The Lucky Piece: A Tale of the North Woods

by Albert Bigelow Paine

"But he could not be sure," said Frank. "You were all in the world to him, and he could not afford to take the chance of losing you."

"And to think that all those years he lived up there, watching our struggle. And what a hard struggle it was! Poor mother—I wish she might have known he was there!"

Neither spoke for a time. Then they reviewed their visit to the hermitage together, when they had performed the last sad offices for its lonely occupant. Next morning Robin was away with his party and Frank wandered over to the camp, but found no one there besides the servants.

He surmised that Constance and her parents had gone to visit the little grave on the hillside, and followed in that direction, thinking to meet them. He was nearing the spot when, at a turn in the path, he saw them. He was unobserved, and he saw that Constance had her arms about Mrs. Deane, who was weeping. He withdrew silently and walked slowly back to the Lodge, where he spent the rest of the morning over a writing table in his room, while on the veranda the Circle of Industry—still active, though much reduced as to numbers—discussed the fact that of late Mr. Weatherby was seen oftener at the Lodge, while, on the other hand, Constance had scarcely been seen there since her return. The little woman in black shook her head ominously and hinted that she might tell a good deal if she would, an attitude which Miss Carroway promptly resented, declaring that she had thus far never known her to keep back anything that was worth telling.

It was during the afternoon that Frank, loitering through a little grove of birches near the boat landing, came face to face with Edith Morrison. He saw in an instant that she had something to say to him. She was as white as the birches about her, while in her eyes there was the bright, burning look he had seen there once before, now more fierce and intensified. She paused by a mossy-covered bowlder called the "stone seat," and rested her hand upon it. Frank saw that she was trembling violently. He started to speak, but she forestalled him.

"I have something to tell you," she began, with hurried eagerness. "I spoke of it once before, when I only suspected. Now I know. I don't think you believed me then, and I doubted, sometimes, myself. But I do not doubt any longer. We have been fools all along, you and I. They have never cared for us since she came, but only for each other. And instead of telling us, as brave people would, they have let us go on—blinding us so they could blind others, or perhaps thinking we do not matter enough for them to care. Oh, you are kind and good, and willing to believe in them, but they shall not deceive you any longer. I know the truth, and I mean that you shall know it, too."

Out of the varying emotions with which the young man listened to the rapid torrent of words, there came the conviction that without doubt the girl, to have been stirred so deeply, must have seen or heard something which she regarded as definite. He believed that she was mistaken, but it was necessary that he should hear her, in order, if possible to convince her of her error. He motioned her into the seat formed by the bowlder, for she seemed weak from over-excitement. Leaning against it, he looked down into her dark, striking face, startled to see how worn and frail she seemed.

"Miss Morrison," he began gently, "you are overwrought. You have had a hard summer, with many cares. Perhaps you have not been able to see quite clearly—perhaps things are not as you suppose—perhaps——"

She interrupted him.

"Oh," she said, "I do not suppose—I know! I have known all the time. I have seen it in a hundred ways, only they were ways that one cannot put into words. But now something has happened that anybody can see, and that can be told—something has been seen and told!"