"Oh! Jerry-Jo, he who played for me in the woods could never have been evil. Why, all his life he had been making himself into something big and fine. He put into words the things I had always thought and dreamed about—an ideal was what he called it! And to think I never knew! And he remembered and wanted to be kind! I shall worship him now while I live. And when he comes back to the Hill Place I will go and thank him, even if my father should kill me. I shall never be happy until I can explain. What a stupid he must think me!"
After that the secret became the sacredest thing in Priscilla's life and the most tormenting in Jerry-Jo's. They were both at ages when such an occurrence would appeal to a girl's sentimentality and a young man's hatred.
The family did not return to the Hill Place for many summers, and only once during the following years did Priscilla's name pass Travers's lips.
Apropos of something they were talking about he said to Helen Travers: "I wonder what has become of that little dancing dervish up in Canada? She wasn't plain, ordinary stuff, but I suppose she'll be knocked into shape. Maybe that half-breed, Jerry-Jo, will get her when she's been reduced to his level. There are not girls enough to go around up there, I fancy. That little thing, though, was too spiritual to be crushed and remodelled. As she danced that day, her scarlet cape flying out in the breeze, she looked like a living flame darting up from the red rock. And those awful words she uttered—poor little pagan! Jerry-Jo told me afterward what the lure of the States meant: it's a provincial expression. Mother, if the lure should ever control that girl of Lonely Farm I wish we might greet her, for safety's sake."
But it was not likely that either of the Traverses for a moment conceived of the reality of Priscilla leaving the In-Place, and in time even the memory of her became blurred to Dick by the eternal verities of his strenuous young life.
Gradually his lameness disappeared until a slight hesitation at times was all that remained. Five years of college, two abroad—one with Helen, one with Doctor Ledyard—and then Richard Thornton Travers (Helen had, when he went to college, insisted for the first time upon the middle name) hung out his modest sign—it looked brazenly glaring to him—under that of Thomas R. Ledyard, and nervously awaited the first call upon him. He was twenty-five when he started life, and Priscilla Glenn, back in forgotten Kenmore, was nearing nineteen, with Jerry-Jo in hot pursuit behind her. As to Anton Farwell, there was no doubt about his age now. Not even the very old called him young, and there was a pathos about him that attracted the attention of those with whom he had lived so long.
"He looks haunted," Mary Terhune ventured; "he starts at times when one speaks sudden, real pitiful like. The look of his eyes, too, has the queer flash of them as sees forward as well as back. Do you mind, Mrs. McAdam, how 'tis said that them as comes nigh to drowning have a glimpse on before as well as the picture of all that has past?"
"I've heard the same," nodded Mary McAdam.
"Belike the master remembers and often looks to the end of his journey. Well, he's been a good harmless sort, as men go. He's kept the children out of trouble far more than one could expect, and he's been a merciful creature to humans and beasts. I wonder what he had in his life before he washed up from the La Belle?"
All this seemed to end the discussion.