THE PASSION OF ERNESTINE DUMONT
A man's life may pass for him like a slow winding stream through open meadows in gentle valley lands, its waters clear and untroubled by rapids, falls and eddies. Even a man with such a life has his vital story. But it is pastoral, idyllic, like a quiet painting done in a soft monochrome. Or a man's life may shake him with a series of shocks which, to the soul, are cataclysmic. And then the man, be his strength what it may, since he is human and it is not infinite, is caught like a dry leaf in the maelstrom of life about him and within him, and is sucked down into depths where the light does not penetrate or is flung from the mad current into a quiet cove where he may rest with the din of the angry waters in his ears.
Drennen had been over the falls; he now rested in such a cove. He had battled furiously with fury itself; now he was soothingly touched by the tide of gentler emotions. He did not think; rather he dreamed. He had looked for the light the other day and had found it everywhere. Now, most of all did it seem to be within himself. We see the outside world as we carry it within us; the eyes, rather mirrors than telescopes, reflect what is intimate rather than that which lies beyond.
To-day, riding back along the trail, Drennen saw how golden were the fresh tips of the firs; how each young tree was crowned with a star; how each budding pine lifted skyward what resembled a little cluster of wax candles. Stars and candles, celestial light and light man-kindled, glory of God and glory of man.
With a rebound, it seemed, the young soul of the David Drennen of twenty had again entered his breast. There had been a time when he had loved life, the world, the men about him; when he had looked pleasantly into the faces of friends and strangers; when he had been ready to form a new tie of comradeship and had no thought of hatred; when he had credited other men with kindly feelings and honest hearts. That time had come again.
Somewhere ahead of him Marc Lemarc was riding. Drennen did not think unkindly of him. He realised that the hatred he had felt a few days ago had been born of delirium and madness and jealousy. Ygerne sought to retrieve the long lost Bellaire fortune; Lemarc's interests jumped with hers in the matter. One had the map, the other the key; they must work together. Lemarc was riding with the jingle of Drennen's money in his pocket and Drennen was glad to think of it. He was helping Ygerne, he was not sorry to help Lemarc at the same time. This morning he had had one hundred thousand dollars! He smiled, then laughed aloud. One hundred thousand dollars! Now he had fifty thousand; already he had opened his hand and poured out fifty thousand dollars! That was the old Drennen, the headlong, generous Drennen, the Drennen who took more delight in giving than in spending, and no delight in selfishness. He had done all that he could do to help wipe the stain from his father's name; he had lifted a burden from his father's shoulders. While he could not understand everything he knew that. And he had staked Lemarc.
Another man would have called for Lemarc's bills, have gone over them, have moved slowly and with caution. That would not have been Drennen. He gave forty thousand for his father's name; he placed ten thousand where Ygerne could use it through Lemarc. He had fifty thousand left and he felt that he had not done enough, that he had kept back too much. True, the thought had flickered through his brain: "And suppose that Lemarc should take the cash and let the credit go? Suppose that he should be contented with the ten thousand dollar bird in his hand and never mind the hypothetical Bellaire treasure bird in the bush?" Well, then, it would be worth it to Ygerne; just for her to know what sort Lemarc was. Drennen had more money than he needed; he had an assured income from the newly rediscovered Golden Girl; there were still other mines in the world for the man who could find them; and he had merely done for Ygerne Bellaire the first thing she had asked of him. In Drennen's eyes, in this intoxicated mood, it seemed a very little thing.
He had bought a horse in Lebarge, the finest animal to be had in the week's search. He had supplied himself with new clothes, feeling in himself, reborn, the desire for the old garb of a gentleman. He had telegraphed two hundred miles for a great box of chocolates for Ygerne; he had sent a message twice that distance for his first bejewelled present for her. Nothing in Lebarge was to be considered; the golden bauble which came in answer to his message, a delicate necklace pendant glorious with pearls, cost him three hundred dollars and contented him.
He was happy. He opened his mind to the joy of life calling to him; he closed his thoughts to all that was not bright. Ygerne was waiting for him; John Harper Drennen was not dead, but alive and near at hand. The man who had judged hard and bitterly before, now suspended judgment. It was not his place to condemn his fellow man; certainly he was not to sit in trial on his own father and the woman who would one day be his wife! The lone wolf had come back to the pack. He wanted companionship, friendship, love.
It had been close to eleven o'clock when he rode out of Lebarge. He counted upon his horse's strength and a moonlit night to bring him back to the Settlement in time for a dawn tryst down the river at a certain fallen log. He pushed on steadily until four o'clock in the afternoon; then he stopped, resting his horse and himself, tarrying for a little food and tobacco. At five o'clock he again swung into the saddle and pushed on.