hellish unhappiness, a thing infected with -immeasurable miseries. Its edge had fallen on Olive Stanes and left -her--he had passed her only yesterday--dry-lipped and shrunken into -sterile middle age. It promised him only sorrow, and now its influence -was reaching up toward Honora, in herself serenely apart from the muck -and defilement out of which he thought he had struggled. - -The sun, rising over the bright spring foliage, filled the garden -with sparkling color. His wife, in a filmy white dress, called him to -breakfast. She waited for him with her faint smile, against the cool -interior. He went forward isolated, lonely, in his secret distress. - -This communication, like the spoken accusation of a previous evening, -was, apparently, bare of other consequences. Jason's exterior life -progressed without a deviation from its usual smooth course. It was -clear to him that no version of the facts about the killing of Eddie -Lukens had yet spread in Cottarsport. This, he decided, considering the -character of Thomas Gast, the oblique quality of his statements, was -natural. He could not doubt that such public revelation, if threat and -intimidation failed, must come. Meanwhile he was victimized by a growing -uncertainty--from what direction would the next attack thrust? - -He smiled grimly to himself at the memory of the withdrawn and secure -aspect of the town when he had first returned from the West. To him, -striding across the hills from the Dumner stage, it had resembled an -ultimate haven. The seeming harmony and peace of the grey fold of houses -about their placid harbor had concealed possibilities of debasement as -low as California's worst camps. Now, successful, when he had looked for -the reward of his long years of brutal toil, the end of struggle, he was -confronted by the ugliest situation of his existence. - -He was glad that he had always been a silent man, or Honora would have -noticed and demanded the cause of the moroseness which must have settled -over him. They sat no longer before the stove in the drawing room, but -on a side porch that commanded an expanse of lawn and a high privet -hedge, while he smoked morosely at the inevitable cheroots, gloomily -searching for a way from the difficulty closing in upon him. - -Honora had been to Boston, and she was describing lightly an encounter -with her aunt, Herriot Cozzens. He was only half conscious of her amused -voice. Clouds had obscured the evening sky, and there was an air of -suspense, like that preceding a thunder storm, in the thickening dark. -A restlessness filled Jason which he was unable to resist; and, with -a short, vague explanation, he rose and proceeded out upon the street. -There, his hands clasped behind his back and head lowered, he wandered -on, lost in inner despondence. - -He turned into the courthouse square, dimly lighted by gas lamps at -its outer confines, and paced across the grass, stirring a few wan -fireflies. It was blacker still beyond the courthouse. He stumbled -slightly, recovered himself, and wearily commenced a return home. But -he had scarcely taken a step when a figure closed in upon him, -materializing suddenly out of the darkness. He stopped and was about to -speak when a violent blow from behind grazed his head and fell with a -splintering impact on his shoulder. He stood for a moment bewildered by -the unexpected pain; then, as he saw another shape, and another, gather -around him, he came sharply to his senses. His hand thrust into -a pocket, but it was empty--he had laid aside the derringer in -Cottarsport. - -His assailants grappled with him swiftly, and he swayed struggling -and hitting out with short blows in the center of a silent, vicious -conflict. A rough hard palm was crushed against his mouth, a head ground -into his throat, and a heavy, mucous breath of rum smote him. There was -muttered cursing, and low, disregarded commands. A cotton handkerchief, -evidently used as a mask, tore off in Jason's hand; strained voices, -their caution lost in passion, took unmistakably the accents of “Pack” - Clower and the Swede, Steven. A thinner tone outside the swirling -bodies cried low and urgent, “Get it done with.” A fist was driven again -Jason's side, leaving a sharp, stabbing hurt, a heavy kick tore his -thigh. Then he got his fingers into a neck and put into the grip all -the sinewy strength got by long years with a miner's pan and shovel. A -choked sob responded, and blood spread stickily over his palms. - -It seemed to Jason Burrage that he was shaking himself free, that he -was victorious; with a final supreme wrench he stood alone, breathing in -gusts. There was a second's imponderable stillness, and then the entire -night appeared to crash down upon his head... - -He thought it was the flumed river, all their summer's labor, bursting -over him. He was whirled downward through a swift course of jagged -pains, held under the hurtling water and planks and stones. He fought, -blind and strangled, but he was soon crushed into a supine nothingness. -Far below, the river discharged him: he was lying beside a slaty bank -in which the gold glittered like fine and countless fish scales. But he -couldn't move, and the bank flattened into a plain under a gloomy ridge, -with a camp of miners. He saw that it was Sunday, for the men were all -grouped before the tents singing. There was Eddie Lukens gravely waving -a hand to the beat of the melody: - - “'Don't you cry for me. - - I'm going to Calaveras - - With my wash bowl on my knee.'” - -It was undoubtedly Eddie, his partner, but he had never seen him so -white and--why, he had a hole over his eye! Eddie Lukens was dead; it -wasn't decent for him to be standing up, flapping his hands and singing. -Jason bent forward to remonstrate, to persuade him to go back--back to -where the dead belonged. Then he remembered, but it was too late: Eddie -had him in an iron clutch, he was dragging him, too, down. - -Jason made a convulsive effort to escape, he threw back his head, -gasping; and saw Honora, his wife, bending over him. The tormenting -illusion slowly perished--this was Cottarsport and not California, he -was back again in the East, the present, married to Honora Canderay. An -astounding fact, but so. Through the window of his room he could see the -foliage of a great horse-chestnut tree that stood by the side walk; it -was swelling into flower. Full memory now flooded back upon him, and -with it the realization that probably his happiness was destroyed. - -It was impossible to tell how much Honora knew of the cause of the -assault upon him. She was always like that--enigmatic. But, whatever she -knew now, soon she would have to hear all. Even if he wished to lie, it -would be impossible to fabricate, maintain, a convincing cover for what -had happened. The most superficial, necessary investigation would expose -the story brought home by Thomas Gast. - -The time had come when he must confide everything to Honora; perhaps -she would overlook his cowardice. About to address her, he fell into -a bottomless coma, and a day passed before he had gathered himself -sufficiently to undertake his task. She was sitting facing him, her -chair by a window, where her fingers were swiftly and smoothly -occupied. Her features were a little blurred against the light, and--her -disconcerting scrutiny veiled--he felt this to be an assistance. - -“Those men who broke me up,” he began dis-jointedly, surprised at the -thin uncertainty of his voice, “I know pretty well who they are. Ought -to get most of them.” - -“We thought you could say,” she rejoined in an even tone. “Some guesses -were made, but it was better to wait till you could give a statement.” - -“Am I badly hurt, Honora?” he asked suddenly. “Not dangerously,” she -assured him. “You have splendid powers of recuperation.” - -“I'll have to go on,” he added hurriedly, “and tell you the rest--why I -was beaten.” - -“It would be better not,” she stated. “You ought to be as calm as -possible. It may quiet you, Jason, to hear that I know now.” - -“You know what the town has been saying,” he cried in bitter revolt, -“what lies Thomas Gast spread. You've heard all the envy and malice -and drunken vileness of sots. It isn't right for you to think you know -before I could speak a word of defense.” - -“Not only what the town says, Jason,” she replied simply, “but the -truth. Olive Stanes told me.” - -“Then----.” An excited weakness broke his voice in a sob, and Honora -rose, crossing the room to his bed. “You must positively stop talking of -this now,” she directed. “If you attempt it I shall go away and send a -nurse.” - -He was helpless against her will, and sank into semi-slumberous wonder. -Honora knew all: Olive Stanes had told her. She was as noncommittal, he -complained to himself, as a wooden Indian. She might have excused him -without a second thought, and it might be that she had finished with him -entirely, that she was merely dispensing a charity and duty; and, moving -uneasily, or lying propped up in a temporary release from suffering, he -would study her every movement in an endeavor to gain her all-important -opinion of him as he had been lately revealed. It was useless; he was -always, Jason felt, in a state of disturbing suspense. - -He determined to end it, however, in spite of what Honora had said, on -an afternoon when he was supported down to the street and the carriage. -His wife took her place at his side, and they rolled forward into the -expansive warmth of summer. Jason was impressed by the sheer repetition -of life; and it seemed to him that this was the greatest happiness -possible--such a procession of days and drives, with Honora. - -Her throat rose delicately from ruffled lace, circled by a narrow black -velvet band with a clasp of remarkable diamonds; and he smiled at the -memory of how he had once thought she was marrying him for money. That -seemed years ago, but he was no nearer the solution of her motive now -than then. Her slim hands were folded in her lap--how beautifully they -were joined at the wrists; her tapering fingers were like ivory. As he -studied them he was startled at their suddenly meeting in a rigid -clasp, the knuckles white and sharp. He looked up and saw that they were -drawing near a small group of men outside the apothecary's shop. - -A curious silence fell upon these as the carriage approached: there were -the two Radlaws, one saturnine and bleak, the other greenish, shattered -by drugs; Thomas Gast; Vleet, the fishing schooner's master, and a -casual, familiar passerby. Jason Burrage stared at them with a stony -ominous countenance, at which Gast made a gesture of combined insolence -and uncertainty. Jason had sunk back on the cushions when he was -astonished by Honora's commanding the coachman to stop. It was evident -that she was about to descend; he put out a hand to restrain her, but -she disregarded him. His astonishment increased to incredulity and then -fear; he rose hurriedly, but relaxed with a mutter of pain. - -Honora, a Canderay, had taken the carriage whip from its holder, and was -walking, direct and composed, toward Thomas Gast. She stopped a short -distance away: before an exclamation, a movement, was possible she had -swept the thong of the whip across Gast's face. The blow was swung -with force, and the man faltered, a burning welt on the pallor of his -countenance. The coachman and Jason Burrage in the carriage, the men -together on the sidewalk, seemed part of an inanimate group of which the -only thing endowed with life was the whip flickering again, cutting and -wrapping, about a face. - -There was a curiously ruthless impersonality about Honora's erect -presence, her icy cold profile. Memories of old stories of Ithiel -Canderay, the necessary salt cruelness of punishment in ships, flashed -through Jason's mind. An intolerable weight of time seemed to drag -upon him. Thomas Gast gave a hoarse gurgle and lurched forward, but the -relentless lash drove him back. - -“You whisperer!” Honora said in her ringing voice, “you liar and -slabbering coward! It's necessary to cut the truth out of you. When you -talk again about Mr. Burrage and the man he shot in California don't -leave out the smallest detail of his exoneration. Say that he had been -robbed, the other broke one of the first laws of miners and should have -been killed. You'd not have done it--a knife in the back would be your -thought--but a man would!” - -She flung the whip down on the bricks. - -Thomas Gast pressed his hands to his face, and slow red stains widened -through his fingers. The apothecary stood transfixed; his brother -was shaking in a febrile and congested horror. The woman turned -disdainfully, moving to the carriage; the coachman descended and offered -his arm as she mounted to the seat. The reins were drawn and the horses -started forward in a walk. - -Honora's gaze was set, looking directly ahead; her hands, in her lap of -flowered muslin, were now relaxed; they gave an impression of crushing -weariness. Jason's heart pounded like a forge hammer; a tremendous -realization was forced into his brain--he need never again question why -Honora had married him; his doubts were answered, stopped, for ever. -He turned to her to speak an insignificant part of his measureless -gratitude, but he was choked, blinded, by a passion of honor and homage. - -Her gaze sought him, and there was a faint tremor of her lips; it grew -into the shadow of an ironic smile. Suddenly it was borne upon his new, -acquiescent serenity that Honora would always be a Canderay for him, he -must perpetually think of her in the terms of his early habit; she would -eternally be a little beyond him, a being to approach, to attend, with -ceremony. The memory and sweep of all California, the pageant of life -he had seen on the way, his own boasted success and importance, faded -before the solid fact of Honora's commanding heritage in life, in -Cottarsport. - - - - - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Dark Fleece, by Joseph Hergesheimer - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DARK FLEECE *** - -***** This file should be named 51928-0.txt or 51928-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/1/9/2/51928/ - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by Google Books - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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Thus, we do not -necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper -edition. - -Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search -facility: www.gutenberg.org - -This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, -including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to -subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. - diff --git a/old/51928-0.zip b/old/51928-0.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 7aaf878..0000000 --- a/old/51928-0.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/51928-8.txt b/old/51928-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 8fa4baa..0000000 --- a/old/51928-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,3496 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Dark Fleece, by Joseph Hergesheimer - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - -Title: The Dark Fleece - -Author: Joseph Hergesheimer - -Release Date: May 1, 2016 [EBook #51928] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DARK FLEECE *** - - - - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by Google Books - - - - - - - - - -THE DARK FLEECE - -By Joseph Hergesheimer - -New York Alfred A. Knopf - -1922 - -Copyright, 1918, By Alfred A. Knopf - -Published, April, 1918, in a volume now out of print, entitled "Gold and -Iron," and then reprinted twice. - - - - -OLIVE - - -|THE house in old Cottarsport in which Olive Stanes lived was set midway -on the steepness of Orange Street. It was a low dwelling of weathered -boards holding close to the rocky soil, resembling, like practically all -the Cottarsport buildings, the salt weed clinging to the seaward rocks -of the harbor; and Orange Street, narrow, without walks, and dipping -into cuplike depressions, was a type of almost all the streets. The -Stanes house was built with its gable to the public way; the length -faced a granite shoulder thrust up through the spare earth, a tall, -weedy disorder of golden glow, and the sedgy incline to the habitation -above. - -When Hester and Jem and then Rhoda were little they had had great joy of -the boulder in the side yard: it was for them first impossible and then -difficult of accomplishment; but they had rapidly grown into a complete -mastery of its potentialities as a fort, a mansion impressive as that of -the Canderays' on Regent Street, and a ship under the dangerous shore -of the Feejees. Olive, the solitary child of Ira Stanes' first marriage, -had had no such reckless pleasure from the rock---- - -She had been, she realized, standing in the narrow portico that -commanded by two steps the uneven flagging from the street, a -very careful, yes, considerate, child when measured by the gay -irresponsibility of her half brother and sisters. Money had been no more -plentiful in the Stanes family, nor in all Cottarsport, then than now; -her dresses had been few, she had been told not to soil or tear them, -and she had rigorously attended the instruction. - -The second Mrs. Stanes, otherwise an admirable wife and mother, had, to -Olive's young disapproval, rather encouraged a boisterous conduct in her -children which overlooked a complete cleanliness or tidy array. And when -she, like her predecessor, had died, and left Olive at twenty-three to -assume full maternal responsibilities, that serious vicarious parent had -entered into an inevitable and largely unavailing struggle against the -minor damage caused mostly by the activities about the boulder. - -Now Hester and Rhoda had left behind such purely imaginative games, -and Jem was away fishing on the Georges Bank; her duty and worries had -shifted, but not lessened; while the rock remained precisely as it -had been through the children's growth, as it had appeared in her own -earliest memories, as it was before ever the Stanes dwelling, now a -hundred and fifty years in place, or old Cottarsport itself, had been -dreamed of. Her thoughts were mixed: at once they created a vague -parallel between the granite in the side yard and herself, Olive -Stanes--they both seemed to have been so long in one spot, so unchanged; -and they dwelt on the fact that soon--as soon as Jason Burrage got -home--she must be utterly different. - -Jason had written her that, if they cared to, they could build a house -as large as the Canderays'. Under the circumstances she had been obliged -to look on that as, perhaps, an excusable exaggeration, though she -instinctively condemned the dereliction of the truth; yet, more than any -other figure could possibly have done, it impressed upon her, from the -boldness of the imagery, that Jason had succeeded in finding the gold -for which he had gone in search nine years before. He was coming back, -soon, rich. - -The other important fact reiterated in his last letter, that in all his -absent years of struggle he had never faltered in his purpose of coming -to her with any fortune he might chance to get, she regarded with -scant thought. It had not occurred to Olive that Jason Burrage would -do anything else; her only concern had been that he might be killed; -otherwise he had said that he loved her, and that they were to marry -when he returned. - -She hadn't, really, been in favor of his going. The Burrages, measured -by Cottarsport standards, were comfortably situated--Mr. Burrage's -packing warehouse and employment in dried fish were locally called -successful--but Jason had never been satisfied with familiar values; he -had always exclaimed against the narrowness of his local circumstance, -and restlessly reached toward greater possessions and a wider horizon. -This dissatisfaction Olive had thought wicked, in that it had seemed to -criticize the omnipotent and far-seeing wisdom of the Eternal; it had -caused her much unhappiness and prayer, she had talked very earnestly -to Jason about his stubborn spirit, but it had persisted in him, and at -last carried him west in the first madness of the discovery of gold in a -California river. - -Olive, at times, thought that Jason's revolt had been brought about by -the visible example of the worldly pomp of the Canderays--of their great -white house with the balustraded captain's walk on the gambreled roof, -their chaise, and equable but slightly disconcerting courtesy. But she -had been obliged to admit that, after all was said, Jason's bearing was -the result of his own fretful heart. - -He had always been different from the other Cottarsport youths and men: -while they were commonly long and bony, and awkwardly hung together, -thickly tanned by the winds and sun and spray of the sea, Jason was -small, compact, with dead black hair and pale skin. Mr. Burrage, who -resembled a worn and discolored piece of driftwood, was the usual -Cottarsport old man; but his wife, not conspicuously out of the -ordinary, still had a snap in her unfading eyes, a ruddy roundness of -cheek, that showed a lingering trace of a French Acadian intermarriage a -century and more ago. - -Olive always regarded with something like surprise her unquestioned love -for Jason. It had grown quietly, unknown to her, through a number -of preliminary years in which she had felt that she must exert some -influence for his good. He frightened her a little by his hot utterances -and by the manner in which his soul shivered on the verge of a righteous -damnation. The effort to preserve him from such destruction became -intenser and more involved; until suddenly, to her later consternation, -she had surrendered her lips in a single, binding kiss. - -But with that consummation a great deal of her troubling had ceased; -spiritual vision, she had been certain, must follow their sacred union -and subsequent life. Even the gold agitation and Jason's departure for -Boston and the western wild had not given her especial concern. God -was the supreme Master of human fate, and if He willed for Jason to -go forth, who was she, Olive Stanes, to make a to-do? She had quietly -addressed herself to the task of Hester, Jem, and Rhoda, to the ordering -of her father's household--he was mostly away on the sea and a solitary -man at home--and the formal recurrence of the occasions of the church. - -In such ways, she thought, bathed in the keen, pale red glow of a late -afternoon in October, her youth had slipped imperceptibly away. - -A strong salt wind dipped into the hollow, and plastered her skirt, -without hoops, against her erect, thin person. With the instinct, bred -by the sea, of the presence in all calculations of the weather, she -mechanically dwelt on its force and direction, wrinkling her forehead -and pinching her lips--she could hear the rising wind straining through -the elms on the hills behind Cottarsport--and then she turned abruptly -and entered the house. - -There was a small dark hallway within, a narrow flight of stairs leading -sharply up; the door on the right, to the formal chamber, was closed; -but at the left an interior of somber scrubbed wood was visible. On -the side against the hall a cavernous fireplace, with a brick hearth, -blackened with shadows and the soot of ancient fires, had been left -open, but held an air-tight sheet-iron stove. The windows, high on the -walls, were small and long, rather than deep; and a table, perpetually -spread, stood on a thick hooked rug of brilliant, primitive design. - -Rhoda, in a creaking birch rocker, was singing an inarticulated song -with closed eyes. Her voice, giving the impression of being subdued, -filled the room with its vibrant power. She had a mature face for -sixteen years, vividly colored and sensitive, a wide mouth, and heavy -twists of russet hair with metallic lights. The song stopped as Olive -entered. Rhoda said: - -"I wish Hester would hurry home; I'm dreadful hungry." - -"Sometimes they keep her at the packing house, especially if there's a -boat in late and extra work." - -"It's not very smart of her without being paid more. They'll just put -anything on you they can in this stingy place. I can tell you I wouldn't -do two men's work for a woman's pay. I'm awful glad Jason's coming -back soon, Olive, with all that money, and I can go to Boston and study -singing." - -"I've said over and over, Rhoda," Olive replied patiently, "that you -mustn't think and talk all the time about Jason's worldly success. It -doesn't sound nice, but like we were all trying to get everything we -could out of him before ever he's here." - -"Didn't he say in the last letter that I was to go to Boston?" Rhoda -exclaimed impatiently. "Didn't he just up and tell me that? Why, with -all the gold Jason's got it won't mean anything for him to send me away. -It isn't as if I wouldn't pay you all back for the trouble I've been. I -know I can sing, and I'll work harder than ever Hester dreamed of----" - -As if materialized by the pronunciation of her name, the latter entered -the room. "Gracious, Hester," Rhoda declared distastefully, making a -nose, "you smell of dead haddock right this minute." Hester, unlike -Rhoda's softly rounded proportions, was more bony than Olive, infinitely -more colorless, although ten years the younger. She had a black worsted -scarf over her drab head in place of a hat, its ends wrapped about her -meager shoulders and bombazine waist. Without preliminary she dropped -into her place at the supper table, the shawl trailing on the broad, -uneven boards of the floor. - -"The wind's smartening up on the bay," she told them. "Captain Eagleston -looks for half a blow. It has got cold, too. I wish the tea'd be ready -when I get in from the packing house. It seems that much could be done, -with Olive only sitting around and Rhoda singing to herself in the -mirror on her dresser." - -"It'll draw in a minute more," Olive said in the door from the kitchen, -beyond the fireplace. Rhoda smiled cheerfully. - -"I suppose," Hester went on, in a voice without emphasis that yet -contrived to be thinly bitter, "you were all talking about what would -happen when Jason came home with that fortune of his. Far as I can see -he's promised and provided for everybody, Jem and Rhoda and his parents -and Olive, every Tom and Noddy, but me." - -"I don't like to keep on about it," Olive protested, pained. "Yet you -can't see, Hester, how independent you are. A person wouldn't like to -offer you anything until you had signified. You were never very nice -with Jason anyway." - -"Well, I'm not going to be nicer after he's back with gold in his -pocket. I guess he'll find I'm not hanging on his shoulder for a -cashmere dress or a trip to Boston." - -"Pa ought to get into Salem soon," Rhoda observed. "He said after this -he wasn't going to ship again, even along the coast, but tally fish for -Mr. Burrage. Pa's getting old." - -"And Jem'll be home from the Georges, too," Olive added, seating herself -with the tea. "I do hope he won't sign for China or any of those long -voyages like he threatened." - -"He won't get so far away from Jason," Hester stated. - -"I saw Honora Canderay today," Rhoda informed them. "She wasn't in the -carriage, but walking past the courthouse. She had on a small bonnet -with flowers inside the brim and skimpy hoops, gallooned and scalloped." - -"Did she stop?" Olive inquired. - -"Yes, and said I was as bright as a fall maple leaf. I wish I could look -like Honora Canderay-----" - -"Wait till Jason's back," Hester interrupted. - -"It isn't her clothes," Rhoda went on; "they're elegant material, of -course, but not the colors I'd choose; nor it isn't her looks, either, -no one would say she's downright pretty; it's just--just her. Is she as -old as you, Olive?" - -"Let's see, I'm thirty-six, and Honora Canderay was... she's near as -old, a year younger maybe." - -"She is wonderful to get close to," said Rhoda, "no cologne and yet a -lovely kind of smell----" - -"Not like dead haddock." This was Hester again. - -"Do you know," proceeded the younger, "she seemed to me kind of lonely. -I wanted to give her a hug, but I wouldn't have for all the gold in -California. I can't make out if she is freezing outside and nice in, or -just polite and thinks nobody's good enough for her. She had an India -shawl as big as a sail, with palm leaf ends, and----" - -"Rhoda, I wish you wouldn't put so much on clothes and such corruption." -Olive spoke firmly, with a light of zeal in her gaze. "Can't you think -on the eternities?" - -"Like Jason Burrage and Honora Canderay," explained Hester; "Honora -Canderay and Jason Burrage. They're eternities if there ever were any. -If it isn't one it's bound to be the other." - -***** - -Olive's room had a sloping outer wall and casually placed insufficient -windows; her bed, with a blue-white quilt, was supported by heavy maple -posts; there were a chest of drawers, with a minute mirror stand, a -utilitarian wash-pitcher and basin, a hanging for the protection of her -clothes, and uncompromising chairs. A small circular table with a tatted -cover held her Bible and a devotional book, "The Family Companion, by a -Pastor." It was cold when she went up to bed; with a desire to linger in -her preparations, she put some resinous sticks of wood into a sheet-iron -stove, and almost immediately there was a busily exploding combustion. A -glass lamp on the chest of drawers shed a pale illumination that failed -to reach the confines of the room; and, for a while, she moved in and -out of its wan influence. - -She was thinking fixedly about Jason Burrage, and the great impending -change in her condition, not in its worldly implications--she thought -mostly of material values in the spirit of her admonitions to Rhoda--but -in its personal and inner force. At times a pale question of her -aptitude for marriage disturbed her serenity; at times she saw it as -a sacrifice of her being to a condition commanded of God, a species -of martyrdom even. The nine years of Jason's absence had fixed certain -maidenly habits of privacy; the mold of her life had taken a definite -cast. Her existence had its routine, the recurrence of Sunday, its -contemplations, duties, and heavenly aim. And, lately, Jason's letters -had disturbed her. - -They seemed filled with an almost wicked pride and a disconcerting -energy; he spoke of things instinctively distressing to her; there were -hints of rude, Godless force and gaiety--allusions to the Jenny Lind -Theatre, the El Dorado, which she apprehended as a name of evil import, -and to the excursions they would make to Boston or as far as New York. - -Jason, too, she realized, must have developed; and California, she -feared, might have emphasized exactly such traits as she would wish -suppressed. The power of self-destruction in the human heart she -believed immeasurable. All, all, must throw themselves in abject -humility upward upon the Rock of Salvation. And she could find -nothing humble in Jason's periods, burdened as they were with a patent -satisfaction in the success of his venture. - -Yet parallel with this was a gladness that he had triumphed, and that he -was coming back to Cottarsport a figure of importance. She could measure -that by the attitude of their town, by the number and standing of the -people who cordially stopped her on the street for the purposes of -congratulation and curiosity. Every one, of course, had known of their -engagement; there had been a marked interest when Jason and a fellow -townsman, Thomas Gast, had departed; but that would be insignificant -compared to the permanent bulk Jason must now assume. Why he and the -Canderays would be Cottarsport's most considerable people. - -As always, at the merest thought of the Canderays, personal facts were -suspended for a mental glance at that separate family. There was no -sense of inferiority in Olive's mind, but an instinctive feeling of -difference. This wasn't the result of their big house, nor because the -Captain's wife had been a member of Boston society, but resided in the -contrariness of the family itself, now centered in Honora, the only one -alive. - -Perhaps Honora's diversity lay in the fact that, while she seldom -actually left Cottarsport, it was easy to see that she had a part in a -life far beyond anything Olive, whose consciousness was strictly -limited to one narrow place, knew. She always suggested a wider and more -elegantly finished existence than that of local sociables and church -activities. Captain Ithiel Canderay, a member of a Cottarsport family -long since moved away, had, from obscure surprising promptings, returned -at his successful retirement from the sea, and built his impressive -dwelling in the grey community. He had always, however different the -tradition of his wife's attitude, entered with a candid spirit into the -interests and life of the town, where he had inspired solid confidence -in a domineering but unimpeachable integrity. Such small civic honors as -the locality had to bestow were his, and were discharged to the last and -most exacting degree. But there had been perpetually about him the aloof -air of the quarter-deck, his tones had never lost the accent of command; -and, while Cottarsport bitterly guarded its personal equality and -independence, it took a certain pride in a recognition of the Captain's -authority. - -Something of this had unquestionably descended upon Honora; her position -was made and zealously guarded by the town. Yet that alone failed to -hold the reason for Olive's feeling; it was at once more particular and -more all-embracing, and largely feminine. She was almost contemptuous -of the other's delicacy of person, of the celebrated fact that Honora -Canderay never turned her hand to the cooking of a dish or the sweeping -of a stair; and at the same time these very things lifted her apart from -Olive's commonplace round. - -Her mind turned again to herself and Jason's home-coming. He had been -wonderfully generous in his written promises to Rhoda and Jem; and he -would be equally thoughtful of Hester, she was certain of that. People -had a way of overlooking Hester, a faithful and, for all her talk, a -Christian character. Rhoda would study to be a singer; striving, Olive -hoped, to put what talent she had to a sanctioned use; and Jem, a -remarkably vigorous and able boy of eighteen, would command his own -fishing schooner. - -The sheet-iron stove glowed cherry red with the energy of its heat, and -a blast of wind rushed against the windows. The wind, she recognized, -had steadily grown in force; and Olive thought of her father in the -barque _Emerald_ of Salem, somewhere between Richmond and the home -port.... The lamplight swelled and diminished. - -She got a new pleasure from the conjunction of her surrender -to matrimony and the good it would bring the others; -that--self-sacrifice--was excellence; such subjection of the pride of -the flesh was the essence of her service. Then some mundane affairs -invaded her mind: a wedding dress, the preparation of food for a small -company after the ceremony, whether she should like having a servant. -Jason would insist on that; and there she decided in the negative. She -wouldn't be put upon in her own kitchen. - -Her arrangements for the night were complete, and she set the stove door -slightly open, shivering in her coarse night dress before the icy cold -drifts of wind in the room, extinguished the lamp, and, after long, -conscientiously deliberate prayers, got into bed. The wind boomed about -the house, rattling all the sashes. Its force now seemed to be buffeting -her heart until she got a measure of release from the thought of the -granite boulder in the side yard, changeless and immovable. - -The morning was gusty, with a coldly blue and cloudless sky. Olive, -reaching the top of Orange Street, was whipped with dust, her hoops -flattened grotesquely against her body. The town fell away on either -hand, lying in a half moon on its harbor. The latter, as blue and bright -as the sky, was formed by the rocky arm of Cottar's Neck, thrust out -into the sea and bent from right to left. Most of the fishing fleet -showed their bare spars at the wharves, but one, a minute fleck of -white canvas, was beating her way through the Narrows. She wondered, -descending, if it were Jem coming home. - -Olive was going to the Burrages'; it was possible that they had had a -later letter than hers from Jason. It might be he would arrive that -very day. She was conscious of her heart throbbing slightly at this -possibility, but from a complexity of emotions which still left her -uneasy if faintly exhilarated. She crossed the courthouse square, where -she saw that the green grass had become brown, apparently over night, -and turned into Marlboro Street. Here the houses were more recent than -the Staneses'; they were four square, with a full second story--a series -of detached white blocks with flat porticoes--each set behind a wood -fence in a lawn with flower borders or twisted and tree-like lilacs. - -She entered the Burrage dwelling without the formality of knocking; and, -familiar with the household, passed directly through a narrow, darkened -hall, on which all the doors were closed, to the dining room and kitchen -beyond. As she had known he would be, Hazzard Burrage was seated with -his feet, in lamb's wool slippers, thrust under the stove. For the rest, -but lacking his coat, he was formally and completely dressed; his corded -throat was folded in a formal black stock, a watch chain and seal hung -across his waistcoat. Mrs. Burrage was occupied in lining a cupboard -with fresh shelf paper with a cut lace border. She was a small woman, -with quick exact movements and an impatient utterance; but her husband -was slow--a man who deliberately studied the world with a deep-set gaze. - -"I thought you might have heard," Olive stated directly, on the edge of -a painted split-hickory chair. They hadn't, Mrs. Burrage informed her: -"I expect he'll just come walking in. That's the way he always did -things, and I guess California, or anywhere else, won't change him to -notice it. And when he does," she continued, "he's going to be put out -with Hazzard. I told you Jason sent us three thousand dollars to get the -front of the house fixed up. He said he didn't want to find his father -sitting in the kitchen when he got back. Jason said we were to burn -three or four stoves all at once. But he won't, and that's all there is -to it. Why, he just put the money in the bank and there it lies. I read -him the parable about the talents, but it didn't stir him an inch." - -"Jason always was quick acting," Hazzard Burrage declared; "he never -stopped to consider; and it's as like as not he'll need that money. It -wouldn't surprise me if when he sat down and counted what he had Jason'd -find it was less than he thought." - -"He wrote me," Olive stated, "that we could build a house as big as the -Canderays'." - -"Jason always was one to talk," Mrs. Burrage replied in defense of her -son. - -Olive moved over to the older woman and held the dishes to be replaced -in the cupboard. They commented on the force of the wind throughout the -night. "The tail end of a blow at sea," Bur-rage told them; "I wouldn't -wonder but it reached right down to the West Indies." - -"I hope he brings me a grey satinet pelerine like I wrote," said Mrs. -Burrage. She was obviously flushed at the thought of the possession -of such a garment--a fact which Olive felt, at the other's age, to be -inappropriate to the not distant solemnity of the Christian ordeal of -death. She repeated automatically: "... turn from these vanities unto -the living God." She rose: - -"I'll let you know if I hear anything, and anyhow stop in tomorrow." - -Outside, sere leaves were whirling in grey funnels of dust, the intense -blue bay sparkled under the cobalt sky; and, leaving Marlboro Street -with a hand on her bonnet, she ran directly into Honora Canderay. - -"Oh!" Olive exclaimed, breathless and slightly concerned. "Indeed if I -saw you, Honora; the wind was that strong pulling at a person." - -"What does it matter?" Honora replied. She was wrapped from throat to -hem in a cinnamon colored velvet cloak that, fluttering, showed a lining -of soft, quilted yellow. In the flood of morning her skin was flawless; -her delicate lips and hazel eyes held the faint mockery that was the -visible sign of her disturbing quality. She laid a hand, in a short, -furred kid glove, on Olive's arm. - -"I am so pleased about Jason's success," she continued, in a clear -insistent voice. "You must be mad with anxiety to have him back. It's -the most romantic thing in the world. Aren't you thrilled to the soul?" - -"I'm glad to--to know he's been preserved," Olive stammered, confused by -Honora's frank speech. - -"You sound exactly as if he were a jar of quinces," the other answered -impatiently; "and not a true lover coming back from California with bags -of gold." - -Olive's confusion deepened to painful embarrassment at the indelicate -term lover. She wondered, hotly red, how Honora could go on so, and made -a motion to continue on her way. But the other's fingers closed and held -her. "I wonder, Olive," she said more thoughtfully, "if I know you well -enough, if you will allow me, to give you some advice. It is this--don't -be too rigid with Jason when he gets back. For nearly ten years he's -been out in a life very different from Cottarsport, and he must have -changed in that time. Here we stay almost the same--ten or twenty or -fifty years is nothing really. The fishing boats come in, they may -have different names, but they are the same. We stop and talk, Honora -Canderay and Olive Stanes, and years before and years later women will -stand here and do the same with beliefs no wider than your finger. -But it isn't like that outside; and Jason will have that advantage of -us--things really very small, but which have always seemed tremendous -here, will mean no more to him than they are worth. He will be careless, -perhaps, of your most cherished ideas; and, if you are to meet him -fairly, you must try to see through his eyes as well as your own. Truly -I want you to be happy, Olive; I want every one in Cottarsport to be as -happy... as they can." - -Olive's embarrassment increased: it was impossible to know what Honora -Canderay meant by her last words, in that echoing voice. Nevertheless, -her independence of spirit, the long nourished tenets of the abhorrence -of sin, asserted themselves in the face of even Honora's directions. "I -trust," she replied stiffly, "that Jason has been given grace to walk in -the path of God----" She stopped with lips parted, her breath laboring -with shock, at the interruption pronounced in ringing accents. Honora -Canderay said: - -"Grace be damned!" - -Olive backed away with her hands pressed to her cheeks. In the midst of -her shuddering surprise she realized how much the other resembled her -father, the captain. - -"I suppose," Honora further ventured, "that you are looking for a -bolt of lightning, but it is late in the season for that. There are no -thunder storms to speak of after September." She turned abruptly, and -Olive watched her depart, gracefully swaying against the wind. - -***** - -All Olive's unformed opinions and attitude concerning Honora Canderay -crystallized into one sharp, intelligible feeling--dislike. The breadth -of being which the other had seemed to possess was now revealed as -nothing more than a lack of reverence. She was inexpressibly upset by -Honora's profanity, the blasphemous mind it exhibited, her attempted -glossing of sin. It was nothing less. In the assault on Olive's most -fundamental verities--the contempt which, she divined, had been offered -to the edifice of her conscience and creed--she responded blindly, -instinctively, with an overwhelming condemnation. At the same time she -was frightened, and hurried away from the proximity of such unsanctified -talk. She did not go to Citron Street, and the shops, as she had -intended; but kept directly on until she found herself at the harbor -and wharves. The latter serrated the water's edge, projecting from the -relatively tall, bald warehouses, reeking with the odor of dead fish, -cut open and laid in salt, grey-white areas to the sun and wind. - -A small group of men, with flat bronzed countenances and rough furze -coats, uneasily stirred their hats, in the local manner of saluting -women, and turned to gaze fixedly at her as she passed. Even in her -perturbation of mind she was conscious of their unusual scrutiny. She -couldn't, now, for the life of her, recall what needed to be bought; -and, mounting the narrow uneven way from the water, she proceeded home. - -Some towels, laid on the boulder to dry, had not been sufficiently -weighted, and hung blown and crumpled on a lilac bush. These she -collected, rearranged, complaining of the blindness of whoever might be -about the house, and then proceeded within. There, to her amazement, -she found Hester, in the middle of the morning, and Rhoda bent over the -dinner table, sobbing into her arm. Hester met her with a drawn face -darkly smudged beneath the eyes. - -"The _Emerald_ was lost off the Cape," she said; "sunk with all on -board. A man came over from Salem to tell us. He had to go right back. -Pa, he's lost." - -Olive sank into a chair with limp hands. Rhoda continued uninterrupted -her sobbing, while Hester went on with her recital in a thin, blank -voice. "The ship _J. Q. Adams_ stood by the _Emerald_, but there was -such a sea running she couldn't do anything else. They just had to see -the _Emerald_, with the men in the rigging, go under. That's what he -said who was here. They just had to see Pa drown before their eyes.... -The wind was something terrible." - -A deep, dry sorrow constricted Olive's, heart. Suddenly the details of -packing her father's blue sea chest returned to her mind--the wool socks -she had knitted and carefully folded in the bottom, the needles and -emery and thread stowed in their scarlet bag, the tin of goose grease -for his throat, the Bible that had been shipped so often. She thought of -them all scattered and rent in the wild sea, of her father---- - -She forced herself to rise, with a set face, and put her hand on Rhoda's -shoulder. "It's right to mourn, like Rachel, but don't forget the -majesty of God." Rhoda shook off her palm and continued in an ecstasy of -emotional relief. Olive hardened. "Get up," she commanded; "we must fix -things here, for the neighbors and Pastor will be in. I wish Jem were -back." - -At this Rhoda became even more unrestrained, and Olive remembered that -Jem too was at sea, and that probably he had been caught in the same -gale. "He'll be all right," she added quickly; "the fishing boats live -through everything." - -Yet she was infinitely relieved when, two days later, Jem arrived -safely home. He came into the house with a pounding of heavy boots, a -powerfully built youth with a rugged jaw and an intent quiet gaze. "I -heard at the wharf," he told Olive. They were in the kitchen, and he -pulled off his boots and set them away from the stove. - -"I'm thankful you're so steady and able," she said. - -"I am glad Jason's coming home--rich," he replied tersely. Later, after -supper, while they still sat at the table, he went on, "There is a fine -yawl for sale at Ipswich, sails ain't been made a year, fifty-five tons; -I could do right good with that. The fishing's never been better. Do -you think Jason would be content to buy her, Olive? I could pay him back -after a run or two." - -"He told you he'd do something like that," she answered. "I guess now it -wouldn't mean much to him." - -"And I'll be away," Rhoda eagerly added; "you wouldn't have to give me -anything, Jem. Jason promised me, too." - -An unreasonable and disturbing sense of insecurity enveloped Olive. But, -of course, it would be all right--Jason was coming back rich, to marry -her. Jem would have the yawl and Rhoda get away to study singing. And -yet all that she vaguely dreaded about Jason himself persisted darkly at -the back of her consciousness, augmented by Honora Canderay's warning. -She was a little afraid of Jason, too; in a way, after so long, he -seemed like a stranger, a stranger whom she was going to wed. - -"He'll be all dressed up," Rhoda stated. "I hope, Olive, you will kiss -him as soon as he steps through the door. I know I would." - -"Don't be so shameless, Rhoda," the elder admonished her. "You are very -indelicate. I'd never think of kissing Jason like that." - -"I will go over and see the man who owns her," Jem said enigmatically. -"She's a cockpit boat, but I heard the wave wasn't made that could fill -her. And we have my share of the last run till Jason's here." - -He paid this faithfully into Olive's hand the next day and then -disappeared. She thought he came through the door again: someone stood -behind her. Olive turned slowly and saw an impressive figure in stiff -black broadcloth and an incredibly high glassy silk hat. - -***** - -She knew instinctively that it must be Jason Burrage, and yet the -feeling of strangeness persisted. All sense of the time which had -elapsed since Jason went was lost in the illusion that the figure -familiar to her through years of knowledge and association had -instantly, by a species of magic, been transformed into the slightly -smiling, elaborate man in the doorway. She stepped backward, -hesitatingly pronouncing his name. - -"Olive," he exclaimed, with a deep, satisfied breath, "it hasn't changed -a particle!" To her extreme relief he did not make a move to embrace -her; but gazed intently about the room. One of the things that made him -seem different, she realized, was the rim of whiskers framing his -lower face. She became conscious of details of his appearance--baggy -dove-colored trousers over glazed boots, a quince yellow waistcoat in -diamond pattern, a cluster of seals. Then her attention was held by his -countenance, and she saw that his clothes were only an insignificant -part of his real difference from the man she had known. - -Jason Burrage had always had a set will, the reputation of an impatient, -even ugly disposition. This had been marked by a sultry lip and -flickering eye; but now, though his expression was noticeably quieter, -it gave her the impression of a glittering and dangerous reserve; his -masklike calm was totally other than the mobile face she had known. -Then, too, he had grown much older--she swiftly computed his age: it -could not be more than forty-two, yet his hair was thickly stained -with grey, lines starred the comers of his eyes and drew faintly at his -mouth. - -"Are you glad to see me, Olive?" he asked. - -"Why, Jason, what an unnecessary question. Of course I am, more thankful -than I can say for your safety." - -"I walked across the hills from the Dumner stage," he proceeded. "It -was something to see Cottarsport on its bay and the Neck and the fishing -boats at Planger's wharf. I'd like to have an ounce of gold for every -time I thought about it and pictured it and you. Out on the placers of -the Calaveras, or the Feather, I got to believing there wasn't any such -town, but here it is." He advanced toward her; she realized that she was -about to be kissed, and a painful color dyed her cheeks. - -"You'll stop for supper," she said practically. - -"I haven't been home yet, I came right here; I'll see them and be back. -I'll bet I find them in the kitchen, with the front stoves cold, in -spite of what I wrote and sent. I brought you a present, just for fun, -and I'll leave it now, since it's heavy." He bent over a satchel at his -feet and got a buckskin bag, bigger than his two fists, which he dropped -with a dull thud on the table. - -"What is it, Jason?" she asked. But of herself she knew the answer. He -untied a string, and, dipping in his fingers, showed her a fine yellow -metallic trickle. "Gold dust, two tumblers full," he replied. "We used -to measure it that way--a pinch a dollar, teaspoonful to the ounce, a -wineglass holds a hundred, and a tumbler a thousand dollars." - -She was breathless before the small shapeless pouch that held such a -staggering amount. He laughed. "Why, Olive, it's nothing at all. I just -brought it like that so you could see how we carried it in California. -We are all rich now, Olive--the Burrages, and you're one, and the -Staneses. I have close to a hundred and fifty thousand dollars." - -This sum was little more to her than a fable, a thing beyond the scope -of her comprehension; but the two thousand dollars before her gaze was -a miracle made manifest. There it was to study, feel; subconsciously she -inserted her hand in the bag, into the cold, smooth particles. - -"A hundred and fifty thousand," he repeated; "but if you think I didn't -work for it, if you suppose I picked it right out of a pan on the -river bars, why--why, you are wrong." Words failed him to express the -erroneousness of such conclusions. "I slaved like a Mexican," he added; -"and in bad luck almost to the end." She sat and gazed at him with an -easier air and a growing interest, her hands clasped in her lap. "What I -didn't know when I left Cottarsport was wonderful. - -"Why, take the mining," he said with a gesture; "I mean the bowl -mining at first... just the heavy work in it killed off most of the -prospectors--all day with a big iron pan, half full of clay and gravel, -sloshing about in those rivers. And maybe you'd work a month without a -glimmer, waking wet and cold under the sierras, whirling the pan round -and round; and maybe when you had the iron cleared out with a magnet, -and dropped in the quicksilver, what gold was there wouldn't amalgam. I -can tell you, Olive, only the best, or the hardest, came through." - -He produced a blunt, tapering cigar and lighted it expansively. - -"A lonely and dangerous business: every one carried his dust right on -his body, and there were plenty would risk a shot at a miner coming -back solitary with his donkey and his pile. It got better when the new -methods came, and we used a rocker-hollowed out of a log. Then four of -us went in partnership--one to dig the gravel, one to carry it to the -cradle, another to keep it rocking, and the last to pour in the water. -Then we drawed off the gold and sand through a plug hole. - -"We did fine at that," he told her, "and in the fall of 'Fifty cleaned -up eighteen thousand apiece. Then we had an argument: we were in the -Yuba country, where it was kind of bad; two of us, and I was one of -them, said to divide the dust, and get out best we could; but the others -wanted to send all the gold to San Francisco in charge of one of them -and a man who was going down with more dust. We finally agreed to this -and lost every ounce we'd mined. The escort said they were shot by some -of the disbanded California army, but I'm not sure. It seemed to me -like our two had met somewhere, killed the other, and got the gold to -rights." - -"O Jason!" Olive exclaimed. - -"That was nothing," he said complacently; "but only a joker to start -with. I did a lot of things then to get a new outfit--sold peanuts on -the Plaza in 'Frisco, or hollered the New York _Tribune_ at a dollar and -a half a copy; I washed glasses in a saloon and drove mules. After that -I took a steamer for Stocton and the Calaveras. You ought to have seen -Stocton, Olive--board shanties and blanket houses and tents, with two -thieves left hanging on a gallows. We went from there, a party of us, -for the north bank of the Calaveras, tramping in dust so hot that it -scorched your face. Sluicing had just started and long Toms--a long Tom -is a short placer--so we didn't know much about it. Looking back I can -see the gold was there; but after working right up to the end of the -season we had no more than a couple of thousand apiece. There were too -many of us to start with. - -"Well, I drifted back to San Francisco." He paused, and the expression -which had most disturbed her deepened on his countenance, a stillness -like the marble of a gravestone guarding implacable secrets. - -"San Francisco is different from Cottarsport, Olive," he said after a -little. "Here you wouldn't believe there was such a place; and there -Cottarsport seemed too safe to be true... Well, I went after it again, -this time as far north as Shasta. I prospected from the Shasta country -south, and got a good lump together again. By then placer mining was -better understood; we had sluice boxes two or three hundred feet long, -connected with the streams, with strips nailed across the bottom where -the gold and sand settled as the water ran through. Yes, I did well; and -then fluming began. - -"That," he explained, "is damming a river around its bed and washing -the opened gravel. It takes a lot of money, a lot of work and men; and -sometimes it pays big, and often it doesn't. I guess there were fifty of -us at it. We slaved all the dry season at the dam and flume, a big wood -course for the stream; we had wing dams for the placers and ditches, -and the best prospects for eight or ten weeks' washing. It was early in -September when we were ready to start, and on a warm afternoon I said -to an old pardner, 'What do you make out of those big, black clouds -settling on the peaks?' He took one look--the wind was a steady and -muggy southwester--and then he sat down and cried. The tears rolled -right over his beard. - -"It was the rains, nearly two months early, and the next day dams, -flume, boards, and hope boiled down past us in a brown mash. That left -me poorer than I'd ever been before; I had more when I was home on the -wharves." - -"Wait," she interrupted him, rising; "if you're coming back to supper -I must put the draught on the stove." From the kitchen she heard him -singing in a low, contented voice:= - -```"'The pilot bread was in my mouth, - -```The gold dust in my eye, - -```And though from you I'm far away, - -```Dear Anna, don't you cry!'"= - -Then:= - -```"'Oh, Ann Eliza! - -```Don't you cry for me. - -```I'm going to Calaveras - -```With my wash bowl on my knee.'"= - -She returned and resumed her position with her hands folded. - -"And that," Jason Burrage told her, "was how I learned gold mining in -California. I sank shafts, too, and worked a windlass till the holes got -so deep they had to be timbered and the ore needed a crusher. But after -the fluming I knew what to wait for. I kept going in a sort of commerce -for a while--buying old outfits and selling them again to the late -comers--a pick or shovel would bring ten dollars and long boots fifty -dollars a pair. I got twenty-four dollars for a box of Seidlitz powders. -Then in 'Fifty-four I went in with three scientific men--one had been -a big chemist at Paris--and things took a turn. We had the dead wood -on gold. Why, we did nothing but re-travel the American Fork and Indian -Bar, the Casumnec and Moquelumne, and work the tailings the earlier -miners had piled up and left, just like I had south. We did some pretty -things with cyanide; yes, and hydraulics and powder. - -"Things took a turn," he repeated; "investments in stampers and so on, -and here I am." - -After he had gone--supper, she had informed him, was at five -exactly--Olive had the bewildered feeling of partially waking from -an extraordinary dream. Yet the buckskin bag on the table possessed a -weighty actuality. - -***** - -She sat for a long while gazing intently at the gold, which, like a -crystal ball, held for her varied reflections. Then, recalling the -exigencies of the kitchen, she hurried abruptly away. Her thoughts -wheeled about Jason Burrage in a confusion of all the impressions she -had ever had of him. But try as she might she could not picture the -present man as a part of her life in Cottarsport; she could not see -herself married to him, although that event waited just beyond today. -She set her lips in a straight line, a fixed purpose gave her courage -in place of the timidity inspired by Jason's opulent strangeness--she -couldn't allow herself to be turned aside for a moment from the way of -righteousness. The gods of mammon, however they might blackly assault -her spirit, should be confounded.= - -```"... hide me - -```Till the storm of life is past."= - -She sang in a high quavering voice. There was a stir beyond--surely -Jason wasn't back so soon; but it was Jem. - -"What's on the table here?" he called. - -"You let that be," she cried back in a panic at having left the gift -so exposed. "That's gold dust; Jason brought it, two thousand dollars' -worth." - -A prolonged whistle followed her announcement. Jem appeared with the -buckskin bag in his hand. "Why, here's two yawls right in my hand," he -asserted. - -"Mind one thing, Jem," she went on, "he's coming back for supper, and I -won't have you and Rhoda at him about boats and singing the minute he's -in the house." - -Rhoda, with exclamations, and then Hester, inspected the gold. "I'd -slave five years for that," the latter stated, "and then hardly get it; -and here you, have it for nothing." - -"You'll get the good of it too, Hester," Olive told her. - -"I'll just work for what I get," she replied fiercely. "I won't take -a penny from Jason, Olive Stanes; you can't hold that over me, and the -sooner you both know it the better." - -"You ought to pray to be saved from pride." - -"I don't ask benefits from any one," Hester stoutly observed. - -"Hester----" Olive commenced, scandalized, but she stopped at Jason's -entrance. "Hester she wanted a share of the gold," Jem declared with a -light in his slow gaze, "and Olive was cursing at her." - -"Lots more," said Jason Burrage, "buckets full." In spite of the efforts -of every one to be completely at ease the supper was unavoidably stiff. - -But when Jason had lighted one of his blunt cigars, and begun a vivid -description of western life, the Staneses were transported by the -marvels following one upon another: a nugget had been picked up over -a foot long, it weighed a hundred and ninety pounds, and realized -forty-three thousand dollars. "Why, fifty and seventy-five lumps were -common," he asserted. "At Ford's Bar a man took out seven hundred -dollars a day for near a month. Another found seventeen thousand dollars -in a gutter two or three feet deep and not a hundred yards long. - -"But 'Frisco was the place; you could see it spread in a day with -warehouses on the water and tents climbing up every hill. Happy Valley, -on the beach, couldn't hold another rag house. The Parker House rented -for a hundred and seventy thousand a year, and most of it paid for -gambling privileges; mont and faro, blazing lights and brass bands -everywhere and dancing in the El Dorado saloon. At first the men danced -with each other, but later----" - -He stopped; an awkward silence followed. Olive was rigid with -inarticulate protest, a sense of outrage--gambling, saloons, and -dancing! All that she had feared about Jason became more concrete, more -imminent. She saw California as a modern Babylon, a volcano of gold and -vice; already she had heard of great fires that had devastated it. - -"We didn't mine on Sunday, Olive," Jason assured her; "and all the boys -went to the preaching and sang the hymns, standing out on the grass." - -Hester, finally, with a muttered period, rose and disappeared; Jem went -out to consult with a man, his nod to Olive spoke of yawls; and Rhoda, -at last, reluctantly made her way above. Olive's uneasiness increased -when she found herself alone with the man she was to marry. - -"I don't like Rhoda and Jem hearing about all that wickedness," she told -Jason Burrage; "they are young and easy affected. Rhoda gives me a lot -of worry as it is." - -"Suppose we forget them," he suggested. "I haven't had a word with you -yet; that is, about ourselves. I don't even know but you have gone and -fell in love with some one else." - -"Jason," she answered, "how can you? I told you I'd marry you, and I -will." - -"Are you glad to see me?" he demanded, coming closer and capturing her -hand. - -"Why, what a question. Of course I'm pleased you're back and safe." - -"You haven't got a headache, have you?" he inquired jocularly. - -"No," she replied seriously. His words, his manners, his grasp, worried -her more and more. Still, she reminded herself, she must be patient, -accept life as it had been ordained. There was a slight flutter at her -heart, a constriction of her throat; and she wondered if this were -love. She should, she felt, exhibit more warmth at Jason's return, the -preservation, through such turbulent years of absence, of her image. But -it was beyond her power to force her hand to return his pressure: her -fingers lay still and cool in his grasp. - -"You are just the same, Olive," he told her; "and I'm glad you're what -you are, and that Cottarsport is what it is. That's why I came back: it -was in my blood, the old town and you. All the time I kept thinking of -when I'd come back rich as I made up my mind to be, and get you what -you ought to have--be of some importance in Cottarsport, like the -Canderays. The old captain, too, died while I was away. How's Honora?" - -"Honora Canderay is an ungodly woman," Olive asserted with emphasis. - -"I don't know anything about that," he said; "but I always kind of liked -to look at her. She reminded me of a schooner with everything set coming -up brisk into the wind." Olive made a motion toward the stove, but he -restrained her; rising, he put in fresh wood. Then he turned and again -seemed lost in a long, contented inspection of the quiet interior. Olive -saw that marks of weariness shadowed his eyes. - -"This is what I came back for," he reiterated; "peaceful as the forests, -and yet warm and human. Blood counts." He returned to his place by her, -and leaned forward, very earnestly. "California isn't real the way this -is," he told her; "the women were just paint and powder, like things -you would see in a fever, and then you'd wake up, in Cottarsport, well -again, with you, Olive." - -She managed to smile at him in acknowledgment of this. - -"I'm desperately glad I pulled through without many scars. But there are -some, Olive; that was bound to be. I don't know if a man had better say -anything about the past, or just let it be, and go on. Times I think one -and then the other. Yet you are so calm sitting here, and so good, it -would be a big help to tell you... Olive, out on the American, and God -knows how sorry I've been, I killed a man, Olive." - -Slowly she felt herself turning icy cold, except for the hot blood -rushing into her head. She stared at him for a moment, horrified; -and then mechanically drew back, scraping the chair across the floor. -Perhaps she hadn't understood, but certainly he had said---- - -"Wait till I tell what I can for myself," he hurried on, following her. -"It was when the four of us were working with a rocker. I was shoveling -the gravel, and every one in California knows that when you're doing -that, and find a nugget over half an ounce, it belongs to you personal -and not to the partnership. Well, I came on a big one, and laid it -away--they all saw it--and then this Eddie Lukens hid it out on me. He -was the only one near where I had it; he broke it up and put it in the -cradle, sure; and in the talk that followed I--I shot him." - -He laid a detaining hand on her shoulder, but she wrenched herself away. - -"Don't touch me!" she breathed. She thought she saw him bathed in the -blood of the man he had slain. Her lips formed a sentence, "'Thou shalt -not kill.'" - -"I was tried at Spanish Bar," he continued. "Miners' law is better than -you hear in the East. It's quick, it has to be, but in the main it's -serious and right. I was tried with witnesses and a jury and they let me -off; they justified me. That ought to go for something." - -"Don't come near me," she cried, choking, filled with dread and utter -loathing. "How can you stand there and--stand there, a murderer, with a -life on your heart!" - -His face quivered with concern; in spite of her words he drew near -her again, repeating the fact that he had been judged, released. Olive -Stanes' hysteria vanished before the cold stability which came to her -assistance, the sense of being rooted in her creed. - -"'Thou shalt not kill,'" she echoed. - -The emotion faded from his features, his countenance once more became -masklike, the jaw was hard and sharp, his eyes narrowed. "It's all over -then?" he asked. She nodded, her lips pinched into a white line. - -"What else could be hoped? Blood guiltiness. O Jason, pray to save your -soul." - -He moved over to where his high silk hat reposed, secured it, and -turned. "This will be final." His voice was hard. Olive stood slightly -swaying, with closed eyes. Then she remembered the buckskin bag of -not yellow but scarlet gold. She stumbled forward to it and thrust the -weight into his hand. Jason Burrage's fingers closed on the gift, while -his gaze rested on her from under contracted brows. He was, it seemed, -about to speak, but instead preserved an intense silence; he looked once -more about the room, still and old in its lamplight. Why didn't he go? -Then she saw that she was alone: - -Like the eternal rock outside the door. - -From above came the clear, joyous voice of Rhoda singing. Olive crumpled -into a chair. Soon Jem would be back.... She turned and slipped down -upon the floor in an agony of prayer. - - - - -HONORA - - -|HONORA CANDERAY saw Jason Burrage on the day after his arrival in -Cotarsport: he was walking through the town with a set, inattentive -countenance; and, although she was in the carriage and leaned forward, -speaking in her ringing voice, it was evident that he had not noticed -her. She thought his expression gloomy for a man returned with a fortune -to his marriage. Honora still dwelt upon him as she slowly progressed -through the capricious streets and mounted toward the hills beyond. He -presented, she decided, an extraordinary, even faintly comic, appearance -in Cottarsport, with a formal black coat open on a startling waistcoat -and oppressive gold chain, pale trousers and a silk hat. - -Such clothes, theatrical in effect, were inevitable to his changed -condition and necessarily stationary taste. Yet, considering, she -shifted the theatrical to dramatic: in an obscure but palpable manner -Jason did not seem cheap. He never had in the past And now, while -his inappropriate overdressing in the old town of loose and weathered -raiment brought a smile to her firm lips, there was still about him -the air which from the beginning had made him more noticeable than his -fellows. It had even been added to--by the romance of his journey and -triumph. - -She suddenly realized that, by chance, she had stumbled on the one term -which more than any other might contain Jason. Romantic. Yes, that was -the explanation of his power to stir always an interest in him, vaguely -suggest such possibilities as he had finally accomplished, the venture -to California and return with gold and the complicated watch chain. She -had said no more to him than to the other Cottarsport youth and young -manhood, perhaps a dozen sentences in a year; but the others merged into -a composite image of fuzzy chins, reddened knuckles, and inept, choked -speech, and Jason Burrage remained a slightly sullen individual with -potentialities. He had never stayed long in her mind, or had any actual -part in her life--her mother's complete indifference to Cottarsport -had put a barrier between its acutely independent spirit and the -Canderays--but she had been easily conscious of his special quality. - -That in itself was no novelty to her experience of a metropolitan and -distinguished society: what now kept Jason in her thoughts was the fact -that he had made his capability serve his mood; he had taken himself out -into the world and there, with what he was, succeeded. His was not an -ineffectual condition--a longing, a possibility that, without the power -of accomplishment, degenerated into a mere attitude of bitterness. Just -such a state, for example, as enveloped herself. - -The carriage had climbed out of Cottarsport, to the crown of the height -under which it lay, and Honora ordered Coggs, a coachman decrepit with -age, to stop. She half turned and looked down over the town with a -veiled, introspective gaze. From here it was hardly more than a narrow -rim of roofs about the bright water, broken by the white bulk of her -dwelling and the courthouse square. The hills, turning roundly down, -were sere and showed everywhere the grey glint of rock; Cottar's Neck -already appeared wintry; a diminished wind, drawing in through the -Narrows, flattened the smoke of the chimneys below. - -Cottarsport! The word, with all its implications, was so vivid in her -mind that she thought she must have spoken it aloud. Cottarsport and the -Canderays--now one solitary woman. She wondered again at the curious and -involved hold the locality had upon her; its tyranny over her birth and -destiny. It was comparatively easy to understand the influence the place -had exerted on her father: commencing with his sixteenth year, his life -had been spent, until his retirement from the sea, in arduous voyages to -far ports and cities. His first command--the anchor had been weighed on -his twentieth birthday--had been of a brig to Zanzibar for a cargo of -gum copal; his last a storm-battered journey about, apparently, all the -perilous capes of the world. Then he had been near fifty, and the space -between was a continuous record of struggle with savage and -faithless peoples, strange latitudes and currents, and burdensome -responsibilities. - -Her mother, too, presented no insuperable obstacle to a sufficient -comprehension--a noted beauty in a gay and self-indulgent society, she -had passed through a triumphant period without forming any attachment. -An inordinate amount of champagne had been uncorked in her honor, -compliment and service and offers had made up her daily round; until, -almost impossibly exacting, she had found herself beyond her early -radiance, in the first tragic realization of decline. Stopping, perhaps, -in the midst of slipping her elegance of body into a party dress, she -remembered that she was thirty-five--just Honora's age at present. -The compliments and offers had lessened, she was in a state of weary -revulsion when Ithiel Canderay--bronzed and despotic and rich--had -appeared before her and, the following day, urged marriage. - -Yes, it was easy to see why the shipmaster, desirous of peace after -the unpeaceful sea, should build his house in the still, old port -the tradition of which was in his blood. It was no more difficult to -understand how his wife, always a little tired now from the beginning -ill effects of ceaseless balls and wining, should welcome a spacious, -quiet house and unflagging, patient care. - -All this was clear; and, in a way, it made her own position logical--she -was the daughter, the repository, of such varied and yet unified -forces. In moments of calm, such as this, Honora could be successfully -philosophical. But she was not always placid; in fact she was placid -but an insignificant part of her waking hours. She was ordinarily -filled with emotions that, having no outlet, kept her stirred up, half -resentful, and half desirous of things which she yet made no extended -effort to obtain. - -Honora told herself daily that she detested Cot-tarsport, she intended -to sell her house, give it to the town, and move to Boston. But, after -three or four weeks in the city, a sense of weariness and nostalgia -would descend upon her--the bitterness of her mother lived over -again--and drive her back to the place she had left with such decided -expressions of relief. - -This was the root of her not large interest in Jason Burrage--he, too, -she had always felt, had had possibilities outside the local life and -fish industry; and he had gone forth and justified, realized, them. He -had broken away from the enormous pressure of custom, personal habit, -and taken from life what was his. But she, Honora Canderay, had not had -the courage to free herself from an existence without incentive, without -reward. Something of this might commonly find excuse in the fact that -she was a woman, and that the doors of life and experience, except -one, were closed to her; but, individually, she had little use for -this supine attitude. Her blood was too domineering. She consigned such -inhibitions to pale creatures like Olive Stanes. - -***** - -The sun, sinking toward the plum-colored hills on the left, cast a rosy -glow over low-piled clouds at the far horizon, and the water of the -harbor seemed scattered with the petals of crimson peonies. The air -darkened perceptibly. For a moment the grey town on the fading water, -the distant flushed sky, were charged with the vague unrest of the -flickering day. Suddenly it was colder, and Honora, drawing up her -shawl, sharply commanded Coggs to drive on. - -She was going to fetch Paret Fifield from the steam railway station -nearest Cottarsport. He visited her at regular intervals--although the -usual period had been doubled since she'd seen him--and asked her with -unfailing formality to be his wife. Why she hadn't agreed long ago, -except that Paret was Boston personified, she did not understand. In the -moments when she fled to the city she always intended to have him come -to her at once. But hardly had she arrived before her determination -would waver, and her thoughts automatically, against her will, return to -Cottarsport. - -Studying him, as they drove back through the early dusk, she was -surprised that he had been so long-suffering. He was not a patient type -of man; rather he was the quietly aggressive, suavely selfish example -for whom the world, success, had been a very simple matter. He was not -solemn, either, or a recluse, as faithful lovers commonly were; but -furnished a leading figure in the cotillions and had a nice capacity for -wine. She said almost complainingly: - -"How young and gay you look, Paret, with your lemon verbena." - -He was, it seemed to her, not entirely at ease, and almost confused at -her statement. Nevertheless, he gave his person a swiftly complacent -glance. - -"I do seem quite well," he agreed surprisingly. "Honora, I'm the next -thing to fifty. Would any one guess it?" - -This was a new aspect of Paret's, and she studied him keenly, with the -slightly satirical mouth inherited from her father. Embarrassment became -evident at his exhibition of trivial pride, and nothing more was said -until, winding through the gloom of Cottarsport, they had reached her -house. Inside there was a wide hall with the stair mounting on the right -under a panelled arch. Mrs. Coz-zens, Honora's aunt and companion, was -in the drawing room when they entered, and greeted Paret Fifield with -the simple friendliness which, clearly without disagreeable intent, she -reserved for an unquestionable few. - -After dinner, the elder woman winding wool from an ivory swift clamped -to a table, Honora thought that Paret had never been so vivacious; -positively he was silly. For no comprehensible reason her mind turned to -Jason Burrage, striding with a lowered head, in his incongruous clothes, -through the town of his birth. - -"I wonder, Paret," she remarked, "if you remember two men who went from -here to California about ten years ago? Well, one of them is back -with his pockets full of gold and a silk hat. He was engaged to Olive -Stanes... I suppose their wedding will happen at any time. You see, he -was faithful like yourself, Paret." - -The man's back was toward her; he was examining, as he had on every -visit Honora could recall, the curious objects in a lacquered cabinet -brought from over-seas by Ithiel Canderay, and it was a noticeably long -time before he turned. Mrs. Cozzens, the shetland converted into a ball, -rose and announced her intention of retiring; a thin, erect figure in -black moir with a long countenance and agate brown eyes, seed pearls, -gold band bracelets, and a Venise point cap. - -When she had gone the silence in the room became oppressive. Honora was -thinking of her life in connection with Paret Fifield, wondering if she -could ever bring herself to marry him. She would have to decide soon: -it seemed incredible that he was nearing fifty. Why, it must have been -fifteen years ago when he first---- - -"Honora," he pronounced, leaning forward in his chair, "I came prepared -to tell you a particular thing, but I find it much more difficult than I -had anticipated." - -"I know," she replied, and her voice, the fact she pronounced, seemed -to come from a consciousness other than hers; "you are going to get -married." - -"Exactly," he said with a deep, relieved sigh. - -She had on a dinner dress looped with a silk ball fringe, and her -fingers automatically played with the hanging ornaments as she studied -him with a composed face. - -"How old is she, Paret?" Honora asked presently. - -He cleared his throat in an embarrassed manner. "Not quite nineteen, I -believe." - -She nodded, and her expression grew imperceptibly colder. A slight but -actual irritation at him, a palpable anger, shocked her, which she was -careful to screen from her manner and voice. "You will be very happy, -certainly. A young wife would suit you perfectly. You have kept -splendidly young, Paret." - -"She is really a superb creature, Honora," he proceeded gratefully. "I -must bring her to you. But I am going to miss this." He indicated -the grave chamber in which they sat, the white marble mantel and high -mirror, the heavy mahogany settled back in half shadow, the dark velvet -draperies of the large windows sweeping from alabaster cornices. - -"Sometimes I feel like burning it to the ground," she asserted, rising. -"I would if I could burn all that it signifies, yes, and a great deal of -myself, too." She raised her arms in a vivid, passionate gesture. "Leave -it all behind and sail up to Java Head and through the Sunda Strait, -into life." - -After the difficulty of his announcement Paret Fifield talked with -animation about his plans and approaching marriage. Honora wondered at -the swiftness with which she--for so long a fundamental part of his -thought--'had dropped from his mind. It had the aspect of a physical act -of seclusion, as if a door had been closed upon her, the last, perhaps, -leading out of her isolation. She hadn't been at all sure that she -would not marry Paret: today she had almost decided in favor of such a -consummation of her existence. - -A girl not quite nineteen! She had been only twenty when Paret Fifield -had first danced with her. He had been interested immediately. It was -difficult for her to realize that she was now thirty-five; soon forty -would be upon her, and then a grey reach. She didn't feel any older than -she had, well--on the day that Jason Burrage departed for California. -There wasn't a line on her face; no trace, yet, of time on her spirit or -body; but the dust must inevitably settle over her as it did on a vase -standing unmoved on a shelf. A vase was a tranquil object, well suited -to glimmer from a corner through a decade; but she was different. The -heritage of her father's voyaging stirred in her together with the -negation that held her stationary. A third state, a hot rebellion, -poured through her, while she listened to Paret's facile periods. -Really, he was rather ridiculous about the girl. She was conscious of -the dull pounding of her heart. - -The morning following was remarkably warm and still; and, after Paret -Fifield had gone, Honora made her way slowly down to the bay. The -sunlight lay like thick yellow dust on the warehouses and docks, and the -water filled the sweep of Cottar's Neck with a solid and smoothly blue -expanse. A fishing boat, newly arrived, was being disgorged of partly -cured haddock. The cargo was loaded into a wheelbarrow, transferred to -the wharf, and there turned into a basket on a weighing scale, checked -by a silent man in series of marks on a small book, and carried away. -Beyond were heaped corks and spread nets and a great reel of fine cord. - -When Honora walked without an objective purpose she always came finally -to the water. It held no surprise for her; there was practically nothing -she was directly interested in seeing. She stood--as at present--gazing -down into the tide clasping the piles, or away at the horizon, the -Narrows opening upon the sea. She exchanged unremarkable sentences with -familiar figures, watched the men swab decks or tail new cordage through -blocks, and looked up absently at the spars of the schooners lying at -anchor. - -She had put on a summer dress again of white India barge, a little hat -with a lavender bow, and she stood with her silk shawl on an arm. The -stillness of the day was broken only by the creak of the wheelbarrow. -Last night she had been rebellious, but now a lassitude had settled over -her: all emotion seemed blotted out by the pouring yellow light of the -sun. - -At the side of the wharf a small warehouse held several men in the -office, the smoke of pipes lifting slowly from the open door; and, -at the sound of footfalls, she turned and saw Jem Stanes entering the -building. His expression was surprisingly morose. It was, she thought -again as she had of Jason Burrage striding darkly along the street, -singularly inopportune at the arrival of so much good fortune. A burr -of voices, thickened by the salt spray of many sea winds, followed. She -heard laughter, and then Jem's voice, indistinguishable but sullenly -angry. - -Honora progressed up into the town, walked past the courthouse square, -and met Jason at the corner of the street. "I am glad to have a chance -to welcome you," she said, extending her hand. Close to him her sense of -familiarity faded before the set face, the tightly drawn lips and hard -gaze. She grew a little embarrassed. He had on another, still more -surprising waistcoat, his watch chain was ponderous with gold; but dust -had accumulated unattended on his shoulders, and dimmed the luster of -his boots. - -"Thank you," he replied non-committally, giving her palm a brief -pressure. He stood silently, without cordiality, waiting for what might -follow. - -"You are safely back with the Golden Fleece," she continued more -hurriedly, "after yoking the fiery bulls and sailing past the islands of -the sirens." - -"I don't know about all that," he said stolidly. - -"Jason and the Argonauts," she insisted, conscious of her stupidity. He -was far more compelling than she had remembered, than he appeared from a -distance: the marked discontent of his earlier years had given place to -a certain power, repose: the romance which she had decided was his main -characteristic was emphasized. She was practically conversing with a -disconcerting stranger. - -"Olive was, of course, delighted," she went resolutely on. "You must -marry soon, and build a mansion." - -"We are not going to marry at all," he stated baldly. - -"Oh----!" she exclaimed and then crimsoned with annoyance at the -involuntary syllable. That idiot, Olive Stanes, she added to herself -instantly. Honora could think of nothing appropriate to say. "That's a -great pity," she temporized. Why didn't the boor help her? Hadn't he the -slightest conception of the obligations of polite existence? He stood -motionless, the fingers of one hand clasping a jade charm. However, she, -Honora Can-deray, had no intention of being affronted by Jason Burrage. - -"You must find it pale here after California, if what I've heard is -true," she remarked crisply, then nodded and left him. That night at -supper she repeated the burden of what he had told her to her aunt. The -latter answered in a measured voice without any trace of interest: - -"I thought something of the kind had happened: the upstairs girl was -saying he was drunk last night. A habit acquired West, I don't doubt. It -is remarkable, Honora, how you remember one from another in Cottarsport. -They all appear indifferently alike to me. And I am tremendously upset -about Paret." - -"Well, I'm not," Honora returned. She spoke inattentively, and she was -surprised at the truth she had exposed. Paret Fifield had never become -a necessary part of her existence. Except for the light he had shed upon -herself--the sudden glimpse of multiplying years and the emptiness of -her days--his marriage was unimportant. She would miss him exactly as -she might a piece of furniture that had been removed after forming a -familiar spot. She was more engrossed in what her aunt had told her -about Jason. - -He had been back only two or three days, and already lost his promised -wife and got drunk. The implications of drinking were different in -Cottars-port from what they would be in San Francisco, or even Boston; -in such a small place as this every act offered the substance for talk, -opinion, as long-lived as the elms on the hills. It was foolish of him -not to go away for such excesses. Honora wanted to tell him so. She had -inherited her father's attitude toward the town, she thought, a personal -care of Cottarsport as a whole, necessarily expressed in an attention -toward individual acts and people. She wished Jason wouldn't make a fool -of himself. Then she recalled how ineffectual the same desire, actually -voiced, had been in connection with Olive Stanes. She recalled Olive's -horrified face as she, Honora, had said, "Grace be damned!" It was all -quite hopeless. "I think I'll move to the city," she informed her aunt. - -The latter sighed, from, Honora knew, a sense of superior knowledge and -resignation. - -After supper she deserted the more familiar drawing room for the chamber -across the wide hall. A fire of coals was burning in an open grate, but -there was no other light. Honora sat at a piano with a ponderous ebony -case, and picked out Violetta's first aria from Traviata. The round -sweet notes seemed to float away palpable and intact into the gloom. -It was an unusual mood, and when it had gone she looked back at it in -wonderment and distrust. Her customary inner rebellion re-established -itself perhaps more vigorously than before: she was charged with energy, -with vital promptings, but found no opportunity, promise, of expression -or accomplishment. - -The warm sun lingered for a day or so more, and then was obliterated -by an imponderable bank of fog that rolled in through the Narrows, over -Cottar's Neck, and changed even the small confines of the town into -a vast labyrinth. That, in turn, was dissipated by a swinging eastern -storm, tipped with hail, which left stripped trees on an ashen blue sky -and dark, frigid water slapping uneasily at the harbor edge. - -Honora Canderay's states of mind were as various and similar. Her outer -aspect, however, unlike the weather, showed no evidence of change: as -usual she drove in the carriage on afternoons when it was not too cold; -she appeared, autocratic and lavish, in the shops of Citron Street; she -made her usual aimless excursions to the harbor. Jem Stanes, she saw, -was still a deck hand on the schooner _Gloriana_. Looking back to the -morning when he had scowlingly entered the office on the wharf, she -was able to reconstruct the cause of his ill humor--a brother-in-law to -Jason Burrage was a person of far different employment from an ordinary -Stanes. She passed Olive on the street, but the latter, except for a -perfunctory greeting, hurried immediately by. - -The stories of Jason's reckless conduct multiplied--he had consumed -a staggering amount of Medford rum and, in the publicity of noon and -Marlboro Street, sat upon the now notable silk hat. He had paid for some -cheroots with a pinch of gold dust as they were said to do in the far -West. He carried a loaded derringer, and shot "for fun" the jar of -colored water in the apothecary's window, and had threatened, with -a grim face, to do the same for whoever might interfere with his -pleasures. He was, she learned, rapidly becoming a local scandal and -menace. - -If it had been any one but Jason Burrage, native born and folded in the -glamour of his extraordinary fortune, he would have been immediately and -roughly suppressed: Honora well knew the rugged and severe temper of the -town. As it was he went about--attended by its least desirable element, -a chorus to magnify his liberality and daring--in an atmosphere of -wonderment and excited curiosity. - -This, she thought, was highly regrettable. Yet, in his present frame of -mind, what else was there for him to do? He couldn't be expected to -take seriously, be lost in, the petty affairs of Cottarsport; beyond a -limited amount the gold for which he had endured so much--she had -heard something of his misfortunes and struggle--was useless here; and, -without balance, he must inevitably drift into still greater debauch in -the large cities. - -He was now a frequently recurring figure in her thought. In the correct -presence of her aunt, Mrs. Cozzens, in delicate clothes and exact -surroundings, the light of an astral lamp on her sharply cut, slightly -contemptuous face, she would consider the problem of Jason Burrage. In -a way, which she had more than once explained and justified to herself, -she felt responsible for him. If there had been anything to suggest, she -would have gone to him directly, but she had no intention of offering -a barren condemnation. Her peculiar position in Cottarsport, while it -indicated certain obligations, required the maintenance of an impersonal -plane. Why, he might say anything to her; he was quite capable of -telling her--and correctly--to go to the devil! - -A new analogy was created between Jason Bur-rage and herself: his -advantage over her had broken down, they both appeared fast in untoward -circumstance beyond their power to alleviate or shape. He had come back -to Cottarsport in the precise manner in which she had returned from -shorter but equally futile excursions. Jason had his money, which at -once established necessities and made satisfaction impossible; and she -had promptings, desires, that by reason of their mere being, allowed her -contentment neither in the spheres of a social importance nor here in -the quiet place where so much of her was rooted. As Honora Canderay -gazed at her Aunt Herriot's hard, fine profile, the thought of her own, -Honora Canderay's, resemblance to the returned miner carousing with -the dregs of the town brought a shade of ironic amusement to her -countenance. - -Honora left the house, walking, in the decline of a November afternoon. -She had been busy in a small way, supervising the filling of camphor -chests for the winter, and, intensely disliking any of the duties of -domesticity, she was glad to escape into the still, cold open. Dusk was -not yet perceptible, but the narrow, erratic ways of Cottars-port were -filling with dear grey shadow. When, inevitably, she found herself at -the harbor's edge, she progressed over a narrow wharf to its end. It had -been wet, and there were patches of black, icy film; the water near by -was grey-black, but about the bare thrust of Cottar's Neck it was green; -the warehouses behind her were blank and deserted. - -She had on a cloak lined with ermine, and she drew it closer about her -throat at the frigid air lifting from the bay. Suddenly a flare of color -filled the somber space, a coppery glow that glinted like metal shavings -on the water and turned Cottar's Neck red. Against the sunset the town -was formless, murky; but the sky and harbor resembled the interior of -a burnished kettle. The effect was extraordinarily unreal, melodramtic, -and she was watching the color fade, when a figure wavered out of -the shadows and moved insecurely toward her. At first she thought the -stumbling progressions were caused by the ice: then she saw that it was -Jason Burrage, drunk. - -He wore the familiar suit of broadcloth, with no outer covering, and a -rough hat pulled down upon his fixed gaze. She stood motionless while he -approached, and then calmly met his heavy interrogation. - -"Honora," he articulated, "Honora Canderay, one--one of the great -Canderays of Cottarsport. Well, why don't you say something? Too set up -for a civil, for a----" - -"Don't be ridiculous, Jason," she replied crisply; "and do go -home--you'll freeze out here as you are." - -"One of the great Canderays," he reiterated, contemptuously. He came -very close to her. "You're not much. Here they think you.... But I've -been to California, and at the Jenny Lind... in silk like a blue bird, -and sing-. Nobody ever heard of the Canderays in 'Frisco, but they know -Jason Burrage, Burrage who had all the bad luck there was, and then -struck it rich." - -He swayed perilously, and she put out a palm and steadied him. "Go back. -You are not fit to be around." - -Jason struck her hand down roughly. "I'm fitter than you. What are you, -anyway?" He caught her shoulder in vise-like fingers. "Nothing but a -woman, that's all--just a woman." - -"You are hurting me," she said fearlessly. - -His grip tightened, and he studied her, his eyes inhuman in a stony, -white face. "Nothing more than that." - -"You are very surprising," she responded. "Do you know, I had never -thought of it. And it's true; that is precisely what and all I am." - -His expression became troubled; he released her, stepped back, slipped, -and almost fell into the water. Honora caught his arm and dragged him -to the middle of the wharf. "A dam' Canderay," he muttered. "And I'm -better, Jason Burrage. Ask them at the El Dorado, or Indian Bar; but -that's gone--the early days. All scientific now. We got the dead wood on -gold... cyanide." - -"Come home," she repeated brusquely, turning him, with a slight push, -toward the town settled in darkness. It sent him falling forward in the -direction she wished. Honora supported him, led him on. At intervals he -hung back, stopped. His speech became confused; then, it appeared, his -reason commenced slowly to return. The streets were empty; a lamp shone -dimly on its post at a corner; she guided Jason round a sunken space. - -Honora had no sense of repulsion; she was conscious of a faint pity, but -her energy came dimly from that feeling of obligation, inherited, she -told herself once more, from her father--their essential attitude to -Cottarsport. At the same time she found herself studying his face with a -personal curiosity. She was glad that it was not weak, that rum had been -ineffectual to loosen its hardness. He now seemed capable of walking -alone, and she stood aside. - -Jason was at a loss for words; his lips moved, but inaudibly. "Keep away -from the water," she commanded, "or from Medford rum. And, some evening -soon, come to see me." She said this without premeditation, from an -instinct beyond her searching. - -"I can't do that," he replied in a surprisingly rational voice, "because -I've lost my silk hat." - -"There are hundreds for sale in Boston," she announced impatiently; "go -and get another." - -"That never came to me," he admitted, patently struck by this course of -rehabilitation through a new high hat. "There was something I had to -say to you, but it left my mind, about a--a gold fleece; it turned into -something else, on the wharf." - -"When you see me again." She moved farther from him, suddenly in a great -necessity to be home. She left him, talking at her, and went swiftly -through the gloom to Regent Street. Letting herself into the still hall, -the amber serenity of lamplight in suave spaciousness, she swung shut -the heavy door with a startling vigor. Then she stood motionless, the -cape slipping from her shoulders in glistening and soft white folds -about her arms, to the carpet. Honora wasn't faint, not for a moment -had she been afraid of Jason Burrage, this was not a rebellion of -over-strung nerves; yet a passing blindness, a spiritual shudder, -possessed her. She had the sensation of having just passed through an -overwhelming adventure: yet all that had happened was commonplace, even -sordid. She had met a drunken man whom she hardly knew beyond his name -and an adventitious fact, and insisted on his going home. Asking him to -call on her had been little less than perfunctory--an impersonal act of -duty. - -Yet her being vibrated as if a loud and disturbing bell had been -unexpectedly sounded at her ear; she was responding to an imperative -summons. In her room, changing for supper, this feeling vanished, and -left her usual introspective humor. Jason had spoken a profound truth, -which her surprise had recognized at the time, in reminding her that she -was an ordinary woman, like, for instance, Olive Stanes. The isolation -of her dignity had hidden that from her for a number of years. She had -come to think of herself exclusively as a Canderay. - -Later her sharp enjoyment in probing into all pretensions, into herself, -got slightly the better of her. "I saw Jason Burrage this evening," she -told Mrs. Cozzens. - -"If he was sober," that individual returned, "it might be worth -recalling." - -"But he wasn't. He nearly fell into the harbor. I asked him to see us." - -"With your education, Honora, there is really no excuse for confusing -the singular and plural. I haven't any doubt you asked him here, but -that has nothing to do with us." - -"You might be amused by his accounts of California. For, although you -never complain, I can see that you think it dull." - -"I am an old woman," Herriot Cozzens stated, "my life was quite normally -full, and I am content here with you. Any dullness you speak of I regret -for another reason." - -"You are afraid I'll get preserved like a salted haddock. He may not -come." - -***** - -Honora was in the less formal of the drawing rooms when Jason Burrage -was announced. He came forward almost immediately, in the most rigorous -evening attire, a new silk hat on his arm. - -"You had no trouble getting one," she nodded in its direction. - -"Four," he replied tersely. - -Jason took a seat facing her across an open space of darkly flowered -carpet, and Honora studied him, directly critical. Against a vague -background his countenance was extraordinarily pronounced, vividly -pallid. His black hair swept in a soft wave across a brow with indented -temples, his nose was short with wide nostrils, the lower part of -his face square. His hands, scarred and discolored, rested each on a -black-clad knee. - -She was in no hurry to begin a conversation which must either be -stilted, uncomfortable, or reach beyond known confines. For the moment -her daring was passive. Jason Burrage stirred his feet, and she attended -the movement with thoughtful care. He said unexpectedly: - -"I believe I've never been in here before." He turned and studied his -surroundings as if in an effort of memory. "But I talked to your father -once in the hall." - -"Nothing has been changed," she answered almost unintelligibly. "Very -little does in Cot-tarsport." - -"That's so," he assented. "I saw it when I came back. It was just the -same, but I----" he stopped and his expression became gloomy. - -"If you mean that you were different, you are wrong," she declared -concisely. "Just that has made trouble for you--you have been unable to -be anything but yourself. I am like that, too. Every one is." - -"I have been through things," he told her enigmatically. "Why look--just -the trip: to Chagres on the Isthmus, and then mules and canoes through -that ropey woods to Panama, with thousands of prospectors waiting for -the steamer. Then back by Mazatlan, Mexico City, and Vera Cruz. A man -sees things." - -Her inborn uneasiness at rooms, confining circumstance, her restless -desire for unlimited horizons, for the mere fact of reaching, moving, -stirred into being at the names he repeated. Tomorrow she would go away, -find something new-- - -"It must have been horridly rough and dirty." - -"A good many turned back or died," he agreed tentatively. "But after you -once got there a sort of craziness came over you--you couldn't wait to -buy a pan or shovel. The bay was full of rotting ships deserted by their -crews, a thicket of masts with even the sails still hanging to them. The -men jumped overboard to get ashore and pick up gold." - -She thought with a pang of the idle ships with sprung rigging, sodden -canvas lumpily left on the decks, rotting as he had said, in files. The -image afflicted her like a physical pain, and she left it hurriedly. -"But San Francisco must have been full of life." - -"You had to shout to be heard over the bands, and everything blazing. -Pyramids of nuggets on the gambling tables. Gold dust and champagne and -mud." - -"Whatever will you find here?" She immediately regretted her query, -which seemed to search improperly into the failure of his marriage. - -"I'm thinking of going back," he admitted. - -Curiously Honora was sorry to hear this; unreasonably it gave to -Cottarsport a new aspect of barrenness, the vista of her own life -reached interminable and monotonous into the future. And she was -certain that, without the necessity and incentive of labor, it would be -destructive for Jason to return to San Francisco. - -"What would you do?" - -"Gamble," he replied cynically. - -"Admirable prospect," she said lightly. Her manner unmistakably conveyed -the information that his call had drawn to an end. He clearly resisted -this for a minute or two, and then stirred. "You must come again." - -"Why?" he demanded abruptly, grasping his hat, which had reposed on the -carpet at his side. - -"News from California, from the world outside, is rare in Cottarsport. -You must see that you are an interesting figure to us." - -"Why?" he persisted, frowning. - -She rose, her face as hard as his own, but with a faint smile in place -of his lowering expression. "No, you haven't changed; not even to the -extent of a superficial knowledge of drawing rooms." - -"I ought to have seen better than come." - -"The ignorance was all my own." - -"But once----" he paused. - -"Should be enough." Her smile widened. Yet she was furious with herself -for having quarreled with him; the descent from the altitude of the -Canderays had been enormous. What extraordinary influence had colored -her acts in the past few days? - -Mrs. Cozzens, at breakfast, inquired placidly how the evening before had -progressed, and Honora made a gesture expressive of its difficulties. -"You will create such responsibilities for yourself," the elder stated. - -This one, it suddenly appeared to Honora, had been thrust upon her. She -made repeated and angry efforts to put Jason Burrage from her mind; -but his appearance sitting before her, his words and patent discontent, -flooded back again and again. She realized now that he was no impersonal -problem; somehow he had got twisted into the fibres of her existence; he -was more vividly in her thoughts than Paret Fifield had ever been. -She attempted to ridicule him mentally, and called up pictures of his -preposterous clothes, the ill-bred waistcoats and ponderous watch chain. -They faded before the memory of the set jaw, his undeniable romance. - -Wrapped in fur, she elected to drive after dinner; the day was cold but -palely clear, and she felt that her cheeks were glowing with unusual -color. Above the town, on the hills now sere with frost and rock, the -horses, under the aged guidance of Coggs, continually dropped from a jog -trot to an ambling walk. Honora paid no attention to the gait, she was -impervious to the wide, glittering reach of water; and she was startled -to find herself abreast a man gazing at her. - -"I made a jackass out of myself last night," he observed gloomily. - -She automatically stopped the carriage and held back the buffalo robe. -Jason hesitated, but was forced to take a seat at her side. Honora said -nothing, and the horses again went forward. - -"I'd been drinking a lot and was all on edge," he volunteered further. -"I feel different today. I can remember your mother driving like this. I -was a boy then, and used to think she was made of ice; wondered why she -didn't run away in the sun." - -"Mother was very kind, really," Honora said absently. She was relaxed -against the cushions, the country dipped and spread before her in a -restful brown garb; she watched Coggs' glazed hat sway against the sky. -The old sense of familiarity with Jason Burrage came back: why not, -since she had known him all their lives? And now, after his years -away, she was the only one in Cottarsport who at all comprehended his -difficulties. He was not commonplace, a strong man was never that; and, -in a way, he had the quality which more than any other had made her -father so notable. And he was not unpleasant so close beside her. That -was of overwhelming importance in the formation of her intimate opinion -of him. He had been refined by the bitterness of his early failure in -California; he bore himself with a certain dignity. - -"What'll I do?" he demanded abruptly. - -For the life or her she couldn't tell him. Except for platitudes she -could offer no solution against the future. Actual living, directly -viewed, was like that--hopeless of exterior solution. "I don't know," -she admitted, "I wish I did; I wish I could help you." - -"This money, what's it good for? I can't get my family to burn two small -stoves at once; they'd die in the kitchen if they had a hundred parlors; -I've bought more clothes than I'll ever wear, four high hats and so on. -Not going to get married; no use for a big house, for anything more than -the room I have. I get plenty to eat----" - -"You might do some good with it," she suggested. The base of what she -was saying, Honora realized, was that he would be as well off with his -fortune given away. Yet it was unjust, absurd, for him not to get some -use, pleasure, from what he had worked so extravagantly to obtain. - -"Somehow that wouldn't settle anything, for me," he replied. - -Coggs had turned at the usual limit of her afternoon driving, and they -were slowly moving back to the town. Cottar's Neck was fading into the -early gloom, and a group of men stared at Jason seated in the Canderays' -carriage as if their eyes were being played with in the uncertain light. - -"Have you thought any more about going West?" she inquired. - -They had stopped for his descent at Marlboro - -Street, and he stood with a hand on the wheel. "I had intended to go -this morning." - -He held her gaze steadily, and she felt a swift coldness touch her into -a shiver. - -"Tomorrow?" This came in a spirit of perversity against her every other -instinct. - -"Shall I?" - -"Would you be happier in San Francisco?" Jason Burrage made a hopeless -gesture. - -"... for supper," Honora found herself saying in a rush; "at six -o'clock. If you aren't bound for California." - -She tried to recall afterward if she had indicated a particular evening -for the invitation. There was a vague memory of mentioning Thursday. -This was Tuesday... Herriot Cozzens would be in Boston. - -***** - -A servant told her that Mr. Burrage had arrived when she was but half -ready. She was, in reality, undecided in her choice of a dress for the -evening; but finally she wore soft white silk, with deep, knotted fringe -on the skirt, a low cut neck, and a narrow mantle of black velvet. Her -hair, severely plain in its net, was drawn back from a bang cut across -her brow. As she entered the room where he was standing a palpable -admiration marked his countenance. - -He said nothing, however, beyond a conventional phrase. Such natural -reticence had a large part in her acceptance of him; he did nothing that -actively disturbed her hypercritical being. He was almost distinguished -in appearance. She had a feeling that if it had been different.... -Honora distinctly wished for a flamboyant touch about him; it presented -a symbol of her command of any situation between them, a reminder of her -superiority. - -The supper went forward smoothly; there were the welcome inevitable -reminiscences of the rough fare of California, laughter at the -prohibitive cost of beans; and when, at her direction, he lighted a -cheroot, and they lingered on at the table, Honora's aloofness was -becoming a thing of the past. The smoke gave her an unexpected thrill, -an extraordinary sense of masculine proximity. There had been no such -blue clouds in the house since her father's death seven years ago. -Settled back contentedly, Jason Burrage seemed--why, actually, he had an -air of occupying a familiar place. - -It was bitterly cold without, the room into which they trailed -insufficiently warm, and they were drawn close together at an open -Franklin stove. The lamps on the mantel were distant, and they had not -yet been fully turned up: his face was tinged by the glow of the fire. -An intense face. "What are you thinking about--me?" she added coolly. -"Nothing," he replied; "I'm too comfortable to think." There was a note -of surprise in his voice; he looked about as if to find reassurance -of his present position. "But if I did it would be this--that you are -entirely different from any woman I've ever known before. They have -always been one of two kinds. One or the other," he repeated somberly. -"Now you are both together. I don't know as I ought to say that, if it's -nice. I wouldn't like to try and explain." - -"But you must." - -"It's your clothes and your manner put against what you are. Oh hell, -what I mean is you're elegant to look at and good, too." - -An expression of the deepest concern followed his exclamation. He -commenced an apology. Hardly launched, it died on his lips. - -Honora was at once conscious of the need for his contrition and of the -fact that she had never heard a more entertaining statement. It was -evident that he viewed her as a desirable compound of the women of the -El Dorado and Olive Stanes: an adroit and sincere compliment. She wanted -to follow it on and on, unfold its every exposition; but, of course, -that was impossible. All this she concealed behind an indifferent -countenance, her slim white fingers half embedded in the black mantle. - -Jason Burrage lighted another cheroot and put his feet up on the -polished brass railing of the iron hearth. This amused her beyond words. -She couldn't remember when she had had another such vitalized evening. -She realized that, through the last years, she had been appallingly -lonely; but with Jason smoking beside her in a tilted chair the solitude -was banished. She got a coal for him in the small burnished tongs, and -he responded with a prodigious puff that set her to coughing. - -When he had gone the house was hatefully vacant; as she went up to her -chamber the empty spaciousness, the semi-dark well of the stair, the -high hall with its low-turned lamp, the blackness of the third story -pouring down over her, oppressed her almost beyond endurance. Her Aunt -Herriot, already old, must be dead before very long, there was none -other of her connections who could live with her, and she would have to -depend on perfunctory, hired companionship. - -Honora saw that she should never escape from the influence which held -her in Cottarsport. - -In her room, the door bolted, it was no better. The interior was large, -uncompromisingly square; and, though every possible light was burning, -still it seemed somber, menacing. - -The following day was a lowering void with gusts of rain driving against -the windows. Mrs. Cozzens would be away until tomorrow, and Honora -met the afternoon alone. At times she embroidered, short-lived efforts -broken by despondent and aimless excursions through the echoing halls. - -She attempted to read, to compose herself with an elaborate gilt and -embellished volume called "The Garland." But, at a Lamentation on the -Death of Her Canary, by a Person of Quality, she deliberately dropped -the book into the burning coals of the Franklin stove. The satisfaction -of seeing the pages crisp and burst into flame soon evaporated. The day -was a calamity, the approaching murky evening a horror. - -At supper she wondered what Jason Burrage was doing. A trace of the -odor of his cheroot lingered in the dining room. He was an astonishingly -solid, the only, actuality in a nebulous world of lofty, flickering -ceilings and the lash of rain. He might as well smoke in her drawing -room as in the Burrage kitchen. Paret Fifield would have drifted -naturally to the Canderay house, but not Jason, not a native of -Cottarsport.... With an air of determination she sharply pulled the -plush, tasseled bell rope in the corner. - -***** - -She heard the servant open the front door; there was a pause--Jason -was taking off his greatcoat--after which he entered, calm and without -query. - -"I was tired of sitting by myself," she said with an air of entire -frankness. In a minute or so more it was all as it had been the evening -before--she held a coal for his cheroot as he tilted back beside her -with his feet on the rail. "You are a very comfortable man, Jason," she -told him. - -He made no reply, although a quiver crossed his lips. Then, after a -little, "It's astonishing how soon you get used to things. Seems as if I -had been here for years, and this is only the third time.'" - -"Have you thought any more of California?" - -He faced her with an expression of surprise. "It had gone clean out of -my mind. I suppose I will shift back, though--nothing here for me. I -can't come to see you every evening." - -She preserved a silence in which they both fell to staring into a -dancing, bluish flame. The gusts of rain were audible like the tearing -of heavy linen. An extraordinary idea had taken possession of Honora--if -the day had been fine, if she had been out in a sparkling air and sun, -a very great deal would have happened differently. But just what -she couldn't then say: the fact alone was all that she curiously -apprehended. - -"I suppose not," she answered, so long after his last statement that he -gazed questioningly at her. "I wonder if it has occurred to you," she -continued, "how much alike we are? I often think about it." - -"Why, no," he replied, "it hasn't. Jason Bur-rage and Honora Canderay! I -wouldn't have guessed it, and I don't believe any one else ever has. -I'd have a hard time thinking about two more different. It's--it's -ridiculous." He became seriously animated. "Here I am--well, you know -all about me--with some money, perhaps, and a little of the world in my -head; but you're Honora Canderay." - -"You said once that I was nothing but a woman," she reminded him. - -"I remember that," he admitted with evident chagrin. "I was drunk." - -"That's when the truth is often hit on; I am quite an ordinary sort of -woman." - -He laughed indulgently. - -"You said last evening I had some of a very common quality." - -"Now you mustn't take that serious," he protested; "it was just in a way -of speech. I told you I couldn't rightly explain myself." - -"Anyhow," she asserted bluntly, "I am lonely. What will you do about -it?" - -His amazement turned into a consternation which even now she found -almost laughable. "Me?" he stammered. "There's no way I can help you. -You are having a joke." - -She realized, with a feeling that her knowledge came too late, that she -was entirely serious. Jason Burrage was the only being alive who could -give her any assistance, yes, save her from the future. Her hands were -cold, she felt absolutely still, as if she had suddenly turned into -marble, a statue with a heart slightly fluttering. - -"You could be here a lot," she told him, and then paused, glancing at -him swiftly with hard, bright eyes. He had removed his feet from the -stove, and sat with his cheroot in a poised, awkward hand. She was -certain that he would never speak. - -"We might get married." - -Honora was startled at the ease with which the words were pronounced, -and conscious of an absurdly trivial curiosity--she wondered just how -much he had been shocked by her proposal? She saw that he was stupefied. -Then: - -"So we might," he pronounced idiotically. "There isn't any real reason -why we shouldn't. That is----." He stopped. "Where does the laugh -start?" he demanded. - -Suddenly Honora was overwhelmed, not by what she had said, but by the -whole difficulty and inner confusion of her existence. She turned away -her head with an unintelligible period. A silence followed, intensified -by the rain flinging against the glass. - -"It's a bad night," he muttered. - -The banality saved her. Again practically at her ease, she regarded him -with slightly smiling lips. "I believe I've asked you to marry me," she -remarked. - -"Thank you," said Jason Burrage. He stood up. "If you mean it, I'd like -to very much." - -"You'd better sit down," she went on in an impersonal voice; "there -ought to be a lot of things to arrange. For instance, hadn't we better -live on here, for a while anyhow? It's a big house to waste." - -"Honora, you'll just have to stop a little," he asserted; "I'm kind -of lost. It was quick in California, but that was a funeral procession -compared with you." - -Now that it was done, she was frightened. But there was time to escape -even yet. She determined to leave the room quickly, get away to the -safety of her bolted door, her inviolable privacy. She didn't stir. An -immediate explanation that she hadn't been serious--how could he have -thought it for a moment!--would save her. But she was silent. - -A sudden enthusiasm lighted up his immobile face. "I'll get the -prettiest diamond in Boston," he declared. - -"You mustn't----" she commenced, struggling still to retreat. He -misunderstood her. - -"The very best," he insisted. - -When he had gone she remained seated in the formal chamber. At any rate -she had conquered the emptiness of her life, of the great square house -above her. It was definitely arranged, they were to marry. How -amazed Herriot Cozzens would be! It was probable that she would leave -Cot-tarsport, and her, Honora, immediately. Jason hadn't kissed her, he -had not even touched her hand, in going. He had been extremely subdued, -except at the thought of the ring he would buy for her. - -There were phases of the future which she resolutely ignored. - -Mrs. Cozzens came back as had been planned, and Honora told her at once. -The older woman expressed her feeling in contained, acid speech. "I am -surprised he had the assurance to ask you." - -"Jason didn't," Honora calmly returned. - -"It's your father," the elder stated; "he had some very vulgar blood. I -felt that it was a calamity when my sister accepted him. A Cot-tarsport -person at heart, just as you are, always down about the water and those -low docks." - -"I'm sure you're right, and so it's much better for me to find where I -belong. I have tried to get away from Cottarsport, and from the sea and -the schooners sailing in and out of the Narrows, a thousand times. But I -always come back, just as father did, back to this little place from -the entire world--China and Africa and New York. The other influences -weren't strong enough, Aunt Herriot; they only made me miserable; -and now I've killed them. I'll say good-bye to you and Paret and the -cotillions." She kissed her hand, but not gaily, to a whole existence -irrevocably lost. - -With Jason's ring blazing on her slim finger she drove, the day before -the wedding, for the last time as Honora Canderay. The leaves had -been stripped from the elms on the hills, brown and barren against the -flashing, steely water. She saw that Coggs was so impotent with age that -if the horses had been more vigorous he would be helpless. Coggs had -driven for her father, then her, for thirty years. It was too cold -for the old man to be out today. His cheeks were dark crimson, and -continually wet from his failing eyes. - -Herriot Cozzens had left her; Coggs... all the intimate figures of -so many years were vanishing. Jason remained. He had almost entirely -escaped annoying her, and she was conscious of his overwhelming -admiration, the ineradicable esteem of Cottarsport for the Canderays; -but a question, a doubt more obscure than fear, was taking possession of -her. After all she was supremely ignorant of life; she had been screened -from it by pride and luxurious circumstance; but now she had surrendered -all her advantage. She had given herself to Jason; and he was life, -mysterious and rude. The thunder of large, threatening seas, reaching -everywhere beyond the placid gulf below, beat faintly on her perception. - - - - -JASON - - -|IN an unfamiliar upper room of the Canderays' house Jason stood -prepared for the signal to descend to his wedding. The ceremony was -to occur at six o'clock; it was now only five minutes before--he had -absently looked at his watch a great many times in a short space--and he -was striving to think seriously of what was to follow. But in place -of this he was passing again through a state of silent, incoherent -surprise. This was the sort of thing for which a man might pinch himself -to discover if he were awake or dreaming. In five, no, four, minutes now -Honora Canderay was to become his, Jason Burrage's, wife. - -A certain complacency had settled over him in the past few days, -something of his inborn feeling of the Canderays as a house apart seemed -to have evaporated; and, in addition, he had risen--Honora wouldn't take -any just happen so. Jason was never notable for humility. Yet who, -even after he had returned from California with his riches, could -have predicted this evening? His astonishment was as much at himself, -illuminated by extraordinary events, as at any exterior circumstance. -At times he had the ability to see himself, as if from the outside; and -that view, here, was amazing. Why, only a short while ago he had been -drinking rum in the shed in back of "Pack" Clower's house, perhaps the -least desirable shed in Cottarsport. - -Of one fact, however, he was certain--no more promiscuous draughts of -Medford. He recognized that he had taken so much not from the presence -of desire, but from a total absence of it as well as of any other mental -state. "Pack" and his associates, too, were now a thing of the past, -a bitterly rough and vacant element. The glass lamp on a bureau was -smoking: he stepped forward to lower the wick, when a knock fell on the -door. A young Boston relative of Honora's--a supercilious individual -in checked trousers and lemon-colored gloves--announced that they were -waiting for Jason below. With a determined settling of his shoulders and -tightly drawn lips, he marched resolutely forward. - -The marriage was to be in the chamber across from the one in which he -had generally sat. Smilax and white Killamey roses had been bowed over -the mantel at the farthest end, and there Jason found the clergyman -waiting. The room was half full of people occupying chairs brought from -other parts of the house; and he was conscious of a sudden silence, an -intent, curious scrutiny, as he entered. An instinctive antagonism to -this deepened in him: he felt that, with the exception of his father and -mother, he hadn't a friend in the room. - -Such other local figures as were there were facilely imitating the -cold stare of Honora's connections. He stood belligerently facing Mrs. -Cozzens' glacial calm, the inspection of a man he had seen driving with -Honora in Cottarsport, now accompanied by a pettish, handsome girl, -evidently his wife. His father's weathered countenance, sunken and dry -on its bones, was blank, except for a faint doubt, as if some mistake -had been made which would presently be exposed, sending them about face. -His mother, however, was triumphant pride and justification personified. -Then the music commenced--a harp, violin, and double bass. - -The wedding ring firmly secured, Jason stirred with a feeling of -increasing awkwardness. He glared back, with a protruding lip, at the -fellow with the young wife, at the small, aggressive group from Boston; -and then he saw that Honora was in the room. She was coming slowly -toward him. Her expression of absolute unconcern released him from all -petty annoyance, any thought of the malicious onlookers. As she stopped -at his side she gave him a slight nod and smile; and at that moment a -tremendous, sheer admiration for her was born in him. - -Honora had chosen to be unattended--she had coolly observed that she was -well beyond the age for such sentimentality--and he realized that though -the present would have been a racking occasion for most women, it -was evident that she was not disturbed in the least. He had a general -impression of sugary white satin, of her composed, almost disdainful -face in a cloud of veil with little waxen orange flowers, of slender -still hands, when they turned from the room to the minister. - -They had gone over the marriage service together, he had read it again -in the kitchen at home; he was fairly familiar with its periods and -responses, and got through with only a slight hesitation and half -prompting. But the thickness of his voice, in comparison with Honora's -open, decisive utterance, vainly annoyed him. He wanted desperately to -clear his throat. Suddenly it was over, and Honora, in a swirl of satin, -was sinking to her knees. Beside her he listened with a feeling of -comfortable lull to a lengthy prayer. - -Rising, he perfunctorily clasped a number of indifferent palms, replied -inanely to gabbled expressions of good will and hopes for the future -unmistakably pessimistic in tone. Honora told him in a rapid aside -the names of those approaching. She smiled radiantly at his father -and mother, leaned forward and whispered in the latter's ear; and they -followed the guests streaming into the dining room. - -There champagne was being opened by the caterer's assistants from -Boston. There were steaming platters of terrapin and oysters and fowl. -The table bore pyramids of nuts and preserved fruit, hot Cinderellas -in cups with sugar and wine, black case cake, Savoy biscuits, pumpkin -paste, and frothed creams with preserved peach leaves. A laden plate was -thrust into Jason's hand, and he sat with it in a clatter of voices and -topics that completely ignored him. He was isolated in the absorption of -food and wine, in a conversational exchange as strange to him as if had -been spoken in a foreign language. - -Honora was busily talking to young Mrs. Fifield--he remembered the name -now. Apparently she had forgotten his existence. At first this annoyed -him; he determined to force his way into their attention, but a wiser -realization held him where he was. Honora was exactly right: he had -nothing in common with these people, probably not one of them would come -into his life or house again. And his wife, in the fact of her marriage, -had clearly signified how little important they were to her. His father -joined him. - -"You made certain when the New York packet leaves?" he queried. - -"Everything's fixed," Jason reassured him. - -"Your mother wanted to see you. But she got set and is kind of timid -about moving." Jason rose promptly, and, with the elder, found Mrs. -Hazzard Burrage. "I'd like to have Honora, too," the latter told them, -and Jason turned sharply to find her. When they stood facing the old -couple his mother hesitated doubtfully; then she put out her hand to -the woman in wedding array. But Honora ignored it; leaning forward she -kissed the round, bright cheek. - -"You have to be patient with them at times," the mother said, looking up -anxiously. - -"I'm afraid Jason will need that warning," Honora replied; "he is a very -imprudent man." - -***** - -Jason's mind returned to this later, sitting in the house that had been -the Canderays', but which now was his too. Honora's remark to his mother -had been clear in itself, but it suggested wide speculations beyond -his grasp. For instance--why, after all, had Honora married him? He was -forced to acknowledge that it was not the result of any overwhelming -feeling for him. The manner of their wedding, the complete absence of -the emotion supposed to be the incentive of such consummations, Honora -herself, all, denied any effort to fix such a personally satisfactory -cause. That she might have had no other opportunity--Honora was not so -young as she had been--he dismissed as obviously absurd. Why---- - -His gaze was fastened upon the carpet, and he saw that time and the -passage of feet had worn away the design. He looked about the room, and -was surprised to discover a general dinginess which he had never noticed -before. He said nothing, but, in his movements about the house, examined -the furnishings and walls, and an astonishing fact was thrust upon -him--the celebrated dwelling was grievously run down. It was plain that -no money had been spent on it for years. The carriage, too, and the -astrakhan collar on Coggs' coat, were worn out. - -He considered this at breakfast--his wife behind a tall Sheffield coffee -urn--and he was aware of the cold edge of a distasteful possibility. -The thought enveloped him insidiously, like the fog which often rolled -through the Narrows and over the town, that the Canderays were secretly -impoverished, and Honora had married him only for his money. Jason -was not resentful of this in itself, since he had been searching for -a motive he could accept, but it struck him in a peculiarly vulnerable -spot--his admiration for his wife, for Honora. The idea, although he -assured himself that the thing was readily comprehensible, somehow -managed to diminish her, to tarnish the luster she held for him. It was -far beneath the elevation on which Cottarsport had placed the Canderays; -and he suffered a distinct sense of loss, a feeling of the staleness and -disappointment of living. - -The more he considered this explanation the more he was convinced of -its probability. A great deal of his genuine warmth in his marriage -evaporated. Still--Honora had married him, she had given herself in -return for what material advantage he might bring; and he would have to -perform his part thoroughly. He ought to have known that---- - -What he must do now was to save them both from any painful revelation -by keeping for ever hid that he was aware of her purpose, he must never -expose himself by a word or act; and he must make her understand that -whatever he had was absolutely hers. It would be necessary for her to go -to the money with entire freedom and without any accounting. - -This, he found, was not so easy to establish as he thought. Honora was -his wife, but nevertheless there was a well marked reticence between -them, a formal nicety with which he was heartily in accord. He couldn't -just thrust his fortune before her on the table. He hesitated through -the day, on the verge of various blunders; and then, in the evening, -said in a studied causality of manner: - -"What do you think about fixing some of the rooms over new? You might -get tired of seeing the same things for so long. I saw real elegant -furniture in Boston." - -She looked about indifferently. "I think I wouldn't like it changed," -she remarked, almost in the manner of a defense. "I suppose it does seem -worn to you; but I'm used to it; there are so many associations. I am -certain I'd be lost in new hangings." - -Jason was so completely silenced by her reply that he felt he must have -shown some confusion, for her gaze deliberately turned to him. "Is there -any particular thing you would like repaired?" she inquired. - -"No, of course not," he said hastily. "I think it's all splendid. I -wouldn't change a curtain, only--but...." He cursed himself for a -clumsy fool while Honora continued to study him. He endeavored to shield -himself behind the trivial business of lighting a cheroot; but he felt -Honora's query searching him out. Finally, to his extreme dismay, he -heard her say: - -"Jason, I believe you think I married you for money!" - -Pretense, he realized, would be no good now. - -"Something like that did occur to me," he acknowledged desperately. - -"Really," she told him sharply. "I could be cross very easily. You are -too stupid. Father did wonderfully well on his voyages, and his profit -was invested by Frederic Cozzens, one of the shrewdest financiers of his -day. I have twice, probably three times, as much as you." - -She confronted him with a faintly sparkling resentment. However, -the pleasure, the reassurance, in what he had just heard made him -indifferent to the rest. It was impossible now to comprehend how he had -been such a block! He even smiled at her, which, he was delighted to -observe, obviously puzzled her. - -"Perhaps I ought to tell you, Jason, and perhaps it is too late already, -that I thought I married you because I was lonely, because I feared the -future. Anyhow, that's what I told myself the night I sent for you. You -might have a right to complain very bitterly about it." - -"If I have, I won't," he assured her cheerfully. - -"I thought that then; but now I am not at all sure. It no longer seems -so simple, so easily explained. I used to feel that I understood myself -very thoroughly, I could look inside and see what was there; but in the -last month I haven't been able to; and it is very disturbing." - -"Anyhow we're married," he announced comfortably. - -"That's a beautiful way to feel," she remarked. "I appear to get less -sure of things as I grow older, which is pathetic." - -He wondered what, exactly, she meant by this. Honora said a great many -little things which, their meaning escaping him, gave him momentary -doubts. He discovered that she had a habit of saying things indirectly, -and that, as the seriousness of the occasion increased, her manner -became lighter and he could depend less on the mere order of her words. -This continually disconcerted him, put him on the defensive and at small -disadvantages: he was never quite at ease with Honora. - -Obversely--the ugly shade of mercenary purpose dispelled--close at hand -his admiration for her grew. Every detail of her living was as fine -as that publicly exposed in the drawing room. She was not rigidly and -impossibly perfect, in, for instance, the inflexible attitude of Olive -Stanes; Honora had a very human impatience, she could be disagreeable, -he found, in the morning, and she undoubtedly felt herself superior to -the commonalty of life. But in the ordering of her person there was a -wonderfully exact delicacy and fragrant charm. Just as she had no formal -manner, so, he discovered, she possessed no "good" clothes; she dressed -evidently from some inner necessity, and not merely for the sake of -impression. She had, too, a remarkable vigor of expression; Honora was -not above swearing at contradictory circumstance; and she was so free of -small pruderies that often she became a cause of embarrassment to him. -At times he would tell himself uneasily that her conduct was not quite -ladylike; but at the same instant his amusement in her would mount until -it threatened him with laughter. - -There was a great deal to be learned from Honora, he told himself; and -then he would speculate whether he were progressing in that acquisition; -and whether she were happy; no, not happy, but contented. Ignorant -of her reason for marrying, he vaguely dreaded the possibility of its -departure, mysterious as it had come, leaving her regarding him with -surprise and disdain. He tried desperately, consciously, to hold her -interest and esteem. - -That was the base of his conception of their married existence, which, -then, he was entirely willing to accept. - -***** - -However, as the weeks multiplied without bringing him any corresponding -increase in the knowledge of either Honora or their true situation, -he was aware of a disturbance born of his very pleasure in her; an -uncomfortable feeling of insecurity fastened upon him. But all this he -was careful to keep hidden. There was evidently no doubt in the minds -of Cottarsport of the enviableness of his position--with all that gold, -wedded to Honora Canderay, living in the Canderay mansion. The more -solid portion of the town gave him a studied consideration denied to the -mere acquisition of wealth; and the rough element, once his companion -but now relentlessly held at a distance, regarded him with a loud -disdain fully as humanly flattering. Sometimes with Honora he passed -the latter, and they grumbled an obscure acknowledgment of his curt -greeting; when he was alone, they openly disparaged his attainments and -qualified pride. - -There were "Pack" Clower, an able seaman whose indolent character had -dissipated his opportunities of employment without harming his slow, -powerful body; Emery Radlaw, the brother of the apothecary and a -graduate of Williams College, a man of vanished refinements and taker of -strange drugs, as thin and erratically rapid in movements as Clower was -slow; Steven, an incredibly soiled Swede; John Vleet, the master and -part owner of a fishing schooner, a capable individual on the sea, but -an insanely violent drunkard on land. There were others, all widely -different, but alike in the bitterness of a common failure and the habit -of assuaging doubtful self-esteem, of ministering to crawling nerves, -with highly potential stimulation. - -Jason passed "Pack" and Emery Radlaw on a day of late March, and a -mocking and purposely audible aside almost brought him to an adequate -reply. He had disposed of worse men than these in California and the -Isthmus. His arrogant temper rose and threatened to master him; but -something more powerful held him steadily and silently on his way. This -was his measureless admiration for Honora, his determination to involve -her in nothing that would detract from her fineness and erect pride. -Brawling on the street would not do for her husband. He must give her -no cause to lessen what incomprehensible feeling, liking, she might -have for him, give life to no regrets for a hasty and perhaps only -half considered act. After this, in passing any of his late temporary -associates, he failed to express even the perfunctory consciousness of -their being. - -***** - -In April he was obliged to admit to himself that he knew no more of -Honora's attitude toward him than on the day of their wedding. He -recognized that she made no show of emotion; it was an essential part of -her to seem at all times unmoved. That was well enough for the face she -turned toward the world; but directed at him, her husband, its enigmatic -quality began to obsess his mind. What Honora thought of him, why she -had married him, became an almost continuous question. - -It bred an increasing sense of instability that became loud, defiant. -More than once he was at the point of self-betrayal: query, demand, -objection, would rise on a temporary angry flood to his lips. But, -struggling, behind a face as unmoved as Honora's own, he would suppress -his resentment, the sense of injury, and smoke with the appearance of -the greatest placidity. - -His regard for his wife placed an extraordinary check on his impulses -and utterance. He deliberated carefully over his speech, watched her -with an attention not far from a concealed anxiety, and was quick to -absorb any small conventions unconsciously indicated by her remarks. She -never instructed or held anything over him; he would have been acutely -sensitive to any air of superiority, and immediately antagonized. But -Honora was entirely free from pretensions of that variety; she was as -clear and honest as a goblet of water. - -Jason's regard for her grew pace by pace with the feeling of baffling -doubt. He was passing through the public square, and his thoughts were -interrupted by a faint drifting sweetness. "I believe the lilacs are -out," he said unconsciously aloud and stopping. His surrounding was -remarkably serene, withdrawn--the courthouse, a small block of brick -with white corniced windows, flat Ionic portico, and slatted wood -lantern with a bell, stood in the middle of the grassy common shut in by -an irregular rectangle of dwellings with low eaves and gardens. The sun -shone with a beginning warmth in a vague sky that intensified the early -green. It seemed that he could see, against a house, the lavender blur -of the lilac blossoms. - -Then his attention was attracted by the figure of a man, at once strange -and familiar, coming toward him with a dragging gait. Jason studied the -other until a sudden recognition clouded his countenance, filled him -with a swift, unpleasant surprise. - -"Thomas!" he exclaimed. "Whenever did you get back?" - -"Yesterday," said Thomas Gast. - -Well, here was Thomas returned from California like himself. Yet -the most negligent view of the latter revealed that there was a vast -difference between Jason and this last Argonaut--Thomas Gast's loosely -hung jaw, which gave to his countenance an air of irresolution, was now -exaggerated by an aspect of utter defeat. His ill conditioned clothes, -sodden brogans, and stringy handkerchief still knotted miner-fashion -about his throat, all multiplied the fact of failure proclaimed by his -attitude. - -"How did you strike it?" Jason uselessly asked. - -"What chance has the prospector today?" the other heatedly and -indirectly demanded. "At first a man could pan out something for -himself; but now it's all companies, all capital. The state's interfered -too, claims are being held up in court while their owners might starve; -there are new laws and trimmings every week. I struck it rich on the -Reys, but I was drove out before I could get my stakes in. They tell me -you did good." - -"At last," Jason replied. - -"And married Honora Canderay, too." - -The other assented shortly. - -"Some are shot with luck," Thomas Gast proclaimed; "they'd fall and skin -their face on a nugget." - -"How did you come back?" - -"Worked my passage in a crazy clipper with moon-sails and the halliards -padlocked to the rail. Carried away the foretopmast and yard off the -Horn and ran from port to port in a hundred and four days." - -The conversation dwindled and expired. Thomas Gast gazed about moodily, -and Jason, with a tight mouth, nodded and moved on. His mind turned back -abruptly to Eddie Lukens, the man who had robbed him of his find in the -early days of cradle mining, the man he had killed. - -He had said nothing of this to Honora; the experience with Olive Stanes -had convinced him of the advisability of keeping past accident where, -he now repeated, it belonged. He despaired of ever being able, in -Cottarsport, to explain the place and times that had made his act -comprehensible. How could he picture, here, the narrow ravines cut -by swift rivers from the stupendous slopes and forests of the Sierra -Nevada, the isolation of a handful of men with their tents by a plunging -stream in' a rift so deep that there would be only a brief glimmer of -sunlight at noon? And, failing that, the ignorant could never grasp the -significance of the stillness, the timeless shadows, which the -miners penetrated in their madness for gold. They'd never realize the -strangling passion of this search in a wilderness without habitation -or law or safety. They could not understand the primary justice of such -rude courts as the miners were able to maintain on the more populous -outskirts of the region. - -He, Jason Burrage, had been tried by a jury for killing Eddie Lukens, -and had been exonerated. It had been months since he had reiterated this -dreary and only half satisfying formula. The inner necessity filled him -with a shapeless concern such as might have been caused by a constant, -unnatural shadow flickering out at his back. He almost wished that -he had told Honora at the beginning; and then he fretfully cursed the -incertitude of life--whatever he did appeared, shortly after, wrong. - -But it was obvious that he couldn't go to her with the story today; the -only time for that had been before his marriage; now it would have the -look of a confession of weakness, opportunely timed; and he could think -of nothing more calculated to antagonize Honora than such a crumbling -admission. - -All this had been re-animated by the mere presence of Thomas Gast in -Cottarsport; certainly, he concluded, an insufficient reason for -his troubling. Gast had been a miner, too, he was familiar with the -conditions in the West.... There was a great probability that he hadn't -even heard of the unfortunate affair; while Olive Stanes would be -dragged to death rather than garble a word of what he had told her: -Jason willingly acknowledged this of Olive. He resolutely banished the -whole complication from his mind; and, walking with Honora after supper -over the garden in back of their house, he was again absorbed by her -vivid delicate charm. - -The garden was deep and narrow, a flight of terraces connected by a -flagged path and steps. At the bottom were the bergamot pear trees that -had been Ithiel Canderay's especial charge in his last, retired years. -Their limbs, faintly blurred with new foliage, rose above the wall, -against a tranquil evening sky with a white slip of May moon. The peace -momentarily disturbed in Jason Burrage's heart flooded back, a sense of -great well-being settled over him. Honora rested her hand within his arm -at an inequality of the stone walk. - -"I am really a very bad wife, Jason," she said suddenly; "self-absorbed -and inattentive." - -"You suit me," he replied inadequately. He was extraordinarily moved by -her remark: she had never before even suggested that she was conscious -of obligation. He wanted to put into words some of the warmth of feeling -which filled his heart, but suitable speech evaded him. He could not -shake off the fear that such protestations might be displeasing to her -restrained being. Moving slightly away from him she seemed, in the soft -gloom, more wonderful than ever. Set in white against the depths of the -garden, her face, dimly visible, appeared to be without its customary -faintly mocking smile. - -"Do you remember, Jason," she continued, "how I once said I thought I -was marrying you because I was lonely, and that I found out it wasn't -so? I didn't know why." She paused. - -He was enveloped by an intense eagerness to hear her to the end: it -might be that something beyond his greatest hopes was to follow. But -disappointment overtook him. - -"I was certain I'd see more clearly into myself soon, but I haven't; -it's been useless trying. And I've decided to do this--to give up -thinking about things for myself, and to wait for you to show me." - -"But I can't do that," he protested, facing her; "more-than half the -time I wonder over almost that same question--why you ever married me?" - -"This is a frightful situation," she observed with a return of her -familiar manner; "two mature people joined for life, and neither with -the slightest idea of the reason. Anyhow I have given it up.... I -suppose I'll die in ignorance. Perhaps I was too old---" - -He interrupted her with an uncustomary incivility, a heated denunciation -of what she had been about to say. - -"So you are not sorry," he remarked after a little. - -"No," she answered slowly, "and I'm certain I shan't be. I'm not that -sort of person. I would go down to ruin sooner than regret." She said no -more, but went into the house, leaving Jason in the potent spring night. - -There was no longer any doubt about the lilacs: the air was laden with -their scent. An entire hedge of them must have blossomed as he was -standing there. He moved to the terrace below: there might be buds on -the pear trees. But it was impossible to see the limbs. How could Honora -expect him to make their marriage clear? He had never before seen her -face so serene. He thought that he heard a vague stir outside the wall, -and he remembered the presence of a semi-public path. Now there was -a cautious mutter of voices. He advanced a step, then stopped at a -scrambling of shoes against the wall. A vague form shouldered into view, -momentarily clinging above him, and a harsh voice cried: - -"Murderer!" - -Even above the discordant dash of his startled sensibilities rose -the fear, instantaneously born, that Honora had heard. All the vague -uneasiness which had possessed him at Thomas Gust's return solidified -into a recognizable, leaden dread--the conviction that his wife must -learn the story of his misadventure, told with animus and lies. Then a -more immediate dread held him rigidly attentive: there might be a second -cry, a succession of them shouted discordantly to the sky. Honora -would come out, the servants gather, while that accusing voice, -indistinguishable and disembodied by the night, proclaimed his error. -This was not the shooting of Eddie Lukens, but the neglect to comprehend -Honora Canderay. - -Absolute silence followed. He made a motion toward the wall, but, -oppressed by the futility of such an act, arrested himself in the -midst of a step and stood with a foot extended. The stillness seemed to -thicken the air until he could hardly breathe; he was seized by a sullen -anger at the events which had gathered to betray him. The crying tones -had been like a chemical acting on his complexity, changing him to an -entirely different entity, darkening his being; the peace and fragrance -of the night were destroyed by the anxiety that now sat upon him. - -Convinced that nothing more was to follow here, he was both impelled -into the house, to Honora, and held motionless by the fear of seeing -her turn toward him with her familiar light surprise and a question. -However, he slowly retraced his way over the terraces, through a trellis -hung with grape vines, and into the hall. As he hoped, Honora was on -the opposite side of the dwelling. She had heard nothing. Jason sat down -heavily, his gaze lowered and somber. - -The feeling smote him that he should tell Honora of the whole miserable -business at once, make what excuse for himself was possible, and prepare -her for the inevitable public revelation. He pronounced her name, -with the intention of doing this; but she showed him such a tranquil, -superfine face that he was unable to proceed. Her interrogation held for -a moment and then left him, redirected to a minute, colorful square of -glass beads. - -A multiplication of motives kept him silent, but principal among them -was the familiar shrinking from appearing to his wife in any little or -mean guise. It was precisely into such a peril that he had been forced. -He felt, now, that she would overlook a murder such as the one he had -committed far more easily than an intangible error of spirit. He could -actually picture Honora, in his place, shooting Eddie Lukens; but he -couldn't imagine her in his humiliating situation of a few minutes -before. - -He turned to the consideration of who it might be that had called over -the wall, and immediately recognized that it was one of a small number, -one of "Pack" Clower's gang: Thomas Gast would have gravitated quickly -to their company, and their resentment of his, Jason Burrage's, place -in life must have been nicely increased by Gast's jealousy. The latter, -Jason knew, had not washed an honest pan of gravel in his journey and -search for a mythical easy wealth; he had hardly left the littered -fringe of San Francisco, but had filled progressively menial places in -the less admirable resorts and activities. - -With so much established beyond doubt he was confronted by the -necessity for immediate action, the possibility of yet averting all that -threatened him, of preserving his good opinion in Honora's eyes. Clower -and Emery Radlaw and the rest, with the balance of neither property nor -position, lawless and inflamed with drink, were a difficult opposition. -He repeated that he had mastered worse, but out in California, where a -man had been nakedly a man; and then he hadn't been married. There he -would have found them at once, and an explosion of will, perhaps of -powder, would soon have cleared the atmosphere. But in Cottarsport, with -so much to keep intact, he was all but powerless. - -Yet, the following day, when he saw the apothecary's brother enter -the combined drug and liquor store, he followed; and, to his grim -satisfaction, found Thomas Gast already inside. The apothecary gave -Jason an inhospitable stare, but the latter ignored him, striding toward -Gast. "Just what is it you've brought East about me?" he demanded. - -The other avoided the query, his gaze shifting over the floor. "Well?" -Jason insisted, after a pause. Thomas Gast was leaning against a high -counter at one side, behind which shelves held various bottles and paper -boxes and tins. The counter itself was laden with scales and a mortar, -powders and vividly striped candy in tall glass jars. - -"You know well as I do," Gast finally admitted. - -"Then we're both certain there's no reason for name-calling over my back -wall." - -"You shot him, didn't you?" the other asked thinly. "You can't get away -from the fact that you killed a pardner." - -"I did," said Jason Burrage harshly. "He robbed me. But I didn't shout -thief at him from the safety of the dark; it was right after dinner, the -middle of the day. He was ready first, too; but I shot him. Can you get -anything from that?" - -"You ought to realize this isn't San Francisco," Radlaw, the drug taker, -put in. "A man couldn't be coolly derringered in Cottarsport. There's -law here, there's order." He had a harried face, dulled eyes under -a fine brow, a tremulous flabby mouth, with white crystals of powder -adhering to its corners, and a countenance like the yellow oilskins of -the fishermen. - -Jason turned darkly in his direction. "What have you or Clower got to do -with law?" - -"Not only them," the apothecary interposed, "but all the other men of -the town are interested in keeping it orderly. We'll have no western -rowdyism in Cottarsport." - -"Then hear this," Jason again addressed Thomas Gast; "see that you tell -the truth and all the truth. My past belongs to me, and I don't aim to -have it maligned by any empty liar back from the Coast. And either of -you Radlaws--I'm not going to be blanketed by the town drunkards or old -women, either. If I have shot one man I can shoot another, and I care -this much for your talk--if any of this muck is allowed to annoy Mrs. -Burrage I'll kill whoever starts it, spang in the middle of day." - -"That's where it gets him," the ex-scholar stated. "Just there," Jason -agreed; "and this Gast, who has brought so much back from California, -can tell you this, too--that I had the name of finishing what I began." - -But, once more outside, alone, his appearance of resolution vanished: -the merest untraceable rumor would be sufficient to accomplish all -that he feared, damage him irreparably with Honora. He was far older in -spirit and body than he had been back on Indian Bar; he had passed the -tumultuous years of living. The labor and privation, the continuous -immersion in frigid streams, had lessened his vitality, sapped his -ability for conflict. All that he now wished was the happiness of his -wife, Honora, and the quietude of their big, peaceful house; the winter -evenings by the Franklin stove and the spring evenings with the windows -open and the candles guttering in the mild, lilac-hung air. - -***** - -Together with his uncertainty the pleasure in the sheer fact of his wife -increased; and with it the old wonderment at their situation returned. -What, for instance, did she mean by saying that he must explain her -to herself? He tried again all the conventional reasons for marriage -without satisfaction: the sentimental and material equally failed. Jason -felt that if he could penetrate this mystery his grasp on actuality -would be enormously improved; he might, with such knowledge, -successfully defy Thomas Gast and all that past which equally threatened -to reach out destructively into the future. - -His happiness, in its new state of fragility, became infinitely -precious; a thing to dwell on at nights, to ponder over walking through -the town. Then, disagreeably aware of what overshadowed him, he would -watch such passersby as spoke, searching for some sign of the spreading -of his old fault. Often he imagined that he saw such an indication, -and he would hurry home, in a panic of haste--which was, too, intense -reluctance--to discover if Honora yet knew. - -He approached her a hundred times determined to end his misery of -suspense, and face the incalculable weight of her disdain; but on each -occasion he failed as he had at the first. Now his admission seemed too -damned roundabout; in an unflattering way forced upon him. His position -was too insecure, he told himself.... Perhaps the threat in the -apothecary's shop would be sufficient to shut the mouth of rumor. It had -not been empty; he was still capable of uncalculating rage. How closely -was Honora bound to him? What did she think of him at heart? - -He couldn't bear to remember how he had laid open her dignity, the -dignity and position of the Canderays in Cottarsport, to whispered -vilification. Connected with him she was being discussed in "Pack" -Clower's shanty. His mind revolved endlessly about the same few topics, -he elaborated and discarded countless schemes to secure Honora. He even -considered giving Thomas Gast a sum of money to repair what harm the -latter had wrought. Useless--his danger flourished on hatred and envy -and malice. However exculpable the killing of Eddie Lukens had been, the -results were immeasurably unfortunate, for a simple act of violent local -justice. - -They were in the carriage above Cottarsport; Coggs had died through the -winter, and his place been taken by a young coachman from the city. The -horses rested somnolently in their harness, the bright bits of rubbed -silver plate shining. Honora was looking out over the harbor, a gentian -blue expanse. "Good Heavens," she cried with sudden energy, "I am -getting old at a sickening rate. Only last year the schooners and sea -made me as restless as a gull. I wanted to sail to the farthest places; -but now the boats are--are no more than boats. It fatigues me to think -of their jumping about; and I haven't walked down to the wharves for six -weeks. Do I look a haggard fright?" - -"You seem as young as before I went to California," he replied simply. -She did. A strand of hair had slipped from its net, and wavered across -her flawless cheek, her lips were bright and smooth, her shoulders -slimly square. - -"You're a marvelous woman, Honora," he told her. - -She gazed at him, smiling. "I wonder if you realize that that is your -first compliment of our entire wedded life?" - -"Ridiculous," he declared incredulously. - -"Isn't it?" - -"I mean I'm complimenting you all the time. I think----" - -"You can hardly expect me to hear thoughts," she interrupted. - -He silently debated another--it was to be about the ribbon on her -throat--but decided against giving it voice. Why, like the reasons for -so much else, he was unable to say; they all had their root in the blind -sense of the uncertainty of his situation. - -Throughout the evening his thoughts shifted ceaselessly from one -position to another. This, he realized, could not continue indefinitely; -soon, from within or out, Honora and himself must be revealed to each -other. He was permeated by the weariness of constant strain; the peace -of the past months had been destroyed; it seemed to him that he had -become an alien to the serenity of the high, tranquil rooms and of his -wife. - -He rose early the following morning, and descended into a rapt purity of -sunlight and the ecstatic whistling of robins. The front door had not -been opened; and, as he turned its shining brass knob, his gaze fell -upon a sheet of paper projecting below. Jason bent, securing it, and, -with a premonition of evil, thrust the folded scrap into his pocket. -He turned through the house into the garden; and there privately -scrutinized a half sheet with a clumsily formed, disguised writing: - -"This," he read, "will serve you notice to move on. Dangerous -customers are not desired here. Take a suggestion in time and skip bad -consequences. You can't hide back of your wife's hoops." It was signed -"Committee." - -A robin was thrilling the air with melody above his head. Jason -listened mechanically as the bird ended his song and flew away. Then -the realization of what he had found overwhelmed him with a strangling -bitterness: he, Jason Burrage, had been ordered from his birthplace, -he had been threatened and accused of hiding behind a woman, by the -off-scouring of the alleys and rum holes. A feeling of impotence thrust -its chilling edge into the swelling heat of his resentment. He would -have to stand like a condemned animal before the impending fatal blow; -he was held motionless, helpless, by every circumstance of his life and -hopes. - -He crumpled the warning in a clenched hand. How Cottarsport would point -and jeer at him, at Jason Burrage who was Honora Canderay's husband, a -murderer; Jason, who had returned from California with the gold fleece! -It wasn't golden, he told himself, but stained--a fleece dark with -blood, tarnished from hellish unhappiness, a thing infected with -immeasurable miseries. Its edge had fallen on Olive Stanes and left -her--he had passed her only yesterday--dry-lipped and shrunken into -sterile middle age. It promised him only sorrow, and now its influence -was reaching up toward Honora, in herself serenely apart from the muck -and defilement out of which he thought he had struggled. - -The sun, rising over the bright spring foliage, filled the garden -with sparkling color. His wife, in a filmy white dress, called him to -breakfast. She waited for him with her faint smile, against the cool -interior. He went forward isolated, lonely, in his secret distress. - -This communication, like the spoken accusation of a previous evening, -was, apparently, bare of other consequences. Jason's exterior life -progressed without a deviation from its usual smooth course. It was -clear to him that no version of the facts about the killing of Eddie -Lukens had yet spread in Cottarsport. This, he decided, considering the -character of Thomas Gast, the oblique quality of his statements, was -natural. He could not doubt that such public revelation, if threat and -intimidation failed, must come. Meanwhile he was victimized by a growing -uncertainty--from what direction would the next attack thrust? - -He smiled grimly to himself at the memory of the withdrawn and secure -aspect of the town when he had first returned from the West. To him, -striding across the hills from the Dumner stage, it had resembled an -ultimate haven. The seeming harmony and peace of the grey fold of houses -about their placid harbor had concealed possibilities of debasement as -low as California's worst camps. Now, successful, when he had looked for -the reward of his long years of brutal toil, the end of struggle, he was -confronted by the ugliest situation of his existence. - -He was glad that he had always been a silent man, or Honora would have -noticed and demanded the cause of the moroseness which must have settled -over him. They sat no longer before the stove in the drawing room, but -on a side porch that commanded an expanse of lawn and a high privet -hedge, while he smoked morosely at the inevitable cheroots, gloomily -searching for a way from the difficulty closing in upon him. - -Honora had been to Boston, and she was describing lightly an encounter -with her aunt, Herriot Cozzens. He was only half conscious of her amused -voice. Clouds had obscured the evening sky, and there was an air of -suspense, like that preceding a thunder storm, in the thickening dark. -A restlessness filled Jason which he was unable to resist; and, with -a short, vague explanation, he rose and proceeded out upon the street. -There, his hands clasped behind his back and head lowered, he wandered -on, lost in inner despondence. - -He turned into the courthouse square, dimly lighted by gas lamps at -its outer confines, and paced across the grass, stirring a few wan -fireflies. It was blacker still beyond the courthouse. He stumbled -slightly, recovered himself, and wearily commenced a return home. But -he had scarcely taken a step when a figure closed in upon him, -materializing suddenly out of the darkness. He stopped and was about to -speak when a violent blow from behind grazed his head and fell with a -splintering impact on his shoulder. He stood for a moment bewildered by -the unexpected pain; then, as he saw another shape, and another, gather -around him, he came sharply to his senses. His hand thrust into -a pocket, but it was empty--he had laid aside the derringer in -Cottarsport. - -His assailants grappled with him swiftly, and he swayed struggling -and hitting out with short blows in the center of a silent, vicious -conflict. A rough hard palm was crushed against his mouth, a head ground -into his throat, and a heavy, mucous breath of rum smote him. There was -muttered cursing, and low, disregarded commands. A cotton handkerchief, -evidently used as a mask, tore off in Jason's hand; strained voices, -their caution lost in passion, took unmistakably the accents of "Pack" -Clower and the Swede, Steven. A thinner tone outside the swirling -bodies cried low and urgent, "Get it done with." A fist was driven again -Jason's side, leaving a sharp, stabbing hurt, a heavy kick tore his -thigh. Then he got his fingers into a neck and put into the grip all -the sinewy strength got by long years with a miner's pan and shovel. A -choked sob responded, and blood spread stickily over his palms. - -It seemed to Jason Burrage that he was shaking himself free, that he -was victorious; with a final supreme wrench he stood alone, breathing in -gusts. There was a second's imponderable stillness, and then the entire -night appeared to crash down upon his head... - -He thought it was the flumed river, all their summer's labor, bursting -over him. He was whirled downward through a swift course of jagged -pains, held under the hurtling water and planks and stones. He fought, -blind and strangled, but he was soon crushed into a supine nothingness. -Far below, the river discharged him: he was lying beside a slaty bank -in which the gold glittered like fine and countless fish scales. But he -couldn't move, and the bank flattened into a plain under a gloomy ridge, -with a camp of miners. He saw that it was Sunday, for the men were all -grouped before the tents singing. There was Eddie Lukens gravely waving -a hand to the beat of the melody:= - -```"'Don't you cry for me. - -```I'm going to Calaveras - -```With my wash bowl on my knee.'"= - -It was undoubtedly Eddie, his partner, but he had never seen him so -white and--why, he had a hole over his eye! Eddie Lukens was dead; it -wasn't decent for him to be standing up, flapping his hands and singing. -Jason bent forward to remonstrate, to persuade him to go back--back to -where the dead belonged. Then he remembered, but it was too late: Eddie -had him in an iron clutch, he was dragging him, too, down. - -Jason made a convulsive effort to escape, he threw back his head, -gasping; and saw Honora, his wife, bending over him. The tormenting -illusion slowly perished--this was Cottarsport and not California, he -was back again in the East, the present, married to Honora Canderay. An -astounding fact, but so. Through the window of his room he could see the -foliage of a great horse-chestnut tree that stood by the side walk; it -was swelling into flower. Full memory now flooded back upon him, and -with it the realization that probably his happiness was destroyed. - -It was impossible to tell how much Honora knew of the cause of the -assault upon him. She was always like that--enigmatic. But, whatever she -knew now, soon she would have to hear all. Even if he wished to lie, it -would be impossible to fabricate, maintain, a convincing cover for what -had happened. The most superficial, necessary investigation would expose -the story brought home by Thomas Gast. - -The time had come when he must confide everything to Honora; perhaps -she would overlook his cowardice. About to address her, he fell into -a bottomless coma, and a day passed before he had gathered himself -sufficiently to undertake his task. She was sitting facing him, her -chair by a window, where her fingers were swiftly and smoothly -occupied. Her features were a little blurred against the light, and--her -disconcerting scrutiny veiled--he felt this to be an assistance. - -"Those men who broke me up," he began dis-jointedly, surprised at the -thin uncertainty of his voice, "I know pretty well who they are. Ought -to get most of them." - -"We thought you could say," she rejoined in an even tone. "Some guesses -were made, but it was better to wait till you could give a statement." - -"Am I badly hurt, Honora?" he asked suddenly. "Not dangerously," she -assured him. "You have splendid powers of recuperation." - -"I'll have to go on," he added hurriedly, "and tell you the rest--why I -was beaten." - -"It would be better not," she stated. "You ought to be as calm as -possible. It may quiet you, Jason, to hear that I know now." - -"You know what the town has been saying," he cried in bitter revolt, -"what lies Thomas Gast spread. You've heard all the envy and malice -and drunken vileness of sots. It isn't right for you to think you know -before I could speak a word of defense." - -"Not only what the town says, Jason," she replied simply, "but the -truth. Olive Stanes told me." - -"Then----." An excited weakness broke his voice in a sob, and Honora -rose, crossing the room to his bed. "You must positively stop talking of -this now," she directed. "If you attempt it I shall go away and send a -nurse." - -He was helpless against her will, and sank into semi-slumberous wonder. -Honora knew all: Olive Stanes had told her. She was as noncommittal, he -complained to himself, as a wooden Indian. She might have excused him -without a second thought, and it might be that she had finished with him -entirely, that she was merely dispensing a charity and duty; and, moving -uneasily, or lying propped up in a temporary release from suffering, he -would study her every movement in an endeavor to gain her all-important -opinion of him as he had been lately revealed. It was useless; he was -always, Jason felt, in a state of disturbing suspense. - -He determined to end it, however, in spite of what Honora had said, on -an afternoon when he was supported down to the street and the carriage. -His wife took her place at his side, and they rolled forward into the -expansive warmth of summer. Jason was impressed by the sheer repetition -of life; and it seemed to him that this was the greatest happiness -possible--such a procession of days and drives, with Honora. - -Her throat rose delicately from ruffled lace, circled by a narrow black -velvet band with a clasp of remarkable diamonds; and he smiled at the -memory of how he had once thought she was marrying him for money. That -seemed years ago, but he was no nearer the solution of her motive now -than then. Her slim hands were folded in her lap--how beautifully they -were joined at the wrists; her tapering fingers were like ivory. As he -studied them he was startled at their suddenly meeting in a rigid -clasp, the knuckles white and sharp. He looked up and saw that they were -drawing near a small group of men outside the apothecary's shop. - -A curious silence fell upon these as the carriage approached: there were -the two Radlaws, one saturnine and bleak, the other greenish, shattered -by drugs; Thomas Gast; Vleet, the fishing schooner's master, and a -casual, familiar passerby. Jason Burrage stared at them with a stony -ominous countenance, at which Gast made a gesture of combined insolence -and uncertainty. Jason had sunk back on the cushions when he was -astonished by Honora's commanding the coachman to stop. It was evident -that she was about to descend; he put out a hand to restrain her, but -she disregarded him. His astonishment increased to incredulity and then -fear; he rose hurriedly, but relaxed with a mutter of pain. - -Honora, a Canderay, had taken the carriage whip from its holder, and was -walking, direct and composed, toward Thomas Gast. She stopped a short -distance away: before an exclamation, a movement, was possible she had -swept the thong of the whip across Gast's face. The blow was swung -with force, and the man faltered, a burning welt on the pallor of his -countenance. The coachman and Jason Burrage in the carriage, the men -together on the sidewalk, seemed part of an inanimate group of which the -only thing endowed with life was the whip flickering again, cutting and -wrapping, about a face. - -There was a curiously ruthless impersonality about Honora's erect -presence, her icy cold profile. Memories of old stories of Ithiel -Canderay, the necessary salt cruelness of punishment in ships, flashed -through Jason's mind. An intolerable weight of time seemed to drag -upon him. Thomas Gast gave a hoarse gurgle and lurched forward, but the -relentless lash drove him back. - -"You whisperer!" Honora said in her ringing voice, "you liar and -slabbering coward! It's necessary to cut the truth out of you. When you -talk again about Mr. Burrage and the man he shot in California don't -leave out the smallest detail of his exoneration. Say that he had been -robbed, the other broke one of the first laws of miners and should have -been killed. You'd not have done it--a knife in the back would be your -thought--but a man would!" - -She flung the whip down on the bricks. - -Thomas Gast pressed his hands to his face, and slow red stains widened -through his fingers. The apothecary stood transfixed; his brother -was shaking in a febrile and congested horror. The woman turned -disdainfully, moving to the carriage; the coachman descended and offered -his arm as she mounted to the seat. The reins were drawn and the horses -started forward in a walk. - -Honora's gaze was set, looking directly ahead; her hands, in her lap of -flowered muslin, were now relaxed; they gave an impression of crushing -weariness. Jason's heart pounded like a forge hammer; a tremendous -realization was forced into his brain--he need never again question why -Honora had married him; his doubts were answered, stopped, for ever. -He turned to her to speak an insignificant part of his measureless -gratitude, but he was choked, blinded, by a passion of honor and homage. - -Her gaze sought him, and there was a faint tremor of her lips; it grew -into the shadow of an ironic smile. Suddenly it was borne upon his new, -acquiescent serenity that Honora would always be a Canderay for him, he -must perpetually think of her in the terms of his early habit; she would -eternally be a little beyond him, a being to approach, to attend, with -ceremony. The memory and sweep of all California, the pageant of life -he had seen on the way, his own boasted success and importance, faded -before the solid fact of Honora's commanding heritage in life, in -Cottarsport. - - - - - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Dark Fleece, by Joseph Hergesheimer - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DARK FLEECE *** - -***** This file should be named 51928-8.txt or 51928-8.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/1/9/2/51928/ - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by Google Books - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - -Title: The Dark Fleece - -Author: Joseph Hergesheimer - -Release Date: May 1, 2016 [EBook #51928] -Last Updated: March 12, 2018 - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DARK FLEECE *** - - - - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by Google Books - - - - - - -</pre> - - <div style="height: 8em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h1> - THE DARK FLEECE - </h1> - <h2> - By Joseph Hergesheimer - </h2> - <h4> - New York Alfred A. Knopf - </h4> - <h3> - 1922 - </h3> - <blockquote> - <p> - Published, April, 1918, in a volume now out of print, entitled “Gold and - Iron,” and then reprinted twice. - </p> - </blockquote> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> OLIVE </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> HONORA </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> JASON </a> - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - OLIVE - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HE house in old - Cottarsport in which Olive Stanes lived was set midway on the steepness of - Orange Street. It was a low dwelling of weathered boards holding close to - the rocky soil, resembling, like practically all the Cottarsport - buildings, the salt weed clinging to the seaward rocks of the harbor; and - Orange Street, narrow, without walks, and dipping into cuplike - depressions, was a type of almost all the streets. The Stanes house was - built with its gable to the public way; the length faced a granite - shoulder thrust up through the spare earth, a tall, weedy disorder of - golden glow, and the sedgy incline to the habitation above. - </p> - <p> - When Hester and Jem and then Rhoda were little they had had great joy of - the boulder in the side yard: it was for them first impossible and then - difficult of accomplishment; but they had rapidly grown into a complete - mastery of its potentialities as a fort, a mansion impressive as that of - the Canderays' on Regent Street, and a ship under the dangerous shore of - the Feejees. Olive, the solitary child of Ira Stanes' first marriage, had - had no such reckless pleasure from the rock—— - </p> - <p> - She had been, she realized, standing in the narrow portico that commanded - by two steps the uneven flagging from the street, a very careful, yes, - considerate, child when measured by the gay irresponsibility of her half - brother and sisters. Money had been no more plentiful in the Stanes - family, nor in all Cottarsport, then than now; her dresses had been few, - she had been told not to soil or tear them, and she had rigorously - attended the instruction. - </p> - <p> - The second Mrs. Stanes, otherwise an admirable wife and mother, had, to - Olive's young disapproval, rather encouraged a boisterous conduct in her - children which overlooked a complete cleanliness or tidy array. And when - she, like her predecessor, had died, and left Olive at twenty-three to - assume full maternal responsibilities, that serious vicarious parent had - entered into an inevitable and largely unavailing struggle against the - minor damage caused mostly by the activities about the boulder. - </p> - <p> - Now Hester and Rhoda had left behind such purely imaginative games, and - Jem was away fishing on the Georges Bank; her duty and worries had - shifted, but not lessened; while the rock remained precisely as it had - been through the children's growth, as it had appeared in her own earliest - memories, as it was before ever the Stanes dwelling, now a hundred and - fifty years in place, or old Cottarsport itself, had been dreamed of. Her - thoughts were mixed: at once they created a vague parallel between the - granite in the side yard and herself, Olive Stanes—they both seemed - to have been so long in one spot, so unchanged; and they dwelt on the fact - that soon—as soon as Jason Burrage got home—she must be - utterly different. - </p> - <p> - Jason had written her that, if they cared to, they could build a house as - large as the Canderays'. Under the circumstances she had been obliged to - look on that as, perhaps, an excusable exaggeration, though she - instinctively condemned the dereliction of the truth; yet, more than any - other figure could possibly have done, it impressed upon her, from the - boldness of the imagery, that Jason had succeeded in finding the gold for - which he had gone in search nine years before. He was coming back, soon, - rich. - </p> - <p> - The other important fact reiterated in his last letter, that in all his - absent years of struggle he had never faltered in his purpose of coming to - her with any fortune he might chance to get, she regarded with scant - thought. It had not occurred to Olive that Jason Burrage would do anything - else; her only concern had been that he might be killed; otherwise he had - said that he loved her, and that they were to marry when he returned. - </p> - <p> - She hadn't, really, been in favor of his going. The Burrages, measured by - Cottarsport standards, were comfortably situated—Mr. Burrage's - packing warehouse and employment in dried fish were locally called - successful—but Jason had never been satisfied with familiar values; - he had always exclaimed against the narrowness of his local circumstance, - and restlessly reached toward greater possessions and a wider horizon. - This dissatisfaction Olive had thought wicked, in that it had seemed to - criticize the omnipotent and far-seeing wisdom of the Eternal; it had - caused her much unhappiness and prayer, she had talked very earnestly to - Jason about his stubborn spirit, but it had persisted in him, and at last - carried him west in the first madness of the discovery of gold in a - California river. - </p> - <p> - Olive, at times, thought that Jason's revolt had been brought about by the - visible example of the worldly pomp of the Canderays—of their great - white house with the balustraded captain's walk on the gambreled roof, - their chaise, and equable but slightly disconcerting courtesy. But she had - been obliged to admit that, after all was said, Jason's bearing was the - result of his own fretful heart. - </p> - <p> - He had always been different from the other Cottarsport youths and men: - while they were commonly long and bony, and awkwardly hung together, - thickly tanned by the winds and sun and spray of the sea, Jason was small, - compact, with dead black hair and pale skin. Mr. Burrage, who resembled a - worn and discolored piece of driftwood, was the usual Cottarsport old man; - but his wife, not conspicuously out of the ordinary, still had a snap in - her unfading eyes, a ruddy roundness of cheek, that showed a lingering - trace of a French Acadian intermarriage a century and more ago. - </p> - <p> - Olive always regarded with something like surprise her unquestioned love - for Jason. It had grown quietly, unknown to her, through a number of - preliminary years in which she had felt that she must exert some influence - for his good. He frightened her a little by his hot utterances and by the - manner in which his soul shivered on the verge of a righteous damnation. - The effort to preserve him from such destruction became intenser and more - involved; until suddenly, to her later consternation, she had surrendered - her lips in a single, binding kiss. - </p> - <p> - But with that consummation a great deal of her troubling had ceased; - spiritual vision, she had been certain, must follow their sacred union and - subsequent life. Even the gold agitation and Jason's departure for Boston - and the western wild had not given her especial concern. God was the - supreme Master of human fate, and if He willed for Jason to go forth, who - was she, Olive Stanes, to make a to-do? She had quietly addressed herself - to the task of Hester, Jem, and Rhoda, to the ordering of her father's - household—he was mostly away on the sea and a solitary man at home—and - the formal recurrence of the occasions of the church. - </p> - <p> - In such ways, she thought, bathed in the keen, pale red glow of a late - afternoon in October, her youth had slipped imperceptibly away. - </p> - <p> - A strong salt wind dipped into the hollow, and plastered her skirt, - without hoops, against her erect, thin person. With the instinct, bred by - the sea, of the presence in all calculations of the weather, she - mechanically dwelt on its force and direction, wrinkling her forehead and - pinching her lips—she could hear the rising wind straining through - the elms on the hills behind Cottarsport—and then she turned - abruptly and entered the house. - </p> - <p> - There was a small dark hallway within, a narrow flight of stairs leading - sharply up; the door on the right, to the formal chamber, was closed; but - at the left an interior of somber scrubbed wood was visible. On the side - against the hall a cavernous fireplace, with a brick hearth, blackened - with shadows and the soot of ancient fires, had been left open, but held - an air-tight sheet-iron stove. The windows, high on the walls, were small - and long, rather than deep; and a table, perpetually spread, stood on a - thick hooked rug of brilliant, primitive design. - </p> - <p> - Rhoda, in a creaking birch rocker, was singing an inarticulated song with - closed eyes. Her voice, giving the impression of being subdued, filled the - room with its vibrant power. She had a mature face for sixteen years, - vividly colored and sensitive, a wide mouth, and heavy twists of russet - hair with metallic lights. The song stopped as Olive entered. Rhoda said: - </p> - <p> - “I wish Hester would hurry home; I'm dreadful hungry.” - </p> - <p> - “Sometimes they keep her at the packing house, especially if there's a - boat in late and extra work.” - </p> - <p> - “It's not very smart of her without being paid more. They'll just put - anything on you they can in this stingy place. I can tell you I wouldn't - do two men's work for a woman's pay. I'm awful glad Jason's coming back - soon, Olive, with all that money, and I can go to Boston and study - singing.” - </p> - <p> - “I've said over and over, Rhoda,” Olive replied patiently, “that you - mustn't think and talk all the time about Jason's worldly success. It - doesn't sound nice, but like we were all trying to get everything we could - out of him before ever he's here.” - </p> - <p> - “Didn't he say in the last letter that I was to go to Boston?” Rhoda - exclaimed impatiently. “Didn't he just up and tell me that? Why, with all - the gold Jason's got it won't mean anything for him to send me away. It - isn't as if I wouldn't pay you all back for the trouble I've been. I know - I can sing, and I'll work harder than ever Hester dreamed of——” - </p> - <p> - As if materialized by the pronunciation of her name, the latter entered - the room. “Gracious, Hester,” Rhoda declared distastefully, making a nose, - “you smell of dead haddock right this minute.” Hester, unlike Rhoda's - softly rounded proportions, was more bony than Olive, infinitely more - colorless, although ten years the younger. She had a black worsted scarf - over her drab head in place of a hat, its ends wrapped about her meager - shoulders and bombazine waist. Without preliminary she dropped into her - place at the supper table, the shawl trailing on the broad, uneven boards - of the floor. - </p> - <p> - “The wind's smartening up on the bay,” she told them. “Captain Eagleston - looks for half a blow. It has got cold, too. I wish the tea'd be ready - when I get in from the packing house. It seems that much could be done, - with Olive only sitting around and Rhoda singing to herself in the mirror - on her dresser.” - </p> - <p> - “It'll draw in a minute more,” Olive said in the door from the kitchen, - beyond the fireplace. Rhoda smiled cheerfully. - </p> - <p> - “I suppose,” Hester went on, in a voice without emphasis that yet - contrived to be thinly bitter, “you were all talking about what would - happen when Jason came home with that fortune of his. Far as I can see - he's promised and provided for everybody, Jem and Rhoda and his parents - and Olive, every Tom and Noddy, but me.” - </p> - <p> - “I don't like to keep on about it,” Olive protested, pained. “Yet you - can't see, Hester, how independent you are. A person wouldn't like to - offer you anything until you had signified. You were never very nice with - Jason anyway.” - </p> - <p> - “Well, I'm not going to be nicer after he's back with gold in his pocket. - I guess he'll find I'm not hanging on his shoulder for a cashmere dress or - a trip to Boston.” - </p> - <p> - “Pa ought to get into Salem soon,” Rhoda observed. “He said after this he - wasn't going to ship again, even along the coast, but tally fish for Mr. - Burrage. Pa's getting old.” - </p> - <p> - “And Jem'll be home from the Georges, too,” Olive added, seating herself - with the tea. “I do hope he won't sign for China or any of those long - voyages like he threatened.” - </p> - <p> - “He won't get so far away from Jason,” Hester stated. - </p> - <p> - “I saw Honora Canderay today,” Rhoda informed them. “She wasn't in the - carriage, but walking past the courthouse. She had on a small bonnet with - flowers inside the brim and skimpy hoops, gallooned and scalloped.” - </p> - <p> - “Did she stop?” Olive inquired. - </p> - <p> - “Yes, and said I was as bright as a fall maple leaf. I wish I could look - like Honora Canderay——-” - </p> - <p> - “Wait till Jason's back,” Hester interrupted. - </p> - <p> - “It isn't her clothes,” Rhoda went on; “they're elegant material, of - course, but not the colors I'd choose; nor it isn't her looks, either, no - one would say she's downright pretty; it's just—just her. Is she as - old as you, Olive?” - </p> - <p> - “Let's see, I'm thirty-six, and Honora Canderay was... she's near as old, - a year younger maybe.” - </p> - <p> - “She is wonderful to get close to,” said Rhoda, “no cologne and yet a - lovely kind of smell——” - </p> - <p> - “Not like dead haddock.” This was Hester again. - </p> - <p> - “Do you know,” proceeded the younger, “she seemed to me kind of lonely. I - wanted to give her a hug, but I wouldn't have for all the gold in - California. I can't make out if she is freezing outside and nice in, or - just polite and thinks nobody's good enough for her. She had an India - shawl as big as a sail, with palm leaf ends, and——” - </p> - <p> - “Rhoda, I wish you wouldn't put so much on clothes and such corruption.” - Olive spoke firmly, with a light of zeal in her gaze. “Can't you think on - the eternities?” - </p> - <p> - “Like Jason Burrage and Honora Canderay,” explained Hester; “Honora - Canderay and Jason Burrage. They're eternities if there ever were any. If - it isn't one it's bound to be the other.” - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <p> - Olive's room had a sloping outer wall and casually placed insufficient - windows; her bed, with a blue-white quilt, was supported by heavy maple - posts; there were a chest of drawers, with a minute mirror stand, a - utilitarian wash-pitcher and basin, a hanging for the protection of her - clothes, and uncompromising chairs. A small circular table with a tatted - cover held her Bible and a devotional book, “The Family Companion, by a - Pastor.” It was cold when she went up to bed; with a desire to linger in - her preparations, she put some resinous sticks of wood into a sheet-iron - stove, and almost immediately there was a busily exploding combustion. A - glass lamp on the chest of drawers shed a pale illumination that failed to - reach the confines of the room; and, for a while, she moved in and out of - its wan influence. - </p> - <p> - She was thinking fixedly about Jason Burrage, and the great impending - change in her condition, not in its worldly implications—she thought - mostly of material values in the spirit of her admonitions to Rhoda—but - in its personal and inner force. At times a pale question of her aptitude - for marriage disturbed her serenity; at times she saw it as a sacrifice of - her being to a condition commanded of God, a species of martyrdom even. - The nine years of Jason's absence had fixed certain maidenly habits of - privacy; the mold of her life had taken a definite cast. Her existence had - its routine, the recurrence of Sunday, its contemplations, duties, and - heavenly aim. And, lately, Jason's letters had disturbed her. - </p> - <p> - They seemed filled with an almost wicked pride and a disconcerting energy; - he spoke of things instinctively distressing to her; there were hints of - rude, Godless force and gaiety—allusions to the Jenny Lind Theatre, - the El Dorado, which she apprehended as a name of evil import, and to the - excursions they would make to Boston or as far as New York. - </p> - <p> - Jason, too, she realized, must have developed; and California, she feared, - might have emphasized exactly such traits as she would wish suppressed. - The power of self-destruction in the human heart she believed - immeasurable. All, all, must throw themselves in abject humility upward - upon the Rock of Salvation. And she could find nothing humble in Jason's - periods, burdened as they were with a patent satisfaction in the success - of his venture. - </p> - <p> - Yet parallel with this was a gladness that he had triumphed, and that he - was coming back to Cottarsport a figure of importance. She could measure - that by the attitude of their town, by the number and standing of the - people who cordially stopped her on the street for the purposes of - congratulation and curiosity. Every one, of course, had known of their - engagement; there had been a marked interest when Jason and a fellow - townsman, Thomas Gast, had departed; but that would be insignificant - compared to the permanent bulk Jason must now assume. Why he and the - Canderays would be Cottarsport's most considerable people. - </p> - <p> - As always, at the merest thought of the Canderays, personal facts were - suspended for a mental glance at that separate family. There was no sense - of inferiority in Olive's mind, but an instinctive feeling of difference. - This wasn't the result of their big house, nor because the Captain's wife - had been a member of Boston society, but resided in the contrariness of - the family itself, now centered in Honora, the only one alive. - </p> - <p> - Perhaps Honora's diversity lay in the fact that, while she seldom actually - left Cottarsport, it was easy to see that she had a part in a life far - beyond anything Olive, whose consciousness was strictly limited to one - narrow place, knew. She always suggested a wider and more elegantly - finished existence than that of local sociables and church activities. - Captain Ithiel Canderay, a member of a Cottarsport family long since moved - away, had, from obscure surprising promptings, returned at his successful - retirement from the sea, and built his impressive dwelling in the grey - community. He had always, however different the tradition of his wife's - attitude, entered with a candid spirit into the interests and life of the - town, where he had inspired solid confidence in a domineering but - unimpeachable integrity. Such small civic honors as the locality had to - bestow were his, and were discharged to the last and most exacting degree. - But there had been perpetually about him the aloof air of the - quarter-deck, his tones had never lost the accent of command; and, while - Cottarsport bitterly guarded its personal equality and independence, it - took a certain pride in a recognition of the Captain's authority. - </p> - <p> - Something of this had unquestionably descended upon Honora; her position - was made and zealously guarded by the town. Yet that alone failed to hold - the reason for Olive's feeling; it was at once more particular and more - all-embracing, and largely feminine. She was almost contemptuous of the - other's delicacy of person, of the celebrated fact that Honora Canderay - never turned her hand to the cooking of a dish or the sweeping of a stair; - and at the same time these very things lifted her apart from Olive's - commonplace round. - </p> - <p> - Her mind turned again to herself and Jason's home-coming. He had been - wonderfully generous in his written promises to Rhoda and Jem; and he - would be equally thoughtful of Hester, she was certain of that. People had - a way of overlooking Hester, a faithful and, for all her talk, a Christian - character. Rhoda would study to be a singer; striving, Olive hoped, to put - what talent she had to a sanctioned use; and Jem, a remarkably vigorous - and able boy of eighteen, would command his own fishing schooner. - </p> - <p> - The sheet-iron stove glowed cherry red with the energy of its heat, and a - blast of wind rushed against the windows. The wind, she recognized, had - steadily grown in force; and Olive thought of her father in the barque <i>Emerald</i> - of Salem, somewhere between Richmond and the home port.... The lamplight - swelled and diminished. - </p> - <p> - She got a new pleasure from the conjunction of her surrender to matrimony - and the good it would bring the others; that—self-sacrifice—was - excellence; such subjection of the pride of the flesh was the essence of - her service. Then some mundane affairs invaded her mind: a wedding dress, - the preparation of food for a small company after the ceremony, whether - she should like having a servant. Jason would insist on that; and there - she decided in the negative. She wouldn't be put upon in her own kitchen. - </p> - <p> - Her arrangements for the night were complete, and she set the stove door - slightly open, shivering in her coarse night dress before the icy cold - drifts of wind in the room, extinguished the lamp, and, after long, - conscientiously deliberate prayers, got into bed. The wind boomed about - the house, rattling all the sashes. Its force now seemed to be buffeting - her heart until she got a measure of release from the thought of the - granite boulder in the side yard, changeless and immovable. - </p> - <p> - The morning was gusty, with a coldly blue and cloudless sky. Olive, - reaching the top of Orange Street, was whipped with dust, her hoops - flattened grotesquely against her body. The town fell away on either hand, - lying in a half moon on its harbor. The latter, as blue and bright as the - sky, was formed by the rocky arm of Cottar's Neck, thrust out into the sea - and bent from right to left. Most of the fishing fleet showed their bare - spars at the wharves, but one, a minute fleck of white canvas, was beating - her way through the Narrows. She wondered, descending, if it were Jem - coming home. - </p> - <p> - Olive was going to the Burrages'; it was possible that they had had a - later letter than hers from Jason. It might be he would arrive that very - day. She was conscious of her heart throbbing slightly at this - possibility, but from a complexity of emotions which still left her uneasy - if faintly exhilarated. She crossed the courthouse square, where she saw - that the green grass had become brown, apparently over night, and turned - into Marlboro Street. Here the houses were more recent than the Staneses'; - they were four square, with a full second story—a series of detached - white blocks with flat porticoes—each set behind a wood fence in a - lawn with flower borders or twisted and tree-like lilacs. - </p> - <p> - She entered the Burrage dwelling without the formality of knocking; and, - familiar with the household, passed directly through a narrow, darkened - hall, on which all the doors were closed, to the dining room and kitchen - beyond. As she had known he would be, Hazzard Burrage was seated with his - feet, in lamb's wool slippers, thrust under the stove. For the rest, but - lacking his coat, he was formally and completely dressed; his corded - throat was folded in a formal black stock, a watch chain and seal hung - across his waistcoat. Mrs. Burrage was occupied in lining a cupboard with - fresh shelf paper with a cut lace border. She was a small woman, with - quick exact movements and an impatient utterance; but her husband was slow—a - man who deliberately studied the world with a deep-set gaze. - </p> - <p> - “I thought you might have heard,” Olive stated directly, on the edge of a - painted split-hickory chair. They hadn't, Mrs. Burrage informed her: “I - expect he'll just come walking in. That's the way he always did things, - and I guess California, or anywhere else, won't change him to notice it. - And when he does,” she continued, “he's going to be put out with Hazzard. - I told you Jason sent us three thousand dollars to get the front of the - house fixed up. He said he didn't want to find his father sitting in the - kitchen when he got back. Jason said we were to burn three or four stoves - all at once. But he won't, and that's all there is to it. Why, he just put - the money in the bank and there it lies. I read him the parable about the - talents, but it didn't stir him an inch.” - </p> - <p> - “Jason always was quick acting,” Hazzard Burrage declared; “he never - stopped to consider; and it's as like as not he'll need that money. It - wouldn't surprise me if when he sat down and counted what he had Jason'd - find it was less than he thought.” - </p> - <p> - “He wrote me,” Olive stated, “that we could build a house as big as the - Canderays'.” - </p> - <p> - “Jason always was one to talk,” Mrs. Burrage replied in defense of her - son. - </p> - <p> - Olive moved over to the older woman and held the dishes to be replaced in - the cupboard. They commented on the force of the wind throughout the - night. “The tail end of a blow at sea,” Bur-rage told them; “I wouldn't - wonder but it reached right down to the West Indies.” - </p> - <p> - “I hope he brings me a grey satinet pelerine like I wrote,” said Mrs. - Burrage. She was obviously flushed at the thought of the possession of - such a garment—a fact which Olive felt, at the other's age, to be - inappropriate to the not distant solemnity of the Christian ordeal of - death. She repeated automatically: “... turn from these vanities unto the - living God.” She rose: - </p> - <p> - “I'll let you know if I hear anything, and anyhow stop in tomorrow.” - </p> - <p> - Outside, sere leaves were whirling in grey funnels of dust, the intense - blue bay sparkled under the cobalt sky; and, leaving Marlboro Street with - a hand on her bonnet, she ran directly into Honora Canderay. - </p> - <p> - “Oh!” Olive exclaimed, breathless and slightly concerned. “Indeed if I saw - you, Honora; the wind was that strong pulling at a person.” - </p> - <p> - “What does it matter?” Honora replied. She was wrapped from throat to hem - in a cinnamon colored velvet cloak that, fluttering, showed a lining of - soft, quilted yellow. In the flood of morning her skin was flawless; her - delicate lips and hazel eyes held the faint mockery that was the visible - sign of her disturbing quality. She laid a hand, in a short, furred kid - glove, on Olive's arm. - </p> - <p> - “I am so pleased about Jason's success,” she continued, in a clear - insistent voice. “You must be mad with anxiety to have him back. It's the - most romantic thing in the world. Aren't you thrilled to the soul?” - </p> - <p> - “I'm glad to—to know he's been preserved,” Olive stammered, confused - by Honora's frank speech. - </p> - <p> - “You sound exactly as if he were a jar of quinces,” the other answered - impatiently; “and not a true lover coming back from California with bags - of gold.” - </p> - <p> - Olive's confusion deepened to painful embarrassment at the indelicate term - lover. She wondered, hotly red, how Honora could go on so, and made a - motion to continue on her way. But the other's fingers closed and held - her. “I wonder, Olive,” she said more thoughtfully, “if I know you well - enough, if you will allow me, to give you some advice. It is this—don't - be too rigid with Jason when he gets back. For nearly ten years he's been - out in a life very different from Cottarsport, and he must have changed in - that time. Here we stay almost the same—ten or twenty or fifty years - is nothing really. The fishing boats come in, they may have different - names, but they are the same. We stop and talk, Honora Canderay and Olive - Stanes, and years before and years later women will stand here and do the - same with beliefs no wider than your finger. But it isn't like that - outside; and Jason will have that advantage of us—things really very - small, but which have always seemed tremendous here, will mean no more to - him than they are worth. He will be careless, perhaps, of your most - cherished ideas; and, if you are to meet him fairly, you must try to see - through his eyes as well as your own. Truly I want you to be happy, Olive; - I want every one in Cottarsport to be as happy... as they can.” - </p> - <p> - Olive's embarrassment increased: it was impossible to know what Honora - Canderay meant by her last words, in that echoing voice. Nevertheless, her - independence of spirit, the long nourished tenets of the abhorrence of - sin, asserted themselves in the face of even Honora's directions. “I - trust,” she replied stiffly, “that Jason has been given grace to walk in - the path of God——” She stopped with lips parted, her breath - laboring with shock, at the interruption pronounced in ringing accents. - Honora Canderay said: - </p> - <p> - “Grace be damned!” - </p> - <p> - Olive backed away with her hands pressed to her cheeks. In the midst of - her shuddering surprise she realized how much the other resembled her - father, the captain. - </p> - <p> - “I suppose,” Honora further ventured, “that you are looking for a bolt of - lightning, but it is late in the season for that. There are no thunder - storms to speak of after September.” She turned abruptly, and Olive - watched her depart, gracefully swaying against the wind. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <p> - All Olive's unformed opinions and attitude concerning Honora Canderay - crystallized into one sharp, intelligible feeling—dislike. The - breadth of being which the other had seemed to possess was now revealed as - nothing more than a lack of reverence. She was inexpressibly upset by - Honora's profanity, the blasphemous mind it exhibited, her attempted - glossing of sin. It was nothing less. In the assault on Olive's most - fundamental verities—the contempt which, she divined, had been - offered to the edifice of her conscience and creed—she responded - blindly, instinctively, with an overwhelming condemnation. At the same - time she was frightened, and hurried away from the proximity of such - unsanctified talk. She did not go to Citron Street, and the shops, as she - had intended; but kept directly on until she found herself at the harbor - and wharves. The latter serrated the water's edge, projecting from the - relatively tall, bald warehouses, reeking with the odor of dead fish, cut - open and laid in salt, grey-white areas to the sun and wind. - </p> - <p> - A small group of men, with flat bronzed countenances and rough furze - coats, uneasily stirred their hats, in the local manner of saluting women, - and turned to gaze fixedly at her as she passed. Even in her perturbation - of mind she was conscious of their unusual scrutiny. She couldn't, now, - for the life of her, recall what needed to be bought; and, mounting the - narrow uneven way from the water, she proceeded home. - </p> - <p> - Some towels, laid on the boulder to dry, had not been sufficiently - weighted, and hung blown and crumpled on a lilac bush. These she - collected, rearranged, complaining of the blindness of whoever might be - about the house, and then proceeded within. There, to her amazement, she - found Hester, in the middle of the morning, and Rhoda bent over the dinner - table, sobbing into her arm. Hester met her with a drawn face darkly - smudged beneath the eyes. - </p> - <p> - “The <i>Emerald</i> was lost off the Cape,” she said; “sunk with all on - board. A man came over from Salem to tell us. He had to go right back. Pa, - he's lost.” - </p> - <p> - Olive sank into a chair with limp hands. Rhoda continued uninterrupted her - sobbing, while Hester went on with her recital in a thin, blank voice. - “The ship <i>J. Q. Adams</i> stood by the <i>Emerald</i>, but there was - such a sea running she couldn't do anything else. They just had to see the - <i>Emerald</i>, with the men in the rigging, go under. That's what he said - who was here. They just had to see Pa drown before their eyes.... The wind - was something terrible.” - </p> - <p> - A deep, dry sorrow constricted Olive's, heart. Suddenly the details of - packing her father's blue sea chest returned to her mind—the wool - socks she had knitted and carefully folded in the bottom, the needles and - emery and thread stowed in their scarlet bag, the tin of goose grease for - his throat, the Bible that had been shipped so often. She thought of them - all scattered and rent in the wild sea, of her father—— - </p> - <p> - She forced herself to rise, with a set face, and put her hand on Rhoda's - shoulder. “It's right to mourn, like Rachel, but don't forget the majesty - of God.” Rhoda shook off her palm and continued in an ecstasy of emotional - relief. Olive hardened. “Get up,” she commanded; “we must fix things here, - for the neighbors and Pastor will be in. I wish Jem were back.” - </p> - <p> - At this Rhoda became even more unrestrained, and Olive remembered that Jem - too was at sea, and that probably he had been caught in the same gale. - “He'll be all right,” she added quickly; “the fishing boats live through - everything.” - </p> - <p> - Yet she was infinitely relieved when, two days later, Jem arrived safely - home. He came into the house with a pounding of heavy boots, a powerfully - built youth with a rugged jaw and an intent quiet gaze. “I heard at the - wharf,” he told Olive. They were in the kitchen, and he pulled off his - boots and set them away from the stove. - </p> - <p> - “I'm thankful you're so steady and able,” she said. - </p> - <p> - “I am glad Jason's coming home—rich,” he replied tersely. Later, - after supper, while they still sat at the table, he went on, “There is a - fine yawl for sale at Ipswich, sails ain't been made a year, fifty-five - tons; I could do right good with that. The fishing's never been better. Do - you think Jason would be content to buy her, Olive? I could pay him back - after a run or two.” - </p> - <p> - “He told you he'd do something like that,” she answered. “I guess now it - wouldn't mean much to him.” - </p> - <p> - “And I'll be away,” Rhoda eagerly added; “you wouldn't have to give me - anything, Jem. Jason promised me, too.” - </p> - <p> - An unreasonable and disturbing sense of insecurity enveloped Olive. But, - of course, it would be all right—Jason was coming back rich, to - marry her. Jem would have the yawl and Rhoda get away to study singing. - And yet all that she vaguely dreaded about Jason himself persisted darkly - at the back of her consciousness, augmented by Honora Canderay's warning. - She was a little afraid of Jason, too; in a way, after so long, he seemed - like a stranger, a stranger whom she was going to wed. - </p> - <p> - “He'll be all dressed up,” Rhoda stated. “I hope, Olive, you will kiss him - as soon as he steps through the door. I know I would.” - </p> - <p> - “Don't be so shameless, Rhoda,” the elder admonished her. “You are very - indelicate. I'd never think of kissing Jason like that.” - </p> - <p> - “I will go over and see the man who owns her,” Jem said enigmatically. - “She's a cockpit boat, but I heard the wave wasn't made that could fill - her. And we have my share of the last run till Jason's here.” - </p> - <p> - He paid this faithfully into Olive's hand the next day and then - disappeared. She thought he came through the door again: someone stood - behind her. Olive turned slowly and saw an impressive figure in stiff - black broadcloth and an incredibly high glassy silk hat. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <p> - She knew instinctively that it must be Jason Burrage, and yet the feeling - of strangeness persisted. All sense of the time which had elapsed since - Jason went was lost in the illusion that the figure familiar to her - through years of knowledge and association had instantly, by a species of - magic, been transformed into the slightly smiling, elaborate man in the - doorway. She stepped backward, hesitatingly pronouncing his name. - </p> - <p> - “Olive,” he exclaimed, with a deep, satisfied breath, “it hasn't changed a - particle!” To her extreme relief he did not make a move to embrace her; - but gazed intently about the room. One of the things that made him seem - different, she realized, was the rim of whiskers framing his lower face. - She became conscious of details of his appearance—baggy dove-colored - trousers over glazed boots, a quince yellow waistcoat in diamond pattern, - a cluster of seals. Then her attention was held by his countenance, and - she saw that his clothes were only an insignificant part of his real - difference from the man she had known. - </p> - <p> - Jason Burrage had always had a set will, the reputation of an impatient, - even ugly disposition. This had been marked by a sultry lip and flickering - eye; but now, though his expression was noticeably quieter, it gave her - the impression of a glittering and dangerous reserve; his masklike calm - was totally other than the mobile face she had known. Then, too, he had - grown much older—she swiftly computed his age: it could not be more - than forty-two, yet his hair was thickly stained with grey, lines starred - the comers of his eyes and drew faintly at his mouth. - </p> - <p> - “Are you glad to see me, Olive?” he asked. - </p> - <p> - “Why, Jason, what an unnecessary question. Of course I am, more thankful - than I can say for your safety.” - </p> - <p> - “I walked across the hills from the Dumner stage,” he proceeded. “It was - something to see Cottarsport on its bay and the Neck and the fishing boats - at Planger's wharf. I'd like to have an ounce of gold for every time I - thought about it and pictured it and you. Out on the placers of the - Calaveras, or the Feather, I got to believing there wasn't any such town, - but here it is.” He advanced toward her; she realized that she was about - to be kissed, and a painful color dyed her cheeks. - </p> - <p> - “You'll stop for supper,” she said practically. - </p> - <p> - “I haven't been home yet, I came right here; I'll see them and be back. - I'll bet I find them in the kitchen, with the front stoves cold, in spite - of what I wrote and sent. I brought you a present, just for fun, and I'll - leave it now, since it's heavy.” He bent over a satchel at his feet and - got a buckskin bag, bigger than his two fists, which he dropped with a - dull thud on the table. - </p> - <p> - “What is it, Jason?” she asked. But of herself she knew the answer. He - untied a string, and, dipping in his fingers, showed her a fine yellow - metallic trickle. “Gold dust, two tumblers full,” he replied. “We used to - measure it that way—a pinch a dollar, teaspoonful to the ounce, a - wineglass holds a hundred, and a tumbler a thousand dollars.” - </p> - <p> - She was breathless before the small shapeless pouch that held such a - staggering amount. He laughed. “Why, Olive, it's nothing at all. I just - brought it like that so you could see how we carried it in California. We - are all rich now, Olive—the Burrages, and you're one, and the - Staneses. I have close to a hundred and fifty thousand dollars.” - </p> - <p> - This sum was little more to her than a fable, a thing beyond the scope of - her comprehension; but the two thousand dollars before her gaze was a - miracle made manifest. There it was to study, feel; subconsciously she - inserted her hand in the bag, into the cold, smooth particles. - </p> - <p> - “A hundred and fifty thousand,” he repeated; “but if you think I didn't - work for it, if you suppose I picked it right out of a pan on the river - bars, why—why, you are wrong.” Words failed him to express the - erroneousness of such conclusions. “I slaved like a Mexican,” he added; - “and in bad luck almost to the end.” She sat and gazed at him with an - easier air and a growing interest, her hands clasped in her lap. “What I - didn't know when I left Cottarsport was wonderful. - </p> - <p> - “Why, take the mining,” he said with a gesture; “I mean the bowl mining at - first... just the heavy work in it killed off most of the prospectors—all - day with a big iron pan, half full of clay and gravel, sloshing about in - those rivers. And maybe you'd work a month without a glimmer, waking wet - and cold under the sierras, whirling the pan round and round; and maybe - when you had the iron cleared out with a magnet, and dropped in the - quicksilver, what gold was there wouldn't amalgam. I can tell you, Olive, - only the best, or the hardest, came through.” - </p> - <p> - He produced a blunt, tapering cigar and lighted it expansively. - </p> - <p> - “A lonely and dangerous business: every one carried his dust right on his - body, and there were plenty would risk a shot at a miner coming back - solitary with his donkey and his pile. It got better when the new methods - came, and we used a rocker-hollowed out of a log. Then four of us went in - partnership—one to dig the gravel, one to carry it to the cradle, - another to keep it rocking, and the last to pour in the water. Then we - drawed off the gold and sand through a plug hole. - </p> - <p> - “We did fine at that,” he told her, “and in the fall of 'Fifty cleaned up - eighteen thousand apiece. Then we had an argument: we were in the Yuba - country, where it was kind of bad; two of us, and I was one of them, said - to divide the dust, and get out best we could; but the others wanted to - send all the gold to San Francisco in charge of one of them and a man who - was going down with more dust. We finally agreed to this and lost every - ounce we'd mined. The escort said they were shot by some of the disbanded - California army, but I'm not sure. It seemed to me like our two had met - somewhere, killed the other, and got the gold to rights.” - </p> - <p> - “O Jason!” Olive exclaimed. - </p> - <p> - “That was nothing,” he said complacently; “but only a joker to start with. - I did a lot of things then to get a new outfit—sold peanuts on the - Plaza in 'Frisco, or hollered the New York <i>Tribune</i> at a dollar and - a half a copy; I washed glasses in a saloon and drove mules. After that I - took a steamer for Stocton and the Calaveras. You ought to have seen - Stocton, Olive—board shanties and blanket houses and tents, with two - thieves left hanging on a gallows. We went from there, a party of us, for - the north bank of the Calaveras, tramping in dust so hot that it scorched - your face. Sluicing had just started and long Toms—a long Tom is a - short placer—so we didn't know much about it. Looking back I can see - the gold was there; but after working right up to the end of the season we - had no more than a couple of thousand apiece. There were too many of us to - start with. - </p> - <p> - “Well, I drifted back to San Francisco.” He paused, and the expression - which had most disturbed her deepened on his countenance, a stillness like - the marble of a gravestone guarding implacable secrets. - </p> - <p> - “San Francisco is different from Cottarsport, Olive,” he said after a - little. “Here you wouldn't believe there was such a place; and there - Cottarsport seemed too safe to be true... Well, I went after it again, - this time as far north as Shasta. I prospected from the Shasta country - south, and got a good lump together again. By then placer mining was - better understood; we had sluice boxes two or three hundred feet long, - connected with the streams, with strips nailed across the bottom where the - gold and sand settled as the water ran through. Yes, I did well; and then - fluming began. - </p> - <p> - “That,” he explained, “is damming a river around its bed and washing the - opened gravel. It takes a lot of money, a lot of work and men; and - sometimes it pays big, and often it doesn't. I guess there were fifty of - us at it. We slaved all the dry season at the dam and flume, a big wood - course for the stream; we had wing dams for the placers and ditches, and - the best prospects for eight or ten weeks' washing. It was early in - September when we were ready to start, and on a warm afternoon I said to - an old pardner, 'What do you make out of those big, black clouds settling - on the peaks?' He took one look—the wind was a steady and muggy - southwester—and then he sat down and cried. The tears rolled right - over his beard. - </p> - <p> - “It was the rains, nearly two months early, and the next day dams, flume, - boards, and hope boiled down past us in a brown mash. That left me poorer - than I'd ever been before; I had more when I was home on the wharves.” - </p> - <p> - “Wait,” she interrupted him, rising; “if you're coming back to supper I - must put the draught on the stove.” From the kitchen she heard him singing - in a low, contented voice:= - </p> - <p> - "'The pilot bread was in my mouth, - </p> - <p> - The gold dust in my eye, - </p> - <p> - And though from you I'm far away, - </p> - <p> - Dear Anna, don't you cry!'”= - </p> - <p> - Then:= - </p> - <p> - "'Oh, Ann Eliza! - </p> - <p> - Don't you cry for me. - </p> - <p> - I'm going to Calaveras - </p> - <p> - With my wash bowl on my knee.'”= - </p> - <p> - She returned and resumed her position with her hands folded. - </p> - <p> - “And that,” Jason Burrage told her, “was how I learned gold mining in - California. I sank shafts, too, and worked a windlass till the holes got - so deep they had to be timbered and the ore needed a crusher. But after - the fluming I knew what to wait for. I kept going in a sort of commerce - for a while—buying old outfits and selling them again to the late - comers—a pick or shovel would bring ten dollars and long boots fifty - dollars a pair. I got twenty-four dollars for a box of Seidlitz powders. - Then in 'Fifty-four I went in with three scientific men—one had been - a big chemist at Paris—and things took a turn. We had the dead wood - on gold. Why, we did nothing but re-travel the American Fork and Indian - Bar, the Casumnec and Moquelumne, and work the tailings the earlier miners - had piled up and left, just like I had south. We did some pretty things - with cyanide; yes, and hydraulics and powder. - </p> - <p> - “Things took a turn,” he repeated; “investments in stampers and so on, and - here I am.” - </p> - <p> - After he had gone—supper, she had informed him, was at five exactly—Olive - had the bewildered feeling of partially waking from an extraordinary - dream. Yet the buckskin bag on the table possessed a weighty actuality. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <p> - She sat for a long while gazing intently at the gold, which, like a - crystal ball, held for her varied reflections. Then, recalling the - exigencies of the kitchen, she hurried abruptly away. Her thoughts wheeled - about Jason Burrage in a confusion of all the impressions she had ever had - of him. But try as she might she could not picture the present man as a - part of her life in Cottarsport; she could not see herself married to him, - although that event waited just beyond today. She set her lips in a - straight line, a fixed purpose gave her courage in place of the timidity - inspired by Jason's opulent strangeness—she couldn't allow herself - to be turned aside for a moment from the way of righteousness. The gods of - mammon, however they might blackly assault her spirit, should be - confounded.= - </p> - <p> - ”... hide me - </p> - <p> - Till the storm of life is past."= - </p> - <p> - She sang in a high quavering voice. There was a stir beyond—surely - Jason wasn't back so soon; but it was Jem. - </p> - <p> - “What's on the table here?” he called. - </p> - <p> - “You let that be,” she cried back in a panic at having left the gift so - exposed. “That's gold dust; Jason brought it, two thousand dollars' - worth.” - </p> - <p> - A prolonged whistle followed her announcement. Jem appeared with the - buckskin bag in his hand. “Why, here's two yawls right in my hand,” he - asserted. - </p> - <p> - “Mind one thing, Jem,” she went on, “he's coming back for supper, and I - won't have you and Rhoda at him about boats and singing the minute he's in - the house.” - </p> - <p> - Rhoda, with exclamations, and then Hester, inspected the gold. “I'd slave - five years for that,” the latter stated, “and then hardly get it; and here - you, have it for nothing.” - </p> - <p> - “You'll get the good of it too, Hester,” Olive told her. - </p> - <p> - “I'll just work for what I get,” she replied fiercely. “I won't take a - penny from Jason, Olive Stanes; you can't hold that over me, and the - sooner you both know it the better.” - </p> - <p> - “You ought to pray to be saved from pride.” - </p> - <p> - “I don't ask benefits from any one,” Hester stoutly observed. - </p> - <p> - “Hester——” Olive commenced, scandalized, but she stopped at - Jason's entrance. “Hester she wanted a share of the gold,” Jem declared - with a light in his slow gaze, “and Olive was cursing at her.” - </p> - <p> - “Lots more,” said Jason Burrage, “buckets full.” In spite of the efforts - of every one to be completely at ease the supper was unavoidably stiff. - </p> - <p> - But when Jason had lighted one of his blunt cigars, and begun a vivid - description of western life, the Staneses were transported by the marvels - following one upon another: a nugget had been picked up over a foot long, - it weighed a hundred and ninety pounds, and realized forty-three thousand - dollars. “Why, fifty and seventy-five lumps were common,” he asserted. “At - Ford's Bar a man took out seven hundred dollars a day for near a month. - Another found seventeen thousand dollars in a gutter two or three feet - deep and not a hundred yards long. - </p> - <p> - “But 'Frisco was the place; you could see it spread in a day with - warehouses on the water and tents climbing up every hill. Happy Valley, on - the beach, couldn't hold another rag house. The Parker House rented for a - hundred and seventy thousand a year, and most of it paid for gambling - privileges; monté and faro, blazing lights and brass bands everywhere and - dancing in the El Dorado saloon. At first the men danced with each other, - but later——” - </p> - <p> - He stopped; an awkward silence followed. Olive was rigid with inarticulate - protest, a sense of outrage—gambling, saloons, and dancing! All that - she had feared about Jason became more concrete, more imminent. She saw - California as a modern Babylon, a volcano of gold and vice; already she - had heard of great fires that had devastated it. - </p> - <p> - “We didn't mine on Sunday, Olive,” Jason assured her; “and all the boys - went to the preaching and sang the hymns, standing out on the grass.” - </p> - <p> - Hester, finally, with a muttered period, rose and disappeared; Jem went - out to consult with a man, his nod to Olive spoke of yawls; and Rhoda, at - last, reluctantly made her way above. Olive's uneasiness increased when - she found herself alone with the man she was to marry. - </p> - <p> - “I don't like Rhoda and Jem hearing about all that wickedness,” she told - Jason Burrage; “they are young and easy affected. Rhoda gives me a lot of - worry as it is.” - </p> - <p> - “Suppose we forget them,” he suggested. “I haven't had a word with you - yet; that is, about ourselves. I don't even know but you have gone and - fell in love with some one else.” - </p> - <p> - “Jason,” she answered, “how can you? I told you I'd marry you, and I - will.” - </p> - <p> - “Are you glad to see me?” he demanded, coming closer and capturing her - hand. - </p> - <p> - “Why, what a question. Of course I'm pleased you're back and safe.” - </p> - <p> - “You haven't got a headache, have you?” he inquired jocularly. - </p> - <p> - “No,” she replied seriously. His words, his manners, his grasp, worried - her more and more. Still, she reminded herself, she must be patient, - accept life as it had been ordained. There was a slight flutter at her - heart, a constriction of her throat; and she wondered if this were love. - She should, she felt, exhibit more warmth at Jason's return, the - preservation, through such turbulent years of absence, of her image. But - it was beyond her power to force her hand to return his pressure: her - fingers lay still and cool in his grasp. - </p> - <p> - “You are just the same, Olive,” he told her; “and I'm glad you're what you - are, and that Cottarsport is what it is. That's why I came back: it was in - my blood, the old town and you. All the time I kept thinking of when I'd - come back rich as I made up my mind to be, and get you what you ought to - have—be of some importance in Cottarsport, like the Canderays. The - old captain, too, died while I was away. How's Honora?” - </p> - <p> - “Honora Canderay is an ungodly woman,” Olive asserted with emphasis. - </p> - <p> - “I don't know anything about that,” he said; “but I always kind of liked - to look at her. She reminded me of a schooner with everything set coming - up brisk into the wind.” Olive made a motion toward the stove, but he - restrained her; rising, he put in fresh wood. Then he turned and again - seemed lost in a long, contented inspection of the quiet interior. Olive - saw that marks of weariness shadowed his eyes. - </p> - <p> - “This is what I came back for,” he reiterated; “peaceful as the forests, - and yet warm and human. Blood counts.” He returned to his place by her, - and leaned forward, very earnestly. “California isn't real the way this - is,” he told her; “the women were just paint and powder, like things you - would see in a fever, and then you'd wake up, in Cottarsport, well again, - with you, Olive.” - </p> - <p> - She managed to smile at him in acknowledgment of this. - </p> - <p> - “I'm desperately glad I pulled through without many scars. But there are - some, Olive; that was bound to be. I don't know if a man had better say - anything about the past, or just let it be, and go on. Times I think one - and then the other. Yet you are so calm sitting here, and so good, it - would be a big help to tell you... Olive, out on the American, and God - knows how sorry I've been, I killed a man, Olive.” - </p> - <p> - Slowly she felt herself turning icy cold, except for the hot blood rushing - into her head. She stared at him for a moment, horrified; and then - mechanically drew back, scraping the chair across the floor. Perhaps she - hadn't understood, but certainly he had said—— - </p> - <p> - “Wait till I tell what I can for myself,” he hurried on, following her. - “It was when the four of us were working with a rocker. I was shoveling - the gravel, and every one in California knows that when you're doing that, - and find a nugget over half an ounce, it belongs to you personal and not - to the partnership. Well, I came on a big one, and laid it away—they - all saw it—and then this Eddie Lukens hid it out on me. He was the - only one near where I had it; he broke it up and put it in the cradle, - sure; and in the talk that followed I—I shot him.” - </p> - <p> - He laid a detaining hand on her shoulder, but she wrenched herself away. - </p> - <p> - “Don't touch me!” she breathed. She thought she saw him bathed in the - blood of the man he had slain. Her lips formed a sentence, “'Thou shalt - not kill.'” - </p> - <p> - “I was tried at Spanish Bar,” he continued. “Miners' law is better than - you hear in the East. It's quick, it has to be, but in the main it's - serious and right. I was tried with witnesses and a jury and they let me - off; they justified me. That ought to go for something.” - </p> - <p> - “Don't come near me,” she cried, choking, filled with dread and utter - loathing. “How can you stand there and—stand there, a murderer, with - a life on your heart!” - </p> - <p> - His face quivered with concern; in spite of her words he drew near her - again, repeating the fact that he had been judged, released. Olive Stanes' - hysteria vanished before the cold stability which came to her assistance, - the sense of being rooted in her creed. - </p> - <p> - “'Thou shalt not kill,'” she echoed. - </p> - <p> - The emotion faded from his features, his countenance once more became - masklike, the jaw was hard and sharp, his eyes narrowed. “It's all over - then?” he asked. She nodded, her lips pinched into a white line. - </p> - <p> - “What else could be hoped? Blood guiltiness. O Jason, pray to save your - soul.” - </p> - <p> - He moved over to where his high silk hat reposed, secured it, and turned. - “This will be final.” His voice was hard. Olive stood slightly swaying, - with closed eyes. Then she remembered the buckskin bag of not yellow but - scarlet gold. She stumbled forward to it and thrust the weight into his - hand. Jason Burrage's fingers closed on the gift, while his gaze rested on - her from under contracted brows. He was, it seemed, about to speak, but - instead preserved an intense silence; he looked once more about the room, - still and old in its lamplight. Why didn't he go? Then she saw that she - was alone: - </p> - <p> - Like the eternal rock outside the door. - </p> - <p> - From above came the clear, joyous voice of Rhoda singing. Olive crumpled - into a chair. Soon Jem would be back.... She turned and slipped down upon - the floor in an agony of prayer. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - HONORA - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">H</span>ONORA CANDERAY saw - Jason Burrage on the day after his arrival in Cotarsport: he was walking - through the town with a set, inattentive countenance; and, although she - was in the carriage and leaned forward, speaking in her ringing voice, it - was evident that he had not noticed her. She thought his expression gloomy - for a man returned with a fortune to his marriage. Honora still dwelt upon - him as she slowly progressed through the capricious streets and mounted - toward the hills beyond. He presented, she decided, an extraordinary, even - faintly comic, appearance in Cottarsport, with a formal black coat open on - a startling waistcoat and oppressive gold chain, pale trousers and a silk - hat. - </p> - <p> - Such clothes, theatrical in effect, were inevitable to his changed - condition and necessarily stationary taste. Yet, considering, she shifted - the theatrical to dramatic: in an obscure but palpable manner Jason did - not seem cheap. He never had in the past And now, while his inappropriate - overdressing in the old town of loose and weathered raiment brought a - smile to her firm lips, there was still about him the air which from the - beginning had made him more noticeable than his fellows. It had even been - added to—by the romance of his journey and triumph. - </p> - <p> - She suddenly realized that, by chance, she had stumbled on the one term - which more than any other might contain Jason. Romantic. Yes, that was the - explanation of his power to stir always an interest in him, vaguely - suggest such possibilities as he had finally accomplished, the venture to - California and return with gold and the complicated watch chain. She had - said no more to him than to the other Cottarsport youth and young manhood, - perhaps a dozen sentences in a year; but the others merged into a - composite image of fuzzy chins, reddened knuckles, and inept, choked - speech, and Jason Burrage remained a slightly sullen individual with - potentialities. He had never stayed long in her mind, or had any actual - part in her life—her mother's complete indifference to Cottarsport - had put a barrier between its acutely independent spirit and the Canderays—but - she had been easily conscious of his special quality. - </p> - <p> - That in itself was no novelty to her experience of a metropolitan and - distinguished society: what now kept Jason in her thoughts was the fact - that he had made his capability serve his mood; he had taken himself out - into the world and there, with what he was, succeeded. His was not an - ineffectual condition—a longing, a possibility that, without the - power of accomplishment, degenerated into a mere attitude of bitterness. - Just such a state, for example, as enveloped herself. - </p> - <p> - The carriage had climbed out of Cottarsport, to the crown of the height - under which it lay, and Honora ordered Coggs, a coachman decrepit with - age, to stop. She half turned and looked down over the town with a veiled, - introspective gaze. From here it was hardly more than a narrow rim of - roofs about the bright water, broken by the white bulk of her dwelling and - the courthouse square. The hills, turning roundly down, were sere and - showed everywhere the grey glint of rock; Cottar's Neck already appeared - wintry; a diminished wind, drawing in through the Narrows, flattened the - smoke of the chimneys below. - </p> - <p> - Cottarsport! The word, with all its implications, was so vivid in her mind - that she thought she must have spoken it aloud. Cottarsport and the - Canderays—now one solitary woman. She wondered again at the curious - and involved hold the locality had upon her; its tyranny over her birth - and destiny. It was comparatively easy to understand the influence the - place had exerted on her father: commencing with his sixteenth year, his - life had been spent, until his retirement from the sea, in arduous voyages - to far ports and cities. His first command—the anchor had been - weighed on his twentieth birthday—had been of a brig to Zanzibar for - a cargo of gum copal; his last a storm-battered journey about, apparently, - all the perilous capes of the world. Then he had been near fifty, and the - space between was a continuous record of struggle with savage and - faithless peoples, strange latitudes and currents, and burdensome - responsibilities. - </p> - <p> - Her mother, too, presented no insuperable obstacle to a sufficient - comprehension—a noted beauty in a gay and self-indulgent society, - she had passed through a triumphant period without forming any attachment. - An inordinate amount of champagne had been uncorked in her honor, - compliment and service and offers had made up her daily round; until, - almost impossibly exacting, she had found herself beyond her early - radiance, in the first tragic realization of decline. Stopping, perhaps, - in the midst of slipping her elegance of body into a party dress, she - remembered that she was thirty-five—just Honora's age at present. - The compliments and offers had lessened, she was in a state of weary - revulsion when Ithiel Canderay—bronzed and despotic and rich—had - appeared before her and, the following day, urged marriage. - </p> - <p> - Yes, it was easy to see why the shipmaster, desirous of peace after the - unpeaceful sea, should build his house in the still, old port the - tradition of which was in his blood. It was no more difficult to - understand how his wife, always a little tired now from the beginning ill - effects of ceaseless balls and wining, should welcome a spacious, quiet - house and unflagging, patient care. - </p> - <p> - All this was clear; and, in a way, it made her own position logical—she - was the daughter, the repository, of such varied and yet unified forces. - In moments of calm, such as this, Honora could be successfully - philosophical. But she was not always placid; in fact she was placid but - an insignificant part of her waking hours. She was ordinarily filled with - emotions that, having no outlet, kept her stirred up, half resentful, and - half desirous of things which she yet made no extended effort to obtain. - </p> - <p> - Honora told herself daily that she detested Cot-tarsport, she intended to - sell her house, give it to the town, and move to Boston. But, after three - or four weeks in the city, a sense of weariness and nostalgia would - descend upon her—the bitterness of her mother lived over again—and - drive her back to the place she had left with such decided expressions of - relief. - </p> - <p> - This was the root of her not large interest in Jason Burrage—he, - too, she had always felt, had had possibilities outside the local life and - fish industry; and he had gone forth and justified, realized, them. He had - broken away from the enormous pressure of custom, personal habit, and - taken from life what was his. But she, Honora Canderay, had not had the - courage to free herself from an existence without incentive, without - reward. Something of this might commonly find excuse in the fact that she - was a woman, and that the doors of life and experience, except one, were - closed to her; but, individually, she had little use for this supine - attitude. Her blood was too domineering. She consigned such inhibitions to - pale creatures like Olive Stanes. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <p> - The sun, sinking toward the plum-colored hills on the left, cast a rosy - glow over low-piled clouds at the far horizon, and the water of the harbor - seemed scattered with the petals of crimson peonies. The air darkened - perceptibly. For a moment the grey town on the fading water, the distant - flushed sky, were charged with the vague unrest of the flickering day. - Suddenly it was colder, and Honora, drawing up her shawl, sharply - commanded Coggs to drive on. - </p> - <p> - She was going to fetch Paret Fifield from the steam railway station - nearest Cottarsport. He visited her at regular intervals—although - the usual period had been doubled since she'd seen him—and asked her - with unfailing formality to be his wife. Why she hadn't agreed long ago, - except that Paret was Boston personified, she did not understand. In the - moments when she fled to the city she always intended to have him come to - her at once. But hardly had she arrived before her determination would - waver, and her thoughts automatically, against her will, return to - Cottarsport. - </p> - <p> - Studying him, as they drove back through the early dusk, she was surprised - that he had been so long-suffering. He was not a patient type of man; - rather he was the quietly aggressive, suavely selfish example for whom the - world, success, had been a very simple matter. He was not solemn, either, - or a recluse, as faithful lovers commonly were; but furnished a leading - figure in the cotillions and had a nice capacity for wine. She said almost - complainingly: - </p> - <p> - “How young and gay you look, Paret, with your lemon verbena.” - </p> - <p> - He was, it seemed to her, not entirely at ease, and almost confused at her - statement. Nevertheless, he gave his person a swiftly complacent glance. - </p> - <p> - “I do seem quite well,” he agreed surprisingly. “Honora, I'm the next - thing to fifty. Would any one guess it?” - </p> - <p> - This was a new aspect of Paret's, and she studied him keenly, with the - slightly satirical mouth inherited from her father. Embarrassment became - evident at his exhibition of trivial pride, and nothing more was said - until, winding through the gloom of Cottarsport, they had reached her - house. Inside there was a wide hall with the stair mounting on the right - under a panelled arch. Mrs. Coz-zens, Honora's aunt and companion, was in - the drawing room when they entered, and greeted Paret Fifield with the - simple friendliness which, clearly without disagreeable intent, she - reserved for an unquestionable few. - </p> - <p> - After dinner, the elder woman winding wool from an ivory swift clamped to - a table, Honora thought that Paret had never been so vivacious; positively - he was silly. For no comprehensible reason her mind turned to Jason - Burrage, striding with a lowered head, in his incongruous clothes, through - the town of his birth. - </p> - <p> - “I wonder, Paret,” she remarked, “if you remember two men who went from - here to California about ten years ago? Well, one of them is back with his - pockets full of gold and a silk hat. He was engaged to Olive Stanes... I - suppose their wedding will happen at any time. You see, he was faithful - like yourself, Paret.” - </p> - <p> - The man's back was toward her; he was examining, as he had on every visit - Honora could recall, the curious objects in a lacquered cabinet brought - from over-seas by Ithiel Canderay, and it was a noticeably long time - before he turned. Mrs. Cozzens, the shetland converted into a ball, rose - and announced her intention of retiring; a thin, erect figure in black - moiré with a long countenance and agate brown eyes, seed pearls, gold band - bracelets, and a Venise point cap. - </p> - <p> - When she had gone the silence in the room became oppressive. Honora was - thinking of her life in connection with Paret Fifield, wondering if she - could ever bring herself to marry him. She would have to decide soon: it - seemed incredible that he was nearing fifty. Why, it must have been - fifteen years ago when he first—— - </p> - <p> - “Honora,” he pronounced, leaning forward in his chair, “I came prepared to - tell you a particular thing, but I find it much more difficult than I had - anticipated.” - </p> - <p> - “I know,” she replied, and her voice, the fact she pronounced, seemed to - come from a consciousness other than hers; “you are going to get married.” - </p> - <p> - “Exactly,” he said with a deep, relieved sigh. - </p> - <p> - She had on a dinner dress looped with a silk ball fringe, and her fingers - automatically played with the hanging ornaments as she studied him with a - composed face. - </p> - <p> - “How old is she, Paret?” Honora asked presently. - </p> - <p> - He cleared his throat in an embarrassed manner. “Not quite nineteen, I - believe.” - </p> - <p> - She nodded, and her expression grew imperceptibly colder. A slight but - actual irritation at him, a palpable anger, shocked her, which she was - careful to screen from her manner and voice. “You will be very happy, - certainly. A young wife would suit you perfectly. You have kept splendidly - young, Paret.” - </p> - <p> - “She is really a superb creature, Honora,” he proceeded gratefully. “I - must bring her to you. But I am going to miss this.” He indicated the - grave chamber in which they sat, the white marble mantel and high mirror, - the heavy mahogany settled back in half shadow, the dark velvet draperies - of the large windows sweeping from alabaster cornices. - </p> - <p> - “Sometimes I feel like burning it to the ground,” she asserted, rising. “I - would if I could burn all that it signifies, yes, and a great deal of - myself, too.” She raised her arms in a vivid, passionate gesture. “Leave - it all behind and sail up to Java Head and through the Sunda Strait, into - life.” - </p> - <p> - After the difficulty of his announcement Paret Fifield talked with - animation about his plans and approaching marriage. Honora wondered at the - swiftness with which she—for so long a fundamental part of his - thought—'had dropped from his mind. It had the aspect of a physical - act of seclusion, as if a door had been closed upon her, the last, - perhaps, leading out of her isolation. She hadn't been at all sure that - she would not marry Paret: today she had almost decided in favor of such a - consummation of her existence. - </p> - <p> - A girl not quite nineteen! She had been only twenty when Paret Fifield had - first danced with her. He had been interested immediately. It was - difficult for her to realize that she was now thirty-five; soon forty - would be upon her, and then a grey reach. She didn't feel any older than - she had, well—on the day that Jason Burrage departed for California. - There wasn't a line on her face; no trace, yet, of time on her spirit or - body; but the dust must inevitably settle over her as it did on a vase - standing unmoved on a shelf. A vase was a tranquil object, well suited to - glimmer from a corner through a decade; but she was different. The - heritage of her father's voyaging stirred in her together with the - negation that held her stationary. A third state, a hot rebellion, poured - through her, while she listened to Paret's facile periods. Really, he was - rather ridiculous about the girl. She was conscious of the dull pounding - of her heart. - </p> - <p> - The morning following was remarkably warm and still; and, after Paret - Fifield had gone, Honora made her way slowly down to the bay. The sunlight - lay like thick yellow dust on the warehouses and docks, and the water - filled the sweep of Cottar's Neck with a solid and smoothly blue expanse. - A fishing boat, newly arrived, was being disgorged of partly cured - haddock. The cargo was loaded into a wheelbarrow, transferred to the - wharf, and there turned into a basket on a weighing scale, checked by a - silent man in series of marks on a small book, and carried away. Beyond - were heaped corks and spread nets and a great reel of fine cord. - </p> - <p> - When Honora walked without an objective purpose she always came finally to - the water. It held no surprise for her; there was practically nothing she - was directly interested in seeing. She stood—as at present—gazing - down into the tide clasping the piles, or away at the horizon, the Narrows - opening upon the sea. She exchanged unremarkable sentences with familiar - figures, watched the men swab decks or tail new cordage through blocks, - and looked up absently at the spars of the schooners lying at anchor. - </p> - <p> - She had put on a summer dress again of white India barège, a little hat - with a lavender bow, and she stood with her silk shawl on an arm. The - stillness of the day was broken only by the creak of the wheelbarrow. Last - night she had been rebellious, but now a lassitude had settled over her: - all emotion seemed blotted out by the pouring yellow light of the sun. - </p> - <p> - At the side of the wharf a small warehouse held several men in the office, - the smoke of pipes lifting slowly from the open door; and, at the sound of - footfalls, she turned and saw Jem Stanes entering the building. His - expression was surprisingly morose. It was, she thought again as she had - of Jason Burrage striding darkly along the street, singularly inopportune - at the arrival of so much good fortune. A burr of voices, thickened by the - salt spray of many sea winds, followed. She heard laughter, and then Jem's - voice, indistinguishable but sullenly angry. - </p> - <p> - Honora progressed up into the town, walked past the courthouse square, and - met Jason at the corner of the street. “I am glad to have a chance to - welcome you,” she said, extending her hand. Close to him her sense of - familiarity faded before the set face, the tightly drawn lips and hard - gaze. She grew a little embarrassed. He had on another, still more - surprising waistcoat, his watch chain was ponderous with gold; but dust - had accumulated unattended on his shoulders, and dimmed the luster of his - boots. - </p> - <p> - “Thank you,” he replied non-committally, giving her palm a brief pressure. - He stood silently, without cordiality, waiting for what might follow. - </p> - <p> - “You are safely back with the Golden Fleece,” she continued more - hurriedly, “after yoking the fiery bulls and sailing past the islands of - the sirens.” - </p> - <p> - “I don't know about all that,” he said stolidly. - </p> - <p> - “Jason and the Argonauts,” she insisted, conscious of her stupidity. He - was far more compelling than she had remembered, than he appeared from a - distance: the marked discontent of his earlier years had given place to a - certain power, repose: the romance which she had decided was his main - characteristic was emphasized. She was practically conversing with a - disconcerting stranger. - </p> - <p> - “Olive was, of course, delighted,” she went resolutely on. “You must marry - soon, and build a mansion.” - </p> - <p> - “We are not going to marry at all,” he stated baldly. - </p> - <p> - “Oh——!” she exclaimed and then crimsoned with annoyance at the - involuntary syllable. That idiot, Olive Stanes, she added to herself - instantly. Honora could think of nothing appropriate to say. “That's a - great pity,” she temporized. Why didn't the boor help her? Hadn't he the - slightest conception of the obligations of polite existence? He stood - motionless, the fingers of one hand clasping a jade charm. However, she, - Honora Can-deray, had no intention of being affronted by Jason Burrage. - </p> - <p> - “You must find it pale here after California, if what I've heard is true,” - she remarked crisply, then nodded and left him. That night at supper she - repeated the burden of what he had told her to her aunt. The latter - answered in a measured voice without any trace of interest: - </p> - <p> - “I thought something of the kind had happened: the upstairs girl was - saying he was drunk last night. A habit acquired West, I don't doubt. It - is remarkable, Honora, how you remember one from another in Cottarsport. - They all appear indifferently alike to me. And I am tremendously upset - about Paret.” - </p> - <p> - “Well, I'm not,” Honora returned. She spoke inattentively, and she was - surprised at the truth she had exposed. Paret Fifield had never become a - necessary part of her existence. Except for the light he had shed upon - herself—the sudden glimpse of multiplying years and the emptiness of - her days—his marriage was unimportant. She would miss him exactly as - she might a piece of furniture that had been removed after forming a - familiar spot. She was more engrossed in what her aunt had told her about - Jason. - </p> - <p> - He had been back only two or three days, and already lost his promised - wife and got drunk. The implications of drinking were different in - Cottars-port from what they would be in San Francisco, or even Boston; in - such a small place as this every act offered the substance for talk, - opinion, as long-lived as the elms on the hills. It was foolish of him not - to go away for such excesses. Honora wanted to tell him so. She had - inherited her father's attitude toward the town, she thought, a personal - care of Cottarsport as a whole, necessarily expressed in an attention - toward individual acts and people. She wished Jason wouldn't make a fool - of himself. Then she recalled how ineffectual the same desire, actually - voiced, had been in connection with Olive Stanes. She recalled Olive's - horrified face as she, Honora, had said, “Grace be damned!” It was all - quite hopeless. “I think I'll move to the city,” she informed her aunt. - </p> - <p> - The latter sighed, from, Honora knew, a sense of superior knowledge and - resignation. - </p> - <p> - After supper she deserted the more familiar drawing room for the chamber - across the wide hall. A fire of coals was burning in an open grate, but - there was no other light. Honora sat at a piano with a ponderous ebony - case, and picked out Violetta's first aria from Traviata. The round sweet - notes seemed to float away palpable and intact into the gloom. It was an - unusual mood, and when it had gone she looked back at it in wonderment and - distrust. Her customary inner rebellion re-established itself perhaps more - vigorously than before: she was charged with energy, with vital - promptings, but found no opportunity, promise, of expression or - accomplishment. - </p> - <p> - The warm sun lingered for a day or so more, and then was obliterated by an - imponderable bank of fog that rolled in through the Narrows, over Cottar's - Neck, and changed even the small confines of the town into a vast - labyrinth. That, in turn, was dissipated by a swinging eastern storm, - tipped with hail, which left stripped trees on an ashen blue sky and dark, - frigid water slapping uneasily at the harbor edge. - </p> - <p> - Honora Canderay's states of mind were as various and similar. Her outer - aspect, however, unlike the weather, showed no evidence of change: as - usual she drove in the carriage on afternoons when it was not too cold; - she appeared, autocratic and lavish, in the shops of Citron Street; she - made her usual aimless excursions to the harbor. Jem Stanes, she saw, was - still a deck hand on the schooner <i>Gloriana</i>. Looking back to the - morning when he had scowlingly entered the office on the wharf, she was - able to reconstruct the cause of his ill humor—a brother-in-law to - Jason Burrage was a person of far different employment from an ordinary - Stanes. She passed Olive on the street, but the latter, except for a - perfunctory greeting, hurried immediately by. - </p> - <p> - The stories of Jason's reckless conduct multiplied—he had consumed a - staggering amount of Medford rum and, in the publicity of noon and - Marlboro Street, sat upon the now notable silk hat. He had paid for some - cheroots with a pinch of gold dust as they were said to do in the far - West. He carried a loaded derringer, and shot “for fun” the jar of colored - water in the apothecary's window, and had threatened, with a grim face, to - do the same for whoever might interfere with his pleasures. He was, she - learned, rapidly becoming a local scandal and menace. - </p> - <p> - If it had been any one but Jason Burrage, native born and folded in the - glamour of his extraordinary fortune, he would have been immediately and - roughly suppressed: Honora well knew the rugged and severe temper of the - town. As it was he went about—attended by its least desirable - element, a chorus to magnify his liberality and daring—in an - atmosphere of wonderment and excited curiosity. - </p> - <p> - This, she thought, was highly regrettable. Yet, in his present frame of - mind, what else was there for him to do? He couldn't be expected to take - seriously, be lost in, the petty affairs of Cottarsport; beyond a limited - amount the gold for which he had endured so much—she had heard - something of his misfortunes and struggle—was useless here; and, - without balance, he must inevitably drift into still greater debauch in - the large cities. - </p> - <p> - He was now a frequently recurring figure in her thought. In the correct - presence of her aunt, Mrs. Cozzens, in delicate clothes and exact - surroundings, the light of an astral lamp on her sharply cut, slightly - contemptuous face, she would consider the problem of Jason Burrage. In a - way, which she had more than once explained and justified to herself, she - felt responsible for him. If there had been anything to suggest, she would - have gone to him directly, but she had no intention of offering a barren - condemnation. Her peculiar position in Cottarsport, while it indicated - certain obligations, required the maintenance of an impersonal plane. Why, - he might say anything to her; he was quite capable of telling her—and - correctly—to go to the devil! - </p> - <p> - A new analogy was created between Jason Bur-rage and herself: his - advantage over her had broken down, they both appeared fast in untoward - circumstance beyond their power to alleviate or shape. He had come back to - Cottarsport in the precise manner in which she had returned from shorter - but equally futile excursions. Jason had his money, which at once - established necessities and made satisfaction impossible; and she had - promptings, desires, that by reason of their mere being, allowed her - contentment neither in the spheres of a social importance nor here in the - quiet place where so much of her was rooted. As Honora Canderay gazed at - her Aunt Herriot's hard, fine profile, the thought of her own, Honora - Canderay's, resemblance to the returned miner carousing with the dregs of - the town brought a shade of ironic amusement to her countenance. - </p> - <p> - Honora left the house, walking, in the decline of a November afternoon. - She had been busy in a small way, supervising the filling of camphor - chests for the winter, and, intensely disliking any of the duties of - domesticity, she was glad to escape into the still, cold open. Dusk was - not yet perceptible, but the narrow, erratic ways of Cottars-port were - filling with dear grey shadow. When, inevitably, she found herself at the - harbor's edge, she progressed over a narrow wharf to its end. It had been - wet, and there were patches of black, icy film; the water near by was - grey-black, but about the bare thrust of Cottar's Neck it was green; the - warehouses behind her were blank and deserted. - </p> - <p> - She had on a cloak lined with ermine, and she drew it closer about her - throat at the frigid air lifting from the bay. Suddenly a flare of color - filled the somber space, a coppery glow that glinted like metal shavings - on the water and turned Cottar's Neck red. Against the sunset the town was - formless, murky; but the sky and harbor resembled the interior of a - burnished kettle. The effect was extraordinarily unreal, melodramtic, and - she was watching the color fade, when a figure wavered out of the shadows - and moved insecurely toward her. At first she thought the stumbling - progressions were caused by the ice: then she saw that it was Jason - Burrage, drunk. - </p> - <p> - He wore the familiar suit of broadcloth, with no outer covering, and a - rough hat pulled down upon his fixed gaze. She stood motionless while he - approached, and then calmly met his heavy interrogation. - </p> - <p> - “Honora,” he articulated, “Honora Canderay, one—one of the great - Canderays of Cottarsport. Well, why don't you say something? Too set up - for a civil, for a——” - </p> - <p> - “Don't be ridiculous, Jason,” she replied crisply; “and do go home—you'll - freeze out here as you are.” - </p> - <p> - “One of the great Canderays,” he reiterated, contemptuously. He came very - close to her. “You're not much. Here they think you.... But I've been to - California, and at the Jenny Lind... in silk like a blue bird, and sing-. - Nobody ever heard of the Canderays in 'Frisco, but they know Jason - Burrage, Burrage who had all the bad luck there was, and then struck it - rich.” - </p> - <p> - He swayed perilously, and she put out a palm and steadied him. “Go back. - You are not fit to be around.” - </p> - <p> - Jason struck her hand down roughly. “I'm fitter than you. What are you, - anyway?” He caught her shoulder in vise-like fingers. “Nothing but a - woman, that's all—just a woman.” - </p> - <p> - “You are hurting me,” she said fearlessly. - </p> - <p> - His grip tightened, and he studied her, his eyes inhuman in a stony, white - face. “Nothing more than that.” - </p> - <p> - “You are very surprising,” she responded. “Do you know, I had never - thought of it. And it's true; that is precisely what and all I am.” - </p> - <p> - His expression became troubled; he released her, stepped back, slipped, - and almost fell into the water. Honora caught his arm and dragged him to - the middle of the wharf. “A dam' Canderay,” he muttered. “And I'm better, - Jason Burrage. Ask them at the El Dorado, or Indian Bar; but that's gone—the - early days. All scientific now. We got the dead wood on gold... cyanide.” - </p> - <p> - “Come home,” she repeated brusquely, turning him, with a slight push, - toward the town settled in darkness. It sent him falling forward in the - direction she wished. Honora supported him, led him on. At intervals he - hung back, stopped. His speech became confused; then, it appeared, his - reason commenced slowly to return. The streets were empty; a lamp shone - dimly on its post at a corner; she guided Jason round a sunken space. - </p> - <p> - Honora had no sense of repulsion; she was conscious of a faint pity, but - her energy came dimly from that feeling of obligation, inherited, she told - herself once more, from her father—their essential attitude to - Cottarsport. At the same time she found herself studying his face with a - personal curiosity. She was glad that it was not weak, that rum had been - ineffectual to loosen its hardness. He now seemed capable of walking - alone, and she stood aside. - </p> - <p> - Jason was at a loss for words; his lips moved, but inaudibly. “Keep away - from the water,” she commanded, “or from Medford rum. And, some evening - soon, come to see me.” She said this without premeditation, from an - instinct beyond her searching. - </p> - <p> - “I can't do that,” he replied in a surprisingly rational voice, “because - I've lost my silk hat.” - </p> - <p> - “There are hundreds for sale in Boston,” she announced impatiently; “go - and get another.” - </p> - <p> - “That never came to me,” he admitted, patently struck by this course of - rehabilitation through a new high hat. “There was something I had to say - to you, but it left my mind, about a—a gold fleece; it turned into - something else, on the wharf.” - </p> - <p> - “When you see me again.” She moved farther from him, suddenly in a great - necessity to be home. She left him, talking at her, and went swiftly - through the gloom to Regent Street. Letting herself into the still hall, - the amber serenity of lamplight in suave spaciousness, she swung shut the - heavy door with a startling vigor. Then she stood motionless, the cape - slipping from her shoulders in glistening and soft white folds about her - arms, to the carpet. Honora wasn't faint, not for a moment had she been - afraid of Jason Burrage, this was not a rebellion of over-strung nerves; - yet a passing blindness, a spiritual shudder, possessed her. She had the - sensation of having just passed through an overwhelming adventure: yet all - that had happened was commonplace, even sordid. She had met a drunken man - whom she hardly knew beyond his name and an adventitious fact, and - insisted on his going home. Asking him to call on her had been little less - than perfunctory—an impersonal act of duty. - </p> - <p> - Yet her being vibrated as if a loud and disturbing bell had been - unexpectedly sounded at her ear; she was responding to an imperative - summons. In her room, changing for supper, this feeling vanished, and left - her usual introspective humor. Jason had spoken a profound truth, which - her surprise had recognized at the time, in reminding her that she was an - ordinary woman, like, for instance, Olive Stanes. The isolation of her - dignity had hidden that from her for a number of years. She had come to - think of herself exclusively as a Canderay. - </p> - <p> - Later her sharp enjoyment in probing into all pretensions, into herself, - got slightly the better of her. “I saw Jason Burrage this evening,” she - told Mrs. Cozzens. - </p> - <p> - “If he was sober,” that individual returned, “it might be worth - recalling.” - </p> - <p> - “But he wasn't. He nearly fell into the harbor. I asked him to see us.” - </p> - <p> - “With your education, Honora, there is really no excuse for confusing the - singular and plural. I haven't any doubt you asked him here, but that has - nothing to do with us.” - </p> - <p> - “You might be amused by his accounts of California. For, although you - never complain, I can see that you think it dull.” - </p> - <p> - “I am an old woman,” Herriot Cozzens stated, “my life was quite normally - full, and I am content here with you. Any dullness you speak of I regret - for another reason.” - </p> - <p> - “You are afraid I'll get preserved like a salted haddock. He may not - come.” - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <p> - Honora was in the less formal of the drawing rooms when Jason Burrage was - announced. He came forward almost immediately, in the most rigorous - evening attire, a new silk hat on his arm. - </p> - <p> - “You had no trouble getting one,” she nodded in its direction. - </p> - <p> - “Four,” he replied tersely. - </p> - <p> - Jason took a seat facing her across an open space of darkly flowered - carpet, and Honora studied him, directly critical. Against a vague - background his countenance was extraordinarily pronounced, vividly pallid. - His black hair swept in a soft wave across a brow with indented temples, - his nose was short with wide nostrils, the lower part of his face square. - His hands, scarred and discolored, rested each on a black-clad knee. - </p> - <p> - She was in no hurry to begin a conversation which must either be stilted, - uncomfortable, or reach beyond known confines. For the moment her daring - was passive. Jason Burrage stirred his feet, and she attended the movement - with thoughtful care. He said unexpectedly: - </p> - <p> - “I believe I've never been in here before.” He turned and studied his - surroundings as if in an effort of memory. “But I talked to your father - once in the hall.” - </p> - <p> - “Nothing has been changed,” she answered almost unintelligibly. “Very - little does in Cot-tarsport.” - </p> - <p> - “That's so,” he assented. “I saw it when I came back. It was just the - same, but I——” he stopped and his expression became gloomy. - </p> - <p> - “If you mean that you were different, you are wrong,” she declared - concisely. “Just that has made trouble for you—you have been unable - to be anything but yourself. I am like that, too. Every one is.” - </p> - <p> - “I have been through things,” he told her enigmatically. “Why look—just - the trip: to Chagres on the Isthmus, and then mules and canoes through - that ropey woods to Panama, with thousands of prospectors waiting for the - steamer. Then back by Mazatlan, Mexico City, and Vera Cruz. A man sees - things.” - </p> - <p> - Her inborn uneasiness at rooms, confining circumstance, her restless - desire for unlimited horizons, for the mere fact of reaching, moving, - stirred into being at the names he repeated. Tomorrow she would go away, - find something new— - </p> - <p> - “It must have been horridly rough and dirty.” - </p> - <p> - “A good many turned back or died,” he agreed tentatively. “But after you - once got there a sort of craziness came over you—you couldn't wait - to buy a pan or shovel. The bay was full of rotting ships deserted by - their crews, a thicket of masts with even the sails still hanging to them. - The men jumped overboard to get ashore and pick up gold.” - </p> - <p> - She thought with a pang of the idle ships with sprung rigging, sodden - canvas lumpily left on the decks, rotting as he had said, in files. The - image afflicted her like a physical pain, and she left it hurriedly. “But - San Francisco must have been full of life.” - </p> - <p> - “You had to shout to be heard over the bands, and everything blazing. - Pyramids of nuggets on the gambling tables. Gold dust and champagne and - mud.” - </p> - <p> - “Whatever will you find here?” She immediately regretted her query, which - seemed to search improperly into the failure of his marriage. - </p> - <p> - “I'm thinking of going back,” he admitted. - </p> - <p> - Curiously Honora was sorry to hear this; unreasonably it gave to - Cottarsport a new aspect of barrenness, the vista of her own life reached - interminable and monotonous into the future. And she was certain that, - without the necessity and incentive of labor, it would be destructive for - Jason to return to San Francisco. - </p> - <p> - “What would you do?” - </p> - <p> - “Gamble,” he replied cynically. - </p> - <p> - “Admirable prospect,” she said lightly. Her manner unmistakably conveyed - the information that his call had drawn to an end. He clearly resisted - this for a minute or two, and then stirred. “You must come again.” - </p> - <p> - “Why?” he demanded abruptly, grasping his hat, which had reposed on the - carpet at his side. - </p> - <p> - “News from California, from the world outside, is rare in Cottarsport. You - must see that you are an interesting figure to us.” - </p> - <p> - “Why?” he persisted, frowning. - </p> - <p> - She rose, her face as hard as his own, but with a faint smile in place of - his lowering expression. “No, you haven't changed; not even to the extent - of a superficial knowledge of drawing rooms.” - </p> - <p> - “I ought to have seen better than come.” - </p> - <p> - “The ignorance was all my own.” - </p> - <p> - “But once——” he paused. - </p> - <p> - “Should be enough.” Her smile widened. Yet she was furious with herself - for having quarreled with him; the descent from the altitude of the - Canderays had been enormous. What extraordinary influence had colored her - acts in the past few days? - </p> - <p> - Mrs. Cozzens, at breakfast, inquired placidly how the evening before had - progressed, and Honora made a gesture expressive of its difficulties. “You - will create such responsibilities for yourself,” the elder stated. - </p> - <p> - This one, it suddenly appeared to Honora, had been thrust upon her. She - made repeated and angry efforts to put Jason Burrage from her mind; but - his appearance sitting before her, his words and patent discontent, - flooded back again and again. She realized now that he was no impersonal - problem; somehow he had got twisted into the fibres of her existence; he - was more vividly in her thoughts than Paret Fifield had ever been. She - attempted to ridicule him mentally, and called up pictures of his - preposterous clothes, the ill-bred waistcoats and ponderous watch chain. - They faded before the memory of the set jaw, his undeniable romance. - </p> - <p> - Wrapped in fur, she elected to drive after dinner; the day was cold but - palely clear, and she felt that her cheeks were glowing with unusual - color. Above the town, on the hills now sere with frost and rock, the - horses, under the aged guidance of Coggs, continually dropped from a jog - trot to an ambling walk. Honora paid no attention to the gait, she was - impervious to the wide, glittering reach of water; and she was startled to - find herself abreast a man gazing at her. - </p> - <p> - “I made a jackass out of myself last night,” he observed gloomily. - </p> - <p> - She automatically stopped the carriage and held back the buffalo robe. - Jason hesitated, but was forced to take a seat at her side. Honora said - nothing, and the horses again went forward. - </p> - <p> - “I'd been drinking a lot and was all on edge,” he volunteered further. “I - feel different today. I can remember your mother driving like this. I was - a boy then, and used to think she was made of ice; wondered why she didn't - run away in the sun.” - </p> - <p> - “Mother was very kind, really,” Honora said absently. She was relaxed - against the cushions, the country dipped and spread before her in a - restful brown garb; she watched Coggs' glazed hat sway against the sky. - The old sense of familiarity with Jason Burrage came back: why not, since - she had known him all their lives? And now, after his years away, she was - the only one in Cottarsport who at all comprehended his difficulties. He - was not commonplace, a strong man was never that; and, in a way, he had - the quality which more than any other had made her father so notable. And - he was not unpleasant so close beside her. That was of overwhelming - importance in the formation of her intimate opinion of him. He had been - refined by the bitterness of his early failure in California; he bore - himself with a certain dignity. - </p> - <p> - “What'll I do?” he demanded abruptly. - </p> - <p> - For the life or her she couldn't tell him. Except for platitudes she could - offer no solution against the future. Actual living, directly viewed, was - like that—hopeless of exterior solution. “I don't know,” she - admitted, “I wish I did; I wish I could help you.” - </p> - <p> - “This money, what's it good for? I can't get my family to burn two small - stoves at once; they'd die in the kitchen if they had a hundred parlors; - I've bought more clothes than I'll ever wear, four high hats and so on. - Not going to get married; no use for a big house, for anything more than - the room I have. I get plenty to eat——” - </p> - <p> - “You might do some good with it,” she suggested. The base of what she was - saying, Honora realized, was that he would be as well off with his fortune - given away. Yet it was unjust, absurd, for him not to get some use, - pleasure, from what he had worked so extravagantly to obtain. - </p> - <p> - “Somehow that wouldn't settle anything, for me,” he replied. - </p> - <p> - Coggs had turned at the usual limit of her afternoon driving, and they - were slowly moving back to the town. Cottar's Neck was fading into the - early gloom, and a group of men stared at Jason seated in the Canderays' - carriage as if their eyes were being played with in the uncertain light. - </p> - <p> - “Have you thought any more about going West?” she inquired. - </p> - <p> - They had stopped for his descent at Marlboro - </p> - <p> - Street, and he stood with a hand on the wheel. “I had intended to go this - morning.” - </p> - <p> - He held her gaze steadily, and she felt a swift coldness touch her into a - shiver. - </p> - <p> - “Tomorrow?” This came in a spirit of perversity against her every other - instinct. - </p> - <p> - “Shall I?” - </p> - <p> - “Would you be happier in San Francisco?” Jason Burrage made a hopeless - gesture. - </p> - <p> - “... for supper,” Honora found herself saying in a rush; “at six o'clock. - If you aren't bound for California.” - </p> - <p> - She tried to recall afterward if she had indicated a particular evening - for the invitation. There was a vague memory of mentioning Thursday. This - was Tuesday... Herriot Cozzens would be in Boston. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <p> - A servant told her that Mr. Burrage had arrived when she was but half - ready. She was, in reality, undecided in her choice of a dress for the - evening; but finally she wore soft white silk, with deep, knotted fringe - on the skirt, a low cut neck, and a narrow mantle of black velvet. Her - hair, severely plain in its net, was drawn back from a bang cut across her - brow. As she entered the room where he was standing a palpable admiration - marked his countenance. - </p> - <p> - He said nothing, however, beyond a conventional phrase. Such natural - reticence had a large part in her acceptance of him; he did nothing that - actively disturbed her hypercritical being. He was almost distinguished in - appearance. She had a feeling that if it had been different.... Honora - distinctly wished for a flamboyant touch about him; it presented a symbol - of her command of any situation between them, a reminder of her - superiority. - </p> - <p> - The supper went forward smoothly; there were the welcome inevitable - reminiscences of the rough fare of California, laughter at the prohibitive - cost of beans; and when, at her direction, he lighted a cheroot, and they - lingered on at the table, Honora's aloofness was becoming a thing of the - past. The smoke gave her an unexpected thrill, an extraordinary sense of - masculine proximity. There had been no such blue clouds in the house since - her father's death seven years ago. Settled back contentedly, Jason - Burrage seemed—why, actually, he had an air of occupying a familiar - place. - </p> - <p> - It was bitterly cold without, the room into which they trailed - insufficiently warm, and they were drawn close together at an open - Franklin stove. The lamps on the mantel were distant, and they had not yet - been fully turned up: his face was tinged by the glow of the fire. An - intense face. “What are you thinking about—me?” she added coolly. - “Nothing,” he replied; “I'm too comfortable to think.” There was a note of - surprise in his voice; he looked about as if to find reassurance of his - present position. “But if I did it would be this—that you are - entirely different from any woman I've ever known before. They have always - been one of two kinds. One or the other,” he repeated somberly. “Now you - are both together. I don't know as I ought to say that, if it's nice. I - wouldn't like to try and explain.” - </p> - <p> - “But you must.” - </p> - <p> - “It's your clothes and your manner put against what you are. Oh hell, what - I mean is you're elegant to look at and good, too.” - </p> - <p> - An expression of the deepest concern followed his exclamation. He - commenced an apology. Hardly launched, it died on his lips. - </p> - <p> - Honora was at once conscious of the need for his contrition and of the - fact that she had never heard a more entertaining statement. It was - evident that he viewed her as a desirable compound of the women of the El - Dorado and Olive Stanes: an adroit and sincere compliment. She wanted to - follow it on and on, unfold its every exposition; but, of course, that was - impossible. All this she concealed behind an indifferent countenance, her - slim white fingers half embedded in the black mantle. - </p> - <p> - Jason Burrage lighted another cheroot and put his feet up on the polished - brass railing of the iron hearth. This amused her beyond words. She - couldn't remember when she had had another such vitalized evening. She - realized that, through the last years, she had been appallingly lonely; - but with Jason smoking beside her in a tilted chair the solitude was - banished. She got a coal for him in the small burnished tongs, and he - responded with a prodigious puff that set her to coughing. - </p> - <p> - When he had gone the house was hatefully vacant; as she went up to her - chamber the empty spaciousness, the semi-dark well of the stair, the high - hall with its low-turned lamp, the blackness of the third story pouring - down over her, oppressed her almost beyond endurance. Her Aunt Herriot, - already old, must be dead before very long, there was none other of her - connections who could live with her, and she would have to depend on - perfunctory, hired companionship. - </p> - <p> - Honora saw that she should never escape from the influence which held her - in Cottarsport. - </p> - <p> - In her room, the door bolted, it was no better. The interior was large, - uncompromisingly square; and, though every possible light was burning, - still it seemed somber, menacing. - </p> - <p> - The following day was a lowering void with gusts of rain driving against - the windows. Mrs. Cozzens would be away until tomorrow, and Honora met the - afternoon alone. At times she embroidered, short-lived efforts broken by - despondent and aimless excursions through the echoing halls. - </p> - <p> - She attempted to read, to compose herself with an elaborate gilt and - embellished volume called “The Garland.” But, at a Lamentation on the - Death of Her Canary, by a Person of Quality, she deliberately dropped the - book into the burning coals of the Franklin stove. The satisfaction of - seeing the pages crisp and burst into flame soon evaporated. The day was a - calamity, the approaching murky evening a horror. - </p> - <p> - At supper she wondered what Jason Burrage was doing. A trace of the odor - of his cheroot lingered in the dining room. He was an astonishingly solid, - the only, actuality in a nebulous world of lofty, flickering ceilings and - the lash of rain. He might as well smoke in her drawing room as in the - Burrage kitchen. Paret Fifield would have drifted naturally to the - Canderay house, but not Jason, not a native of Cottarsport.... With an air - of determination she sharply pulled the plush, tasseled bell rope in the - corner. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <p> - She heard the servant open the front door; there was a pause—Jason - was taking off his greatcoat—after which he entered, calm and - without query. - </p> - <p> - “I was tired of sitting by myself,” she said with an air of entire - frankness. In a minute or so more it was all as it had been the evening - before—she held a coal for his cheroot as he tilted back beside her - with his feet on the rail. “You are a very comfortable man, Jason,” she - told him. - </p> - <p> - He made no reply, although a quiver crossed his lips. Then, after a - little, “It's astonishing how soon you get used to things. Seems as if I - had been here for years, and this is only the third time.'” - </p> - <p> - “Have you thought any more of California?” - </p> - <p> - He faced her with an expression of surprise. “It had gone clean out of my - mind. I suppose I will shift back, though—nothing here for me. I - can't come to see you every evening.” - </p> - <p> - She preserved a silence in which they both fell to staring into a dancing, - bluish flame. The gusts of rain were audible like the tearing of heavy - linen. An extraordinary idea had taken possession of Honora—if the - day had been fine, if she had been out in a sparkling air and sun, a very - great deal would have happened differently. But just what she couldn't - then say: the fact alone was all that she curiously apprehended. - </p> - <p> - “I suppose not,” she answered, so long after his last statement that he - gazed questioningly at her. “I wonder if it has occurred to you,” she - continued, “how much alike we are? I often think about it.” - </p> - <p> - “Why, no,” he replied, “it hasn't. Jason Bur-rage and Honora Canderay! I - wouldn't have guessed it, and I don't believe any one else ever has. I'd - have a hard time thinking about two more different. It's—it's - ridiculous.” He became seriously animated. “Here I am—well, you know - all about me—with some money, perhaps, and a little of the world in - my head; but you're Honora Canderay.” - </p> - <p> - “You said once that I was nothing but a woman,” she reminded him. - </p> - <p> - “I remember that,” he admitted with evident chagrin. “I was drunk.” - </p> - <p> - “That's when the truth is often hit on; I am quite an ordinary sort of - woman.” - </p> - <p> - He laughed indulgently. - </p> - <p> - “You said last evening I had some of a very common quality.” - </p> - <p> - “Now you mustn't take that serious,” he protested; “it was just in a way - of speech. I told you I couldn't rightly explain myself.” - </p> - <p> - “Anyhow,” she asserted bluntly, “I am lonely. What will you do about it?” - </p> - <p> - His amazement turned into a consternation which even now she found almost - laughable. “Me?” he stammered. “There's no way I can help you. You are - having a joke.” - </p> - <p> - She realized, with a feeling that her knowledge came too late, that she - was entirely serious. Jason Burrage was the only being alive who could - give her any assistance, yes, save her from the future. Her hands were - cold, she felt absolutely still, as if she had suddenly turned into - marble, a statue with a heart slightly fluttering. - </p> - <p> - “You could be here a lot,” she told him, and then paused, glancing at him - swiftly with hard, bright eyes. He had removed his feet from the stove, - and sat with his cheroot in a poised, awkward hand. She was certain that - he would never speak. - </p> - <p> - “We might get married.” - </p> - <p> - Honora was startled at the ease with which the words were pronounced, and - conscious of an absurdly trivial curiosity—she wondered just how - much he had been shocked by her proposal? She saw that he was stupefied. - Then: - </p> - <p> - “So we might,” he pronounced idiotically. “There isn't any real reason why - we shouldn't. That is——.” He stopped. “Where does the laugh - start?” he demanded. - </p> - <p> - Suddenly Honora was overwhelmed, not by what she had said, but by the - whole difficulty and inner confusion of her existence. She turned away her - head with an unintelligible period. A silence followed, intensified by the - rain flinging against the glass. - </p> - <p> - “It's a bad night,” he muttered. - </p> - <p> - The banality saved her. Again practically at her ease, she regarded him - with slightly smiling lips. “I believe I've asked you to marry me,” she - remarked. - </p> - <p> - “Thank you,” said Jason Burrage. He stood up. “If you mean it, I'd like to - very much.” - </p> - <p> - “You'd better sit down,” she went on in an impersonal voice; “there ought - to be a lot of things to arrange. For instance, hadn't we better live on - here, for a while anyhow? It's a big house to waste.” - </p> - <p> - “Honora, you'll just have to stop a little,” he asserted; “I'm kind of - lost. It was quick in California, but that was a funeral procession - compared with you.” - </p> - <p> - Now that it was done, she was frightened. But there was time to escape - even yet. She determined to leave the room quickly, get away to the safety - of her bolted door, her inviolable privacy. She didn't stir. An immediate - explanation that she hadn't been serious—how could he have thought - it for a moment!—would save her. But she was silent. - </p> - <p> - A sudden enthusiasm lighted up his immobile face. “I'll get the prettiest - diamond in Boston,” he declared. - </p> - <p> - “You mustn't——” she commenced, struggling still to retreat. He - misunderstood her. - </p> - <p> - “The very best,” he insisted. - </p> - <p> - When he had gone she remained seated in the formal chamber. At any rate - she had conquered the emptiness of her life, of the great square house - above her. It was definitely arranged, they were to marry. How amazed - Herriot Cozzens would be! It was probable that she would leave - Cot-tarsport, and her, Honora, immediately. Jason hadn't kissed her, he - had not even touched her hand, in going. He had been extremely subdued, - except at the thought of the ring he would buy for her. - </p> - <p> - There were phases of the future which she resolutely ignored. - </p> - <p> - Mrs. Cozzens came back as had been planned, and Honora told her at once. - The older woman expressed her feeling in contained, acid speech. “I am - surprised he had the assurance to ask you.” - </p> - <p> - “Jason didn't,” Honora calmly returned. - </p> - <p> - “It's your father,” the elder stated; “he had some very vulgar blood. I - felt that it was a calamity when my sister accepted him. A Cot-tarsport - person at heart, just as you are, always down about the water and those - low docks.” - </p> - <p> - “I'm sure you're right, and so it's much better for me to find where I - belong. I have tried to get away from Cottarsport, and from the sea and - the schooners sailing in and out of the Narrows, a thousand times. But I - always come back, just as father did, back to this little place from the - entire world—China and Africa and New York. The other influences - weren't strong enough, Aunt Herriot; they only made me miserable; and now - I've killed them. I'll say good-bye to you and Paret and the cotillions.” - She kissed her hand, but not gaily, to a whole existence irrevocably lost. - </p> - <p> - With Jason's ring blazing on her slim finger she drove, the day before the - wedding, for the last time as Honora Canderay. The leaves had been - stripped from the elms on the hills, brown and barren against the - flashing, steely water. She saw that Coggs was so impotent with age that - if the horses had been more vigorous he would be helpless. Coggs had - driven for her father, then her, for thirty years. It was too cold for the - old man to be out today. His cheeks were dark crimson, and continually wet - from his failing eyes. - </p> - <p> - Herriot Cozzens had left her; Coggs... all the intimate figures of so many - years were vanishing. Jason remained. He had almost entirely escaped - annoying her, and she was conscious of his overwhelming admiration, the - ineradicable esteem of Cottarsport for the Canderays; but a question, a - doubt more obscure than fear, was taking possession of her. After all she - was supremely ignorant of life; she had been screened from it by pride and - luxurious circumstance; but now she had surrendered all her advantage. She - had given herself to Jason; and he was life, mysterious and rude. The - thunder of large, threatening seas, reaching everywhere beyond the placid - gulf below, beat faintly on her perception. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - JASON - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>N an unfamiliar - upper room of the Canderays' house Jason stood prepared for the signal to - descend to his wedding. The ceremony was to occur at six o'clock; it was - now only five minutes before—he had absently looked at his watch a - great many times in a short space—and he was striving to think - seriously of what was to follow. But in place of this he was passing again - through a state of silent, incoherent surprise. This was the sort of thing - for which a man might pinch himself to discover if he were awake or - dreaming. In five, no, four, minutes now Honora Canderay was to become - his, Jason Burrage's, wife. - </p> - <p> - A certain complacency had settled over him in the past few days, something - of his inborn feeling of the Canderays as a house apart seemed to have - evaporated; and, in addition, he had risen—Honora wouldn't take any - just happen so. Jason was never notable for humility. Yet who, even after - he had returned from California with his riches, could have predicted this - evening? His astonishment was as much at himself, illuminated by - extraordinary events, as at any exterior circumstance. At times he had the - ability to see himself, as if from the outside; and that view, here, was - amazing. Why, only a short while ago he had been drinking rum in the shed - in back of “Pack” Clower's house, perhaps the least desirable shed in - Cottarsport. - </p> - <p> - Of one fact, however, he was certain—no more promiscuous draughts of - Medford. He recognized that he had taken so much not from the presence of - desire, but from a total absence of it as well as of any other mental - state. “Pack” and his associates, too, were now a thing of the past, a - bitterly rough and vacant element. The glass lamp on a bureau was smoking: - he stepped forward to lower the wick, when a knock fell on the door. A - young Boston relative of Honora's—a supercilious individual in - checked trousers and lemon-colored gloves—announced that they were - waiting for Jason below. With a determined settling of his shoulders and - tightly drawn lips, he marched resolutely forward. - </p> - <p> - The marriage was to be in the chamber across from the one in which he had - generally sat. Smilax and white Killamey roses had been bowed over the - mantel at the farthest end, and there Jason found the clergyman waiting. - The room was half full of people occupying chairs brought from other parts - of the house; and he was conscious of a sudden silence, an intent, curious - scrutiny, as he entered. An instinctive antagonism to this deepened in - him: he felt that, with the exception of his father and mother, he hadn't - a friend in the room. - </p> - <p> - Such other local figures as were there were facilely imitating the cold - stare of Honora's connections. He stood belligerently facing Mrs. Cozzens' - glacial calm, the inspection of a man he had seen driving with Honora in - Cottarsport, now accompanied by a pettish, handsome girl, evidently his - wife. His father's weathered countenance, sunken and dry on its bones, was - blank, except for a faint doubt, as if some mistake had been made which - would presently be exposed, sending them about face. His mother, however, - was triumphant pride and justification personified. Then the music - commenced—a harp, violin, and double bass. - </p> - <p> - The wedding ring firmly secured, Jason stirred with a feeling of - increasing awkwardness. He glared back, with a protruding lip, at the - fellow with the young wife, at the small, aggressive group from Boston; - and then he saw that Honora was in the room. She was coming slowly toward - him. Her expression of absolute unconcern released him from all petty - annoyance, any thought of the malicious onlookers. As she stopped at his - side she gave him a slight nod and smile; and at that moment a tremendous, - sheer admiration for her was born in him. - </p> - <p> - Honora had chosen to be unattended—she had coolly observed that she - was well beyond the age for such sentimentality—and he realized that - though the present would have been a racking occasion for most women, it - was evident that she was not disturbed in the least. He had a general - impression of sugary white satin, of her composed, almost disdainful face - in a cloud of veil with little waxen orange flowers, of slender still - hands, when they turned from the room to the minister. - </p> - <p> - They had gone over the marriage service together, he had read it again in - the kitchen at home; he was fairly familiar with its periods and - responses, and got through with only a slight hesitation and half - prompting. But the thickness of his voice, in comparison with Honora's - open, decisive utterance, vainly annoyed him. He wanted desperately to - clear his throat. Suddenly it was over, and Honora, in a swirl of satin, - was sinking to her knees. Beside her he listened with a feeling of - comfortable lull to a lengthy prayer. - </p> - <p> - Rising, he perfunctorily clasped a number of indifferent palms, replied - inanely to gabbled expressions of good will and hopes for the future - unmistakably pessimistic in tone. Honora told him in a rapid aside the - names of those approaching. She smiled radiantly at his father and mother, - leaned forward and whispered in the latter's ear; and they followed the - guests streaming into the dining room. - </p> - <p> - There champagne was being opened by the caterer's assistants from Boston. - There were steaming platters of terrapin and oysters and fowl. The table - bore pyramids of nuts and preserved fruit, hot Cinderellas in cups with - sugar and wine, black case cake, Savoy biscuits, pumpkin paste, and - frothed creams with preserved peach leaves. A laden plate was thrust into - Jason's hand, and he sat with it in a clatter of voices and topics that - completely ignored him. He was isolated in the absorption of food and - wine, in a conversational exchange as strange to him as if had been spoken - in a foreign language. - </p> - <p> - Honora was busily talking to young Mrs. Fifield—he remembered the - name now. Apparently she had forgotten his existence. At first this - annoyed him; he determined to force his way into their attention, but a - wiser realization held him where he was. Honora was exactly right: he had - nothing in common with these people, probably not one of them would come - into his life or house again. And his wife, in the fact of her marriage, - had clearly signified how little important they were to her. His father - joined him. - </p> - <p> - “You made certain when the New York packet leaves?” he queried. - </p> - <p> - “Everything's fixed,” Jason reassured him. - </p> - <p> - “Your mother wanted to see you. But she got set and is kind of timid about - moving.” Jason rose promptly, and, with the elder, found Mrs. Hazzard - Burrage. “I'd like to have Honora, too,” the latter told them, and Jason - turned sharply to find her. When they stood facing the old couple his - mother hesitated doubtfully; then she put out her hand to the woman in - wedding array. But Honora ignored it; leaning forward she kissed the - round, bright cheek. - </p> - <p> - “You have to be patient with them at times,” the mother said, looking up - anxiously. - </p> - <p> - “I'm afraid Jason will need that warning,” Honora replied; “he is a very - imprudent man.” - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <p> - Jason's mind returned to this later, sitting in the house that had been - the Canderays', but which now was his too. Honora's remark to his mother - had been clear in itself, but it suggested wide speculations beyond his - grasp. For instance—why, after all, had Honora married him? He was - forced to acknowledge that it was not the result of any overwhelming - feeling for him. The manner of their wedding, the complete absence of the - emotion supposed to be the incentive of such consummations, Honora - herself, all, denied any effort to fix such a personally satisfactory - cause. That she might have had no other opportunity—Honora was not - so young as she had been—he dismissed as obviously absurd. Why—— - </p> - <p> - His gaze was fastened upon the carpet, and he saw that time and the - passage of feet had worn away the design. He looked about the room, and - was surprised to discover a general dinginess which he had never noticed - before. He said nothing, but, in his movements about the house, examined - the furnishings and walls, and an astonishing fact was thrust upon him—the - celebrated dwelling was grievously run down. It was plain that no money - had been spent on it for years. The carriage, too, and the astrakhan - collar on Coggs' coat, were worn out. - </p> - <p> - He considered this at breakfast—his wife behind a tall Sheffield - coffee urn—and he was aware of the cold edge of a distasteful - possibility. The thought enveloped him insidiously, like the fog which - often rolled through the Narrows and over the town, that the Canderays - were secretly impoverished, and Honora had married him only for his money. - Jason was not resentful of this in itself, since he had been searching for - a motive he could accept, but it struck him in a peculiarly vulnerable - spot—his admiration for his wife, for Honora. The idea, although he - assured himself that the thing was readily comprehensible, somehow managed - to diminish her, to tarnish the luster she held for him. It was far - beneath the elevation on which Cottarsport had placed the Canderays; and - he suffered a distinct sense of loss, a feeling of the staleness and - disappointment of living. - </p> - <p> - The more he considered this explanation the more he was convinced of its - probability. A great deal of his genuine warmth in his marriage - evaporated. Still—Honora had married him, she had given herself in - return for what material advantage he might bring; and he would have to - perform his part thoroughly. He ought to have known that—— - </p> - <p> - What he must do now was to save them both from any painful revelation by - keeping for ever hid that he was aware of her purpose, he must never - expose himself by a word or act; and he must make her understand that - whatever he had was absolutely hers. It would be necessary for her to go - to the money with entire freedom and without any accounting. - </p> - <p> - This, he found, was not so easy to establish as he thought. Honora was his - wife, but nevertheless there was a well marked reticence between them, a - formal nicety with which he was heartily in accord. He couldn't just - thrust his fortune before her on the table. He hesitated through the day, - on the verge of various blunders; and then, in the evening, said in a - studied causality of manner: - </p> - <p> - “What do you think about fixing some of the rooms over new? You might get - tired of seeing the same things for so long. I saw real elegant furniture - in Boston.” - </p> - <p> - She looked about indifferently. “I think I wouldn't like it changed,” she - remarked, almost in the manner of a defense. “I suppose it does seem worn - to you; but I'm used to it; there are so many associations. I am certain - I'd be lost in new hangings.” - </p> - <p> - Jason was so completely silenced by her reply that he felt he must have - shown some confusion, for her gaze deliberately turned to him. “Is there - any particular thing you would like repaired?” she inquired. - </p> - <p> - “No, of course not,” he said hastily. “I think it's all splendid. I - wouldn't change a curtain, only—but....” He cursed himself for a - clumsy fool while Honora continued to study him. He endeavored to shield - himself behind the trivial business of lighting a cheroot; but he felt - Honora's query searching him out. Finally, to his extreme dismay, he heard - her say: - </p> - <p> - “Jason, I believe you think I married you for money!” - </p> - <p> - Pretense, he realized, would be no good now. - </p> - <p> - “Something like that did occur to me,” he acknowledged desperately. - </p> - <p> - “Really,” she told him sharply. “I could be cross very easily. You are too - stupid. Father did wonderfully well on his voyages, and his profit was - invested by Frederic Cozzens, one of the shrewdest financiers of his day. - I have twice, probably three times, as much as you.” - </p> - <p> - She confronted him with a faintly sparkling resentment. However, the - pleasure, the reassurance, in what he had just heard made him indifferent - to the rest. It was impossible now to comprehend how he had been such a - block! He even smiled at her, which, he was delighted to observe, - obviously puzzled her. - </p> - <p> - “Perhaps I ought to tell you, Jason, and perhaps it is too late already, - that I thought I married you because I was lonely, because I feared the - future. Anyhow, that's what I told myself the night I sent for you. You - might have a right to complain very bitterly about it.” - </p> - <p> - “If I have, I won't,” he assured her cheerfully. - </p> - <p> - “I thought that then; but now I am not at all sure. It no longer seems so - simple, so easily explained. I used to feel that I understood myself very - thoroughly, I could look inside and see what was there; but in the last - month I haven't been able to; and it is very disturbing.” - </p> - <p> - “Anyhow we're married,” he announced comfortably. - </p> - <p> - “That's a beautiful way to feel,” she remarked. “I appear to get less sure - of things as I grow older, which is pathetic.” - </p> - <p> - He wondered what, exactly, she meant by this. Honora said a great many - little things which, their meaning escaping him, gave him momentary - doubts. He discovered that she had a habit of saying things indirectly, - and that, as the seriousness of the occasion increased, her manner became - lighter and he could depend less on the mere order of her words. This - continually disconcerted him, put him on the defensive and at small - disadvantages: he was never quite at ease with Honora. - </p> - <p> - Obversely—the ugly shade of mercenary purpose dispelled—close - at hand his admiration for her grew. Every detail of her living was as - fine as that publicly exposed in the drawing room. She was not rigidly and - impossibly perfect, in, for instance, the inflexible attitude of Olive - Stanes; Honora had a very human impatience, she could be disagreeable, he - found, in the morning, and she undoubtedly felt herself superior to the - commonalty of life. But in the ordering of her person there was a - wonderfully exact delicacy and fragrant charm. Just as she had no formal - manner, so, he discovered, she possessed no “good” clothes; she dressed - evidently from some inner necessity, and not merely for the sake of - impression. She had, too, a remarkable vigor of expression; Honora was not - above swearing at contradictory circumstance; and she was so free of small - pruderies that often she became a cause of embarrassment to him. At times - he would tell himself uneasily that her conduct was not quite ladylike; - but at the same instant his amusement in her would mount until it - threatened him with laughter. - </p> - <p> - There was a great deal to be learned from Honora, he told himself; and - then he would speculate whether he were progressing in that acquisition; - and whether she were happy; no, not happy, but contented. Ignorant of her - reason for marrying, he vaguely dreaded the possibility of its departure, - mysterious as it had come, leaving her regarding him with surprise and - disdain. He tried desperately, consciously, to hold her interest and - esteem. - </p> - <p> - That was the base of his conception of their married existence, which, - then, he was entirely willing to accept. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <p> - However, as the weeks multiplied without bringing him any corresponding - increase in the knowledge of either Honora or their true situation, he was - aware of a disturbance born of his very pleasure in her; an uncomfortable - feeling of insecurity fastened upon him. But all this he was careful to - keep hidden. There was evidently no doubt in the minds of Cottarsport of - the enviableness of his position—with all that gold, wedded to - Honora Canderay, living in the Canderay mansion. The more solid portion of - the town gave him a studied consideration denied to the mere acquisition - of wealth; and the rough element, once his companion but now relentlessly - held at a distance, regarded him with a loud disdain fully as humanly - flattering. Sometimes with Honora he passed the latter, and they grumbled - an obscure acknowledgment of his curt greeting; when he was alone, they - openly disparaged his attainments and qualified pride. - </p> - <p> - There were “Pack” Clower, an able seaman whose indolent character had - dissipated his opportunities of employment without harming his slow, - powerful body; Emery Radlaw, the brother of the apothecary and a graduate - of Williams College, a man of vanished refinements and taker of strange - drugs, as thin and erratically rapid in movements as Clower was slow; - Steven, an incredibly soiled Swede; John Vleet, the master and part owner - of a fishing schooner, a capable individual on the sea, but an insanely - violent drunkard on land. There were others, all widely different, but - alike in the bitterness of a common failure and the habit of assuaging - doubtful self-esteem, of ministering to crawling nerves, with highly - potential stimulation. - </p> - <p> - Jason passed “Pack” and Emery Radlaw on a day of late March, and a mocking - and purposely audible aside almost brought him to an adequate reply. He - had disposed of worse men than these in California and the Isthmus. His - arrogant temper rose and threatened to master him; but something more - powerful held him steadily and silently on his way. This was his - measureless admiration for Honora, his determination to involve her in - nothing that would detract from her fineness and erect pride. Brawling on - the street would not do for her husband. He must give her no cause to - lessen what incomprehensible feeling, liking, she might have for him, give - life to no regrets for a hasty and perhaps only half considered act. After - this, in passing any of his late temporary associates, he failed to - express even the perfunctory consciousness of their being. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <p> - In April he was obliged to admit to himself that he knew no more of - Honora's attitude toward him than on the day of their wedding. He - recognized that she made no show of emotion; it was an essential part of - her to seem at all times unmoved. That was well enough for the face she - turned toward the world; but directed at him, her husband, its enigmatic - quality began to obsess his mind. What Honora thought of him, why she had - married him, became an almost continuous question. - </p> - <p> - It bred an increasing sense of instability that became loud, defiant. More - than once he was at the point of self-betrayal: query, demand, objection, - would rise on a temporary angry flood to his lips. But, struggling, behind - a face as unmoved as Honora's own, he would suppress his resentment, the - sense of injury, and smoke with the appearance of the greatest placidity. - </p> - <p> - His regard for his wife placed an extraordinary check on his impulses and - utterance. He deliberated carefully over his speech, watched her with an - attention not far from a concealed anxiety, and was quick to absorb any - small conventions unconsciously indicated by her remarks. She never - instructed or held anything over him; he would have been acutely sensitive - to any air of superiority, and immediately antagonized. But Honora was - entirely free from pretensions of that variety; she was as clear and - honest as a goblet of water. - </p> - <p> - Jason's regard for her grew pace by pace with the feeling of baffling - doubt. He was passing through the public square, and his thoughts were - interrupted by a faint drifting sweetness. “I believe the lilacs are out,” - he said unconsciously aloud and stopping. His surrounding was remarkably - serene, withdrawn—the courthouse, a small block of brick with white - corniced windows, flat Ionic portico, and slatted wood lantern with a - bell, stood in the middle of the grassy common shut in by an irregular - rectangle of dwellings with low eaves and gardens. The sun shone with a - beginning warmth in a vague sky that intensified the early green. It - seemed that he could see, against a house, the lavender blur of the lilac - blossoms. - </p> - <p> - Then his attention was attracted by the figure of a man, at once strange - and familiar, coming toward him with a dragging gait. Jason studied the - other until a sudden recognition clouded his countenance, filled him with - a swift, unpleasant surprise. - </p> - <p> - “Thomas!” he exclaimed. “Whenever did you get back?” - </p> - <p> - “Yesterday,” said Thomas Gast. - </p> - <p> - Well, here was Thomas returned from California like himself. Yet the most - negligent view of the latter revealed that there was a vast difference - between Jason and this last Argonaut—Thomas Gast's loosely hung jaw, - which gave to his countenance an air of irresolution, was now exaggerated - by an aspect of utter defeat. His ill conditioned clothes, sodden brogans, - and stringy handkerchief still knotted miner-fashion about his throat, all - multiplied the fact of failure proclaimed by his attitude. - </p> - <p> - “How did you strike it?” Jason uselessly asked. - </p> - <p> - “What chance has the prospector today?” the other heatedly and indirectly - demanded. “At first a man could pan out something for himself; but now - it's all companies, all capital. The state's interfered too, claims are - being held up in court while their owners might starve; there are new laws - and trimmings every week. I struck it rich on the Reys, but I was drove - out before I could get my stakes in. They tell me you did good.” - </p> - <p> - “At last,” Jason replied. - </p> - <p> - “And married Honora Canderay, too.” - </p> - <p> - The other assented shortly. - </p> - <p> - “Some are shot with luck,” Thomas Gast proclaimed; “they'd fall and skin - their face on a nugget.” - </p> - <p> - “How did you come back?” - </p> - <p> - “Worked my passage in a crazy clipper with moon-sails and the halliards - padlocked to the rail. Carried away the foretopmast and yard off the Horn - and ran from port to port in a hundred and four days.” - </p> - <p> - The conversation dwindled and expired. Thomas Gast gazed about moodily, - and Jason, with a tight mouth, nodded and moved on. His mind turned back - abruptly to Eddie Lukens, the man who had robbed him of his find in the - early days of cradle mining, the man he had killed. - </p> - <p> - He had said nothing of this to Honora; the experience with Olive Stanes - had convinced him of the advisability of keeping past accident where, he - now repeated, it belonged. He despaired of ever being able, in - Cottarsport, to explain the place and times that had made his act - comprehensible. How could he picture, here, the narrow ravines cut by - swift rivers from the stupendous slopes and forests of the Sierra Nevada, - the isolation of a handful of men with their tents by a plunging stream - in' a rift so deep that there would be only a brief glimmer of sunlight at - noon? And, failing that, the ignorant could never grasp the significance - of the stillness, the timeless shadows, which the miners penetrated in - their madness for gold. They'd never realize the strangling passion of - this search in a wilderness without habitation or law or safety. They - could not understand the primary justice of such rude courts as the miners - were able to maintain on the more populous outskirts of the region. - </p> - <p> - He, Jason Burrage, had been tried by a jury for killing Eddie Lukens, and - had been exonerated. It had been months since he had reiterated this - dreary and only half satisfying formula. The inner necessity filled him - with a shapeless concern such as might have been caused by a constant, - unnatural shadow flickering out at his back. He almost wished that he had - told Honora at the beginning; and then he fretfully cursed the incertitude - of life—whatever he did appeared, shortly after, wrong. - </p> - <p> - But it was obvious that he couldn't go to her with the story today; the - only time for that had been before his marriage; now it would have the - look of a confession of weakness, opportunely timed; and he could think of - nothing more calculated to antagonize Honora than such a crumbling - admission. - </p> - <p> - All this had been re-animated by the mere presence of Thomas Gast in - Cottarsport; certainly, he concluded, an insufficient reason for his - troubling. Gast had been a miner, too, he was familiar with the conditions - in the West.... There was a great probability that he hadn't even heard of - the unfortunate affair; while Olive Stanes would be dragged to death - rather than garble a word of what he had told her: Jason willingly - acknowledged this of Olive. He resolutely banished the whole complication - from his mind; and, walking with Honora after supper over the garden in - back of their house, he was again absorbed by her vivid delicate charm. - </p> - <p> - The garden was deep and narrow, a flight of terraces connected by a - flagged path and steps. At the bottom were the bergamot pear trees that - had been Ithiel Canderay's especial charge in his last, retired years. - Their limbs, faintly blurred with new foliage, rose above the wall, - against a tranquil evening sky with a white slip of May moon. The peace - momentarily disturbed in Jason Burrage's heart flooded back, a sense of - great well-being settled over him. Honora rested her hand within his arm - at an inequality of the stone walk. - </p> - <p> - “I am really a very bad wife, Jason,” she said suddenly; “self-absorbed - and inattentive.” - </p> - <p> - “You suit me,” he replied inadequately. He was extraordinarily moved by - her remark: she had never before even suggested that she was conscious of - obligation. He wanted to put into words some of the warmth of feeling - which filled his heart, but suitable speech evaded him. He could not shake - off the fear that such protestations might be displeasing to her - restrained being. Moving slightly away from him she seemed, in the soft - gloom, more wonderful than ever. Set in white against the depths of the - garden, her face, dimly visible, appeared to be without its customary - faintly mocking smile. - </p> - <p> - “Do you remember, Jason,” she continued, “how I once said I thought I was - marrying you because I was lonely, and that I found out it wasn't so? I - didn't know why.” She paused. - </p> - <p> - He was enveloped by an intense eagerness to hear her to the end: it might - be that something beyond his greatest hopes was to follow. But - disappointment overtook him. - </p> - <p> - “I was certain I'd see more clearly into myself soon, but I haven't; it's - been useless trying. And I've decided to do this—to give up thinking - about things for myself, and to wait for you to show me.” - </p> - <p> - “But I can't do that,” he protested, facing her; “more-than half the time - I wonder over almost that same question—why you ever married me?” - </p> - <p> - “This is a frightful situation,” she observed with a return of her - familiar manner; “two mature people joined for life, and neither with the - slightest idea of the reason. Anyhow I have given it up.... I suppose I'll - die in ignorance. Perhaps I was too old—-” - </p> - <p> - He interrupted her with an uncustomary incivility, a heated denunciation - of what she had been about to say. - </p> - <p> - “So you are not sorry,” he remarked after a little. - </p> - <p> - “No,” she answered slowly, “and I'm certain I shan't be. I'm not that sort - of person. I would go down to ruin sooner than regret.” She said no more, - but went into the house, leaving Jason in the potent spring night. - </p> - <p> - There was no longer any doubt about the lilacs: the air was laden with - their scent. An entire hedge of them must have blossomed as he was - standing there. He moved to the terrace below: there might be buds on the - pear trees. But it was impossible to see the limbs. How could Honora - expect him to make their marriage clear? He had never before seen her face - so serene. He thought that he heard a vague stir outside the wall, and he - remembered the presence of a semi-public path. Now there was a cautious - mutter of voices. He advanced a step, then stopped at a scrambling of - shoes against the wall. A vague form shouldered into view, momentarily - clinging above him, and a harsh voice cried: - </p> - <p> - “Murderer!” - </p> - <p> - Even above the discordant dash of his startled sensibilities rose the - fear, instantaneously born, that Honora had heard. All the vague - uneasiness which had possessed him at Thomas Gust's return solidified into - a recognizable, leaden dread—the conviction that his wife must learn - the story of his misadventure, told with animus and lies. Then a more - immediate dread held him rigidly attentive: there might be a second cry, a - succession of them shouted discordantly to the sky. Honora would come out, - the servants gather, while that accusing voice, indistinguishable and - disembodied by the night, proclaimed his error. This was not the shooting - of Eddie Lukens, but the neglect to comprehend Honora Canderay. - </p> - <p> - Absolute silence followed. He made a motion toward the wall, but, - oppressed by the futility of such an act, arrested himself in the midst of - a step and stood with a foot extended. The stillness seemed to thicken the - air until he could hardly breathe; he was seized by a sullen anger at the - events which had gathered to betray him. The crying tones had been like a - chemical acting on his complexity, changing him to an entirely different - entity, darkening his being; the peace and fragrance of the night were - destroyed by the anxiety that now sat upon him. - </p> - <p> - Convinced that nothing more was to follow here, he was both impelled into - the house, to Honora, and held motionless by the fear of seeing her turn - toward him with her familiar light surprise and a question. However, he - slowly retraced his way over the terraces, through a trellis hung with - grape vines, and into the hall. As he hoped, Honora was on the opposite - side of the dwelling. She had heard nothing. Jason sat down heavily, his - gaze lowered and somber. - </p> - <p> - The feeling smote him that he should tell Honora of the whole miserable - business at once, make what excuse for himself was possible, and prepare - her for the inevitable public revelation. He pronounced her name, with the - intention of doing this; but she showed him such a tranquil, superfine - face that he was unable to proceed. Her interrogation held for a moment - and then left him, redirected to a minute, colorful square of glass beads. - </p> - <p> - A multiplication of motives kept him silent, but principal among them was - the familiar shrinking from appearing to his wife in any little or mean - guise. It was precisely into such a peril that he had been forced. He - felt, now, that she would overlook a murder such as the one he had - committed far more easily than an intangible error of spirit. He could - actually picture Honora, in his place, shooting Eddie Lukens; but he - couldn't imagine her in his humiliating situation of a few minutes before. - </p> - <p> - He turned to the consideration of who it might be that had called over the - wall, and immediately recognized that it was one of a small number, one of - “Pack” Clower's gang: Thomas Gast would have gravitated quickly to their - company, and their resentment of his, Jason Burrage's, place in life must - have been nicely increased by Gast's jealousy. The latter, Jason knew, had - not washed an honest pan of gravel in his journey and search for a - mythical easy wealth; he had hardly left the littered fringe of San - Francisco, but had filled progressively menial places in the less - admirable resorts and activities. - </p> - <p> - With so much established beyond doubt he was confronted by the necessity - for immediate action, the possibility of yet averting all that threatened - him, of preserving his good opinion in Honora's eyes. Clower and Emery - Radlaw and the rest, with the balance of neither property nor position, - lawless and inflamed with drink, were a difficult opposition. He repeated - that he had mastered worse, but out in California, where a man had been - nakedly a man; and then he hadn't been married. There he would have found - them at once, and an explosion of will, perhaps of powder, would soon have - cleared the atmosphere. But in Cottarsport, with so much to keep intact, - he was all but powerless. - </p> - <p> - Yet, the following day, when he saw the apothecary's brother enter the - combined drug and liquor store, he followed; and, to his grim - satisfaction, found Thomas Gast already inside. The apothecary gave Jason - an inhospitable stare, but the latter ignored him, striding toward Gast. - “Just what is it you've brought East about me?” he demanded. - </p> - <p> - The other avoided the query, his gaze shifting over the floor. “Well?” - Jason insisted, after a pause. Thomas Gast was leaning against a high - counter at one side, behind which shelves held various bottles and paper - boxes and tins. The counter itself was laden with scales and a mortar, - powders and vividly striped candy in tall glass jars. - </p> - <p> - “You know well as I do,” Gast finally admitted. - </p> - <p> - “Then we're both certain there's no reason for name-calling over my back - wall.” - </p> - <p> - “You shot him, didn't you?” the other asked thinly. “You can't get away - from the fact that you killed a pardner.” - </p> - <p> - “I did,” said Jason Burrage harshly. “He robbed me. But I didn't shout - thief at him from the safety of the dark; it was right after dinner, the - middle of the day. He was ready first, too; but I shot him. Can you get - anything from that?” - </p> - <p> - “You ought to realize this isn't San Francisco,” Radlaw, the drug taker, - put in. “A man couldn't be coolly derringered in Cottarsport. There's law - here, there's order.” He had a harried face, dulled eyes under a fine - brow, a tremulous flabby mouth, with white crystals of powder adhering to - its corners, and a countenance like the yellow oilskins of the fishermen. - </p> - <p> - Jason turned darkly in his direction. “What have you or Clower got to do - with law?” - </p> - <p> - “Not only them,” the apothecary interposed, “but all the other men of the - town are interested in keeping it orderly. We'll have no western rowdyism - in Cottarsport.” - </p> - <p> - “Then hear this,” Jason again addressed Thomas Gast; “see that you tell - the truth and all the truth. My past belongs to me, and I don't aim to - have it maligned by any empty liar back from the Coast. And either of you - Radlaws—I'm not going to be blanketed by the town drunkards or old - women, either. If I have shot one man I can shoot another, and I care this - much for your talk—if any of this muck is allowed to annoy Mrs. - Burrage I'll kill whoever starts it, spang in the middle of day.” - </p> - <p> - “That's where it gets him,” the ex-scholar stated. “Just there,” Jason - agreed; “and this Gast, who has brought so much back from California, can - tell you this, too—that I had the name of finishing what I began.” - </p> - <p> - But, once more outside, alone, his appearance of resolution vanished: the - merest untraceable rumor would be sufficient to accomplish all that he - feared, damage him irreparably with Honora. He was far older in spirit and - body than he had been back on Indian Bar; he had passed the tumultuous - years of living. The labor and privation, the continuous immersion in - frigid streams, had lessened his vitality, sapped his ability for - conflict. All that he now wished was the happiness of his wife, Honora, - and the quietude of their big, peaceful house; the winter evenings by the - Franklin stove and the spring evenings with the windows open and the - candles guttering in the mild, lilac-hung air. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <p> - Together with his uncertainty the pleasure in the sheer fact of his wife - increased; and with it the old wonderment at their situation returned. - What, for instance, did she mean by saying that he must explain her to - herself? He tried again all the conventional reasons for marriage without - satisfaction: the sentimental and material equally failed. Jason felt that - if he could penetrate this mystery his grasp on actuality would be - enormously improved; he might, with such knowledge, successfully defy - Thomas Gast and all that past which equally threatened to reach out - destructively into the future. - </p> - <p> - His happiness, in its new state of fragility, became infinitely precious; - a thing to dwell on at nights, to ponder over walking through the town. - Then, disagreeably aware of what overshadowed him, he would watch such - passersby as spoke, searching for some sign of the spreading of his old - fault. Often he imagined that he saw such an indication, and he would - hurry home, in a panic of haste—which was, too, intense reluctance—to - discover if Honora yet knew. - </p> - <p> - He approached her a hundred times determined to end his misery of - suspense, and face the incalculable weight of her disdain; but on each - occasion he failed as he had at the first. Now his admission seemed too - damned roundabout; in an unflattering way forced upon him. His position - was too insecure, he told himself.... Perhaps the threat in the - apothecary's shop would be sufficient to shut the mouth of rumor. It had - not been empty; he was still capable of uncalculating rage. How closely - was Honora bound to him? What did she think of him at heart? - </p> - <p> - He couldn't bear to remember how he had laid open her dignity, the dignity - and position of the Canderays in Cottarsport, to whispered vilification. - Connected with him she was being discussed in “Pack” Clower's shanty. His - mind revolved endlessly about the same few topics, he elaborated and - discarded countless schemes to secure Honora. He even considered giving - Thomas Gast a sum of money to repair what harm the latter had wrought. - Useless—his danger flourished on hatred and envy and malice. However - exculpable the killing of Eddie Lukens had been, the results were - immeasurably unfortunate, for a simple act of violent local justice. - </p> - <p> - They were in the carriage above Cottarsport; Coggs had died through the - winter, and his place been taken by a young coachman from the city. The - horses rested somnolently in their harness, the bright bits of rubbed - silver plate shining. Honora was looking out over the harbor, a gentian - blue expanse. “Good Heavens,” she cried with sudden energy, “I am getting - old at a sickening rate. Only last year the schooners and sea made me as - restless as a gull. I wanted to sail to the farthest places; but now the - boats are—are no more than boats. It fatigues me to think of their - jumping about; and I haven't walked down to the wharves for six weeks. Do - I look a haggard fright?” - </p> - <p> - “You seem as young as before I went to California,” he replied simply. She - did. A strand of hair had slipped from its net, and wavered across her - flawless cheek, her lips were bright and smooth, her shoulders slimly - square. - </p> - <p> - “You're a marvelous woman, Honora,” he told her. - </p> - <p> - She gazed at him, smiling. “I wonder if you realize that that is your - first compliment of our entire wedded life?” - </p> - <p> - “Ridiculous,” he declared incredulously. - </p> - <p> - “Isn't it?” - </p> - <p> - “I mean I'm complimenting you all the time. I think——” - </p> - <p> - “You can hardly expect me to hear thoughts,” she interrupted. - </p> - <p> - He silently debated another—it was to be about the ribbon on her - throat—but decided against giving it voice. Why, like the reasons - for so much else, he was unable to say; they all had their root in the - blind sense of the uncertainty of his situation. - </p> - <p> - Throughout the evening his thoughts shifted ceaselessly from one position - to another. This, he realized, could not continue indefinitely; soon, from - within or out, Honora and himself must be revealed to each other. He was - permeated by the weariness of constant strain; the peace of the past - months had been destroyed; it seemed to him that he had become an alien to - the serenity of the high, tranquil rooms and of his wife. - </p> - <p> - He rose early the following morning, and descended into a rapt purity of - sunlight and the ecstatic whistling of robins. The front door had not been - opened; and, as he turned its shining brass knob, his gaze fell upon a - sheet of paper projecting below. Jason bent, securing it, and, with a - premonition of evil, thrust the folded scrap into his pocket. He turned - through the house into the garden; and there privately scrutinized a half - sheet with a clumsily formed, disguised writing: - </p> - <p> - “This,” he read, “will serve you notice to move on. Dangerous customers - are not desired here. Take a suggestion in time and skip bad consequences. - You can't hide back of your wife's hoops.” It was signed “Committee.” - </p> - <p> - A robin was thrilling the air with melody above his head. Jason listened - mechanically as the bird ended his song and flew away. Then the - realization of what he had found overwhelmed him with a strangling - bitterness: he, Jason Burrage, had been ordered from his birthplace, he - had been threatened and accused of hiding behind a woman, by the - off-scouring of the alleys and rum holes. A feeling of impotence thrust - its chilling edge into the swelling heat of his resentment. He would have - to stand like a condemned animal before the impending fatal blow; he was - held motionless, helpless, by every circumstance of his life and hopes. - </p> - <p> - He crumpled the warning in a clenched hand. How Cottarsport would point - and jeer at him, at Jason Burrage who was Honora Canderay's husband, a - murderer; Jason, who had returned from California with the gold fleece! It - wasn't golden, he told himself, but stained—a fleece dark with - blood, tarnished from hellish unhappiness, a thing infected with - immeasurable miseries. Its edge had fallen on Olive Stanes and left her—he - had passed her only yesterday—dry-lipped and shrunken into sterile - middle age. It promised him only sorrow, and now its influence was - reaching up toward Honora, in herself serenely apart from the muck and - defilement out of which he thought he had struggled. - </p> - <p> - The sun, rising over the bright spring foliage, filled the garden with - sparkling color. His wife, in a filmy white dress, called him to - breakfast. She waited for him with her faint smile, against the cool - interior. He went forward isolated, lonely, in his secret distress. - </p> - <p> - This communication, like the spoken accusation of a previous evening, was, - apparently, bare of other consequences. Jason's exterior life progressed - without a deviation from its usual smooth course. It was clear to him that - no version of the facts about the killing of Eddie Lukens had yet spread - in Cottarsport. This, he decided, considering the character of Thomas - Gast, the oblique quality of his statements, was natural. He could not - doubt that such public revelation, if threat and intimidation failed, must - come. Meanwhile he was victimized by a growing uncertainty—from what - direction would the next attack thrust? - </p> - <p> - He smiled grimly to himself at the memory of the withdrawn and secure - aspect of the town when he had first returned from the West. To him, - striding across the hills from the Dumner stage, it had resembled an - ultimate haven. The seeming harmony and peace of the grey fold of houses - about their placid harbor had concealed possibilities of debasement as low - as California's worst camps. Now, successful, when he had looked for the - reward of his long years of brutal toil, the end of struggle, he was - confronted by the ugliest situation of his existence. - </p> - <p> - He was glad that he had always been a silent man, or Honora would have - noticed and demanded the cause of the moroseness which must have settled - over him. They sat no longer before the stove in the drawing room, but on - a side porch that commanded an expanse of lawn and a high privet hedge, - while he smoked morosely at the inevitable cheroots, gloomily searching - for a way from the difficulty closing in upon him. - </p> - <p> - Honora had been to Boston, and she was describing lightly an encounter - with her aunt, Herriot Cozzens. He was only half conscious of her amused - voice. Clouds had obscured the evening sky, and there was an air of - suspense, like that preceding a thunder storm, in the thickening dark. A - restlessness filled Jason which he was unable to resist; and, with a - short, vague explanation, he rose and proceeded out upon the street. - There, his hands clasped behind his back and head lowered, he wandered on, - lost in inner despondence. - </p> - <p> - He turned into the courthouse square, dimly lighted by gas lamps at its - outer confines, and paced across the grass, stirring a few wan fireflies. - It was blacker still beyond the courthouse. He stumbled slightly, - recovered himself, and wearily commenced a return home. But he had - scarcely taken a step when a figure closed in upon him, materializing - suddenly out of the darkness. He stopped and was about to speak when a - violent blow from behind grazed his head and fell with a splintering - impact on his shoulder. He stood for a moment bewildered by the unexpected - pain; then, as he saw another shape, and another, gather around him, he - came sharply to his senses. His hand thrust into a pocket, but it was - empty—he had laid aside the derringer in Cottarsport. - </p> - <p> - His assailants grappled with him swiftly, and he swayed struggling and - hitting out with short blows in the center of a silent, vicious conflict. - A rough hard palm was crushed against his mouth, a head ground into his - throat, and a heavy, mucous breath of rum smote him. There was muttered - cursing, and low, disregarded commands. A cotton handkerchief, evidently - used as a mask, tore off in Jason's hand; strained voices, their caution - lost in passion, took unmistakably the accents of “Pack” Clower and the - Swede, Steven. A thinner tone outside the swirling bodies cried low and - urgent, “Get it done with.” A fist was driven again Jason's side, leaving - a sharp, stabbing hurt, a heavy kick tore his thigh. Then he got his - fingers into a neck and put into the grip all the sinewy strength got by - long years with a miner's pan and shovel. A choked sob responded, and - blood spread stickily over his palms. - </p> - <p> - It seemed to Jason Burrage that he was shaking himself free, that he was - victorious; with a final supreme wrench he stood alone, breathing in - gusts. There was a second's imponderable stillness, and then the entire - night appeared to crash down upon his head... - </p> - <p> - He thought it was the flumed river, all their summer's labor, bursting - over him. He was whirled downward through a swift course of jagged pains, - held under the hurtling water and planks and stones. He fought, blind and - strangled, but he was soon crushed into a supine nothingness. Far below, - the river discharged him: he was lying beside a slaty bank in which the - gold glittered like fine and countless fish scales. But he couldn't move, - and the bank flattened into a plain under a gloomy ridge, with a camp of - miners. He saw that it was Sunday, for the men were all grouped before the - tents singing. There was Eddie Lukens gravely waving a hand to the beat of - the melody:= - </p> - <p> - "'Don't you cry for me. - </p> - <p> - I'm going to Calaveras - </p> - <p> - With my wash bowl on my knee.'”= - </p> - <p> - It was undoubtedly Eddie, his partner, but he had never seen him so white - and—why, he had a hole over his eye! Eddie Lukens was dead; it - wasn't decent for him to be standing up, flapping his hands and singing. - Jason bent forward to remonstrate, to persuade him to go back—back - to where the dead belonged. Then he remembered, but it was too late: Eddie - had him in an iron clutch, he was dragging him, too, down. - </p> - <p> - Jason made a convulsive effort to escape, he threw back his head, gasping; - and saw Honora, his wife, bending over him. The tormenting illusion slowly - perished—this was Cottarsport and not California, he was back again - in the East, the present, married to Honora Canderay. An astounding fact, - but so. Through the window of his room he could see the foliage of a great - horse-chestnut tree that stood by the side walk; it was swelling into - flower. Full memory now flooded back upon him, and with it the realization - that probably his happiness was destroyed. - </p> - <p> - It was impossible to tell how much Honora knew of the cause of the assault - upon him. She was always like that—enigmatic. But, whatever she knew - now, soon she would have to hear all. Even if he wished to lie, it would - be impossible to fabricate, maintain, a convincing cover for what had - happened. The most superficial, necessary investigation would expose the - story brought home by Thomas Gast. - </p> - <p> - The time had come when he must confide everything to Honora; perhaps she - would overlook his cowardice. About to address her, he fell into a - bottomless coma, and a day passed before he had gathered himself - sufficiently to undertake his task. She was sitting facing him, her chair - by a window, where her fingers were swiftly and smoothly occupied. Her - features were a little blurred against the light, and—her - disconcerting scrutiny veiled—he felt this to be an assistance. - </p> - <p> - “Those men who broke me up,” he began dis-jointedly, surprised at the thin - uncertainty of his voice, “I know pretty well who they are. Ought to get - most of them.” - </p> - <p> - “We thought you could say,” she rejoined in an even tone. “Some guesses - were made, but it was better to wait till you could give a statement.” - </p> - <p> - “Am I badly hurt, Honora?” he asked suddenly. “Not dangerously,” she - assured him. “You have splendid powers of recuperation.” - </p> - <p> - “I'll have to go on,” he added hurriedly, “and tell you the rest—why - I was beaten.” - </p> - <p> - “It would be better not,” she stated. “You ought to be as calm as - possible. It may quiet you, Jason, to hear that I know now.” - </p> - <p> - “You know what the town has been saying,” he cried in bitter revolt, “what - lies Thomas Gast spread. You've heard all the envy and malice and drunken - vileness of sots. It isn't right for you to think you know before I could - speak a word of defense.” - </p> - <p> - “Not only what the town says, Jason,” she replied simply, “but the truth. - Olive Stanes told me.” - </p> - <p> - “Then——.” An excited weakness broke his voice in a sob, and - Honora rose, crossing the room to his bed. “You must positively stop - talking of this now,” she directed. “If you attempt it I shall go away and - send a nurse.” - </p> - <p> - He was helpless against her will, and sank into semi-slumberous wonder. - Honora knew all: Olive Stanes had told her. She was as noncommittal, he - complained to himself, as a wooden Indian. She might have excused him - without a second thought, and it might be that she had finished with him - entirely, that she was merely dispensing a charity and duty; and, moving - uneasily, or lying propped up in a temporary release from suffering, he - would study her every movement in an endeavor to gain her all-important - opinion of him as he had been lately revealed. It was useless; he was - always, Jason felt, in a state of disturbing suspense. - </p> - <p> - He determined to end it, however, in spite of what Honora had said, on an - afternoon when he was supported down to the street and the carriage. His - wife took her place at his side, and they rolled forward into the - expansive warmth of summer. Jason was impressed by the sheer repetition of - life; and it seemed to him that this was the greatest happiness possible—such - a procession of days and drives, with Honora. - </p> - <p> - Her throat rose delicately from ruffled lace, circled by a narrow black - velvet band with a clasp of remarkable diamonds; and he smiled at the - memory of how he had once thought she was marrying him for money. That - seemed years ago, but he was no nearer the solution of her motive now than - then. Her slim hands were folded in her lap—how beautifully they - were joined at the wrists; her tapering fingers were like ivory. As he - studied them he was startled at their suddenly meeting in a rigid clasp, - the knuckles white and sharp. He looked up and saw that they were drawing - near a small group of men outside the apothecary's shop. - </p> - <p> - A curious silence fell upon these as the carriage approached: there were - the two Radlaws, one saturnine and bleak, the other greenish, shattered by - drugs; Thomas Gast; Vleet, the fishing schooner's master, and a casual, - familiar passerby. Jason Burrage stared at them with a stony ominous - countenance, at which Gast made a gesture of combined insolence and - uncertainty. Jason had sunk back on the cushions when he was astonished by - Honora's commanding the coachman to stop. It was evident that she was - about to descend; he put out a hand to restrain her, but she disregarded - him. His astonishment increased to incredulity and then fear; he rose - hurriedly, but relaxed with a mutter of pain. - </p> - <p> - Honora, a Canderay, had taken the carriage whip from its holder, and was - walking, direct and composed, toward Thomas Gast. She stopped a short - distance away: before an exclamation, a movement, was possible she had - swept the thong of the whip across Gast's face. The blow was swung with - force, and the man faltered, a burning welt on the pallor of his - countenance. The coachman and Jason Burrage in the carriage, the men - together on the sidewalk, seemed part of an inanimate group of which the - only thing endowed with life was the whip flickering again, cutting and - wrapping, about a face. - </p> - <p> - There was a curiously ruthless impersonality about Honora's erect - presence, her icy cold profile. Memories of old stories of Ithiel - Canderay, the necessary salt cruelness of punishment in ships, flashed - through Jason's mind. An intolerable weight of time seemed to drag upon - him. Thomas Gast gave a hoarse gurgle and lurched forward, but the - relentless lash drove him back. - </p> - <p> - “You whisperer!” Honora said in her ringing voice, “you liar and - slabbering coward! It's necessary to cut the truth out of you. When you - talk again about Mr. Burrage and the man he shot in California don't leave - out the smallest detail of his exoneration. Say that he had been robbed, - the other broke one of the first laws of miners and should have been - killed. You'd not have done it—a knife in the back would be your - thought—but a man would!” - </p> - <p> - She flung the whip down on the bricks. - </p> - <p> - Thomas Gast pressed his hands to his face, and slow red stains widened - through his fingers. The apothecary stood transfixed; his brother was - shaking in a febrile and congested horror. The woman turned disdainfully, - moving to the carriage; the coachman descended and offered his arm as she - mounted to the seat. The reins were drawn and the horses started forward - in a walk. - </p> - <p> - Honora's gaze was set, looking directly ahead; her hands, in her lap of - flowered muslin, were now relaxed; they gave an impression of crushing - weariness. Jason's heart pounded like a forge hammer; a tremendous - realization was forced into his brain—he need never again question - why Honora had married him; his doubts were answered, stopped, for ever. - He turned to her to speak an insignificant part of his measureless - gratitude, but he was choked, blinded, by a passion of honor and homage. - </p> - <p> - Her gaze sought him, and there was a faint tremor of her lips; it grew - into the shadow of an ironic smile. Suddenly it was borne upon his new, - acquiescent serenity that Honora would always be a Canderay for him, he - must perpetually think of her in the terms of his early habit; she would - eternally be a little beyond him, a being to approach, to attend, with - ceremony. The memory and sweep of all California, the pageant of life he - had seen on the way, his own boasted success and importance, faded before - the solid fact of Honora's commanding heritage in life, in Cottarsport. - </p> - <div style="height: 6em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Dark Fleece, by Joseph Hergesheimer - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DARK FLEECE *** - -***** This file should be named 51928-h.htm or 51928-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/1/9/2/51928/ - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by Google Books - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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-The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Dark Fleece, by Joseph Hergesheimer
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-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
-other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
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-to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
-
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-Title: The Dark Fleece
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-Author: Joseph Hergesheimer
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-Release Date: May 1, 2016 [EBook #51928]
-Last Updated: March 12, 2018
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-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DARK FLEECE ***
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-provided by Google Books
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-</pre>
-
- <div style="height: 8em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h1>
- THE DARK FLEECE
- </h1>
- <h2>
- By Joseph Hergesheimer
- </h2>
- <h4>
- New York Alfred A. Knopf
- </h4>
- <h3>
- 1922
- </h3>
- <blockquote>
- <p>
- Published, April, 1918, in a volume now out of print, entitled “Gold and
- Iron,” and then reprinted twice.
- </p>
- </blockquote>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> OLIVE </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> HONORA </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> JASON </a>
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- OLIVE
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HE house in old
- Cottarsport in which Olive Stanes lived was set midway on the steepness of
- Orange Street. It was a low dwelling of weathered boards holding close to
- the rocky soil, resembling, like practically all the Cottarsport
- buildings, the salt weed clinging to the seaward rocks of the harbor; and
- Orange Street, narrow, without walks, and dipping into cuplike
- depressions, was a type of almost all the streets. The Stanes house was
- built with its gable to the public way; the length faced a granite
- shoulder thrust up through the spare earth, a tall, weedy disorder of
- golden glow, and the sedgy incline to the habitation above.
- </p>
- <p>
- When Hester and Jem and then Rhoda were little they had had great joy of
- the boulder in the side yard: it was for them first impossible and then
- difficult of accomplishment; but they had rapidly grown into a complete
- mastery of its potentialities as a fort, a mansion impressive as that of
- the Canderays' on Regent Street, and a ship under the dangerous shore of
- the Feejees. Olive, the solitary child of Ira Stanes' first marriage, had
- had no such reckless pleasure from the rock——
- </p>
- <p>
- She had been, she realized, standing in the narrow portico that commanded
- by two steps the uneven flagging from the street, a very careful, yes,
- considerate, child when measured by the gay irresponsibility of her half
- brother and sisters. Money had been no more plentiful in the Stanes
- family, nor in all Cottarsport, then than now; her dresses had been few,
- she had been told not to soil or tear them, and she had rigorously
- attended the instruction.
- </p>
- <p>
- The second Mrs. Stanes, otherwise an admirable wife and mother, had, to
- Olive's young disapproval, rather encouraged a boisterous conduct in her
- children which overlooked a complete cleanliness or tidy array. And when
- she, like her predecessor, had died, and left Olive at twenty-three to
- assume full maternal responsibilities, that serious vicarious parent had
- entered into an inevitable and largely unavailing struggle against the
- minor damage caused mostly by the activities about the boulder.
- </p>
- <p>
- Now Hester and Rhoda had left behind such purely imaginative games, and
- Jem was away fishing on the Georges Bank; her duty and worries had
- shifted, but not lessened; while the rock remained precisely as it had
- been through the children's growth, as it had appeared in her own earliest
- memories, as it was before ever the Stanes dwelling, now a hundred and
- fifty years in place, or old Cottarsport itself, had been dreamed of. Her
- thoughts were mixed: at once they created a vague parallel between the
- granite in the side yard and herself, Olive Stanes—they both seemed
- to have been so long in one spot, so unchanged; and they dwelt on the fact
- that soon—as soon as Jason Burrage got home—she must be
- utterly different.
- </p>
- <p>
- Jason had written her that, if they cared to, they could build a house as
- large as the Canderays'. Under the circumstances she had been obliged to
- look on that as, perhaps, an excusable exaggeration, though she
- instinctively condemned the dereliction of the truth; yet, more than any
- other figure could possibly have done, it impressed upon her, from the
- boldness of the imagery, that Jason had succeeded in finding the gold for
- which he had gone in search nine years before. He was coming back, soon,
- rich.
- </p>
- <p>
- The other important fact reiterated in his last letter, that in all his
- absent years of struggle he had never faltered in his purpose of coming to
- her with any fortune he might chance to get, she regarded with scant
- thought. It had not occurred to Olive that Jason Burrage would do anything
- else; her only concern had been that he might be killed; otherwise he had
- said that he loved her, and that they were to marry when he returned.
- </p>
- <p>
- She hadn't, really, been in favor of his going. The Burrages, measured by
- Cottarsport standards, were comfortably situated—Mr. Burrage's
- packing warehouse and employment in dried fish were locally called
- successful—but Jason had never been satisfied with familiar values;
- he had always exclaimed against the narrowness of his local circumstance,
- and restlessly reached toward greater possessions and a wider horizon.
- This dissatisfaction Olive had thought wicked, in that it had seemed to
- criticize the omnipotent and far-seeing wisdom of the Eternal; it had
- caused her much unhappiness and prayer, she had talked very earnestly to
- Jason about his stubborn spirit, but it had persisted in him, and at last
- carried him west in the first madness of the discovery of gold in a
- California river.
- </p>
- <p>
- Olive, at times, thought that Jason's revolt had been brought about by the
- visible example of the worldly pomp of the Canderays—of their great
- white house with the balustraded captain's walk on the gambreled roof,
- their chaise, and equable but slightly disconcerting courtesy. But she had
- been obliged to admit that, after all was said, Jason's bearing was the
- result of his own fretful heart.
- </p>
- <p>
- He had always been different from the other Cottarsport youths and men:
- while they were commonly long and bony, and awkwardly hung together,
- thickly tanned by the winds and sun and spray of the sea, Jason was small,
- compact, with dead black hair and pale skin. Mr. Burrage, who resembled a
- worn and discolored piece of driftwood, was the usual Cottarsport old man;
- but his wife, not conspicuously out of the ordinary, still had a snap in
- her unfading eyes, a ruddy roundness of cheek, that showed a lingering
- trace of a French Acadian intermarriage a century and more ago.
- </p>
- <p>
- Olive always regarded with something like surprise her unquestioned love
- for Jason. It had grown quietly, unknown to her, through a number of
- preliminary years in which she had felt that she must exert some influence
- for his good. He frightened her a little by his hot utterances and by the
- manner in which his soul shivered on the verge of a righteous damnation.
- The effort to preserve him from such destruction became intenser and more
- involved; until suddenly, to her later consternation, she had surrendered
- her lips in a single, binding kiss.
- </p>
- <p>
- But with that consummation a great deal of her troubling had ceased;
- spiritual vision, she had been certain, must follow their sacred union and
- subsequent life. Even the gold agitation and Jason's departure for Boston
- and the western wild had not given her especial concern. God was the
- supreme Master of human fate, and if He willed for Jason to go forth, who
- was she, Olive Stanes, to make a to-do? She had quietly addressed herself
- to the task of Hester, Jem, and Rhoda, to the ordering of her father's
- household—he was mostly away on the sea and a solitary man at home—and
- the formal recurrence of the occasions of the church.
- </p>
- <p>
- In such ways, she thought, bathed in the keen, pale red glow of a late
- afternoon in October, her youth had slipped imperceptibly away.
- </p>
- <p>
- A strong salt wind dipped into the hollow, and plastered her skirt,
- without hoops, against her erect, thin person. With the instinct, bred by
- the sea, of the presence in all calculations of the weather, she
- mechanically dwelt on its force and direction, wrinkling her forehead and
- pinching her lips—she could hear the rising wind straining through
- the elms on the hills behind Cottarsport—and then she turned
- abruptly and entered the house.
- </p>
- <p>
- There was a small dark hallway within, a narrow flight of stairs leading
- sharply up; the door on the right, to the formal chamber, was closed; but
- at the left an interior of somber scrubbed wood was visible. On the side
- against the hall a cavernous fireplace, with a brick hearth, blackened
- with shadows and the soot of ancient fires, had been left open, but held
- an air-tight sheet-iron stove. The windows, high on the walls, were small
- and long, rather than deep; and a table, perpetually spread, stood on a
- thick hooked rug of brilliant, primitive design.
- </p>
- <p>
- Rhoda, in a creaking birch rocker, was singing an inarticulated song with
- closed eyes. Her voice, giving the impression of being subdued, filled the
- room with its vibrant power. She had a mature face for sixteen years,
- vividly colored and sensitive, a wide mouth, and heavy twists of russet
- hair with metallic lights. The song stopped as Olive entered. Rhoda said:
- </p>
- <p>
- “I wish Hester would hurry home; I'm dreadful hungry.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Sometimes they keep her at the packing house, especially if there's a
- boat in late and extra work.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It's not very smart of her without being paid more. They'll just put
- anything on you they can in this stingy place. I can tell you I wouldn't
- do two men's work for a woman's pay. I'm awful glad Jason's coming back
- soon, Olive, with all that money, and I can go to Boston and study
- singing.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I've said over and over, Rhoda,” Olive replied patiently, “that you
- mustn't think and talk all the time about Jason's worldly success. It
- doesn't sound nice, but like we were all trying to get everything we could
- out of him before ever he's here.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Didn't he say in the last letter that I was to go to Boston?” Rhoda
- exclaimed impatiently. “Didn't he just up and tell me that? Why, with all
- the gold Jason's got it won't mean anything for him to send me away. It
- isn't as if I wouldn't pay you all back for the trouble I've been. I know
- I can sing, and I'll work harder than ever Hester dreamed of——”
- </p>
- <p>
- As if materialized by the pronunciation of her name, the latter entered
- the room. “Gracious, Hester,” Rhoda declared distastefully, making a nose,
- “you smell of dead haddock right this minute.” Hester, unlike Rhoda's
- softly rounded proportions, was more bony than Olive, infinitely more
- colorless, although ten years the younger. She had a black worsted scarf
- over her drab head in place of a hat, its ends wrapped about her meager
- shoulders and bombazine waist. Without preliminary she dropped into her
- place at the supper table, the shawl trailing on the broad, uneven boards
- of the floor.
- </p>
- <p>
- “The wind's smartening up on the bay,” she told them. “Captain Eagleston
- looks for half a blow. It has got cold, too. I wish the tea'd be ready
- when I get in from the packing house. It seems that much could be done,
- with Olive only sitting around and Rhoda singing to herself in the mirror
- on her dresser.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It'll draw in a minute more,” Olive said in the door from the kitchen,
- beyond the fireplace. Rhoda smiled cheerfully.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I suppose,” Hester went on, in a voice without emphasis that yet
- contrived to be thinly bitter, “you were all talking about what would
- happen when Jason came home with that fortune of his. Far as I can see
- he's promised and provided for everybody, Jem and Rhoda and his parents
- and Olive, every Tom and Noddy, but me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don't like to keep on about it,” Olive protested, pained. “Yet you
- can't see, Hester, how independent you are. A person wouldn't like to
- offer you anything until you had signified. You were never very nice with
- Jason anyway.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, I'm not going to be nicer after he's back with gold in his pocket.
- I guess he'll find I'm not hanging on his shoulder for a cashmere dress or
- a trip to Boston.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Pa ought to get into Salem soon,” Rhoda observed. “He said after this he
- wasn't going to ship again, even along the coast, but tally fish for Mr.
- Burrage. Pa's getting old.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And Jem'll be home from the Georges, too,” Olive added, seating herself
- with the tea. “I do hope he won't sign for China or any of those long
- voyages like he threatened.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “He won't get so far away from Jason,” Hester stated.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I saw Honora Canderay today,” Rhoda informed them. “She wasn't in the
- carriage, but walking past the courthouse. She had on a small bonnet with
- flowers inside the brim and skimpy hoops, gallooned and scalloped.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Did she stop?” Olive inquired.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, and said I was as bright as a fall maple leaf. I wish I could look
- like Honora Canderay——-”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Wait till Jason's back,” Hester interrupted.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It isn't her clothes,” Rhoda went on; “they're elegant material, of
- course, but not the colors I'd choose; nor it isn't her looks, either, no
- one would say she's downright pretty; it's just—just her. Is she as
- old as you, Olive?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Let's see, I'm thirty-six, and Honora Canderay was... she's near as old,
- a year younger maybe.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “She is wonderful to get close to,” said Rhoda, “no cologne and yet a
- lovely kind of smell——”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Not like dead haddock.” This was Hester again.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Do you know,” proceeded the younger, “she seemed to me kind of lonely. I
- wanted to give her a hug, but I wouldn't have for all the gold in
- California. I can't make out if she is freezing outside and nice in, or
- just polite and thinks nobody's good enough for her. She had an India
- shawl as big as a sail, with palm leaf ends, and——”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Rhoda, I wish you wouldn't put so much on clothes and such corruption.”
- Olive spoke firmly, with a light of zeal in her gaze. “Can't you think on
- the eternities?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Like Jason Burrage and Honora Canderay,” explained Hester; “Honora
- Canderay and Jason Burrage. They're eternities if there ever were any. If
- it isn't one it's bound to be the other.”
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <p>
- Olive's room had a sloping outer wall and casually placed insufficient
- windows; her bed, with a blue-white quilt, was supported by heavy maple
- posts; there were a chest of drawers, with a minute mirror stand, a
- utilitarian wash-pitcher and basin, a hanging for the protection of her
- clothes, and uncompromising chairs. A small circular table with a tatted
- cover held her Bible and a devotional book, “The Family Companion, by a
- Pastor.” It was cold when she went up to bed; with a desire to linger in
- her preparations, she put some resinous sticks of wood into a sheet-iron
- stove, and almost immediately there was a busily exploding combustion. A
- glass lamp on the chest of drawers shed a pale illumination that failed to
- reach the confines of the room; and, for a while, she moved in and out of
- its wan influence.
- </p>
- <p>
- She was thinking fixedly about Jason Burrage, and the great impending
- change in her condition, not in its worldly implications—she thought
- mostly of material values in the spirit of her admonitions to Rhoda—but
- in its personal and inner force. At times a pale question of her aptitude
- for marriage disturbed her serenity; at times she saw it as a sacrifice of
- her being to a condition commanded of God, a species of martyrdom even.
- The nine years of Jason's absence had fixed certain maidenly habits of
- privacy; the mold of her life had taken a definite cast. Her existence had
- its routine, the recurrence of Sunday, its contemplations, duties, and
- heavenly aim. And, lately, Jason's letters had disturbed her.
- </p>
- <p>
- They seemed filled with an almost wicked pride and a disconcerting energy;
- he spoke of things instinctively distressing to her; there were hints of
- rude, Godless force and gaiety—allusions to the Jenny Lind Theatre,
- the El Dorado, which she apprehended as a name of evil import, and to the
- excursions they would make to Boston or as far as New York.
- </p>
- <p>
- Jason, too, she realized, must have developed; and California, she feared,
- might have emphasized exactly such traits as she would wish suppressed.
- The power of self-destruction in the human heart she believed
- immeasurable. All, all, must throw themselves in abject humility upward
- upon the Rock of Salvation. And she could find nothing humble in Jason's
- periods, burdened as they were with a patent satisfaction in the success
- of his venture.
- </p>
- <p>
- Yet parallel with this was a gladness that he had triumphed, and that he
- was coming back to Cottarsport a figure of importance. She could measure
- that by the attitude of their town, by the number and standing of the
- people who cordially stopped her on the street for the purposes of
- congratulation and curiosity. Every one, of course, had known of their
- engagement; there had been a marked interest when Jason and a fellow
- townsman, Thomas Gast, had departed; but that would be insignificant
- compared to the permanent bulk Jason must now assume. Why he and the
- Canderays would be Cottarsport's most considerable people.
- </p>
- <p>
- As always, at the merest thought of the Canderays, personal facts were
- suspended for a mental glance at that separate family. There was no sense
- of inferiority in Olive's mind, but an instinctive feeling of difference.
- This wasn't the result of their big house, nor because the Captain's wife
- had been a member of Boston society, but resided in the contrariness of
- the family itself, now centered in Honora, the only one alive.
- </p>
- <p>
- Perhaps Honora's diversity lay in the fact that, while she seldom actually
- left Cottarsport, it was easy to see that she had a part in a life far
- beyond anything Olive, whose consciousness was strictly limited to one
- narrow place, knew. She always suggested a wider and more elegantly
- finished existence than that of local sociables and church activities.
- Captain Ithiel Canderay, a member of a Cottarsport family long since moved
- away, had, from obscure surprising promptings, returned at his successful
- retirement from the sea, and built his impressive dwelling in the grey
- community. He had always, however different the tradition of his wife's
- attitude, entered with a candid spirit into the interests and life of the
- town, where he had inspired solid confidence in a domineering but
- unimpeachable integrity. Such small civic honors as the locality had to
- bestow were his, and were discharged to the last and most exacting degree.
- But there had been perpetually about him the aloof air of the
- quarter-deck, his tones had never lost the accent of command; and, while
- Cottarsport bitterly guarded its personal equality and independence, it
- took a certain pride in a recognition of the Captain's authority.
- </p>
- <p>
- Something of this had unquestionably descended upon Honora; her position
- was made and zealously guarded by the town. Yet that alone failed to hold
- the reason for Olive's feeling; it was at once more particular and more
- all-embracing, and largely feminine. She was almost contemptuous of the
- other's delicacy of person, of the celebrated fact that Honora Canderay
- never turned her hand to the cooking of a dish or the sweeping of a stair;
- and at the same time these very things lifted her apart from Olive's
- commonplace round.
- </p>
- <p>
- Her mind turned again to herself and Jason's home-coming. He had been
- wonderfully generous in his written promises to Rhoda and Jem; and he
- would be equally thoughtful of Hester, she was certain of that. People had
- a way of overlooking Hester, a faithful and, for all her talk, a Christian
- character. Rhoda would study to be a singer; striving, Olive hoped, to put
- what talent she had to a sanctioned use; and Jem, a remarkably vigorous
- and able boy of eighteen, would command his own fishing schooner.
- </p>
- <p>
- The sheet-iron stove glowed cherry red with the energy of its heat, and a
- blast of wind rushed against the windows. The wind, she recognized, had
- steadily grown in force; and Olive thought of her father in the barque <i>Emerald</i>
- of Salem, somewhere between Richmond and the home port.... The lamplight
- swelled and diminished.
- </p>
- <p>
- She got a new pleasure from the conjunction of her surrender to matrimony
- and the good it would bring the others; that—self-sacrifice—was
- excellence; such subjection of the pride of the flesh was the essence of
- her service. Then some mundane affairs invaded her mind: a wedding dress,
- the preparation of food for a small company after the ceremony, whether
- she should like having a servant. Jason would insist on that; and there
- she decided in the negative. She wouldn't be put upon in her own kitchen.
- </p>
- <p>
- Her arrangements for the night were complete, and she set the stove door
- slightly open, shivering in her coarse night dress before the icy cold
- drifts of wind in the room, extinguished the lamp, and, after long,
- conscientiously deliberate prayers, got into bed. The wind boomed about
- the house, rattling all the sashes. Its force now seemed to be buffeting
- her heart until she got a measure of release from the thought of the
- granite boulder in the side yard, changeless and immovable.
- </p>
- <p>
- The morning was gusty, with a coldly blue and cloudless sky. Olive,
- reaching the top of Orange Street, was whipped with dust, her hoops
- flattened grotesquely against her body. The town fell away on either hand,
- lying in a half moon on its harbor. The latter, as blue and bright as the
- sky, was formed by the rocky arm of Cottar's Neck, thrust out into the sea
- and bent from right to left. Most of the fishing fleet showed their bare
- spars at the wharves, but one, a minute fleck of white canvas, was beating
- her way through the Narrows. She wondered, descending, if it were Jem
- coming home.
- </p>
- <p>
- Olive was going to the Burrages'; it was possible that they had had a
- later letter than hers from Jason. It might be he would arrive that very
- day. She was conscious of her heart throbbing slightly at this
- possibility, but from a complexity of emotions which still left her uneasy
- if faintly exhilarated. She crossed the courthouse square, where she saw
- that the green grass had become brown, apparently over night, and turned
- into Marlboro Street. Here the houses were more recent than the Staneses';
- they were four square, with a full second story—a series of detached
- white blocks with flat porticoes—each set behind a wood fence in a
- lawn with flower borders or twisted and tree-like lilacs.
- </p>
- <p>
- She entered the Burrage dwelling without the formality of knocking; and,
- familiar with the household, passed directly through a narrow, darkened
- hall, on which all the doors were closed, to the dining room and kitchen
- beyond. As she had known he would be, Hazzard Burrage was seated with his
- feet, in lamb's wool slippers, thrust under the stove. For the rest, but
- lacking his coat, he was formally and completely dressed; his corded
- throat was folded in a formal black stock, a watch chain and seal hung
- across his waistcoat. Mrs. Burrage was occupied in lining a cupboard with
- fresh shelf paper with a cut lace border. She was a small woman, with
- quick exact movements and an impatient utterance; but her husband was slow—a
- man who deliberately studied the world with a deep-set gaze.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I thought you might have heard,” Olive stated directly, on the edge of a
- painted split-hickory chair. They hadn't, Mrs. Burrage informed her: “I
- expect he'll just come walking in. That's the way he always did things,
- and I guess California, or anywhere else, won't change him to notice it.
- And when he does,” she continued, “he's going to be put out with Hazzard.
- I told you Jason sent us three thousand dollars to get the front of the
- house fixed up. He said he didn't want to find his father sitting in the
- kitchen when he got back. Jason said we were to burn three or four stoves
- all at once. But he won't, and that's all there is to it. Why, he just put
- the money in the bank and there it lies. I read him the parable about the
- talents, but it didn't stir him an inch.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Jason always was quick acting,” Hazzard Burrage declared; “he never
- stopped to consider; and it's as like as not he'll need that money. It
- wouldn't surprise me if when he sat down and counted what he had Jason'd
- find it was less than he thought.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “He wrote me,” Olive stated, “that we could build a house as big as the
- Canderays'.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Jason always was one to talk,” Mrs. Burrage replied in defense of her
- son.
- </p>
- <p>
- Olive moved over to the older woman and held the dishes to be replaced in
- the cupboard. They commented on the force of the wind throughout the
- night. “The tail end of a blow at sea,” Bur-rage told them; “I wouldn't
- wonder but it reached right down to the West Indies.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I hope he brings me a grey satinet pelerine like I wrote,” said Mrs.
- Burrage. She was obviously flushed at the thought of the possession of
- such a garment—a fact which Olive felt, at the other's age, to be
- inappropriate to the not distant solemnity of the Christian ordeal of
- death. She repeated automatically: “... turn from these vanities unto the
- living God.” She rose:
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'll let you know if I hear anything, and anyhow stop in tomorrow.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Outside, sere leaves were whirling in grey funnels of dust, the intense
- blue bay sparkled under the cobalt sky; and, leaving Marlboro Street with
- a hand on her bonnet, she ran directly into Honora Canderay.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh!” Olive exclaimed, breathless and slightly concerned. “Indeed if I saw
- you, Honora; the wind was that strong pulling at a person.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What does it matter?” Honora replied. She was wrapped from throat to hem
- in a cinnamon colored velvet cloak that, fluttering, showed a lining of
- soft, quilted yellow. In the flood of morning her skin was flawless; her
- delicate lips and hazel eyes held the faint mockery that was the visible
- sign of her disturbing quality. She laid a hand, in a short, furred kid
- glove, on Olive's arm.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am so pleased about Jason's success,” she continued, in a clear
- insistent voice. “You must be mad with anxiety to have him back. It's the
- most romantic thing in the world. Aren't you thrilled to the soul?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'm glad to—to know he's been preserved,” Olive stammered, confused
- by Honora's frank speech.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You sound exactly as if he were a jar of quinces,” the other answered
- impatiently; “and not a true lover coming back from California with bags
- of gold.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Olive's confusion deepened to painful embarrassment at the indelicate term
- lover. She wondered, hotly red, how Honora could go on so, and made a
- motion to continue on her way. But the other's fingers closed and held
- her. “I wonder, Olive,” she said more thoughtfully, “if I know you well
- enough, if you will allow me, to give you some advice. It is this—don't
- be too rigid with Jason when he gets back. For nearly ten years he's been
- out in a life very different from Cottarsport, and he must have changed in
- that time. Here we stay almost the same—ten or twenty or fifty years
- is nothing really. The fishing boats come in, they may have different
- names, but they are the same. We stop and talk, Honora Canderay and Olive
- Stanes, and years before and years later women will stand here and do the
- same with beliefs no wider than your finger. But it isn't like that
- outside; and Jason will have that advantage of us—things really very
- small, but which have always seemed tremendous here, will mean no more to
- him than they are worth. He will be careless, perhaps, of your most
- cherished ideas; and, if you are to meet him fairly, you must try to see
- through his eyes as well as your own. Truly I want you to be happy, Olive;
- I want every one in Cottarsport to be as happy... as they can.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Olive's embarrassment increased: it was impossible to know what Honora
- Canderay meant by her last words, in that echoing voice. Nevertheless, her
- independence of spirit, the long nourished tenets of the abhorrence of
- sin, asserted themselves in the face of even Honora's directions. “I
- trust,” she replied stiffly, “that Jason has been given grace to walk in
- the path of God——” She stopped with lips parted, her breath
- laboring with shock, at the interruption pronounced in ringing accents.
- Honora Canderay said:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Grace be damned!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Olive backed away with her hands pressed to her cheeks. In the midst of
- her shuddering surprise she realized how much the other resembled her
- father, the captain.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I suppose,” Honora further ventured, “that you are looking for a bolt of
- lightning, but it is late in the season for that. There are no thunder
- storms to speak of after September.” She turned abruptly, and Olive
- watched her depart, gracefully swaying against the wind.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <p>
- All Olive's unformed opinions and attitude concerning Honora Canderay
- crystallized into one sharp, intelligible feeling—dislike. The
- breadth of being which the other had seemed to possess was now revealed as
- nothing more than a lack of reverence. She was inexpressibly upset by
- Honora's profanity, the blasphemous mind it exhibited, her attempted
- glossing of sin. It was nothing less. In the assault on Olive's most
- fundamental verities—the contempt which, she divined, had been
- offered to the edifice of her conscience and creed—she responded
- blindly, instinctively, with an overwhelming condemnation. At the same
- time she was frightened, and hurried away from the proximity of such
- unsanctified talk. She did not go to Citron Street, and the shops, as she
- had intended; but kept directly on until she found herself at the harbor
- and wharves. The latter serrated the water's edge, projecting from the
- relatively tall, bald warehouses, reeking with the odor of dead fish, cut
- open and laid in salt, grey-white areas to the sun and wind.
- </p>
- <p>
- A small group of men, with flat bronzed countenances and rough furze
- coats, uneasily stirred their hats, in the local manner of saluting women,
- and turned to gaze fixedly at her as she passed. Even in her perturbation
- of mind she was conscious of their unusual scrutiny. She couldn't, now,
- for the life of her, recall what needed to be bought; and, mounting the
- narrow uneven way from the water, she proceeded home.
- </p>
- <p>
- Some towels, laid on the boulder to dry, had not been sufficiently
- weighted, and hung blown and crumpled on a lilac bush. These she
- collected, rearranged, complaining of the blindness of whoever might be
- about the house, and then proceeded within. There, to her amazement, she
- found Hester, in the middle of the morning, and Rhoda bent over the dinner
- table, sobbing into her arm. Hester met her with a drawn face darkly
- smudged beneath the eyes.
- </p>
- <p>
- “The <i>Emerald</i> was lost off the Cape,” she said; “sunk with all on
- board. A man came over from Salem to tell us. He had to go right back. Pa,
- he's lost.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Olive sank into a chair with limp hands. Rhoda continued uninterrupted her
- sobbing, while Hester went on with her recital in a thin, blank voice.
- “The ship <i>J. Q. Adams</i> stood by the <i>Emerald</i>, but there was
- such a sea running she couldn't do anything else. They just had to see the
- <i>Emerald</i>, with the men in the rigging, go under. That's what he said
- who was here. They just had to see Pa drown before their eyes.... The wind
- was something terrible.”
- </p>
- <p>
- A deep, dry sorrow constricted Olive's, heart. Suddenly the details of
- packing her father's blue sea chest returned to her mind—the wool
- socks she had knitted and carefully folded in the bottom, the needles and
- emery and thread stowed in their scarlet bag, the tin of goose grease for
- his throat, the Bible that had been shipped so often. She thought of them
- all scattered and rent in the wild sea, of her father——
- </p>
- <p>
- She forced herself to rise, with a set face, and put her hand on Rhoda's
- shoulder. “It's right to mourn, like Rachel, but don't forget the majesty
- of God.” Rhoda shook off her palm and continued in an ecstasy of emotional
- relief. Olive hardened. “Get up,” she commanded; “we must fix things here,
- for the neighbors and Pastor will be in. I wish Jem were back.”
- </p>
- <p>
- At this Rhoda became even more unrestrained, and Olive remembered that Jem
- too was at sea, and that probably he had been caught in the same gale.
- “He'll be all right,” she added quickly; “the fishing boats live through
- everything.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Yet she was infinitely relieved when, two days later, Jem arrived safely
- home. He came into the house with a pounding of heavy boots, a powerfully
- built youth with a rugged jaw and an intent quiet gaze. “I heard at the
- wharf,” he told Olive. They were in the kitchen, and he pulled off his
- boots and set them away from the stove.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'm thankful you're so steady and able,” she said.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am glad Jason's coming home—rich,” he replied tersely. Later,
- after supper, while they still sat at the table, he went on, “There is a
- fine yawl for sale at Ipswich, sails ain't been made a year, fifty-five
- tons; I could do right good with that. The fishing's never been better. Do
- you think Jason would be content to buy her, Olive? I could pay him back
- after a run or two.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “He told you he'd do something like that,” she answered. “I guess now it
- wouldn't mean much to him.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And I'll be away,” Rhoda eagerly added; “you wouldn't have to give me
- anything, Jem. Jason promised me, too.”
- </p>
- <p>
- An unreasonable and disturbing sense of insecurity enveloped Olive. But,
- of course, it would be all right—Jason was coming back rich, to
- marry her. Jem would have the yawl and Rhoda get away to study singing.
- And yet all that she vaguely dreaded about Jason himself persisted darkly
- at the back of her consciousness, augmented by Honora Canderay's warning.
- She was a little afraid of Jason, too; in a way, after so long, he seemed
- like a stranger, a stranger whom she was going to wed.
- </p>
- <p>
- “He'll be all dressed up,” Rhoda stated. “I hope, Olive, you will kiss him
- as soon as he steps through the door. I know I would.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Don't be so shameless, Rhoda,” the elder admonished her. “You are very
- indelicate. I'd never think of kissing Jason like that.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I will go over and see the man who owns her,” Jem said enigmatically.
- “She's a cockpit boat, but I heard the wave wasn't made that could fill
- her. And we have my share of the last run till Jason's here.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He paid this faithfully into Olive's hand the next day and then
- disappeared. She thought he came through the door again: someone stood
- behind her. Olive turned slowly and saw an impressive figure in stiff
- black broadcloth and an incredibly high glassy silk hat.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <p>
- She knew instinctively that it must be Jason Burrage, and yet the feeling
- of strangeness persisted. All sense of the time which had elapsed since
- Jason went was lost in the illusion that the figure familiar to her
- through years of knowledge and association had instantly, by a species of
- magic, been transformed into the slightly smiling, elaborate man in the
- doorway. She stepped backward, hesitatingly pronouncing his name.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Olive,” he exclaimed, with a deep, satisfied breath, “it hasn't changed a
- particle!” To her extreme relief he did not make a move to embrace her;
- but gazed intently about the room. One of the things that made him seem
- different, she realized, was the rim of whiskers framing his lower face.
- She became conscious of details of his appearance—baggy dove-colored
- trousers over glazed boots, a quince yellow waistcoat in diamond pattern,
- a cluster of seals. Then her attention was held by his countenance, and
- she saw that his clothes were only an insignificant part of his real
- difference from the man she had known.
- </p>
- <p>
- Jason Burrage had always had a set will, the reputation of an impatient,
- even ugly disposition. This had been marked by a sultry lip and flickering
- eye; but now, though his expression was noticeably quieter, it gave her
- the impression of a glittering and dangerous reserve; his masklike calm
- was totally other than the mobile face she had known. Then, too, he had
- grown much older—she swiftly computed his age: it could not be more
- than forty-two, yet his hair was thickly stained with grey, lines starred
- the comers of his eyes and drew faintly at his mouth.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Are you glad to see me, Olive?” he asked.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why, Jason, what an unnecessary question. Of course I am, more thankful
- than I can say for your safety.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I walked across the hills from the Dumner stage,” he proceeded. “It was
- something to see Cottarsport on its bay and the Neck and the fishing boats
- at Planger's wharf. I'd like to have an ounce of gold for every time I
- thought about it and pictured it and you. Out on the placers of the
- Calaveras, or the Feather, I got to believing there wasn't any such town,
- but here it is.” He advanced toward her; she realized that she was about
- to be kissed, and a painful color dyed her cheeks.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You'll stop for supper,” she said practically.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I haven't been home yet, I came right here; I'll see them and be back.
- I'll bet I find them in the kitchen, with the front stoves cold, in spite
- of what I wrote and sent. I brought you a present, just for fun, and I'll
- leave it now, since it's heavy.” He bent over a satchel at his feet and
- got a buckskin bag, bigger than his two fists, which he dropped with a
- dull thud on the table.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What is it, Jason?” she asked. But of herself she knew the answer. He
- untied a string, and, dipping in his fingers, showed her a fine yellow
- metallic trickle. “Gold dust, two tumblers full,” he replied. “We used to
- measure it that way—a pinch a dollar, teaspoonful to the ounce, a
- wineglass holds a hundred, and a tumbler a thousand dollars.”
- </p>
- <p>
- She was breathless before the small shapeless pouch that held such a
- staggering amount. He laughed. “Why, Olive, it's nothing at all. I just
- brought it like that so you could see how we carried it in California. We
- are all rich now, Olive—the Burrages, and you're one, and the
- Staneses. I have close to a hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”
- </p>
- <p>
- This sum was little more to her than a fable, a thing beyond the scope of
- her comprehension; but the two thousand dollars before her gaze was a
- miracle made manifest. There it was to study, feel; subconsciously she
- inserted her hand in the bag, into the cold, smooth particles.
- </p>
- <p>
- “A hundred and fifty thousand,” he repeated; “but if you think I didn't
- work for it, if you suppose I picked it right out of a pan on the river
- bars, why—why, you are wrong.” Words failed him to express the
- erroneousness of such conclusions. “I slaved like a Mexican,” he added;
- “and in bad luck almost to the end.” She sat and gazed at him with an
- easier air and a growing interest, her hands clasped in her lap. “What I
- didn't know when I left Cottarsport was wonderful.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why, take the mining,” he said with a gesture; “I mean the bowl mining at
- first... just the heavy work in it killed off most of the prospectors—all
- day with a big iron pan, half full of clay and gravel, sloshing about in
- those rivers. And maybe you'd work a month without a glimmer, waking wet
- and cold under the sierras, whirling the pan round and round; and maybe
- when you had the iron cleared out with a magnet, and dropped in the
- quicksilver, what gold was there wouldn't amalgam. I can tell you, Olive,
- only the best, or the hardest, came through.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He produced a blunt, tapering cigar and lighted it expansively.
- </p>
- <p>
- “A lonely and dangerous business: every one carried his dust right on his
- body, and there were plenty would risk a shot at a miner coming back
- solitary with his donkey and his pile. It got better when the new methods
- came, and we used a rocker-hollowed out of a log. Then four of us went in
- partnership—one to dig the gravel, one to carry it to the cradle,
- another to keep it rocking, and the last to pour in the water. Then we
- drawed off the gold and sand through a plug hole.
- </p>
- <p>
- “We did fine at that,” he told her, “and in the fall of 'Fifty cleaned up
- eighteen thousand apiece. Then we had an argument: we were in the Yuba
- country, where it was kind of bad; two of us, and I was one of them, said
- to divide the dust, and get out best we could; but the others wanted to
- send all the gold to San Francisco in charge of one of them and a man who
- was going down with more dust. We finally agreed to this and lost every
- ounce we'd mined. The escort said they were shot by some of the disbanded
- California army, but I'm not sure. It seemed to me like our two had met
- somewhere, killed the other, and got the gold to rights.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “O Jason!” Olive exclaimed.
- </p>
- <p>
- “That was nothing,” he said complacently; “but only a joker to start with.
- I did a lot of things then to get a new outfit—sold peanuts on the
- Plaza in 'Frisco, or hollered the New York <i>Tribune</i> at a dollar and
- a half a copy; I washed glasses in a saloon and drove mules. After that I
- took a steamer for Stocton and the Calaveras. You ought to have seen
- Stocton, Olive—board shanties and blanket houses and tents, with two
- thieves left hanging on a gallows. We went from there, a party of us, for
- the north bank of the Calaveras, tramping in dust so hot that it scorched
- your face. Sluicing had just started and long Toms—a long Tom is a
- short placer—so we didn't know much about it. Looking back I can see
- the gold was there; but after working right up to the end of the season we
- had no more than a couple of thousand apiece. There were too many of us to
- start with.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, I drifted back to San Francisco.” He paused, and the expression
- which had most disturbed her deepened on his countenance, a stillness like
- the marble of a gravestone guarding implacable secrets.
- </p>
- <p>
- “San Francisco is different from Cottarsport, Olive,” he said after a
- little. “Here you wouldn't believe there was such a place; and there
- Cottarsport seemed too safe to be true... Well, I went after it again,
- this time as far north as Shasta. I prospected from the Shasta country
- south, and got a good lump together again. By then placer mining was
- better understood; we had sluice boxes two or three hundred feet long,
- connected with the streams, with strips nailed across the bottom where the
- gold and sand settled as the water ran through. Yes, I did well; and then
- fluming began.
- </p>
- <p>
- “That,” he explained, “is damming a river around its bed and washing the
- opened gravel. It takes a lot of money, a lot of work and men; and
- sometimes it pays big, and often it doesn't. I guess there were fifty of
- us at it. We slaved all the dry season at the dam and flume, a big wood
- course for the stream; we had wing dams for the placers and ditches, and
- the best prospects for eight or ten weeks' washing. It was early in
- September when we were ready to start, and on a warm afternoon I said to
- an old pardner, 'What do you make out of those big, black clouds settling
- on the peaks?' He took one look—the wind was a steady and muggy
- southwester—and then he sat down and cried. The tears rolled right
- over his beard.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It was the rains, nearly two months early, and the next day dams, flume,
- boards, and hope boiled down past us in a brown mash. That left me poorer
- than I'd ever been before; I had more when I was home on the wharves.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Wait,” she interrupted him, rising; “if you're coming back to supper I
- must put the draught on the stove.” From the kitchen she heard him singing
- in a low, contented voice:=
- </p>
- <p>
- "'The pilot bread was in my mouth,
- </p>
- <p>
- The gold dust in my eye,
- </p>
- <p>
- And though from you I'm far away,
- </p>
- <p>
- Dear Anna, don't you cry!'”=
- </p>
- <p>
- Then:=
- </p>
- <p>
- "'Oh, Ann Eliza!
- </p>
- <p>
- Don't you cry for me.
- </p>
- <p>
- I'm going to Calaveras
- </p>
- <p>
- With my wash bowl on my knee.'”=
- </p>
- <p>
- She returned and resumed her position with her hands folded.
- </p>
- <p>
- “And that,” Jason Burrage told her, “was how I learned gold mining in
- California. I sank shafts, too, and worked a windlass till the holes got
- so deep they had to be timbered and the ore needed a crusher. But after
- the fluming I knew what to wait for. I kept going in a sort of commerce
- for a while—buying old outfits and selling them again to the late
- comers—a pick or shovel would bring ten dollars and long boots fifty
- dollars a pair. I got twenty-four dollars for a box of Seidlitz powders.
- Then in 'Fifty-four I went in with three scientific men—one had been
- a big chemist at Paris—and things took a turn. We had the dead wood
- on gold. Why, we did nothing but re-travel the American Fork and Indian
- Bar, the Casumnec and Moquelumne, and work the tailings the earlier miners
- had piled up and left, just like I had south. We did some pretty things
- with cyanide; yes, and hydraulics and powder.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Things took a turn,” he repeated; “investments in stampers and so on, and
- here I am.”
- </p>
- <p>
- After he had gone—supper, she had informed him, was at five exactly—Olive
- had the bewildered feeling of partially waking from an extraordinary
- dream. Yet the buckskin bag on the table possessed a weighty actuality.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <p>
- She sat for a long while gazing intently at the gold, which, like a
- crystal ball, held for her varied reflections. Then, recalling the
- exigencies of the kitchen, she hurried abruptly away. Her thoughts wheeled
- about Jason Burrage in a confusion of all the impressions she had ever had
- of him. But try as she might she could not picture the present man as a
- part of her life in Cottarsport; she could not see herself married to him,
- although that event waited just beyond today. She set her lips in a
- straight line, a fixed purpose gave her courage in place of the timidity
- inspired by Jason's opulent strangeness—she couldn't allow herself
- to be turned aside for a moment from the way of righteousness. The gods of
- mammon, however they might blackly assault her spirit, should be
- confounded.=
- </p>
- <p>
- ”... hide me
- </p>
- <p>
- Till the storm of life is past."=
- </p>
- <p>
- She sang in a high quavering voice. There was a stir beyond—surely
- Jason wasn't back so soon; but it was Jem.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What's on the table here?” he called.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You let that be,” she cried back in a panic at having left the gift so
- exposed. “That's gold dust; Jason brought it, two thousand dollars'
- worth.”
- </p>
- <p>
- A prolonged whistle followed her announcement. Jem appeared with the
- buckskin bag in his hand. “Why, here's two yawls right in my hand,” he
- asserted.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mind one thing, Jem,” she went on, “he's coming back for supper, and I
- won't have you and Rhoda at him about boats and singing the minute he's in
- the house.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Rhoda, with exclamations, and then Hester, inspected the gold. “I'd slave
- five years for that,” the latter stated, “and then hardly get it; and here
- you, have it for nothing.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You'll get the good of it too, Hester,” Olive told her.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'll just work for what I get,” she replied fiercely. “I won't take a
- penny from Jason, Olive Stanes; you can't hold that over me, and the
- sooner you both know it the better.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You ought to pray to be saved from pride.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don't ask benefits from any one,” Hester stoutly observed.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Hester——” Olive commenced, scandalized, but she stopped at
- Jason's entrance. “Hester she wanted a share of the gold,” Jem declared
- with a light in his slow gaze, “and Olive was cursing at her.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Lots more,” said Jason Burrage, “buckets full.” In spite of the efforts
- of every one to be completely at ease the supper was unavoidably stiff.
- </p>
- <p>
- But when Jason had lighted one of his blunt cigars, and begun a vivid
- description of western life, the Staneses were transported by the marvels
- following one upon another: a nugget had been picked up over a foot long,
- it weighed a hundred and ninety pounds, and realized forty-three thousand
- dollars. “Why, fifty and seventy-five lumps were common,” he asserted. “At
- Ford's Bar a man took out seven hundred dollars a day for near a month.
- Another found seventeen thousand dollars in a gutter two or three feet
- deep and not a hundred yards long.
- </p>
- <p>
- “But 'Frisco was the place; you could see it spread in a day with
- warehouses on the water and tents climbing up every hill. Happy Valley, on
- the beach, couldn't hold another rag house. The Parker House rented for a
- hundred and seventy thousand a year, and most of it paid for gambling
- privileges; monté and faro, blazing lights and brass bands everywhere and
- dancing in the El Dorado saloon. At first the men danced with each other,
- but later——”
- </p>
- <p>
- He stopped; an awkward silence followed. Olive was rigid with inarticulate
- protest, a sense of outrage—gambling, saloons, and dancing! All that
- she had feared about Jason became more concrete, more imminent. She saw
- California as a modern Babylon, a volcano of gold and vice; already she
- had heard of great fires that had devastated it.
- </p>
- <p>
- “We didn't mine on Sunday, Olive,” Jason assured her; “and all the boys
- went to the preaching and sang the hymns, standing out on the grass.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Hester, finally, with a muttered period, rose and disappeared; Jem went
- out to consult with a man, his nod to Olive spoke of yawls; and Rhoda, at
- last, reluctantly made her way above. Olive's uneasiness increased when
- she found herself alone with the man she was to marry.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don't like Rhoda and Jem hearing about all that wickedness,” she told
- Jason Burrage; “they are young and easy affected. Rhoda gives me a lot of
- worry as it is.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Suppose we forget them,” he suggested. “I haven't had a word with you
- yet; that is, about ourselves. I don't even know but you have gone and
- fell in love with some one else.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Jason,” she answered, “how can you? I told you I'd marry you, and I
- will.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Are you glad to see me?” he demanded, coming closer and capturing her
- hand.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why, what a question. Of course I'm pleased you're back and safe.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You haven't got a headache, have you?” he inquired jocularly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “No,” she replied seriously. His words, his manners, his grasp, worried
- her more and more. Still, she reminded herself, she must be patient,
- accept life as it had been ordained. There was a slight flutter at her
- heart, a constriction of her throat; and she wondered if this were love.
- She should, she felt, exhibit more warmth at Jason's return, the
- preservation, through such turbulent years of absence, of her image. But
- it was beyond her power to force her hand to return his pressure: her
- fingers lay still and cool in his grasp.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You are just the same, Olive,” he told her; “and I'm glad you're what you
- are, and that Cottarsport is what it is. That's why I came back: it was in
- my blood, the old town and you. All the time I kept thinking of when I'd
- come back rich as I made up my mind to be, and get you what you ought to
- have—be of some importance in Cottarsport, like the Canderays. The
- old captain, too, died while I was away. How's Honora?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Honora Canderay is an ungodly woman,” Olive asserted with emphasis.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don't know anything about that,” he said; “but I always kind of liked
- to look at her. She reminded me of a schooner with everything set coming
- up brisk into the wind.” Olive made a motion toward the stove, but he
- restrained her; rising, he put in fresh wood. Then he turned and again
- seemed lost in a long, contented inspection of the quiet interior. Olive
- saw that marks of weariness shadowed his eyes.
- </p>
- <p>
- “This is what I came back for,” he reiterated; “peaceful as the forests,
- and yet warm and human. Blood counts.” He returned to his place by her,
- and leaned forward, very earnestly. “California isn't real the way this
- is,” he told her; “the women were just paint and powder, like things you
- would see in a fever, and then you'd wake up, in Cottarsport, well again,
- with you, Olive.”
- </p>
- <p>
- She managed to smile at him in acknowledgment of this.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'm desperately glad I pulled through without many scars. But there are
- some, Olive; that was bound to be. I don't know if a man had better say
- anything about the past, or just let it be, and go on. Times I think one
- and then the other. Yet you are so calm sitting here, and so good, it
- would be a big help to tell you... Olive, out on the American, and God
- knows how sorry I've been, I killed a man, Olive.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Slowly she felt herself turning icy cold, except for the hot blood rushing
- into her head. She stared at him for a moment, horrified; and then
- mechanically drew back, scraping the chair across the floor. Perhaps she
- hadn't understood, but certainly he had said——
- </p>
- <p>
- “Wait till I tell what I can for myself,” he hurried on, following her.
- “It was when the four of us were working with a rocker. I was shoveling
- the gravel, and every one in California knows that when you're doing that,
- and find a nugget over half an ounce, it belongs to you personal and not
- to the partnership. Well, I came on a big one, and laid it away—they
- all saw it—and then this Eddie Lukens hid it out on me. He was the
- only one near where I had it; he broke it up and put it in the cradle,
- sure; and in the talk that followed I—I shot him.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He laid a detaining hand on her shoulder, but she wrenched herself away.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Don't touch me!” she breathed. She thought she saw him bathed in the
- blood of the man he had slain. Her lips formed a sentence, “'Thou shalt
- not kill.'”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I was tried at Spanish Bar,” he continued. “Miners' law is better than
- you hear in the East. It's quick, it has to be, but in the main it's
- serious and right. I was tried with witnesses and a jury and they let me
- off; they justified me. That ought to go for something.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Don't come near me,” she cried, choking, filled with dread and utter
- loathing. “How can you stand there and—stand there, a murderer, with
- a life on your heart!”
- </p>
- <p>
- His face quivered with concern; in spite of her words he drew near her
- again, repeating the fact that he had been judged, released. Olive Stanes'
- hysteria vanished before the cold stability which came to her assistance,
- the sense of being rooted in her creed.
- </p>
- <p>
- “'Thou shalt not kill,'” she echoed.
- </p>
- <p>
- The emotion faded from his features, his countenance once more became
- masklike, the jaw was hard and sharp, his eyes narrowed. “It's all over
- then?” he asked. She nodded, her lips pinched into a white line.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What else could be hoped? Blood guiltiness. O Jason, pray to save your
- soul.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He moved over to where his high silk hat reposed, secured it, and turned.
- “This will be final.” His voice was hard. Olive stood slightly swaying,
- with closed eyes. Then she remembered the buckskin bag of not yellow but
- scarlet gold. She stumbled forward to it and thrust the weight into his
- hand. Jason Burrage's fingers closed on the gift, while his gaze rested on
- her from under contracted brows. He was, it seemed, about to speak, but
- instead preserved an intense silence; he looked once more about the room,
- still and old in its lamplight. Why didn't he go? Then she saw that she
- was alone:
- </p>
- <p>
- Like the eternal rock outside the door.
- </p>
- <p>
- From above came the clear, joyous voice of Rhoda singing. Olive crumpled
- into a chair. Soon Jem would be back.... She turned and slipped down upon
- the floor in an agony of prayer.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- HONORA
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">H</span>ONORA CANDERAY saw
- Jason Burrage on the day after his arrival in Cotarsport: he was walking
- through the town with a set, inattentive countenance; and, although she
- was in the carriage and leaned forward, speaking in her ringing voice, it
- was evident that he had not noticed her. She thought his expression gloomy
- for a man returned with a fortune to his marriage. Honora still dwelt upon
- him as she slowly progressed through the capricious streets and mounted
- toward the hills beyond. He presented, she decided, an extraordinary, even
- faintly comic, appearance in Cottarsport, with a formal black coat open on
- a startling waistcoat and oppressive gold chain, pale trousers and a silk
- hat.
- </p>
- <p>
- Such clothes, theatrical in effect, were inevitable to his changed
- condition and necessarily stationary taste. Yet, considering, she shifted
- the theatrical to dramatic: in an obscure but palpable manner Jason did
- not seem cheap. He never had in the past And now, while his inappropriate
- overdressing in the old town of loose and weathered raiment brought a
- smile to her firm lips, there was still about him the air which from the
- beginning had made him more noticeable than his fellows. It had even been
- added to—by the romance of his journey and triumph.
- </p>
- <p>
- She suddenly realized that, by chance, she had stumbled on the one term
- which more than any other might contain Jason. Romantic. Yes, that was the
- explanation of his power to stir always an interest in him, vaguely
- suggest such possibilities as he had finally accomplished, the venture to
- California and return with gold and the complicated watch chain. She had
- said no more to him than to the other Cottarsport youth and young manhood,
- perhaps a dozen sentences in a year; but the others merged into a
- composite image of fuzzy chins, reddened knuckles, and inept, choked
- speech, and Jason Burrage remained a slightly sullen individual with
- potentialities. He had never stayed long in her mind, or had any actual
- part in her life—her mother's complete indifference to Cottarsport
- had put a barrier between its acutely independent spirit and the Canderays—but
- she had been easily conscious of his special quality.
- </p>
- <p>
- That in itself was no novelty to her experience of a metropolitan and
- distinguished society: what now kept Jason in her thoughts was the fact
- that he had made his capability serve his mood; he had taken himself out
- into the world and there, with what he was, succeeded. His was not an
- ineffectual condition—a longing, a possibility that, without the
- power of accomplishment, degenerated into a mere attitude of bitterness.
- Just such a state, for example, as enveloped herself.
- </p>
- <p>
- The carriage had climbed out of Cottarsport, to the crown of the height
- under which it lay, and Honora ordered Coggs, a coachman decrepit with
- age, to stop. She half turned and looked down over the town with a veiled,
- introspective gaze. From here it was hardly more than a narrow rim of
- roofs about the bright water, broken by the white bulk of her dwelling and
- the courthouse square. The hills, turning roundly down, were sere and
- showed everywhere the grey glint of rock; Cottar's Neck already appeared
- wintry; a diminished wind, drawing in through the Narrows, flattened the
- smoke of the chimneys below.
- </p>
- <p>
- Cottarsport! The word, with all its implications, was so vivid in her mind
- that she thought she must have spoken it aloud. Cottarsport and the
- Canderays—now one solitary woman. She wondered again at the curious
- and involved hold the locality had upon her; its tyranny over her birth
- and destiny. It was comparatively easy to understand the influence the
- place had exerted on her father: commencing with his sixteenth year, his
- life had been spent, until his retirement from the sea, in arduous voyages
- to far ports and cities. His first command—the anchor had been
- weighed on his twentieth birthday—had been of a brig to Zanzibar for
- a cargo of gum copal; his last a storm-battered journey about, apparently,
- all the perilous capes of the world. Then he had been near fifty, and the
- space between was a continuous record of struggle with savage and
- faithless peoples, strange latitudes and currents, and burdensome
- responsibilities.
- </p>
- <p>
- Her mother, too, presented no insuperable obstacle to a sufficient
- comprehension—a noted beauty in a gay and self-indulgent society,
- she had passed through a triumphant period without forming any attachment.
- An inordinate amount of champagne had been uncorked in her honor,
- compliment and service and offers had made up her daily round; until,
- almost impossibly exacting, she had found herself beyond her early
- radiance, in the first tragic realization of decline. Stopping, perhaps,
- in the midst of slipping her elegance of body into a party dress, she
- remembered that she was thirty-five—just Honora's age at present.
- The compliments and offers had lessened, she was in a state of weary
- revulsion when Ithiel Canderay—bronzed and despotic and rich—had
- appeared before her and, the following day, urged marriage.
- </p>
- <p>
- Yes, it was easy to see why the shipmaster, desirous of peace after the
- unpeaceful sea, should build his house in the still, old port the
- tradition of which was in his blood. It was no more difficult to
- understand how his wife, always a little tired now from the beginning ill
- effects of ceaseless balls and wining, should welcome a spacious, quiet
- house and unflagging, patient care.
- </p>
- <p>
- All this was clear; and, in a way, it made her own position logical—she
- was the daughter, the repository, of such varied and yet unified forces.
- In moments of calm, such as this, Honora could be successfully
- philosophical. But she was not always placid; in fact she was placid but
- an insignificant part of her waking hours. She was ordinarily filled with
- emotions that, having no outlet, kept her stirred up, half resentful, and
- half desirous of things which she yet made no extended effort to obtain.
- </p>
- <p>
- Honora told herself daily that she detested Cot-tarsport, she intended to
- sell her house, give it to the town, and move to Boston. But, after three
- or four weeks in the city, a sense of weariness and nostalgia would
- descend upon her—the bitterness of her mother lived over again—and
- drive her back to the place she had left with such decided expressions of
- relief.
- </p>
- <p>
- This was the root of her not large interest in Jason Burrage—he,
- too, she had always felt, had had possibilities outside the local life and
- fish industry; and he had gone forth and justified, realized, them. He had
- broken away from the enormous pressure of custom, personal habit, and
- taken from life what was his. But she, Honora Canderay, had not had the
- courage to free herself from an existence without incentive, without
- reward. Something of this might commonly find excuse in the fact that she
- was a woman, and that the doors of life and experience, except one, were
- closed to her; but, individually, she had little use for this supine
- attitude. Her blood was too domineering. She consigned such inhibitions to
- pale creatures like Olive Stanes.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <p>
- The sun, sinking toward the plum-colored hills on the left, cast a rosy
- glow over low-piled clouds at the far horizon, and the water of the harbor
- seemed scattered with the petals of crimson peonies. The air darkened
- perceptibly. For a moment the grey town on the fading water, the distant
- flushed sky, were charged with the vague unrest of the flickering day.
- Suddenly it was colder, and Honora, drawing up her shawl, sharply
- commanded Coggs to drive on.
- </p>
- <p>
- She was going to fetch Paret Fifield from the steam railway station
- nearest Cottarsport. He visited her at regular intervals—although
- the usual period had been doubled since she'd seen him—and asked her
- with unfailing formality to be his wife. Why she hadn't agreed long ago,
- except that Paret was Boston personified, she did not understand. In the
- moments when she fled to the city she always intended to have him come to
- her at once. But hardly had she arrived before her determination would
- waver, and her thoughts automatically, against her will, return to
- Cottarsport.
- </p>
- <p>
- Studying him, as they drove back through the early dusk, she was surprised
- that he had been so long-suffering. He was not a patient type of man;
- rather he was the quietly aggressive, suavely selfish example for whom the
- world, success, had been a very simple matter. He was not solemn, either,
- or a recluse, as faithful lovers commonly were; but furnished a leading
- figure in the cotillions and had a nice capacity for wine. She said almost
- complainingly:
- </p>
- <p>
- “How young and gay you look, Paret, with your lemon verbena.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He was, it seemed to her, not entirely at ease, and almost confused at her
- statement. Nevertheless, he gave his person a swiftly complacent glance.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I do seem quite well,” he agreed surprisingly. “Honora, I'm the next
- thing to fifty. Would any one guess it?”
- </p>
- <p>
- This was a new aspect of Paret's, and she studied him keenly, with the
- slightly satirical mouth inherited from her father. Embarrassment became
- evident at his exhibition of trivial pride, and nothing more was said
- until, winding through the gloom of Cottarsport, they had reached her
- house. Inside there was a wide hall with the stair mounting on the right
- under a panelled arch. Mrs. Coz-zens, Honora's aunt and companion, was in
- the drawing room when they entered, and greeted Paret Fifield with the
- simple friendliness which, clearly without disagreeable intent, she
- reserved for an unquestionable few.
- </p>
- <p>
- After dinner, the elder woman winding wool from an ivory swift clamped to
- a table, Honora thought that Paret had never been so vivacious; positively
- he was silly. For no comprehensible reason her mind turned to Jason
- Burrage, striding with a lowered head, in his incongruous clothes, through
- the town of his birth.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I wonder, Paret,” she remarked, “if you remember two men who went from
- here to California about ten years ago? Well, one of them is back with his
- pockets full of gold and a silk hat. He was engaged to Olive Stanes... I
- suppose their wedding will happen at any time. You see, he was faithful
- like yourself, Paret.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The man's back was toward her; he was examining, as he had on every visit
- Honora could recall, the curious objects in a lacquered cabinet brought
- from over-seas by Ithiel Canderay, and it was a noticeably long time
- before he turned. Mrs. Cozzens, the shetland converted into a ball, rose
- and announced her intention of retiring; a thin, erect figure in black
- moiré with a long countenance and agate brown eyes, seed pearls, gold band
- bracelets, and a Venise point cap.
- </p>
- <p>
- When she had gone the silence in the room became oppressive. Honora was
- thinking of her life in connection with Paret Fifield, wondering if she
- could ever bring herself to marry him. She would have to decide soon: it
- seemed incredible that he was nearing fifty. Why, it must have been
- fifteen years ago when he first——
- </p>
- <p>
- “Honora,” he pronounced, leaning forward in his chair, “I came prepared to
- tell you a particular thing, but I find it much more difficult than I had
- anticipated.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I know,” she replied, and her voice, the fact she pronounced, seemed to
- come from a consciousness other than hers; “you are going to get married.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Exactly,” he said with a deep, relieved sigh.
- </p>
- <p>
- She had on a dinner dress looped with a silk ball fringe, and her fingers
- automatically played with the hanging ornaments as she studied him with a
- composed face.
- </p>
- <p>
- “How old is she, Paret?” Honora asked presently.
- </p>
- <p>
- He cleared his throat in an embarrassed manner. “Not quite nineteen, I
- believe.”
- </p>
- <p>
- She nodded, and her expression grew imperceptibly colder. A slight but
- actual irritation at him, a palpable anger, shocked her, which she was
- careful to screen from her manner and voice. “You will be very happy,
- certainly. A young wife would suit you perfectly. You have kept splendidly
- young, Paret.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “She is really a superb creature, Honora,” he proceeded gratefully. “I
- must bring her to you. But I am going to miss this.” He indicated the
- grave chamber in which they sat, the white marble mantel and high mirror,
- the heavy mahogany settled back in half shadow, the dark velvet draperies
- of the large windows sweeping from alabaster cornices.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Sometimes I feel like burning it to the ground,” she asserted, rising. “I
- would if I could burn all that it signifies, yes, and a great deal of
- myself, too.” She raised her arms in a vivid, passionate gesture. “Leave
- it all behind and sail up to Java Head and through the Sunda Strait, into
- life.”
- </p>
- <p>
- After the difficulty of his announcement Paret Fifield talked with
- animation about his plans and approaching marriage. Honora wondered at the
- swiftness with which she—for so long a fundamental part of his
- thought—'had dropped from his mind. It had the aspect of a physical
- act of seclusion, as if a door had been closed upon her, the last,
- perhaps, leading out of her isolation. She hadn't been at all sure that
- she would not marry Paret: today she had almost decided in favor of such a
- consummation of her existence.
- </p>
- <p>
- A girl not quite nineteen! She had been only twenty when Paret Fifield had
- first danced with her. He had been interested immediately. It was
- difficult for her to realize that she was now thirty-five; soon forty
- would be upon her, and then a grey reach. She didn't feel any older than
- she had, well—on the day that Jason Burrage departed for California.
- There wasn't a line on her face; no trace, yet, of time on her spirit or
- body; but the dust must inevitably settle over her as it did on a vase
- standing unmoved on a shelf. A vase was a tranquil object, well suited to
- glimmer from a corner through a decade; but she was different. The
- heritage of her father's voyaging stirred in her together with the
- negation that held her stationary. A third state, a hot rebellion, poured
- through her, while she listened to Paret's facile periods. Really, he was
- rather ridiculous about the girl. She was conscious of the dull pounding
- of her heart.
- </p>
- <p>
- The morning following was remarkably warm and still; and, after Paret
- Fifield had gone, Honora made her way slowly down to the bay. The sunlight
- lay like thick yellow dust on the warehouses and docks, and the water
- filled the sweep of Cottar's Neck with a solid and smoothly blue expanse.
- A fishing boat, newly arrived, was being disgorged of partly cured
- haddock. The cargo was loaded into a wheelbarrow, transferred to the
- wharf, and there turned into a basket on a weighing scale, checked by a
- silent man in series of marks on a small book, and carried away. Beyond
- were heaped corks and spread nets and a great reel of fine cord.
- </p>
- <p>
- When Honora walked without an objective purpose she always came finally to
- the water. It held no surprise for her; there was practically nothing she
- was directly interested in seeing. She stood—as at present—gazing
- down into the tide clasping the piles, or away at the horizon, the Narrows
- opening upon the sea. She exchanged unremarkable sentences with familiar
- figures, watched the men swab decks or tail new cordage through blocks,
- and looked up absently at the spars of the schooners lying at anchor.
- </p>
- <p>
- She had put on a summer dress again of white India barège, a little hat
- with a lavender bow, and she stood with her silk shawl on an arm. The
- stillness of the day was broken only by the creak of the wheelbarrow. Last
- night she had been rebellious, but now a lassitude had settled over her:
- all emotion seemed blotted out by the pouring yellow light of the sun.
- </p>
- <p>
- At the side of the wharf a small warehouse held several men in the office,
- the smoke of pipes lifting slowly from the open door; and, at the sound of
- footfalls, she turned and saw Jem Stanes entering the building. His
- expression was surprisingly morose. It was, she thought again as she had
- of Jason Burrage striding darkly along the street, singularly inopportune
- at the arrival of so much good fortune. A burr of voices, thickened by the
- salt spray of many sea winds, followed. She heard laughter, and then Jem's
- voice, indistinguishable but sullenly angry.
- </p>
- <p>
- Honora progressed up into the town, walked past the courthouse square, and
- met Jason at the corner of the street. “I am glad to have a chance to
- welcome you,” she said, extending her hand. Close to him her sense of
- familiarity faded before the set face, the tightly drawn lips and hard
- gaze. She grew a little embarrassed. He had on another, still more
- surprising waistcoat, his watch chain was ponderous with gold; but dust
- had accumulated unattended on his shoulders, and dimmed the luster of his
- boots.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Thank you,” he replied non-committally, giving her palm a brief pressure.
- He stood silently, without cordiality, waiting for what might follow.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You are safely back with the Golden Fleece,” she continued more
- hurriedly, “after yoking the fiery bulls and sailing past the islands of
- the sirens.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don't know about all that,” he said stolidly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Jason and the Argonauts,” she insisted, conscious of her stupidity. He
- was far more compelling than she had remembered, than he appeared from a
- distance: the marked discontent of his earlier years had given place to a
- certain power, repose: the romance which she had decided was his main
- characteristic was emphasized. She was practically conversing with a
- disconcerting stranger.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Olive was, of course, delighted,” she went resolutely on. “You must marry
- soon, and build a mansion.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “We are not going to marry at all,” he stated baldly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh——!” she exclaimed and then crimsoned with annoyance at the
- involuntary syllable. That idiot, Olive Stanes, she added to herself
- instantly. Honora could think of nothing appropriate to say. “That's a
- great pity,” she temporized. Why didn't the boor help her? Hadn't he the
- slightest conception of the obligations of polite existence? He stood
- motionless, the fingers of one hand clasping a jade charm. However, she,
- Honora Can-deray, had no intention of being affronted by Jason Burrage.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You must find it pale here after California, if what I've heard is true,”
- she remarked crisply, then nodded and left him. That night at supper she
- repeated the burden of what he had told her to her aunt. The latter
- answered in a measured voice without any trace of interest:
- </p>
- <p>
- “I thought something of the kind had happened: the upstairs girl was
- saying he was drunk last night. A habit acquired West, I don't doubt. It
- is remarkable, Honora, how you remember one from another in Cottarsport.
- They all appear indifferently alike to me. And I am tremendously upset
- about Paret.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, I'm not,” Honora returned. She spoke inattentively, and she was
- surprised at the truth she had exposed. Paret Fifield had never become a
- necessary part of her existence. Except for the light he had shed upon
- herself—the sudden glimpse of multiplying years and the emptiness of
- her days—his marriage was unimportant. She would miss him exactly as
- she might a piece of furniture that had been removed after forming a
- familiar spot. She was more engrossed in what her aunt had told her about
- Jason.
- </p>
- <p>
- He had been back only two or three days, and already lost his promised
- wife and got drunk. The implications of drinking were different in
- Cottars-port from what they would be in San Francisco, or even Boston; in
- such a small place as this every act offered the substance for talk,
- opinion, as long-lived as the elms on the hills. It was foolish of him not
- to go away for such excesses. Honora wanted to tell him so. She had
- inherited her father's attitude toward the town, she thought, a personal
- care of Cottarsport as a whole, necessarily expressed in an attention
- toward individual acts and people. She wished Jason wouldn't make a fool
- of himself. Then she recalled how ineffectual the same desire, actually
- voiced, had been in connection with Olive Stanes. She recalled Olive's
- horrified face as she, Honora, had said, “Grace be damned!” It was all
- quite hopeless. “I think I'll move to the city,” she informed her aunt.
- </p>
- <p>
- The latter sighed, from, Honora knew, a sense of superior knowledge and
- resignation.
- </p>
- <p>
- After supper she deserted the more familiar drawing room for the chamber
- across the wide hall. A fire of coals was burning in an open grate, but
- there was no other light. Honora sat at a piano with a ponderous ebony
- case, and picked out Violetta's first aria from Traviata. The round sweet
- notes seemed to float away palpable and intact into the gloom. It was an
- unusual mood, and when it had gone she looked back at it in wonderment and
- distrust. Her customary inner rebellion re-established itself perhaps more
- vigorously than before: she was charged with energy, with vital
- promptings, but found no opportunity, promise, of expression or
- accomplishment.
- </p>
- <p>
- The warm sun lingered for a day or so more, and then was obliterated by an
- imponderable bank of fog that rolled in through the Narrows, over Cottar's
- Neck, and changed even the small confines of the town into a vast
- labyrinth. That, in turn, was dissipated by a swinging eastern storm,
- tipped with hail, which left stripped trees on an ashen blue sky and dark,
- frigid water slapping uneasily at the harbor edge.
- </p>
- <p>
- Honora Canderay's states of mind were as various and similar. Her outer
- aspect, however, unlike the weather, showed no evidence of change: as
- usual she drove in the carriage on afternoons when it was not too cold;
- she appeared, autocratic and lavish, in the shops of Citron Street; she
- made her usual aimless excursions to the harbor. Jem Stanes, she saw, was
- still a deck hand on the schooner <i>Gloriana</i>. Looking back to the
- morning when he had scowlingly entered the office on the wharf, she was
- able to reconstruct the cause of his ill humor—a brother-in-law to
- Jason Burrage was a person of far different employment from an ordinary
- Stanes. She passed Olive on the street, but the latter, except for a
- perfunctory greeting, hurried immediately by.
- </p>
- <p>
- The stories of Jason's reckless conduct multiplied—he had consumed a
- staggering amount of Medford rum and, in the publicity of noon and
- Marlboro Street, sat upon the now notable silk hat. He had paid for some
- cheroots with a pinch of gold dust as they were said to do in the far
- West. He carried a loaded derringer, and shot “for fun” the jar of colored
- water in the apothecary's window, and had threatened, with a grim face, to
- do the same for whoever might interfere with his pleasures. He was, she
- learned, rapidly becoming a local scandal and menace.
- </p>
- <p>
- If it had been any one but Jason Burrage, native born and folded in the
- glamour of his extraordinary fortune, he would have been immediately and
- roughly suppressed: Honora well knew the rugged and severe temper of the
- town. As it was he went about—attended by its least desirable
- element, a chorus to magnify his liberality and daring—in an
- atmosphere of wonderment and excited curiosity.
- </p>
- <p>
- This, she thought, was highly regrettable. Yet, in his present frame of
- mind, what else was there for him to do? He couldn't be expected to take
- seriously, be lost in, the petty affairs of Cottarsport; beyond a limited
- amount the gold for which he had endured so much—she had heard
- something of his misfortunes and struggle—was useless here; and,
- without balance, he must inevitably drift into still greater debauch in
- the large cities.
- </p>
- <p>
- He was now a frequently recurring figure in her thought. In the correct
- presence of her aunt, Mrs. Cozzens, in delicate clothes and exact
- surroundings, the light of an astral lamp on her sharply cut, slightly
- contemptuous face, she would consider the problem of Jason Burrage. In a
- way, which she had more than once explained and justified to herself, she
- felt responsible for him. If there had been anything to suggest, she would
- have gone to him directly, but she had no intention of offering a barren
- condemnation. Her peculiar position in Cottarsport, while it indicated
- certain obligations, required the maintenance of an impersonal plane. Why,
- he might say anything to her; he was quite capable of telling her—and
- correctly—to go to the devil!
- </p>
- <p>
- A new analogy was created between Jason Bur-rage and herself: his
- advantage over her had broken down, they both appeared fast in untoward
- circumstance beyond their power to alleviate or shape. He had come back to
- Cottarsport in the precise manner in which she had returned from shorter
- but equally futile excursions. Jason had his money, which at once
- established necessities and made satisfaction impossible; and she had
- promptings, desires, that by reason of their mere being, allowed her
- contentment neither in the spheres of a social importance nor here in the
- quiet place where so much of her was rooted. As Honora Canderay gazed at
- her Aunt Herriot's hard, fine profile, the thought of her own, Honora
- Canderay's, resemblance to the returned miner carousing with the dregs of
- the town brought a shade of ironic amusement to her countenance.
- </p>
- <p>
- Honora left the house, walking, in the decline of a November afternoon.
- She had been busy in a small way, supervising the filling of camphor
- chests for the winter, and, intensely disliking any of the duties of
- domesticity, she was glad to escape into the still, cold open. Dusk was
- not yet perceptible, but the narrow, erratic ways of Cottars-port were
- filling with dear grey shadow. When, inevitably, she found herself at the
- harbor's edge, she progressed over a narrow wharf to its end. It had been
- wet, and there were patches of black, icy film; the water near by was
- grey-black, but about the bare thrust of Cottar's Neck it was green; the
- warehouses behind her were blank and deserted.
- </p>
- <p>
- She had on a cloak lined with ermine, and she drew it closer about her
- throat at the frigid air lifting from the bay. Suddenly a flare of color
- filled the somber space, a coppery glow that glinted like metal shavings
- on the water and turned Cottar's Neck red. Against the sunset the town was
- formless, murky; but the sky and harbor resembled the interior of a
- burnished kettle. The effect was extraordinarily unreal, melodramtic, and
- she was watching the color fade, when a figure wavered out of the shadows
- and moved insecurely toward her. At first she thought the stumbling
- progressions were caused by the ice: then she saw that it was Jason
- Burrage, drunk.
- </p>
- <p>
- He wore the familiar suit of broadcloth, with no outer covering, and a
- rough hat pulled down upon his fixed gaze. She stood motionless while he
- approached, and then calmly met his heavy interrogation.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Honora,” he articulated, “Honora Canderay, one—one of the great
- Canderays of Cottarsport. Well, why don't you say something? Too set up
- for a civil, for a——”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Don't be ridiculous, Jason,” she replied crisply; “and do go home—you'll
- freeze out here as you are.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “One of the great Canderays,” he reiterated, contemptuously. He came very
- close to her. “You're not much. Here they think you.... But I've been to
- California, and at the Jenny Lind... in silk like a blue bird, and sing-.
- Nobody ever heard of the Canderays in 'Frisco, but they know Jason
- Burrage, Burrage who had all the bad luck there was, and then struck it
- rich.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He swayed perilously, and she put out a palm and steadied him. “Go back.
- You are not fit to be around.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Jason struck her hand down roughly. “I'm fitter than you. What are you,
- anyway?” He caught her shoulder in vise-like fingers. “Nothing but a
- woman, that's all—just a woman.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You are hurting me,” she said fearlessly.
- </p>
- <p>
- His grip tightened, and he studied her, his eyes inhuman in a stony, white
- face. “Nothing more than that.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You are very surprising,” she responded. “Do you know, I had never
- thought of it. And it's true; that is precisely what and all I am.”
- </p>
- <p>
- His expression became troubled; he released her, stepped back, slipped,
- and almost fell into the water. Honora caught his arm and dragged him to
- the middle of the wharf. “A dam' Canderay,” he muttered. “And I'm better,
- Jason Burrage. Ask them at the El Dorado, or Indian Bar; but that's gone—the
- early days. All scientific now. We got the dead wood on gold... cyanide.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Come home,” she repeated brusquely, turning him, with a slight push,
- toward the town settled in darkness. It sent him falling forward in the
- direction she wished. Honora supported him, led him on. At intervals he
- hung back, stopped. His speech became confused; then, it appeared, his
- reason commenced slowly to return. The streets were empty; a lamp shone
- dimly on its post at a corner; she guided Jason round a sunken space.
- </p>
- <p>
- Honora had no sense of repulsion; she was conscious of a faint pity, but
- her energy came dimly from that feeling of obligation, inherited, she told
- herself once more, from her father—their essential attitude to
- Cottarsport. At the same time she found herself studying his face with a
- personal curiosity. She was glad that it was not weak, that rum had been
- ineffectual to loosen its hardness. He now seemed capable of walking
- alone, and she stood aside.
- </p>
- <p>
- Jason was at a loss for words; his lips moved, but inaudibly. “Keep away
- from the water,” she commanded, “or from Medford rum. And, some evening
- soon, come to see me.” She said this without premeditation, from an
- instinct beyond her searching.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I can't do that,” he replied in a surprisingly rational voice, “because
- I've lost my silk hat.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “There are hundreds for sale in Boston,” she announced impatiently; “go
- and get another.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That never came to me,” he admitted, patently struck by this course of
- rehabilitation through a new high hat. “There was something I had to say
- to you, but it left my mind, about a—a gold fleece; it turned into
- something else, on the wharf.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “When you see me again.” She moved farther from him, suddenly in a great
- necessity to be home. She left him, talking at her, and went swiftly
- through the gloom to Regent Street. Letting herself into the still hall,
- the amber serenity of lamplight in suave spaciousness, she swung shut the
- heavy door with a startling vigor. Then she stood motionless, the cape
- slipping from her shoulders in glistening and soft white folds about her
- arms, to the carpet. Honora wasn't faint, not for a moment had she been
- afraid of Jason Burrage, this was not a rebellion of over-strung nerves;
- yet a passing blindness, a spiritual shudder, possessed her. She had the
- sensation of having just passed through an overwhelming adventure: yet all
- that had happened was commonplace, even sordid. She had met a drunken man
- whom she hardly knew beyond his name and an adventitious fact, and
- insisted on his going home. Asking him to call on her had been little less
- than perfunctory—an impersonal act of duty.
- </p>
- <p>
- Yet her being vibrated as if a loud and disturbing bell had been
- unexpectedly sounded at her ear; she was responding to an imperative
- summons. In her room, changing for supper, this feeling vanished, and left
- her usual introspective humor. Jason had spoken a profound truth, which
- her surprise had recognized at the time, in reminding her that she was an
- ordinary woman, like, for instance, Olive Stanes. The isolation of her
- dignity had hidden that from her for a number of years. She had come to
- think of herself exclusively as a Canderay.
- </p>
- <p>
- Later her sharp enjoyment in probing into all pretensions, into herself,
- got slightly the better of her. “I saw Jason Burrage this evening,” she
- told Mrs. Cozzens.
- </p>
- <p>
- “If he was sober,” that individual returned, “it might be worth
- recalling.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But he wasn't. He nearly fell into the harbor. I asked him to see us.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “With your education, Honora, there is really no excuse for confusing the
- singular and plural. I haven't any doubt you asked him here, but that has
- nothing to do with us.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You might be amused by his accounts of California. For, although you
- never complain, I can see that you think it dull.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am an old woman,” Herriot Cozzens stated, “my life was quite normally
- full, and I am content here with you. Any dullness you speak of I regret
- for another reason.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You are afraid I'll get preserved like a salted haddock. He may not
- come.”
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <p>
- Honora was in the less formal of the drawing rooms when Jason Burrage was
- announced. He came forward almost immediately, in the most rigorous
- evening attire, a new silk hat on his arm.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You had no trouble getting one,” she nodded in its direction.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Four,” he replied tersely.
- </p>
- <p>
- Jason took a seat facing her across an open space of darkly flowered
- carpet, and Honora studied him, directly critical. Against a vague
- background his countenance was extraordinarily pronounced, vividly pallid.
- His black hair swept in a soft wave across a brow with indented temples,
- his nose was short with wide nostrils, the lower part of his face square.
- His hands, scarred and discolored, rested each on a black-clad knee.
- </p>
- <p>
- She was in no hurry to begin a conversation which must either be stilted,
- uncomfortable, or reach beyond known confines. For the moment her daring
- was passive. Jason Burrage stirred his feet, and she attended the movement
- with thoughtful care. He said unexpectedly:
- </p>
- <p>
- “I believe I've never been in here before.” He turned and studied his
- surroundings as if in an effort of memory. “But I talked to your father
- once in the hall.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Nothing has been changed,” she answered almost unintelligibly. “Very
- little does in Cot-tarsport.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That's so,” he assented. “I saw it when I came back. It was just the
- same, but I——” he stopped and his expression became gloomy.
- </p>
- <p>
- “If you mean that you were different, you are wrong,” she declared
- concisely. “Just that has made trouble for you—you have been unable
- to be anything but yourself. I am like that, too. Every one is.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I have been through things,” he told her enigmatically. “Why look—just
- the trip: to Chagres on the Isthmus, and then mules and canoes through
- that ropey woods to Panama, with thousands of prospectors waiting for the
- steamer. Then back by Mazatlan, Mexico City, and Vera Cruz. A man sees
- things.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Her inborn uneasiness at rooms, confining circumstance, her restless
- desire for unlimited horizons, for the mere fact of reaching, moving,
- stirred into being at the names he repeated. Tomorrow she would go away,
- find something new—
- </p>
- <p>
- “It must have been horridly rough and dirty.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “A good many turned back or died,” he agreed tentatively. “But after you
- once got there a sort of craziness came over you—you couldn't wait
- to buy a pan or shovel. The bay was full of rotting ships deserted by
- their crews, a thicket of masts with even the sails still hanging to them.
- The men jumped overboard to get ashore and pick up gold.”
- </p>
- <p>
- She thought with a pang of the idle ships with sprung rigging, sodden
- canvas lumpily left on the decks, rotting as he had said, in files. The
- image afflicted her like a physical pain, and she left it hurriedly. “But
- San Francisco must have been full of life.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You had to shout to be heard over the bands, and everything blazing.
- Pyramids of nuggets on the gambling tables. Gold dust and champagne and
- mud.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Whatever will you find here?” She immediately regretted her query, which
- seemed to search improperly into the failure of his marriage.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'm thinking of going back,” he admitted.
- </p>
- <p>
- Curiously Honora was sorry to hear this; unreasonably it gave to
- Cottarsport a new aspect of barrenness, the vista of her own life reached
- interminable and monotonous into the future. And she was certain that,
- without the necessity and incentive of labor, it would be destructive for
- Jason to return to San Francisco.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What would you do?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Gamble,” he replied cynically.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Admirable prospect,” she said lightly. Her manner unmistakably conveyed
- the information that his call had drawn to an end. He clearly resisted
- this for a minute or two, and then stirred. “You must come again.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why?” he demanded abruptly, grasping his hat, which had reposed on the
- carpet at his side.
- </p>
- <p>
- “News from California, from the world outside, is rare in Cottarsport. You
- must see that you are an interesting figure to us.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why?” he persisted, frowning.
- </p>
- <p>
- She rose, her face as hard as his own, but with a faint smile in place of
- his lowering expression. “No, you haven't changed; not even to the extent
- of a superficial knowledge of drawing rooms.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I ought to have seen better than come.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The ignorance was all my own.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But once——” he paused.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Should be enough.” Her smile widened. Yet she was furious with herself
- for having quarreled with him; the descent from the altitude of the
- Canderays had been enormous. What extraordinary influence had colored her
- acts in the past few days?
- </p>
- <p>
- Mrs. Cozzens, at breakfast, inquired placidly how the evening before had
- progressed, and Honora made a gesture expressive of its difficulties. “You
- will create such responsibilities for yourself,” the elder stated.
- </p>
- <p>
- This one, it suddenly appeared to Honora, had been thrust upon her. She
- made repeated and angry efforts to put Jason Burrage from her mind; but
- his appearance sitting before her, his words and patent discontent,
- flooded back again and again. She realized now that he was no impersonal
- problem; somehow he had got twisted into the fibres of her existence; he
- was more vividly in her thoughts than Paret Fifield had ever been. She
- attempted to ridicule him mentally, and called up pictures of his
- preposterous clothes, the ill-bred waistcoats and ponderous watch chain.
- They faded before the memory of the set jaw, his undeniable romance.
- </p>
- <p>
- Wrapped in fur, she elected to drive after dinner; the day was cold but
- palely clear, and she felt that her cheeks were glowing with unusual
- color. Above the town, on the hills now sere with frost and rock, the
- horses, under the aged guidance of Coggs, continually dropped from a jog
- trot to an ambling walk. Honora paid no attention to the gait, she was
- impervious to the wide, glittering reach of water; and she was startled to
- find herself abreast a man gazing at her.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I made a jackass out of myself last night,” he observed gloomily.
- </p>
- <p>
- She automatically stopped the carriage and held back the buffalo robe.
- Jason hesitated, but was forced to take a seat at her side. Honora said
- nothing, and the horses again went forward.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'd been drinking a lot and was all on edge,” he volunteered further. “I
- feel different today. I can remember your mother driving like this. I was
- a boy then, and used to think she was made of ice; wondered why she didn't
- run away in the sun.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mother was very kind, really,” Honora said absently. She was relaxed
- against the cushions, the country dipped and spread before her in a
- restful brown garb; she watched Coggs' glazed hat sway against the sky.
- The old sense of familiarity with Jason Burrage came back: why not, since
- she had known him all their lives? And now, after his years away, she was
- the only one in Cottarsport who at all comprehended his difficulties. He
- was not commonplace, a strong man was never that; and, in a way, he had
- the quality which more than any other had made her father so notable. And
- he was not unpleasant so close beside her. That was of overwhelming
- importance in the formation of her intimate opinion of him. He had been
- refined by the bitterness of his early failure in California; he bore
- himself with a certain dignity.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What'll I do?” he demanded abruptly.
- </p>
- <p>
- For the life or her she couldn't tell him. Except for platitudes she could
- offer no solution against the future. Actual living, directly viewed, was
- like that—hopeless of exterior solution. “I don't know,” she
- admitted, “I wish I did; I wish I could help you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “This money, what's it good for? I can't get my family to burn two small
- stoves at once; they'd die in the kitchen if they had a hundred parlors;
- I've bought more clothes than I'll ever wear, four high hats and so on.
- Not going to get married; no use for a big house, for anything more than
- the room I have. I get plenty to eat——”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You might do some good with it,” she suggested. The base of what she was
- saying, Honora realized, was that he would be as well off with his fortune
- given away. Yet it was unjust, absurd, for him not to get some use,
- pleasure, from what he had worked so extravagantly to obtain.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Somehow that wouldn't settle anything, for me,” he replied.
- </p>
- <p>
- Coggs had turned at the usual limit of her afternoon driving, and they
- were slowly moving back to the town. Cottar's Neck was fading into the
- early gloom, and a group of men stared at Jason seated in the Canderays'
- carriage as if their eyes were being played with in the uncertain light.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Have you thought any more about going West?” she inquired.
- </p>
- <p>
- They had stopped for his descent at Marlboro
- </p>
- <p>
- Street, and he stood with a hand on the wheel. “I had intended to go this
- morning.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He held her gaze steadily, and she felt a swift coldness touch her into a
- shiver.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Tomorrow?” This came in a spirit of perversity against her every other
- instinct.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Shall I?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Would you be happier in San Francisco?” Jason Burrage made a hopeless
- gesture.
- </p>
- <p>
- “... for supper,” Honora found herself saying in a rush; “at six o'clock.
- If you aren't bound for California.”
- </p>
- <p>
- She tried to recall afterward if she had indicated a particular evening
- for the invitation. There was a vague memory of mentioning Thursday. This
- was Tuesday... Herriot Cozzens would be in Boston.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <p>
- A servant told her that Mr. Burrage had arrived when she was but half
- ready. She was, in reality, undecided in her choice of a dress for the
- evening; but finally she wore soft white silk, with deep, knotted fringe
- on the skirt, a low cut neck, and a narrow mantle of black velvet. Her
- hair, severely plain in its net, was drawn back from a bang cut across her
- brow. As she entered the room where he was standing a palpable admiration
- marked his countenance.
- </p>
- <p>
- He said nothing, however, beyond a conventional phrase. Such natural
- reticence had a large part in her acceptance of him; he did nothing that
- actively disturbed her hypercritical being. He was almost distinguished in
- appearance. She had a feeling that if it had been different.... Honora
- distinctly wished for a flamboyant touch about him; it presented a symbol
- of her command of any situation between them, a reminder of her
- superiority.
- </p>
- <p>
- The supper went forward smoothly; there were the welcome inevitable
- reminiscences of the rough fare of California, laughter at the prohibitive
- cost of beans; and when, at her direction, he lighted a cheroot, and they
- lingered on at the table, Honora's aloofness was becoming a thing of the
- past. The smoke gave her an unexpected thrill, an extraordinary sense of
- masculine proximity. There had been no such blue clouds in the house since
- her father's death seven years ago. Settled back contentedly, Jason
- Burrage seemed—why, actually, he had an air of occupying a familiar
- place.
- </p>
- <p>
- It was bitterly cold without, the room into which they trailed
- insufficiently warm, and they were drawn close together at an open
- Franklin stove. The lamps on the mantel were distant, and they had not yet
- been fully turned up: his face was tinged by the glow of the fire. An
- intense face. “What are you thinking about—me?” she added coolly.
- “Nothing,” he replied; “I'm too comfortable to think.” There was a note of
- surprise in his voice; he looked about as if to find reassurance of his
- present position. “But if I did it would be this—that you are
- entirely different from any woman I've ever known before. They have always
- been one of two kinds. One or the other,” he repeated somberly. “Now you
- are both together. I don't know as I ought to say that, if it's nice. I
- wouldn't like to try and explain.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But you must.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It's your clothes and your manner put against what you are. Oh hell, what
- I mean is you're elegant to look at and good, too.”
- </p>
- <p>
- An expression of the deepest concern followed his exclamation. He
- commenced an apology. Hardly launched, it died on his lips.
- </p>
- <p>
- Honora was at once conscious of the need for his contrition and of the
- fact that she had never heard a more entertaining statement. It was
- evident that he viewed her as a desirable compound of the women of the El
- Dorado and Olive Stanes: an adroit and sincere compliment. She wanted to
- follow it on and on, unfold its every exposition; but, of course, that was
- impossible. All this she concealed behind an indifferent countenance, her
- slim white fingers half embedded in the black mantle.
- </p>
- <p>
- Jason Burrage lighted another cheroot and put his feet up on the polished
- brass railing of the iron hearth. This amused her beyond words. She
- couldn't remember when she had had another such vitalized evening. She
- realized that, through the last years, she had been appallingly lonely;
- but with Jason smoking beside her in a tilted chair the solitude was
- banished. She got a coal for him in the small burnished tongs, and he
- responded with a prodigious puff that set her to coughing.
- </p>
- <p>
- When he had gone the house was hatefully vacant; as she went up to her
- chamber the empty spaciousness, the semi-dark well of the stair, the high
- hall with its low-turned lamp, the blackness of the third story pouring
- down over her, oppressed her almost beyond endurance. Her Aunt Herriot,
- already old, must be dead before very long, there was none other of her
- connections who could live with her, and she would have to depend on
- perfunctory, hired companionship.
- </p>
- <p>
- Honora saw that she should never escape from the influence which held her
- in Cottarsport.
- </p>
- <p>
- In her room, the door bolted, it was no better. The interior was large,
- uncompromisingly square; and, though every possible light was burning,
- still it seemed somber, menacing.
- </p>
- <p>
- The following day was a lowering void with gusts of rain driving against
- the windows. Mrs. Cozzens would be away until tomorrow, and Honora met the
- afternoon alone. At times she embroidered, short-lived efforts broken by
- despondent and aimless excursions through the echoing halls.
- </p>
- <p>
- She attempted to read, to compose herself with an elaborate gilt and
- embellished volume called “The Garland.” But, at a Lamentation on the
- Death of Her Canary, by a Person of Quality, she deliberately dropped the
- book into the burning coals of the Franklin stove. The satisfaction of
- seeing the pages crisp and burst into flame soon evaporated. The day was a
- calamity, the approaching murky evening a horror.
- </p>
- <p>
- At supper she wondered what Jason Burrage was doing. A trace of the odor
- of his cheroot lingered in the dining room. He was an astonishingly solid,
- the only, actuality in a nebulous world of lofty, flickering ceilings and
- the lash of rain. He might as well smoke in her drawing room as in the
- Burrage kitchen. Paret Fifield would have drifted naturally to the
- Canderay house, but not Jason, not a native of Cottarsport.... With an air
- of determination she sharply pulled the plush, tasseled bell rope in the
- corner.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <p>
- She heard the servant open the front door; there was a pause—Jason
- was taking off his greatcoat—after which he entered, calm and
- without query.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I was tired of sitting by myself,” she said with an air of entire
- frankness. In a minute or so more it was all as it had been the evening
- before—she held a coal for his cheroot as he tilted back beside her
- with his feet on the rail. “You are a very comfortable man, Jason,” she
- told him.
- </p>
- <p>
- He made no reply, although a quiver crossed his lips. Then, after a
- little, “It's astonishing how soon you get used to things. Seems as if I
- had been here for years, and this is only the third time.'”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Have you thought any more of California?”
- </p>
- <p>
- He faced her with an expression of surprise. “It had gone clean out of my
- mind. I suppose I will shift back, though—nothing here for me. I
- can't come to see you every evening.”
- </p>
- <p>
- She preserved a silence in which they both fell to staring into a dancing,
- bluish flame. The gusts of rain were audible like the tearing of heavy
- linen. An extraordinary idea had taken possession of Honora—if the
- day had been fine, if she had been out in a sparkling air and sun, a very
- great deal would have happened differently. But just what she couldn't
- then say: the fact alone was all that she curiously apprehended.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I suppose not,” she answered, so long after his last statement that he
- gazed questioningly at her. “I wonder if it has occurred to you,” she
- continued, “how much alike we are? I often think about it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why, no,” he replied, “it hasn't. Jason Bur-rage and Honora Canderay! I
- wouldn't have guessed it, and I don't believe any one else ever has. I'd
- have a hard time thinking about two more different. It's—it's
- ridiculous.” He became seriously animated. “Here I am—well, you know
- all about me—with some money, perhaps, and a little of the world in
- my head; but you're Honora Canderay.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You said once that I was nothing but a woman,” she reminded him.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I remember that,” he admitted with evident chagrin. “I was drunk.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That's when the truth is often hit on; I am quite an ordinary sort of
- woman.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He laughed indulgently.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You said last evening I had some of a very common quality.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Now you mustn't take that serious,” he protested; “it was just in a way
- of speech. I told you I couldn't rightly explain myself.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Anyhow,” she asserted bluntly, “I am lonely. What will you do about it?”
- </p>
- <p>
- His amazement turned into a consternation which even now she found almost
- laughable. “Me?” he stammered. “There's no way I can help you. You are
- having a joke.”
- </p>
- <p>
- She realized, with a feeling that her knowledge came too late, that she
- was entirely serious. Jason Burrage was the only being alive who could
- give her any assistance, yes, save her from the future. Her hands were
- cold, she felt absolutely still, as if she had suddenly turned into
- marble, a statue with a heart slightly fluttering.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You could be here a lot,” she told him, and then paused, glancing at him
- swiftly with hard, bright eyes. He had removed his feet from the stove,
- and sat with his cheroot in a poised, awkward hand. She was certain that
- he would never speak.
- </p>
- <p>
- “We might get married.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Honora was startled at the ease with which the words were pronounced, and
- conscious of an absurdly trivial curiosity—she wondered just how
- much he had been shocked by her proposal? She saw that he was stupefied.
- Then:
- </p>
- <p>
- “So we might,” he pronounced idiotically. “There isn't any real reason why
- we shouldn't. That is——.” He stopped. “Where does the laugh
- start?” he demanded.
- </p>
- <p>
- Suddenly Honora was overwhelmed, not by what she had said, but by the
- whole difficulty and inner confusion of her existence. She turned away her
- head with an unintelligible period. A silence followed, intensified by the
- rain flinging against the glass.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It's a bad night,” he muttered.
- </p>
- <p>
- The banality saved her. Again practically at her ease, she regarded him
- with slightly smiling lips. “I believe I've asked you to marry me,” she
- remarked.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Thank you,” said Jason Burrage. He stood up. “If you mean it, I'd like to
- very much.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You'd better sit down,” she went on in an impersonal voice; “there ought
- to be a lot of things to arrange. For instance, hadn't we better live on
- here, for a while anyhow? It's a big house to waste.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Honora, you'll just have to stop a little,” he asserted; “I'm kind of
- lost. It was quick in California, but that was a funeral procession
- compared with you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Now that it was done, she was frightened. But there was time to escape
- even yet. She determined to leave the room quickly, get away to the safety
- of her bolted door, her inviolable privacy. She didn't stir. An immediate
- explanation that she hadn't been serious—how could he have thought
- it for a moment!—would save her. But she was silent.
- </p>
- <p>
- A sudden enthusiasm lighted up his immobile face. “I'll get the prettiest
- diamond in Boston,” he declared.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You mustn't——” she commenced, struggling still to retreat. He
- misunderstood her.
- </p>
- <p>
- “The very best,” he insisted.
- </p>
- <p>
- When he had gone she remained seated in the formal chamber. At any rate
- she had conquered the emptiness of her life, of the great square house
- above her. It was definitely arranged, they were to marry. How amazed
- Herriot Cozzens would be! It was probable that she would leave
- Cot-tarsport, and her, Honora, immediately. Jason hadn't kissed her, he
- had not even touched her hand, in going. He had been extremely subdued,
- except at the thought of the ring he would buy for her.
- </p>
- <p>
- There were phases of the future which she resolutely ignored.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mrs. Cozzens came back as had been planned, and Honora told her at once.
- The older woman expressed her feeling in contained, acid speech. “I am
- surprised he had the assurance to ask you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Jason didn't,” Honora calmly returned.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It's your father,” the elder stated; “he had some very vulgar blood. I
- felt that it was a calamity when my sister accepted him. A Cot-tarsport
- person at heart, just as you are, always down about the water and those
- low docks.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'm sure you're right, and so it's much better for me to find where I
- belong. I have tried to get away from Cottarsport, and from the sea and
- the schooners sailing in and out of the Narrows, a thousand times. But I
- always come back, just as father did, back to this little place from the
- entire world—China and Africa and New York. The other influences
- weren't strong enough, Aunt Herriot; they only made me miserable; and now
- I've killed them. I'll say good-bye to you and Paret and the cotillions.”
- She kissed her hand, but not gaily, to a whole existence irrevocably lost.
- </p>
- <p>
- With Jason's ring blazing on her slim finger she drove, the day before the
- wedding, for the last time as Honora Canderay. The leaves had been
- stripped from the elms on the hills, brown and barren against the
- flashing, steely water. She saw that Coggs was so impotent with age that
- if the horses had been more vigorous he would be helpless. Coggs had
- driven for her father, then her, for thirty years. It was too cold for the
- old man to be out today. His cheeks were dark crimson, and continually wet
- from his failing eyes.
- </p>
- <p>
- Herriot Cozzens had left her; Coggs... all the intimate figures of so many
- years were vanishing. Jason remained. He had almost entirely escaped
- annoying her, and she was conscious of his overwhelming admiration, the
- ineradicable esteem of Cottarsport for the Canderays; but a question, a
- doubt more obscure than fear, was taking possession of her. After all she
- was supremely ignorant of life; she had been screened from it by pride and
- luxurious circumstance; but now she had surrendered all her advantage. She
- had given herself to Jason; and he was life, mysterious and rude. The
- thunder of large, threatening seas, reaching everywhere beyond the placid
- gulf below, beat faintly on her perception.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- JASON
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>N an unfamiliar
- upper room of the Canderays' house Jason stood prepared for the signal to
- descend to his wedding. The ceremony was to occur at six o'clock; it was
- now only five minutes before—he had absently looked at his watch a
- great many times in a short space—and he was striving to think
- seriously of what was to follow. But in place of this he was passing again
- through a state of silent, incoherent surprise. This was the sort of thing
- for which a man might pinch himself to discover if he were awake or
- dreaming. In five, no, four, minutes now Honora Canderay was to become
- his, Jason Burrage's, wife.
- </p>
- <p>
- A certain complacency had settled over him in the past few days, something
- of his inborn feeling of the Canderays as a house apart seemed to have
- evaporated; and, in addition, he had risen—Honora wouldn't take any
- just happen so. Jason was never notable for humility. Yet who, even after
- he had returned from California with his riches, could have predicted this
- evening? His astonishment was as much at himself, illuminated by
- extraordinary events, as at any exterior circumstance. At times he had the
- ability to see himself, as if from the outside; and that view, here, was
- amazing. Why, only a short while ago he had been drinking rum in the shed
- in back of “Pack” Clower's house, perhaps the least desirable shed in
- Cottarsport.
- </p>
- <p>
- Of one fact, however, he was certain—no more promiscuous draughts of
- Medford. He recognized that he had taken so much not from the presence of
- desire, but from a total absence of it as well as of any other mental
- state. “Pack” and his associates, too, were now a thing of the past, a
- bitterly rough and vacant element. The glass lamp on a bureau was smoking:
- he stepped forward to lower the wick, when a knock fell on the door. A
- young Boston relative of Honora's—a supercilious individual in
- checked trousers and lemon-colored gloves—announced that they were
- waiting for Jason below. With a determined settling of his shoulders and
- tightly drawn lips, he marched resolutely forward.
- </p>
- <p>
- The marriage was to be in the chamber across from the one in which he had
- generally sat. Smilax and white Killamey roses had been bowed over the
- mantel at the farthest end, and there Jason found the clergyman waiting.
- The room was half full of people occupying chairs brought from other parts
- of the house; and he was conscious of a sudden silence, an intent, curious
- scrutiny, as he entered. An instinctive antagonism to this deepened in
- him: he felt that, with the exception of his father and mother, he hadn't
- a friend in the room.
- </p>
- <p>
- Such other local figures as were there were facilely imitating the cold
- stare of Honora's connections. He stood belligerently facing Mrs. Cozzens'
- glacial calm, the inspection of a man he had seen driving with Honora in
- Cottarsport, now accompanied by a pettish, handsome girl, evidently his
- wife. His father's weathered countenance, sunken and dry on its bones, was
- blank, except for a faint doubt, as if some mistake had been made which
- would presently be exposed, sending them about face. His mother, however,
- was triumphant pride and justification personified. Then the music
- commenced—a harp, violin, and double bass.
- </p>
- <p>
- The wedding ring firmly secured, Jason stirred with a feeling of
- increasing awkwardness. He glared back, with a protruding lip, at the
- fellow with the young wife, at the small, aggressive group from Boston;
- and then he saw that Honora was in the room. She was coming slowly toward
- him. Her expression of absolute unconcern released him from all petty
- annoyance, any thought of the malicious onlookers. As she stopped at his
- side she gave him a slight nod and smile; and at that moment a tremendous,
- sheer admiration for her was born in him.
- </p>
- <p>
- Honora had chosen to be unattended—she had coolly observed that she
- was well beyond the age for such sentimentality—and he realized that
- though the present would have been a racking occasion for most women, it
- was evident that she was not disturbed in the least. He had a general
- impression of sugary white satin, of her composed, almost disdainful face
- in a cloud of veil with little waxen orange flowers, of slender still
- hands, when they turned from the room to the minister.
- </p>
- <p>
- They had gone over the marriage service together, he had read it again in
- the kitchen at home; he was fairly familiar with its periods and
- responses, and got through with only a slight hesitation and half
- prompting. But the thickness of his voice, in comparison with Honora's
- open, decisive utterance, vainly annoyed him. He wanted desperately to
- clear his throat. Suddenly it was over, and Honora, in a swirl of satin,
- was sinking to her knees. Beside her he listened with a feeling of
- comfortable lull to a lengthy prayer.
- </p>
- <p>
- Rising, he perfunctorily clasped a number of indifferent palms, replied
- inanely to gabbled expressions of good will and hopes for the future
- unmistakably pessimistic in tone. Honora told him in a rapid aside the
- names of those approaching. She smiled radiantly at his father and mother,
- leaned forward and whispered in the latter's ear; and they followed the
- guests streaming into the dining room.
- </p>
- <p>
- There champagne was being opened by the caterer's assistants from Boston.
- There were steaming platters of terrapin and oysters and fowl. The table
- bore pyramids of nuts and preserved fruit, hot Cinderellas in cups with
- sugar and wine, black case cake, Savoy biscuits, pumpkin paste, and
- frothed creams with preserved peach leaves. A laden plate was thrust into
- Jason's hand, and he sat with it in a clatter of voices and topics that
- completely ignored him. He was isolated in the absorption of food and
- wine, in a conversational exchange as strange to him as if had been spoken
- in a foreign language.
- </p>
- <p>
- Honora was busily talking to young Mrs. Fifield—he remembered the
- name now. Apparently she had forgotten his existence. At first this
- annoyed him; he determined to force his way into their attention, but a
- wiser realization held him where he was. Honora was exactly right: he had
- nothing in common with these people, probably not one of them would come
- into his life or house again. And his wife, in the fact of her marriage,
- had clearly signified how little important they were to her. His father
- joined him.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You made certain when the New York packet leaves?” he queried.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Everything's fixed,” Jason reassured him.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Your mother wanted to see you. But she got set and is kind of timid about
- moving.” Jason rose promptly, and, with the elder, found Mrs. Hazzard
- Burrage. “I'd like to have Honora, too,” the latter told them, and Jason
- turned sharply to find her. When they stood facing the old couple his
- mother hesitated doubtfully; then she put out her hand to the woman in
- wedding array. But Honora ignored it; leaning forward she kissed the
- round, bright cheek.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You have to be patient with them at times,” the mother said, looking up
- anxiously.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'm afraid Jason will need that warning,” Honora replied; “he is a very
- imprudent man.”
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <p>
- Jason's mind returned to this later, sitting in the house that had been
- the Canderays', but which now was his too. Honora's remark to his mother
- had been clear in itself, but it suggested wide speculations beyond his
- grasp. For instance—why, after all, had Honora married him? He was
- forced to acknowledge that it was not the result of any overwhelming
- feeling for him. The manner of their wedding, the complete absence of the
- emotion supposed to be the incentive of such consummations, Honora
- herself, all, denied any effort to fix such a personally satisfactory
- cause. That she might have had no other opportunity—Honora was not
- so young as she had been—he dismissed as obviously absurd. Why——
- </p>
- <p>
- His gaze was fastened upon the carpet, and he saw that time and the
- passage of feet had worn away the design. He looked about the room, and
- was surprised to discover a general dinginess which he had never noticed
- before. He said nothing, but, in his movements about the house, examined
- the furnishings and walls, and an astonishing fact was thrust upon him—the
- celebrated dwelling was grievously run down. It was plain that no money
- had been spent on it for years. The carriage, too, and the astrakhan
- collar on Coggs' coat, were worn out.
- </p>
- <p>
- He considered this at breakfast—his wife behind a tall Sheffield
- coffee urn—and he was aware of the cold edge of a distasteful
- possibility. The thought enveloped him insidiously, like the fog which
- often rolled through the Narrows and over the town, that the Canderays
- were secretly impoverished, and Honora had married him only for his money.
- Jason was not resentful of this in itself, since he had been searching for
- a motive he could accept, but it struck him in a peculiarly vulnerable
- spot—his admiration for his wife, for Honora. The idea, although he
- assured himself that the thing was readily comprehensible, somehow managed
- to diminish her, to tarnish the luster she held for him. It was far
- beneath the elevation on which Cottarsport had placed the Canderays; and
- he suffered a distinct sense of loss, a feeling of the staleness and
- disappointment of living.
- </p>
- <p>
- The more he considered this explanation the more he was convinced of its
- probability. A great deal of his genuine warmth in his marriage
- evaporated. Still—Honora had married him, she had given herself in
- return for what material advantage he might bring; and he would have to
- perform his part thoroughly. He ought to have known that——
- </p>
- <p>
- What he must do now was to save them both from any painful revelation by
- keeping for ever hid that he was aware of her purpose, he must never
- expose himself by a word or act; and he must make her understand that
- whatever he had was absolutely hers. It would be necessary for her to go
- to the money with entire freedom and without any accounting.
- </p>
- <p>
- This, he found, was not so easy to establish as he thought. Honora was his
- wife, but nevertheless there was a well marked reticence between them, a
- formal nicety with which he was heartily in accord. He couldn't just
- thrust his fortune before her on the table. He hesitated through the day,
- on the verge of various blunders; and then, in the evening, said in a
- studied causality of manner:
- </p>
- <p>
- “What do you think about fixing some of the rooms over new? You might get
- tired of seeing the same things for so long. I saw real elegant furniture
- in Boston.”
- </p>
- <p>
- She looked about indifferently. “I think I wouldn't like it changed,” she
- remarked, almost in the manner of a defense. “I suppose it does seem worn
- to you; but I'm used to it; there are so many associations. I am certain
- I'd be lost in new hangings.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Jason was so completely silenced by her reply that he felt he must have
- shown some confusion, for her gaze deliberately turned to him. “Is there
- any particular thing you would like repaired?” she inquired.
- </p>
- <p>
- “No, of course not,” he said hastily. “I think it's all splendid. I
- wouldn't change a curtain, only—but....” He cursed himself for a
- clumsy fool while Honora continued to study him. He endeavored to shield
- himself behind the trivial business of lighting a cheroot; but he felt
- Honora's query searching him out. Finally, to his extreme dismay, he heard
- her say:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Jason, I believe you think I married you for money!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Pretense, he realized, would be no good now.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Something like that did occur to me,” he acknowledged desperately.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Really,” she told him sharply. “I could be cross very easily. You are too
- stupid. Father did wonderfully well on his voyages, and his profit was
- invested by Frederic Cozzens, one of the shrewdest financiers of his day.
- I have twice, probably three times, as much as you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- She confronted him with a faintly sparkling resentment. However, the
- pleasure, the reassurance, in what he had just heard made him indifferent
- to the rest. It was impossible now to comprehend how he had been such a
- block! He even smiled at her, which, he was delighted to observe,
- obviously puzzled her.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Perhaps I ought to tell you, Jason, and perhaps it is too late already,
- that I thought I married you because I was lonely, because I feared the
- future. Anyhow, that's what I told myself the night I sent for you. You
- might have a right to complain very bitterly about it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “If I have, I won't,” he assured her cheerfully.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I thought that then; but now I am not at all sure. It no longer seems so
- simple, so easily explained. I used to feel that I understood myself very
- thoroughly, I could look inside and see what was there; but in the last
- month I haven't been able to; and it is very disturbing.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Anyhow we're married,” he announced comfortably.
- </p>
- <p>
- “That's a beautiful way to feel,” she remarked. “I appear to get less sure
- of things as I grow older, which is pathetic.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He wondered what, exactly, she meant by this. Honora said a great many
- little things which, their meaning escaping him, gave him momentary
- doubts. He discovered that she had a habit of saying things indirectly,
- and that, as the seriousness of the occasion increased, her manner became
- lighter and he could depend less on the mere order of her words. This
- continually disconcerted him, put him on the defensive and at small
- disadvantages: he was never quite at ease with Honora.
- </p>
- <p>
- Obversely—the ugly shade of mercenary purpose dispelled—close
- at hand his admiration for her grew. Every detail of her living was as
- fine as that publicly exposed in the drawing room. She was not rigidly and
- impossibly perfect, in, for instance, the inflexible attitude of Olive
- Stanes; Honora had a very human impatience, she could be disagreeable, he
- found, in the morning, and she undoubtedly felt herself superior to the
- commonalty of life. But in the ordering of her person there was a
- wonderfully exact delicacy and fragrant charm. Just as she had no formal
- manner, so, he discovered, she possessed no “good” clothes; she dressed
- evidently from some inner necessity, and not merely for the sake of
- impression. She had, too, a remarkable vigor of expression; Honora was not
- above swearing at contradictory circumstance; and she was so free of small
- pruderies that often she became a cause of embarrassment to him. At times
- he would tell himself uneasily that her conduct was not quite ladylike;
- but at the same instant his amusement in her would mount until it
- threatened him with laughter.
- </p>
- <p>
- There was a great deal to be learned from Honora, he told himself; and
- then he would speculate whether he were progressing in that acquisition;
- and whether she were happy; no, not happy, but contented. Ignorant of her
- reason for marrying, he vaguely dreaded the possibility of its departure,
- mysterious as it had come, leaving her regarding him with surprise and
- disdain. He tried desperately, consciously, to hold her interest and
- esteem.
- </p>
- <p>
- That was the base of his conception of their married existence, which,
- then, he was entirely willing to accept.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <p>
- However, as the weeks multiplied without bringing him any corresponding
- increase in the knowledge of either Honora or their true situation, he was
- aware of a disturbance born of his very pleasure in her; an uncomfortable
- feeling of insecurity fastened upon him. But all this he was careful to
- keep hidden. There was evidently no doubt in the minds of Cottarsport of
- the enviableness of his position—with all that gold, wedded to
- Honora Canderay, living in the Canderay mansion. The more solid portion of
- the town gave him a studied consideration denied to the mere acquisition
- of wealth; and the rough element, once his companion but now relentlessly
- held at a distance, regarded him with a loud disdain fully as humanly
- flattering. Sometimes with Honora he passed the latter, and they grumbled
- an obscure acknowledgment of his curt greeting; when he was alone, they
- openly disparaged his attainments and qualified pride.
- </p>
- <p>
- There were “Pack” Clower, an able seaman whose indolent character had
- dissipated his opportunities of employment without harming his slow,
- powerful body; Emery Radlaw, the brother of the apothecary and a graduate
- of Williams College, a man of vanished refinements and taker of strange
- drugs, as thin and erratically rapid in movements as Clower was slow;
- Steven, an incredibly soiled Swede; John Vleet, the master and part owner
- of a fishing schooner, a capable individual on the sea, but an insanely
- violent drunkard on land. There were others, all widely different, but
- alike in the bitterness of a common failure and the habit of assuaging
- doubtful self-esteem, of ministering to crawling nerves, with highly
- potential stimulation.
- </p>
- <p>
- Jason passed “Pack” and Emery Radlaw on a day of late March, and a mocking
- and purposely audible aside almost brought him to an adequate reply. He
- had disposed of worse men than these in California and the Isthmus. His
- arrogant temper rose and threatened to master him; but something more
- powerful held him steadily and silently on his way. This was his
- measureless admiration for Honora, his determination to involve her in
- nothing that would detract from her fineness and erect pride. Brawling on
- the street would not do for her husband. He must give her no cause to
- lessen what incomprehensible feeling, liking, she might have for him, give
- life to no regrets for a hasty and perhaps only half considered act. After
- this, in passing any of his late temporary associates, he failed to
- express even the perfunctory consciousness of their being.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <p>
- In April he was obliged to admit to himself that he knew no more of
- Honora's attitude toward him than on the day of their wedding. He
- recognized that she made no show of emotion; it was an essential part of
- her to seem at all times unmoved. That was well enough for the face she
- turned toward the world; but directed at him, her husband, its enigmatic
- quality began to obsess his mind. What Honora thought of him, why she had
- married him, became an almost continuous question.
- </p>
- <p>
- It bred an increasing sense of instability that became loud, defiant. More
- than once he was at the point of self-betrayal: query, demand, objection,
- would rise on a temporary angry flood to his lips. But, struggling, behind
- a face as unmoved as Honora's own, he would suppress his resentment, the
- sense of injury, and smoke with the appearance of the greatest placidity.
- </p>
- <p>
- His regard for his wife placed an extraordinary check on his impulses and
- utterance. He deliberated carefully over his speech, watched her with an
- attention not far from a concealed anxiety, and was quick to absorb any
- small conventions unconsciously indicated by her remarks. She never
- instructed or held anything over him; he would have been acutely sensitive
- to any air of superiority, and immediately antagonized. But Honora was
- entirely free from pretensions of that variety; she was as clear and
- honest as a goblet of water.
- </p>
- <p>
- Jason's regard for her grew pace by pace with the feeling of baffling
- doubt. He was passing through the public square, and his thoughts were
- interrupted by a faint drifting sweetness. “I believe the lilacs are out,”
- he said unconsciously aloud and stopping. His surrounding was remarkably
- serene, withdrawn—the courthouse, a small block of brick with white
- corniced windows, flat Ionic portico, and slatted wood lantern with a
- bell, stood in the middle of the grassy common shut in by an irregular
- rectangle of dwellings with low eaves and gardens. The sun shone with a
- beginning warmth in a vague sky that intensified the early green. It
- seemed that he could see, against a house, the lavender blur of the lilac
- blossoms.
- </p>
- <p>
- Then his attention was attracted by the figure of a man, at once strange
- and familiar, coming toward him with a dragging gait. Jason studied the
- other until a sudden recognition clouded his countenance, filled him with
- a swift, unpleasant surprise.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Thomas!” he exclaimed. “Whenever did you get back?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yesterday,” said Thomas Gast.
- </p>
- <p>
- Well, here was Thomas returned from California like himself. Yet the most
- negligent view of the latter revealed that there was a vast difference
- between Jason and this last Argonaut—Thomas Gast's loosely hung jaw,
- which gave to his countenance an air of irresolution, was now exaggerated
- by an aspect of utter defeat. His ill conditioned clothes, sodden brogans,
- and stringy handkerchief still knotted miner-fashion about his throat, all
- multiplied the fact of failure proclaimed by his attitude.
- </p>
- <p>
- “How did you strike it?” Jason uselessly asked.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What chance has the prospector today?” the other heatedly and indirectly
- demanded. “At first a man could pan out something for himself; but now
- it's all companies, all capital. The state's interfered too, claims are
- being held up in court while their owners might starve; there are new laws
- and trimmings every week. I struck it rich on the Reys, but I was drove
- out before I could get my stakes in. They tell me you did good.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “At last,” Jason replied.
- </p>
- <p>
- “And married Honora Canderay, too.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The other assented shortly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Some are shot with luck,” Thomas Gast proclaimed; “they'd fall and skin
- their face on a nugget.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “How did you come back?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Worked my passage in a crazy clipper with moon-sails and the halliards
- padlocked to the rail. Carried away the foretopmast and yard off the Horn
- and ran from port to port in a hundred and four days.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The conversation dwindled and expired. Thomas Gast gazed about moodily,
- and Jason, with a tight mouth, nodded and moved on. His mind turned back
- abruptly to Eddie Lukens, the man who had robbed him of his find in the
- early days of cradle mining, the man he had killed.
- </p>
- <p>
- He had said nothing of this to Honora; the experience with Olive Stanes
- had convinced him of the advisability of keeping past accident where, he
- now repeated, it belonged. He despaired of ever being able, in
- Cottarsport, to explain the place and times that had made his act
- comprehensible. How could he picture, here, the narrow ravines cut by
- swift rivers from the stupendous slopes and forests of the Sierra Nevada,
- the isolation of a handful of men with their tents by a plunging stream
- in' a rift so deep that there would be only a brief glimmer of sunlight at
- noon? And, failing that, the ignorant could never grasp the significance
- of the stillness, the timeless shadows, which the miners penetrated in
- their madness for gold. They'd never realize the strangling passion of
- this search in a wilderness without habitation or law or safety. They
- could not understand the primary justice of such rude courts as the miners
- were able to maintain on the more populous outskirts of the region.
- </p>
- <p>
- He, Jason Burrage, had been tried by a jury for killing Eddie Lukens, and
- had been exonerated. It had been months since he had reiterated this
- dreary and only half satisfying formula. The inner necessity filled him
- with a shapeless concern such as might have been caused by a constant,
- unnatural shadow flickering out at his back. He almost wished that he had
- told Honora at the beginning; and then he fretfully cursed the incertitude
- of life—whatever he did appeared, shortly after, wrong.
- </p>
- <p>
- But it was obvious that he couldn't go to her with the story today; the
- only time for that had been before his marriage; now it would have the
- look of a confession of weakness, opportunely timed; and he could think of
- nothing more calculated to antagonize Honora than such a crumbling
- admission.
- </p>
- <p>
- All this had been re-animated by the mere presence of Thomas Gast in
- Cottarsport; certainly, he concluded, an insufficient reason for his
- troubling. Gast had been a miner, too, he was familiar with the conditions
- in the West.... There was a great probability that he hadn't even heard of
- the unfortunate affair; while Olive Stanes would be dragged to death
- rather than garble a word of what he had told her: Jason willingly
- acknowledged this of Olive. He resolutely banished the whole complication
- from his mind; and, walking with Honora after supper over the garden in
- back of their house, he was again absorbed by her vivid delicate charm.
- </p>
- <p>
- The garden was deep and narrow, a flight of terraces connected by a
- flagged path and steps. At the bottom were the bergamot pear trees that
- had been Ithiel Canderay's especial charge in his last, retired years.
- Their limbs, faintly blurred with new foliage, rose above the wall,
- against a tranquil evening sky with a white slip of May moon. The peace
- momentarily disturbed in Jason Burrage's heart flooded back, a sense of
- great well-being settled over him. Honora rested her hand within his arm
- at an inequality of the stone walk.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am really a very bad wife, Jason,” she said suddenly; “self-absorbed
- and inattentive.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You suit me,” he replied inadequately. He was extraordinarily moved by
- her remark: she had never before even suggested that she was conscious of
- obligation. He wanted to put into words some of the warmth of feeling
- which filled his heart, but suitable speech evaded him. He could not shake
- off the fear that such protestations might be displeasing to her
- restrained being. Moving slightly away from him she seemed, in the soft
- gloom, more wonderful than ever. Set in white against the depths of the
- garden, her face, dimly visible, appeared to be without its customary
- faintly mocking smile.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Do you remember, Jason,” she continued, “how I once said I thought I was
- marrying you because I was lonely, and that I found out it wasn't so? I
- didn't know why.” She paused.
- </p>
- <p>
- He was enveloped by an intense eagerness to hear her to the end: it might
- be that something beyond his greatest hopes was to follow. But
- disappointment overtook him.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I was certain I'd see more clearly into myself soon, but I haven't; it's
- been useless trying. And I've decided to do this—to give up thinking
- about things for myself, and to wait for you to show me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But I can't do that,” he protested, facing her; “more-than half the time
- I wonder over almost that same question—why you ever married me?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “This is a frightful situation,” she observed with a return of her
- familiar manner; “two mature people joined for life, and neither with the
- slightest idea of the reason. Anyhow I have given it up.... I suppose I'll
- die in ignorance. Perhaps I was too old—-”
- </p>
- <p>
- He interrupted her with an uncustomary incivility, a heated denunciation
- of what she had been about to say.
- </p>
- <p>
- “So you are not sorry,” he remarked after a little.
- </p>
- <p>
- “No,” she answered slowly, “and I'm certain I shan't be. I'm not that sort
- of person. I would go down to ruin sooner than regret.” She said no more,
- but went into the house, leaving Jason in the potent spring night.
- </p>
- <p>
- There was no longer any doubt about the lilacs: the air was laden with
- their scent. An entire hedge of them must have blossomed as he was
- standing there. He moved to the terrace below: there might be buds on the
- pear trees. But it was impossible to see the limbs. How could Honora
- expect him to make their marriage clear? He had never before seen her face
- so serene. He thought that he heard a vague stir outside the wall, and he
- remembered the presence of a semi-public path. Now there was a cautious
- mutter of voices. He advanced a step, then stopped at a scrambling of
- shoes against the wall. A vague form shouldered into view, momentarily
- clinging above him, and a harsh voice cried:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Murderer!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Even above the discordant dash of his startled sensibilities rose the
- fear, instantaneously born, that Honora had heard. All the vague
- uneasiness which had possessed him at Thomas Gust's return solidified into
- a recognizable, leaden dread—the conviction that his wife must learn
- the story of his misadventure, told with animus and lies. Then a more
- immediate dread held him rigidly attentive: there might be a second cry, a
- succession of them shouted discordantly to the sky. Honora would come out,
- the servants gather, while that accusing voice, indistinguishable and
- disembodied by the night, proclaimed his error. This was not the shooting
- of Eddie Lukens, but the neglect to comprehend Honora Canderay.
- </p>
- <p>
- Absolute silence followed. He made a motion toward the wall, but,
- oppressed by the futility of such an act, arrested himself in the midst of
- a step and stood with a foot extended. The stillness seemed to thicken the
- air until he could hardly breathe; he was seized by a sullen anger at the
- events which had gathered to betray him. The crying tones had been like a
- chemical acting on his complexity, changing him to an entirely different
- entity, darkening his being; the peace and fragrance of the night were
- destroyed by the anxiety that now sat upon him.
- </p>
- <p>
- Convinced that nothing more was to follow here, he was both impelled into
- the house, to Honora, and held motionless by the fear of seeing her turn
- toward him with her familiar light surprise and a question. However, he
- slowly retraced his way over the terraces, through a trellis hung with
- grape vines, and into the hall. As he hoped, Honora was on the opposite
- side of the dwelling. She had heard nothing. Jason sat down heavily, his
- gaze lowered and somber.
- </p>
- <p>
- The feeling smote him that he should tell Honora of the whole miserable
- business at once, make what excuse for himself was possible, and prepare
- her for the inevitable public revelation. He pronounced her name, with the
- intention of doing this; but she showed him such a tranquil, superfine
- face that he was unable to proceed. Her interrogation held for a moment
- and then left him, redirected to a minute, colorful square of glass beads.
- </p>
- <p>
- A multiplication of motives kept him silent, but principal among them was
- the familiar shrinking from appearing to his wife in any little or mean
- guise. It was precisely into such a peril that he had been forced. He
- felt, now, that she would overlook a murder such as the one he had
- committed far more easily than an intangible error of spirit. He could
- actually picture Honora, in his place, shooting Eddie Lukens; but he
- couldn't imagine her in his humiliating situation of a few minutes before.
- </p>
- <p>
- He turned to the consideration of who it might be that had called over the
- wall, and immediately recognized that it was one of a small number, one of
- “Pack” Clower's gang: Thomas Gast would have gravitated quickly to their
- company, and their resentment of his, Jason Burrage's, place in life must
- have been nicely increased by Gast's jealousy. The latter, Jason knew, had
- not washed an honest pan of gravel in his journey and search for a
- mythical easy wealth; he had hardly left the littered fringe of San
- Francisco, but had filled progressively menial places in the less
- admirable resorts and activities.
- </p>
- <p>
- With so much established beyond doubt he was confronted by the necessity
- for immediate action, the possibility of yet averting all that threatened
- him, of preserving his good opinion in Honora's eyes. Clower and Emery
- Radlaw and the rest, with the balance of neither property nor position,
- lawless and inflamed with drink, were a difficult opposition. He repeated
- that he had mastered worse, but out in California, where a man had been
- nakedly a man; and then he hadn't been married. There he would have found
- them at once, and an explosion of will, perhaps of powder, would soon have
- cleared the atmosphere. But in Cottarsport, with so much to keep intact,
- he was all but powerless.
- </p>
- <p>
- Yet, the following day, when he saw the apothecary's brother enter the
- combined drug and liquor store, he followed; and, to his grim
- satisfaction, found Thomas Gast already inside. The apothecary gave Jason
- an inhospitable stare, but the latter ignored him, striding toward Gast.
- “Just what is it you've brought East about me?” he demanded.
- </p>
- <p>
- The other avoided the query, his gaze shifting over the floor. “Well?”
- Jason insisted, after a pause. Thomas Gast was leaning against a high
- counter at one side, behind which shelves held various bottles and paper
- boxes and tins. The counter itself was laden with scales and a mortar,
- powders and vividly striped candy in tall glass jars.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You know well as I do,” Gast finally admitted.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Then we're both certain there's no reason for name-calling over my back
- wall.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You shot him, didn't you?” the other asked thinly. “You can't get away
- from the fact that you killed a pardner.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I did,” said Jason Burrage harshly. “He robbed me. But I didn't shout
- thief at him from the safety of the dark; it was right after dinner, the
- middle of the day. He was ready first, too; but I shot him. Can you get
- anything from that?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You ought to realize this isn't San Francisco,” Radlaw, the drug taker,
- put in. “A man couldn't be coolly derringered in Cottarsport. There's law
- here, there's order.” He had a harried face, dulled eyes under a fine
- brow, a tremulous flabby mouth, with white crystals of powder adhering to
- its corners, and a countenance like the yellow oilskins of the fishermen.
- </p>
- <p>
- Jason turned darkly in his direction. “What have you or Clower got to do
- with law?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Not only them,” the apothecary interposed, “but all the other men of the
- town are interested in keeping it orderly. We'll have no western rowdyism
- in Cottarsport.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Then hear this,” Jason again addressed Thomas Gast; “see that you tell
- the truth and all the truth. My past belongs to me, and I don't aim to
- have it maligned by any empty liar back from the Coast. And either of you
- Radlaws—I'm not going to be blanketed by the town drunkards or old
- women, either. If I have shot one man I can shoot another, and I care this
- much for your talk—if any of this muck is allowed to annoy Mrs.
- Burrage I'll kill whoever starts it, spang in the middle of day.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That's where it gets him,” the ex-scholar stated. “Just there,” Jason
- agreed; “and this Gast, who has brought so much back from California, can
- tell you this, too—that I had the name of finishing what I began.”
- </p>
- <p>
- But, once more outside, alone, his appearance of resolution vanished: the
- merest untraceable rumor would be sufficient to accomplish all that he
- feared, damage him irreparably with Honora. He was far older in spirit and
- body than he had been back on Indian Bar; he had passed the tumultuous
- years of living. The labor and privation, the continuous immersion in
- frigid streams, had lessened his vitality, sapped his ability for
- conflict. All that he now wished was the happiness of his wife, Honora,
- and the quietude of their big, peaceful house; the winter evenings by the
- Franklin stove and the spring evenings with the windows open and the
- candles guttering in the mild, lilac-hung air.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <p>
- Together with his uncertainty the pleasure in the sheer fact of his wife
- increased; and with it the old wonderment at their situation returned.
- What, for instance, did she mean by saying that he must explain her to
- herself? He tried again all the conventional reasons for marriage without
- satisfaction: the sentimental and material equally failed. Jason felt that
- if he could penetrate this mystery his grasp on actuality would be
- enormously improved; he might, with such knowledge, successfully defy
- Thomas Gast and all that past which equally threatened to reach out
- destructively into the future.
- </p>
- <p>
- His happiness, in its new state of fragility, became infinitely precious;
- a thing to dwell on at nights, to ponder over walking through the town.
- Then, disagreeably aware of what overshadowed him, he would watch such
- passersby as spoke, searching for some sign of the spreading of his old
- fault. Often he imagined that he saw such an indication, and he would
- hurry home, in a panic of haste—which was, too, intense reluctance—to
- discover if Honora yet knew.
- </p>
- <p>
- He approached her a hundred times determined to end his misery of
- suspense, and face the incalculable weight of her disdain; but on each
- occasion he failed as he had at the first. Now his admission seemed too
- damned roundabout; in an unflattering way forced upon him. His position
- was too insecure, he told himself.... Perhaps the threat in the
- apothecary's shop would be sufficient to shut the mouth of rumor. It had
- not been empty; he was still capable of uncalculating rage. How closely
- was Honora bound to him? What did she think of him at heart?
- </p>
- <p>
- He couldn't bear to remember how he had laid open her dignity, the dignity
- and position of the Canderays in Cottarsport, to whispered vilification.
- Connected with him she was being discussed in “Pack” Clower's shanty. His
- mind revolved endlessly about the same few topics, he elaborated and
- discarded countless schemes to secure Honora. He even considered giving
- Thomas Gast a sum of money to repair what harm the latter had wrought.
- Useless—his danger flourished on hatred and envy and malice. However
- exculpable the killing of Eddie Lukens had been, the results were
- immeasurably unfortunate, for a simple act of violent local justice.
- </p>
- <p>
- They were in the carriage above Cottarsport; Coggs had died through the
- winter, and his place been taken by a young coachman from the city. The
- horses rested somnolently in their harness, the bright bits of rubbed
- silver plate shining. Honora was looking out over the harbor, a gentian
- blue expanse. “Good Heavens,” she cried with sudden energy, “I am getting
- old at a sickening rate. Only last year the schooners and sea made me as
- restless as a gull. I wanted to sail to the farthest places; but now the
- boats are—are no more than boats. It fatigues me to think of their
- jumping about; and I haven't walked down to the wharves for six weeks. Do
- I look a haggard fright?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You seem as young as before I went to California,” he replied simply. She
- did. A strand of hair had slipped from its net, and wavered across her
- flawless cheek, her lips were bright and smooth, her shoulders slimly
- square.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You're a marvelous woman, Honora,” he told her.
- </p>
- <p>
- She gazed at him, smiling. “I wonder if you realize that that is your
- first compliment of our entire wedded life?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ridiculous,” he declared incredulously.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Isn't it?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I mean I'm complimenting you all the time. I think——”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You can hardly expect me to hear thoughts,” she interrupted.
- </p>
- <p>
- He silently debated another—it was to be about the ribbon on her
- throat—but decided against giving it voice. Why, like the reasons
- for so much else, he was unable to say; they all had their root in the
- blind sense of the uncertainty of his situation.
- </p>
- <p>
- Throughout the evening his thoughts shifted ceaselessly from one position
- to another. This, he realized, could not continue indefinitely; soon, from
- within or out, Honora and himself must be revealed to each other. He was
- permeated by the weariness of constant strain; the peace of the past
- months had been destroyed; it seemed to him that he had become an alien to
- the serenity of the high, tranquil rooms and of his wife.
- </p>
- <p>
- He rose early the following morning, and descended into a rapt purity of
- sunlight and the ecstatic whistling of robins. The front door had not been
- opened; and, as he turned its shining brass knob, his gaze fell upon a
- sheet of paper projecting below. Jason bent, securing it, and, with a
- premonition of evil, thrust the folded scrap into his pocket. He turned
- through the house into the garden; and there privately scrutinized a half
- sheet with a clumsily formed, disguised writing:
- </p>
- <p>
- “This,” he read, “will serve you notice to move on. Dangerous customers
- are not desired here. Take a suggestion in time and skip bad consequences.
- You can't hide back of your wife's hoops.” It was signed “Committee.”
- </p>
- <p>
- A robin was thrilling the air with melody above his head. Jason listened
- mechanically as the bird ended his song and flew away. Then the
- realization of what he had found overwhelmed him with a strangling
- bitterness: he, Jason Burrage, had been ordered from his birthplace, he
- had been threatened and accused of hiding behind a woman, by the
- off-scouring of the alleys and rum holes. A feeling of impotence thrust
- its chilling edge into the swelling heat of his resentment. He would have
- to stand like a condemned animal before the impending fatal blow; he was
- held motionless, helpless, by every circumstance of his life and hopes.
- </p>
- <p>
- He crumpled the warning in a clenched hand. How Cottarsport would point
- and jeer at him, at Jason Burrage who was Honora Canderay's husband, a
- murderer; Jason, who had returned from California with the gold fleece! It
- wasn't golden, he told himself, but stained—a fleece dark with
- blood, tarnished from hellish unhappiness, a thing infected with
- immeasurable miseries. Its edge had fallen on Olive Stanes and left her—he
- had passed her only yesterday—dry-lipped and shrunken into sterile
- middle age. It promised him only sorrow, and now its influence was
- reaching up toward Honora, in herself serenely apart from the muck and
- defilement out of which he thought he had struggled.
- </p>
- <p>
- The sun, rising over the bright spring foliage, filled the garden with
- sparkling color. His wife, in a filmy white dress, called him to
- breakfast. She waited for him with her faint smile, against the cool
- interior. He went forward isolated, lonely, in his secret distress.
- </p>
- <p>
- This communication, like the spoken accusation of a previous evening, was,
- apparently, bare of other consequences. Jason's exterior life progressed
- without a deviation from its usual smooth course. It was clear to him that
- no version of the facts about the killing of Eddie Lukens had yet spread
- in Cottarsport. This, he decided, considering the character of Thomas
- Gast, the oblique quality of his statements, was natural. He could not
- doubt that such public revelation, if threat and intimidation failed, must
- come. Meanwhile he was victimized by a growing uncertainty—from what
- direction would the next attack thrust?
- </p>
- <p>
- He smiled grimly to himself at the memory of the withdrawn and secure
- aspect of the town when he had first returned from the West. To him,
- striding across the hills from the Dumner stage, it had resembled an
- ultimate haven. The seeming harmony and peace of the grey fold of houses
- about their placid harbor had concealed possibilities of debasement as low
- as California's worst camps. Now, successful, when he had looked for the
- reward of his long years of brutal toil, the end of struggle, he was
- confronted by the ugliest situation of his existence.
- </p>
- <p>
- He was glad that he had always been a silent man, or Honora would have
- noticed and demanded the cause of the moroseness which must have settled
- over him. They sat no longer before the stove in the drawing room, but on
- a side porch that commanded an expanse of lawn and a high privet hedge,
- while he smoked morosely at the inevitable cheroots, gloomily searching
- for a way from the difficulty closing in upon him.
- </p>
- <p>
- Honora had been to Boston, and she was describing lightly an encounter
- with her aunt, Herriot Cozzens. He was only half conscious of her amused
- voice. Clouds had obscured the evening sky, and there was an air of
- suspense, like that preceding a thunder storm, in the thickening dark. A
- restlessness filled Jason which he was unable to resist; and, with a
- short, vague explanation, he rose and proceeded out upon the street.
- There, his hands clasped behind his back and head lowered, he wandered on,
- lost in inner despondence.
- </p>
- <p>
- He turned into the courthouse square, dimly lighted by gas lamps at its
- outer confines, and paced across the grass, stirring a few wan fireflies.
- It was blacker still beyond the courthouse. He stumbled slightly,
- recovered himself, and wearily commenced a return home. But he had
- scarcely taken a step when a figure closed in upon him, materializing
- suddenly out of the darkness. He stopped and was about to speak when a
- violent blow from behind grazed his head and fell with a splintering
- impact on his shoulder. He stood for a moment bewildered by the unexpected
- pain; then, as he saw another shape, and another, gather around him, he
- came sharply to his senses. His hand thrust into a pocket, but it was
- empty—he had laid aside the derringer in Cottarsport.
- </p>
- <p>
- His assailants grappled with him swiftly, and he swayed struggling and
- hitting out with short blows in the center of a silent, vicious conflict.
- A rough hard palm was crushed against his mouth, a head ground into his
- throat, and a heavy, mucous breath of rum smote him. There was muttered
- cursing, and low, disregarded commands. A cotton handkerchief, evidently
- used as a mask, tore off in Jason's hand; strained voices, their caution
- lost in passion, took unmistakably the accents of “Pack” Clower and the
- Swede, Steven. A thinner tone outside the swirling bodies cried low and
- urgent, “Get it done with.” A fist was driven again Jason's side, leaving
- a sharp, stabbing hurt, a heavy kick tore his thigh. Then he got his
- fingers into a neck and put into the grip all the sinewy strength got by
- long years with a miner's pan and shovel. A choked sob responded, and
- blood spread stickily over his palms.
- </p>
- <p>
- It seemed to Jason Burrage that he was shaking himself free, that he was
- victorious; with a final supreme wrench he stood alone, breathing in
- gusts. There was a second's imponderable stillness, and then the entire
- night appeared to crash down upon his head...
- </p>
- <p>
- He thought it was the flumed river, all their summer's labor, bursting
- over him. He was whirled downward through a swift course of jagged pains,
- held under the hurtling water and planks and stones. He fought, blind and
- strangled, but he was soon crushed into a supine nothingness. Far below,
- the river discharged him: he was lying beside a slaty bank in which the
- gold glittered like fine and countless fish scales. But he couldn't move,
- and the bank flattened into a plain under a gloomy ridge, with a camp of
- miners. He saw that it was Sunday, for the men were all grouped before the
- tents singing. There was Eddie Lukens gravely waving a hand to the beat of
- the melody:=
- </p>
- <p>
- "'Don't you cry for me.
- </p>
- <p>
- I'm going to Calaveras
- </p>
- <p>
- With my wash bowl on my knee.'”=
- </p>
- <p>
- It was undoubtedly Eddie, his partner, but he had never seen him so white
- and—why, he had a hole over his eye! Eddie Lukens was dead; it
- wasn't decent for him to be standing up, flapping his hands and singing.
- Jason bent forward to remonstrate, to persuade him to go back—back
- to where the dead belonged. Then he remembered, but it was too late: Eddie
- had him in an iron clutch, he was dragging him, too, down.
- </p>
- <p>
- Jason made a convulsive effort to escape, he threw back his head, gasping;
- and saw Honora, his wife, bending over him. The tormenting illusion slowly
- perished—this was Cottarsport and not California, he was back again
- in the East, the present, married to Honora Canderay. An astounding fact,
- but so. Through the window of his room he could see the foliage of a great
- horse-chestnut tree that stood by the side walk; it was swelling into
- flower. Full memory now flooded back upon him, and with it the realization
- that probably his happiness was destroyed.
- </p>
- <p>
- It was impossible to tell how much Honora knew of the cause of the assault
- upon him. She was always like that—enigmatic. But, whatever she knew
- now, soon she would have to hear all. Even if he wished to lie, it would
- be impossible to fabricate, maintain, a convincing cover for what had
- happened. The most superficial, necessary investigation would expose the
- story brought home by Thomas Gast.
- </p>
- <p>
- The time had come when he must confide everything to Honora; perhaps she
- would overlook his cowardice. About to address her, he fell into a
- bottomless coma, and a day passed before he had gathered himself
- sufficiently to undertake his task. She was sitting facing him, her chair
- by a window, where her fingers were swiftly and smoothly occupied. Her
- features were a little blurred against the light, and—her
- disconcerting scrutiny veiled—he felt this to be an assistance.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Those men who broke me up,” he began dis-jointedly, surprised at the thin
- uncertainty of his voice, “I know pretty well who they are. Ought to get
- most of them.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “We thought you could say,” she rejoined in an even tone. “Some guesses
- were made, but it was better to wait till you could give a statement.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Am I badly hurt, Honora?” he asked suddenly. “Not dangerously,” she
- assured him. “You have splendid powers of recuperation.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'll have to go on,” he added hurriedly, “and tell you the rest—why
- I was beaten.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It would be better not,” she stated. “You ought to be as calm as
- possible. It may quiet you, Jason, to hear that I know now.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You know what the town has been saying,” he cried in bitter revolt, “what
- lies Thomas Gast spread. You've heard all the envy and malice and drunken
- vileness of sots. It isn't right for you to think you know before I could
- speak a word of defense.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Not only what the town says, Jason,” she replied simply, “but the truth.
- Olive Stanes told me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Then——.” An excited weakness broke his voice in a sob, and
- Honora rose, crossing the room to his bed. “You must positively stop
- talking of this now,” she directed. “If you attempt it I shall go away and
- send a nurse.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He was helpless against her will, and sank into semi-slumberous wonder.
- Honora knew all: Olive Stanes had told her. She was as noncommittal, he
- complained to himself, as a wooden Indian. She might have excused him
- without a second thought, and it might be that she had finished with him
- entirely, that she was merely dispensing a charity and duty; and, moving
- uneasily, or lying propped up in a temporary release from suffering, he
- would study her every movement in an endeavor to gain her all-important
- opinion of him as he had been lately revealed. It was useless; he was
- always, Jason felt, in a state of disturbing suspense.
- </p>
- <p>
- He determined to end it, however, in spite of what Honora had said, on an
- afternoon when he was supported down to the street and the carriage. His
- wife took her place at his side, and they rolled forward into the
- expansive warmth of summer. Jason was impressed by the sheer repetition of
- life; and it seemed to him that this was the greatest happiness possible—such
- a procession of days and drives, with Honora.
- </p>
- <p>
- Her throat rose delicately from ruffled lace, circled by a narrow black
- velvet band with a clasp of remarkable diamonds; and he smiled at the
- memory of how he had once thought she was marrying him for money. That
- seemed years ago, but he was no nearer the solution of her motive now than
- then. Her slim hands were folded in her lap—how beautifully they
- were joined at the wrists; her tapering fingers were like ivory. As he
- studied them he was startled at their suddenly meeting in a rigid clasp,
- the knuckles white and sharp. He looked up and saw that they were drawing
- near a small group of men outside the apothecary's shop.
- </p>
- <p>
- A curious silence fell upon these as the carriage approached: there were
- the two Radlaws, one saturnine and bleak, the other greenish, shattered by
- drugs; Thomas Gast; Vleet, the fishing schooner's master, and a casual,
- familiar passerby. Jason Burrage stared at them with a stony ominous
- countenance, at which Gast made a gesture of combined insolence and
- uncertainty. Jason had sunk back on the cushions when he was astonished by
- Honora's commanding the coachman to stop. It was evident that she was
- about to descend; he put out a hand to restrain her, but she disregarded
- him. His astonishment increased to incredulity and then fear; he rose
- hurriedly, but relaxed with a mutter of pain.
- </p>
- <p>
- Honora, a Canderay, had taken the carriage whip from its holder, and was
- walking, direct and composed, toward Thomas Gast. She stopped a short
- distance away: before an exclamation, a movement, was possible she had
- swept the thong of the whip across Gast's face. The blow was swung with
- force, and the man faltered, a burning welt on the pallor of his
- countenance. The coachman and Jason Burrage in the carriage, the men
- together on the sidewalk, seemed part of an inanimate group of which the
- only thing endowed with life was the whip flickering again, cutting and
- wrapping, about a face.
- </p>
- <p>
- There was a curiously ruthless impersonality about Honora's erect
- presence, her icy cold profile. Memories of old stories of Ithiel
- Canderay, the necessary salt cruelness of punishment in ships, flashed
- through Jason's mind. An intolerable weight of time seemed to drag upon
- him. Thomas Gast gave a hoarse gurgle and lurched forward, but the
- relentless lash drove him back.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You whisperer!” Honora said in her ringing voice, “you liar and
- slabbering coward! It's necessary to cut the truth out of you. When you
- talk again about Mr. Burrage and the man he shot in California don't leave
- out the smallest detail of his exoneration. Say that he had been robbed,
- the other broke one of the first laws of miners and should have been
- killed. You'd not have done it—a knife in the back would be your
- thought—but a man would!”
- </p>
- <p>
- She flung the whip down on the bricks.
- </p>
- <p>
- Thomas Gast pressed his hands to his face, and slow red stains widened
- through his fingers. The apothecary stood transfixed; his brother was
- shaking in a febrile and congested horror. The woman turned disdainfully,
- moving to the carriage; the coachman descended and offered his arm as she
- mounted to the seat. The reins were drawn and the horses started forward
- in a walk.
- </p>
- <p>
- Honora's gaze was set, looking directly ahead; her hands, in her lap of
- flowered muslin, were now relaxed; they gave an impression of crushing
- weariness. Jason's heart pounded like a forge hammer; a tremendous
- realization was forced into his brain—he need never again question
- why Honora had married him; his doubts were answered, stopped, for ever.
- He turned to her to speak an insignificant part of his measureless
- gratitude, but he was choked, blinded, by a passion of honor and homage.
- </p>
- <p>
- Her gaze sought him, and there was a faint tremor of her lips; it grew
- into the shadow of an ironic smile. Suddenly it was borne upon his new,
- acquiescent serenity that Honora would always be a Canderay for him, he
- must perpetually think of her in the terms of his early habit; she would
- eternally be a little beyond him, a being to approach, to attend, with
- ceremony. The memory and sweep of all California, the pageant of life he
- had seen on the way, his own boasted success and importance, faded before
- the solid fact of Honora's commanding heritage in life, in Cottarsport.
- </p>
- <div style="height: 6em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<pre>
-
-
-
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