Many a Sabbath afternoon in his childhood had Mark Carter spent with her playing the stone block play of David and Jonathan, and then eaten bread and milk and apple sauce and sponge cake with her and heard the evening prayers and songs and said good-night with a sweet look of the Heavenly Father's child on his handsome little face. Many a time as an older boy had he sung hymns with her and listened to her read the Bible, and talked it over with her afterward. He had not been like that when she went away. Could he so have changed? And Cherry Fenner! The little girl who had been but ten years old when she went away to college, Cherry a precocious little daughter of a tailor in Economy, who came over to take music lessons from her. Cherry at the Blue Duck! And with Mark! Could it be true? It could not be true! Not in the sense that Mr. Harricutt was trying to make out. Mark might have been there, but never to do wrong. The Blue Duck was a dance hall where liquor was sold on the quiet, and where unspeakable things happened every little while. Oh, it was outrageous! Her fingers made the bells crash out her horror and disgust, and her appeal to a higher power to right this dreadful wrong. And then a hopeless sick feeling came over her, a whirling dizzy sensation as if she were going to faint, although she never fainted. She longed to drop down upon the keys and wail her heart out, but she might not. Those awful words or more like them were going on behind the organ there, and the door was open—or even if the door was not open they could be heard, for the room behind the organ was only screened by a heavy curtain! Those two strangers must not hear! At all costs they must not hear a thing like this! They did not know Mark Carter of course, but at any rate they must not hear! It was like having him exposed in the public square for insult. So she played on, growing steadier, and more controlled. If only she could know the rest! Or if only she might steal away then, and lie down and bear it alone for a little! So this was what had given her father such a white drawn look during his sermon! She had seen that hard old man go across the lawn to meet him, and this was what he was bringing her father to bear!
But the music itself and the words of the grand old hymns she was playing gradually crept into her soul and helped her, so that when the lame stranger made at last his slow progress up to the choir loft and stood beside her she was able to be coolly polite and explain briefly to him how the organ controlled the action of the bells.
He listened to her, standing in open admiration, his handsome careless face with its unmistakable look of self indulgence was lighted up with genuine admiration for the beautiful girl who could play so well, and could talk equally well about her instrument, quite as if it were nothing at all out of the ordinary run of things that she were doing.
Opal, sitting in the front pew, where she had dropped to wait till her escort should be satisfied, watched him at first discontentedly, turning her eyes to the girl, half wondering, half sneering, till all at once she perceived that the girl was not hearing the hot words of admiration poured upon her, was not impressed in the least by the man, did not even seem to know who he was—or care. How strange. What a very strange girl! And really a beautiful girl, too, she saw, now that her natural jealousy was for the moment averted. How extremely amusing. Laurie Shafton interested in a girl who didn't care a row of pins about him. What a shouting joke! She must take it back to his friends at the shore, who would kid him unmercifully about it. The thing had never been known in his life before. Perhaps, too, she would amuse herself a little, just as a pastime, by opening the eyes of this village maiden to the opportunity she was missing? Why not? Just on the verge of his departure perhaps.
And now, with tender touch, the music grew softer and dropped into the sorrowful melody:
“The mistakes of my life have been many,
The sins of my heart have been more,
But I come as He has bidden.
And enter the open door.
I know I am weak and sinful,
It comes to me more and more
But since the dear Saviour has bid me come in
I'll enter the open door.”
It was one of the songs they used to sing together, Mark and she, on Sunday afternoons just as the sun was dropping behind the western mountain, and Marilyn played it till the bells seemed to echo out a heart's repentance, and a great forgiveness to one far, far away.
At its first note the song was recognized by Mark Carter as he drove along through the night and it thrilled him to his sad sick soul. It was as if she had spoken to him, had swept his heart strings with her white fingers, had given him her sweet wistful smile, and was calling to him through the dark. As they came in sight of the church Billy pulled his cap a little lower and tried to keep the choke out of his throat. Somehow the long hours without sleep or food, the toil, the anxiety, the reaction, had suddenly culminated in a great desire to cry. Yes, cry just like a baby! Why, even when he was a baby he didn't cry, and now here was this sickening gag in his throat, this smarting in his eyelids, this sinking feeling. He cast an eye at Cart. Why, Cart looked that way too. Cart was feeling it also. Then he wasn't ashamed. He gulped and smudged his dirty hand across his smarting eyes, and got a long streak of wet on the back of his hand which he hastily dried on the side of his sweater, and so they sat, two still dark figures travelling along quietly through the night, for Carter had shut off the engine and let the natural incline of the road carry them down almost in front of the church.
When they reached the church they saw a figure standing with a lifted hand. The janitor, ordered by Harricutt to keep a watch.
The car stopped at once.