The Land of Content

by Edith Barnard Delano

Ogilvie, too, had something of the same sense of uplift. He, too, had had his revelation. But, man-like, he would have grasped at once at something more definite, more dear, if he had not, with a lover's keenness of intuition, seen that Rosamund was satisfied to wait. He had no fear, no misconception; he felt, rather, a reverence which forbade his hastening her toward the avowal which would bring the surrender he so ardently desired. The same force of love which made him long for it, made him also too tender to urge it. His coming to the brown cottage every day was too much a matter of custom to be remarked upon. There were Eleanor and Grace, Yetta and Timmy to talk to, as well as Rosamund; and he fell into the way of arriving in time for the mid-day dinner, just as Tim fell into the way of waiting for him with the announcement of what good things Aunt Susan was going to give them to eat. Rosamund teased Ogilvie about it a little, but Eleanor, the ostensible hostess, remembered the ancient person with whom he lived, took pity on him, and kept him as often as she could. Indeed, Eleanor, like Mother Cary, regarded him as an overgrown boy, very much in need of maternal attentions; if she suspected the state of affairs between him and Rosamund, she tactfully gave no sign of it. So Ogilvie came and went as naturally as if he were a member of the household, and his daily sight of Rosamund lent him patience.

But always he was on the watch for signs of the distrust that still muttered against "the stranger woman." Grace's taking refuge in the brown house had affected the mountaineers in two ways. One faction—for so strongly did each side feel that there were, indeed, definite factions—held that Rosamund had only offered her the shelter which any woman would have given to another in such sore need, and declared that all of Grace's friends were bound to Rosamund by the obligation of gratitude. The other faction, and perhaps the larger, held that if Grace had not actually betrayed her husband to the authorities, she had run away from him and so failed in her duty of hiding him, and that Rosamund shared her guilt, if, indeed, she was not directly responsible for it. Mother Cary, whom all adored, came in for a share of blame, for being friends with the guilty ones, and even the doctor, though he was known to be faithfully in sympathy with all his mountain patients, and though no one suspected his integrity toward them, found many faces turned away from him which had hitherto shown only confidence and affection.

That Rosamund was aware of the state of things he could only guess; she gallantly denied any uneasiness, although there were many evidences of the bad feeling against her. They were only trivial things, little annoyances, surly answers, eyes that would not see her; yet they told their story with unmistakable plainness.

It was while things were in this unsettled state that she was surprised by a second visit from Flood and Pendleton; not, this time, in the car, for the roads were impassable. They drove up in the only sleigh that was for hire at the Summit.

Pendleton had hardly got out of his great fur coat before he opened fire; he had evidently come primed.

"What's all this about arrests and moonshiners, Rosamund?" he demanded. "Cecilia's very uneasy. Had a letter from her day before yesterday, saying she'd come herself if she could do any good, and wouldn't I run up and look around a bit. So here we are, both of us, because Flood wouldn't be left behind!"

"That wasn't quite fair of Cecilia," Rosamund said, flushing angrily. Pendleton had promptly got on her nerves with the alacrity that only an old friend is capable of. "I thought I had made it plain that I mean to be let alone."

"Oh, please!" Flood, the peacemaker, besought them; and Rosamund had come to like his helpless "Oh, please!" so well that she smiled at him, though her eyes were still bright with anger.

"I say, Pendleton," he went on, "you're always trying to fight with Miss Randall." Pendleton only grinned at him. "Really, Miss Randall, we haven't come to interfere, not in the very least, I assure you! Mrs. Maxwell did write; but we wanted very much to see you. That is why I came, anyway!"

So far he dared venture, and at the very bathos of his distress Rosamund laughed, and peace reigned again. She told them of Tobet's arrest, and that his wife was now a member of her household. She declared that there remained no possible danger, with Joe out of the way.