XXXIX
And so came the last day in Kalmut Fiord; and I greeted its dawning from the Wanderer’s decks, where I had paced at intervals during the night, and I was not tired. In amazement I watched the sun roll back the fog-banks from the hills, for I was seeing with new eyes, and the sense of a new beginning, of a freshening of life, was upon me.
That same incomprehensible force which was clearing the valley of its nightly cloak of gray was stirring me, troubling me, lifting me. Vaguely—for my thoughts were elsewhere—I sensed the quickening of my being and knew that never had I been so thoroughly alive.
That night had been a period of alternate joy and torture to me. I flung myself on my bed, but the stateroom seemed insufferably small and confining.
I sprang up and went out, pacing the decks. I passed Betty’s state-room and the thrill that leapt within me sent me staggering on, drunken with new feelings. I passed Chanler’s room, and the thrill died and I was bitter. I sought the fore-deck and in my mind reenacted the meeting with Brack. There he had stood, there Betty, here myself. There her shoulder had touched mine and here I had met Brack as he hurled himself upon her. There Brack had kissed her, while I lay on the deck; there near the rail he had held her, and there I had taken her from him and for a brief moment had held her in my arms.
I pictured the night when she had called to him, and the memory of her tone was like a storm, shaking me to my knees. I looked in on Chanler and found him awake and reading. There was in his eyes the strength of a man who has won through a crisis and found peace. And well there might be! I told him that I wished to get back to Seattle, so I might quit him, as soon as possible, and went out before he could reply.
Old Slade, standing the dog-watch, approached me wonderingly and asked if I couldn’t sleep.
“Sleep!” I sneered. “Why should a man want to do anything so simple as sleep when he can walk out here beneath the stars and torture himself with thoughts.”
He stroked his long beard. “Pain cometh to all men——”
“So I’ve heard,” I replied curtly, and walked away.
And so I greeted the dawning of our last day in the Hidden Country unslept; and yet I was as fresh as Wilson when he came hobbling up to judge the weather.
“A beautiful day, Mr. Pitt,” said he, after studying the sky. “The good weather will hold, and short-handed as we are that’s what we must be praying for.”
“We sail today, then?”
“This afternoon, sir.”
“Good!” I said. “It will be a relief to get out of here.”
I breakfasted alone. From the cabin-door I saw Betty Baldwin come from her stateroom, stand blinking in the morning sun and filling her lungs with the tingling air. And she was beautiful to my eyes as she had never been before, and I entered my stateroom and locked the door.
Hours afterward I heard Black Sam dropping the paddles into a canoe alongside; heard him telling Betty that the craft was ready. Presently Chanler knocked on my door.
“Oh, Gardy! Come out here.”
I flung open the door.
“Betty wants to have one last paddle down the bay,” he said casually.
“Well,” I replied, “why doesn’t she go?”
“Can’t go alone comfortably in that long canoe, you know. It won’t handle except with some one in the bow.”
“Are you busy?” I tried to be sarcastic and failed.
“It’s your turn to go,” he said. “She—she said so, old man. Go along, now. Good luck.”
I took my place in the bow without a word, without our eyes meeting. I was in no shape to paddle and sat with the paddle across my knees.
Betty began to paddle. Presently she stopped. We sat silent while the canoe drifted.
“I’d like to see our—to see that cave again, if you don’t mind,” she said timidly. “Do you?”
“Why should I?” I said.
Not a word more did we speak as we went through the gap into the bay proper nor while she paddled down to our landing-place. She steered the canoe past the rock where we had gone ashore to avoid leaving tracks behind us, and landed on the sandy beach. I got out stiffly and sat down upon a boulder.
“We’re not going to play Injun this morning, then?” she said with a wan attempt at gaiety.
“No,” said I. “Why should we? There’s no necessity now.”
“Don’t—don’t you ever play Injun except when it’s necessary?” she said reproachfully.
I did not reply.
“Didn’t you like to play Injun that time?”
“It served its purpose,” I said.
She cast at me a swift and troubled glance, bowed her head, and stepped out. Without looking back she started up the hill, and presently I rose, without any conscious effort on my part, and began to follow.
Once she stopped and looked behind her; I only felt it; I dared not look to see. For the tumult which woke within me at the sight of her as she moved through that primitive scene frightened me. It seemed to lift me above, or cast me below, considerations of right or wrong. My conventional self whispered that I was treading on dangerous ground; that I must not go up the hill. But I went, even as Brack had gone, in answer to Betty’s call, but with my eyes held fearfully on the ground.
“Look!” she cried at the cave’s mouth. “The foliage has grown so in a few days that you scarcely could tell we’d ever had an entrance there.”
I tore the brush aside to make a way for her and stood aside with eyes averted.
“Aren’t you going in—Mr. Pitt?” she asked softly.
“No,” I said. “Why should I?”
She sighed and crumpled up a little and entered the cave alone. For awhile there came no sound from within, but I dared not look to see what she was doing. Then she began to move around.
“Oh, the poor little branches!” She was half-whispering to herself. “All withered up and dead, all gone from their pretty little trees. Poor, poor little leaves. And they looked so bright and hopeful once, and now they’re gray and dead. And the moss is drying. The soft, pretty moss! All turned hard and dry. What a pity! What a little, little pity!”
She was silent for awhile. I peered in and saw her on her knees, her hands tenderly stroking the withered moss with which we had carpeted the cave.
“Good-by, little cave,” she whispered. “By-by.”
She did not come out at once. There was a moment during which I turned my back on the cave, not daring to look in, and the only motion and sound in the world was that of the young Summer breeze stirring through the age-old scene.
“Mr. Pitt—, Gardy.” She was only whispering, yet her voice was strong enough to reach forth and sway me where I stood. I did not reply. The fight was going against me. Flight would have saved me, yet I would not fly. But if I trusted myself to speak, I would be lost.
“Aren’t you going to bid our cave good-by?”
I took a step away. I should have taken many; for I felt then that right and safety prescribed that I step out of the lives of Betty and George, promptly and forever.
And seconds passed, seconds that seemed minutes, and I hoped that she would not speak again.
Presently she was standing behind me. I knew it, though I had not heard or seen her come. Straight ahead I looked, out over the bay, denying the force that urged me to do otherwise.
“Gardy!”
“Don’t!” I moaned. “Go back—get in the canoe; go back to George—alone—quick!”
“Gardy!”
She placed her fingers on my arm. And I turned around and faced her, because I could not do otherwise. Then suddenly all the winds in the world seemed to be pressing upon me, drawing, coaxing, forcing me toward her. One agonized cry my conscience sent up in protest at the wrong I did. Then I swept her to me; I held her against my breast; I kissed her; then tore myself away.
Slowly, painfully I lifted my gaze from the ground to take my punishment from her eyes. And then my heart leaped and stopped within me. For Betty, with her hands clasped rapturously before her, was looking up at me with the soft flame of grateful happiness in her expression.
“Oh, Gardy, Gardy!” She swayed her shoulders a little. “Then you do care for me; you do—you do—don’t you?”
“Betty!”
“Oh, oh!” She teetered up and down on her toes, unable to contain herself. “He cares for her; he isn’t going to leave little Betty all lonesome and unhappy!”
I saw her and heard her in a half-daze.
“Betty!” I cried. “What does this mean?”
“It means that I’m happy—happy! I’m the happiest girl in the world!”
“Happy? Now? Because I kissed you, when you’re engaged to George?”
It was her turn to stare blankly.
“Engaged to George?” she said.
I stammered brokenly a flood of words.
“He said you’d come to an understanding—that everything was all right—and as it should be.”
“That’s true. Oh, that’s very true!”
“That you’d opened your heart to him.”
“I did—I did!”
“And—and I knew by the look in his eyes as well as his saying so that you had come to an understanding.”
“And you knew right, Gardy; perfectly right.”
“Then, what——”
“I did open my heart to him, and I told him everything. And we both knew it was all right—everything all right—and as it should be.”
My voice grew small and faint and all but failed me.
“Then—then what was it you told him, Betty?”
She wrung her hands, and her eyes were filled with tears, but neither the gesture nor the tears were those of distress.
“Oh, Gardy, my boy!” she cried holding out her arms. “Are you going to make me propose to you?”