"Nothing now, perhaps later." Mrs. Doan hastened to put on a padded robe. Her hair fell about her shoulders.
She separated the shining mass, weaving it into braids, as she went, almost running, to her sleeping son. An upper balcony, partially protected by canvas, made his cozy nest. At the south and east there was nothing to shut out the stars, while at dawn peaks beyond the northern range rose dark and sharp through zones of burning rose. Isabel cast herself upon her own bed. Delicious air cooled her burning cheeks and she could hear the gentle, regular breathing of her boy. She had no thought of sleep. Her only wish was to escape to a place cut off from her aunt's temporary territory. Now she would wait. Her heart was kind, and in retreat she began to feel sorry for the woman with whom she had parted. Mrs. Grace was only half sister to Isabel's father, and far back the little girl had wondered why her pretty aunty so often quarreled with her family. Once she heard her father declare that Julia's nose and hands seemed to guarantee a lady, but she had caught no more. At the time she did not understand; since then she had grown older and wiser. She sank upon the pillow gratefully. Below there was a stir of running feet, a commotion at the telephone. Isabel tried to forget her own inhospitable part. Once she half rose from bed, half believed that she would face her hysterical aunt with overtures of peace. Then she felt the foolishness of going through with everything again. Mrs. Grace was impossible after what had taken place. Sounds about the house continued. The angry woman proposed to take her own time for packing; and it was nearly midnight before Isabel became sure that an unwelcome guest had gone. Above with the boy, she watched the stars grow brighter, listened to night calls of stirring birds, wondered about Philip Barry at the other side of the world. Now at last she was alone in the house with Reginald and the servants. She got up and went below, to find Maggie crying in the hall. The girl hid a crimson face and Isabel knew that Mrs. Grace had enlightened her in regard to a coming event. As one Catholic to another, she had warned the nursemaid to protect her soul from evil influence.
"You may go to bed," Mrs. Doan commanded. Maggie turned away, then came back. Her voice failed and she pointed to the dining room, where a little supper was daintily set out. She sobbed her way to the back of the house, then above to her room. Isabel was alone. She had hardly dreamed of freedom, yet now it was here. The fire in the living-room still burned; and like a child, she took a bowl of milk and bread and sat down on a rug before glowing embers. In spite of all she felt happy. She was hungry, too; and after she had eaten every mouthful she sat on,—thinking of Philip.
CHAPTER XV
It took Isabel nearly a month to throw off the effect of her aunt's angry departure. At the end of that time the cheery French woman arrived to take the place of Mrs. Grace, who had gone from the town to St. Barnabas. Still later, Isabel heard with strange relief that her aunt no longer enjoyed California and was about to seek excitement in New York. She felt glad that Mrs. Grace would be at the far side of the continent before the coming of Philip Barry.
Isabel had not kept her engagement with Ned Hartley the morning after the trouble; but the next day and for days following she toured in the machine with the elate boy and his mother. Mrs. Lewis and Gay were often of the party. To spin through a country growing fresher, more enchanting with each welcome rain was a tonic. Isabel rebounded. And at last Philip had started for home. She now thought of little else and her heart grew light as days slipped away. To restore the man whom she had unduly influenced; to bring him in touch with happiness; to lead him in his new career to honor, even to fame, grew into a passionate hope as time went by. Philip was already hers. She would make him forget, help him to consecrate his talents anew to art and letters. He must write books and be glad that he was no longer a priest, bound with forms and obsolescent vows. His brilliant mind should be free to develop, his manhood to grow unrestrained. Isabel's own unorthodox view was so wholly conceived out of intellect and evolving mercy that retribution and remorse were not pictured as possible punishments reserved for an apostate Catholic once a priest.
Her one thought was to make the man who had suffered from an almost fatal mistake happy. When once he felt the surging joy of love, opportunity, his past life would cease to trouble him. Isabel was young and confident. She felt sure of everything. The day, wonderfully bright and exhilarating, called her into the garden, where she found Reginald. The boy had dug a flower bed with a tiny spade; then, too impatient to think of seeds, had broken full blooming geraniums into stubby shoots and planted each one with a shout of laughter.
"See my garden! mother dear," he cried, as Isabel approached. "It's all weddy—growed beau-ti-ful!" He clapped dirt-stained hands and bounced about in his blue overalls.
Maggie raised a tear-stained face from where she was sitting. Her only outlet seemed to be weeping. "To think that I must leave him!" she sobbed. "It breaks my heart to go, and nothing but Mike insisting that we get married could part me from my boy." She wound her arms about her little charge. Mrs. Doan saw that the girl held a letter. "It's to San Francisco he bids me come," she went on. In her excitement she had lapsed into old-country expression. "And he thinks I can get married with no warnin'. Married indeed! Married without a stitch but store clothes. I would like to send him walkin' back East, with the chance of a better man."