The Land of Content

by Edith Barnard Delano

She shuddered at the thought of what the newspapers would make of it, and of Cecilia's raging, and Pendleton's taunting comments. She and Eleanor, in the reassuring daylight, tried to laugh away each other's fears; and both agreed that they would not be frightened away from the brown house; they agreed, too, that Ogilvie must not know.

But to keep the doctor in ignorance of what had happened was not so easy as Rosamund had hoped. He had many opportunities of hearing rumors that did not reach her; if he had not constantly persisted in his warnings it was not because he no longer feared for her, but because it seemed best to watch, rather than to warn. He went to the cottage every day on one pretext or another; if it was not fear alone which took him there, he admitted to himself no other reason.

It was not altogether because he was too busy with his mountaineer patients, as Mother Cary had told Rosamund, that he had remained among them; now and again he had consulted his friends, and his vigorous enjoyment of the days as they passed also told unmistakably of his recovery; but another year of mountain practice would doubly insure his safety in going back to his investigations in the confinement of the laboratory. Meanwhile he had thrown himself into the work here with ardor, as he must always do with work or play; but now just at the time when he was beginning to think of his return to the city there came into his thoughts an influence as disturbing as it was novel.

Early in the summer one of his classmates, the Doctor Blake who was Mother Cary's old friend, had come from the city for a visit of a day or two, and to him Rosamund's name was unmistakably well known. He had seen her, too, in town. There could be no mistake; she was the only daughter of old Randall, the "king" of Georgia pine. It seemed to Blake a wild freak which kept such a girl here in the mountains, away from her kind, a freak to be distrusted. He watched Ogilvie rather keenly when they met Rosamund at Mother Cary's that afternoon, but it was evident that Ogilvie was master of whatever emotions he might have towards her. As a matter of fact, her money counted no more in his estimate of her than a scar on her cheek, or a strand of gray hair, or an ignorance of German would have counted. He knew himself for a man, and more; he knew, as they who possess the embryo of greatness never fail to know, that he had that to offer which all her money could not buy; the belief that she, too, knew as much was fast becoming the essence of life for him.

The thought of her filled his days and half his nights. Her swinging step along the frozen roads, the tired child nestling in her arms, the cadence of her voice as she greeted him, the look of shy withdrawal that he sometimes surprised in her eyes—all would set him inwardly trembling, longing, worshiping. Yet love was new to him, and he feared; inexperience had left him with nothing for comparison. He could not know how far to venture. Masculine instinct warned him to display to her the brightest plumage of his mind and heart, and their walks and drives together were full of talk and intimate silences; but of that which was uppermost in his desire he feared to speak.

Yet his fears no less than his love made him keen to notice every shade of expression on her face, and on the morning after her fright at the hideous vision at the window he saw at once that something was amiss. He had been over the mountain earlier in the day to set a man's broken arm, and several things had made him more than usually suspicious that the underworld of the woods was stirring uneasily. A storm of some sort was certainly in the air; the people showed themselves distrustful even of him, and the very children shrank into reserve at his approach.

Rosamund had walked across the valley to Mother Cary's, to confide to her the strange disturbing happening of the night; then she had gone home again, hoping for that day to escape Ogilvie's keen eyes. The tale had been most disquieting to the old woman, and when Rosamund had gone, she sent Pap to the main road to hail the doctor as he passed. She had been bound to secrecy, but she could at least, without breach of trust, send him a message.

"You tell Doctor Ogilvie that I say when wolves are out, lambs 're in danger. Jest that; don't say another word. Ef he's all I take him for he'll understand."

Pap repeated the message word for word and the two men looked into each other's eyes for a moment, in a look that told far more than the message; then Ogilvie whipped up White Rosy with unprecedented emphasis, and the old mare gallantly responded, as if she knew that an emergency prompted the unaccustomed touch. Ogilvie was sure that one glance at Rosamund's face would tell him whether she were the lamb Mother Cary had in mind; and the girl's pale cheeks, that flushed so treacherously when he entered the brown cottage, disclosed the secret she would have kept. But Mother Cary must not be betrayed, and he greeted her as if he suspected nothing.

"I saw Aunt Sue at the clothesline," he said, "so I used the doctor's privilege and just walked in! Tell me if I'm in the way."