and Mrs. Masterman he broke, abruptly:
"They"ve arrested Fay."
What came next was as nearly of the nature of a vow as a man could venture on without melodramatic eloquence. All his energies, all his money, all his time, were to be dedicated to securing Fay"s acquittal.
For Claude"s death one man, and one man only, was to blame. It was probable enough that Fay had actually struck the blow; it was probable, too, that he had done it not to avenge himself primarily on Claude, but on Claude"s father. To Thor that was secondary, almost of no importance.
Had he not allowed himself to become a prey to whatever was most ferocious and malignant in human nature, the crime would never have been committed. Granting that Fay would have lain in wait for Claude in any case, an agile young man would have been more than a match for so enfeebled an antagonist even when armed with a knife, had not some preceding struggle exhausted him.
To Thor it was so clear that he was beyond the reach of argument. He was likewise beyond the reach of anything that could be called a purpose or a wish but that of seeing that another man shouldn"t suffer in his stead. From the region into which this absorption and consecration carried him Lois found herself and her claims on him thrust out. Whether he went back to her or whether he did not was, for the time being at any rate, of so little moment in his eyes that apparently no thought of this aspect of their situation had occurred to him. It was more stinging to her pride that he should not consider it than that he should consider it and refuse. She was fully aware that her irony was thrown away when she said, in a tone kept down to the matter-of-fact and colloquial:
"And, Thor dear, if they ask you to stay on at the other house, don"t think of me. I"ve got papa and mamma again. They"ll keep me company as long as"--she was obliged to think of an expression that would imply a term--"as long as I may need them."
In response to these words he merely nodded. "Very well." The a.s.sent was given as if, whatever the arrangement, it would be a matter of indifference to them both.
So he went his way and she went hers. Monstrous as it was, monstrous as she found him, as she found herself, she could hardly conceive of their doing anything else. If she was unhappy, her unhappiness lay too deep in subliminal abysses to struggle to the surface of her consciousness. That he should go to the one house and she to the other was as right as it had been ten years before. It was so right that she was stupefied by its rightness. It was so right that the rightness acted on her like an opiate. It was a minute in which sheer helplessness might have relaxed her hold on her subst.i.tute for love had she not had such pressing need to make use of it there and then.
She made use of it as, on occasions requiring a show of lavishness, people eke out a meager supply of silver with plenty of plausible electroplate. In installing her parents in their old rooms, in bidding them take their place as masters and forget that they were guests, she simulated the pleasure not only of a happy daughter but of a happy wife.
While the circ.u.mstances of the home-coming tempered anything in the nature of exuberance, they couldn"t forbid all joy, and of joy of just the right sparkle she was as prodigal as if her treasure-chest had been stocked with it. Moreover, she was sure that except for the protest, "If we take these rooms, what are you going to do with Thor?" the worthy couple didn"t know the difference between what she placed before them and the sterling metal with the hall-mark.
If there was a suspicion in her mother"s mind it reserved itself till, on kissing them good night, Lois fled to the room she had occupied as a girl. Though she closed the door behind her, the mother pushed it open.
"Look here, Lois," Bessie said, not quite with anxiety and yet not quite without it, "there"s nothing between you and Thor, is there?"
Lois felt that the form of the question saved her. It enabled her to answer so much more truthfully than her mother knew. "No, mamma dear; there"s nothing at all between us." She went so far as to make the declaration emphatic and indulge in a tone of faint bitterness: "_Absolutely_ nothing at all--and I doubt if there ever will be--now."
Though the mother retired before she could catch the concluding syllable, Lois regretted the bitterness as soon as she felt it escape her. There was no bitterness in her subst.i.tute for love, for the subst.i.tute for love was.... She had always admitted that she didn"t know _what_ it was. But there came back to her mind the words she had been acting upon for a fortnight and more: "The mission of Christ, me dear Mrs. Thor, was salvation." And there was no bitterness in that.
CHAPTER x.x.xVI
"Funny thing the way people talk about salvation," Uncle Sim observed to Lois, on an evening in the autumn when his legs were extended before her fire. "To hear "em you"d think there was no salvation except for sin, and none even for that but what is post-mortem. Post-mortem salvation may be all very well, but if there"s anything blessed I want it right now."
"Of course, with a good man like you--"
"Good? Good"s got nothing to do with it--or not much. The man who is called the Saviour, above every one else, didn"t wait for people to be good before He saved them. He saved them first and said "Sin no more" to them afterward."
"Oh, but with His extraordinary means--"
"He had no means that you haven"t got yourself--in essence. Difference between you and Him is not in kind, but in degree. If He could save all men, you and I can at least save one or two or a dozen--or do something toward it."
"You mean save them _here_."
"Saving "em here is saving "em anywhere, isn"t it?"
"And you don"t mean saving them only in the theological sense of saving their souls--"
"Mean saving "em anyhow. Save a man from hanging, or a child from tumbling in the mud, or an old woman from having her best bonnet spoiled by rain--it"s all salvation--it all meets the human need--it"s all part of the same principle--it all works to the same end."
"And what is the end?"
"The same as the middle, and the same as the beginning, and the same as it is all through." He rose and stretched himself. "I leave you to find your own name for it. I call it by a word of four letters," he laughed, "and it begins with an _l_. You can"t have too much of it, if you know what it is--which is just what many people don"t know."
She stood before him, coloring, smiling a little, but with eyes lowered.
"I wonder if _I_ know what it is, Uncle Sim?"
"If you don"t," he smiled down at her, "you"re taking a good way to learn."
This view of the principle she was using as a guide was not new to her; it was only illuminating and corroborative. It was spectrum a.n.a.lysis where she had seen a star. It was the kingdom of heaven reduced from a n.o.ble phrase to such terms of simple, kindly living as she knew herself able to fulfil. It was the ideal become practical, and the present rendered one with the eternal, with the fruits of righteousness sown in peace of them that make peace beyond anything she had ever expected. On the winter afternoon when Jasper Fay was acquitted she could look back over the preceding seven or eight months and see how relatively easy all had been. She said relatively easy for the reason that much had of necessity been hard. The distinction she made was that what had been hard would have been overwhelming had she not taken the principle of immediate salvation, where it could be brought about, as law. By meeting each minute"s need with the utmost of her strength she found the next minute"s need less terrible. By allowing no one to suffer a shade more, or an instant longer, than she could help, she perceived a lessening of the strain all round. With the lessening of the strain it was easier to calm pa.s.sions and disarm antipathies. If she could say nothing else for her subst.i.tute for love, she was obliged to admit that it worked.
She was thinking so with a great thankfulness when Thor came to tell her of the rendering of the verdict. Though he had telephoned the fact, he was eager to give her the details face to face. He did this while they stood in the tapestried square hall, avoiding each other"s eyes.
It had not been picturesque, he explained to her; but it had been satisfactory. Though an hour had sufficed the jury to reach their decision, the farmers and market-gardeners who had formed the ma.s.s of the spectators had forestalled it and scattered to their homes. The dramatic interest was over; it was generally felt that no more than a formality remained. When for the last time Jasper Fay was led in to confront his peers it was before a comparatively empty court.
Because he had suddenly become self-conscious, Thor went on with his account stammeringly and with curious hesitations. Still wearing his fur motoring-coat, he held his cap in his hand, like a man in a hurry to get away.
"I couldn"t see even then--at the very end--that the old fellow knew what it was all about. He looked round him with the same gla.s.sy stare that he"s had ever since--ever since that morning when we gave him the coffee. Mind all gone, poor old chap--and perhaps it"s just as well. He smiled a bit when it was all over and they pushed him from one group to another to shake his hand, but he didn"t realize what he had escaped."
Lois, too, was self-conscious. In this lifting of the burden from Thor"s mind something had changed in their mutual relation. It was as if a faculty arrested on the night Claude died had suddenly resumed its function, taking them by surprise. Not in this way had she expected the thing that seemed dead to come to life again, so that she was unprepared for the signs of its rebirth. Absorbed as she would otherwise have been in Thor"s narration, she could now follow him but absently. "How did they get home from Colcord?"
She asked the question to keep him going, lest he should say the thing she was so strangely afraid to hear. He answered like a man who talks about what isn"t on his mind in order to conceal what is. "I drove them in. The old fellow sat in the tonneau with Rosie and Jim Breen. Matt Fay refused the lift and took the train to Marchfield."
A little crowd at the court-house door, he recounted further, had called, "Three cheers for Dr. Thor!" Another little crowd had greeted them with a similar welcome on their arrival in Susan Street. A third had gathered in the grounds of Thor"s father"s house, shouting, "Three cheers for Mr. Masterman!" till the object of this good will responded by coming out to the porch and making a brief, kindly speech. He was delivering it as Thor drove up, just as the winter twilight necessitated the turning on of the electric lights--his slender, well-dressed figure distinct in the illuminated doorway. Thor could hear the strains of "For he"s a jolly good fellow" as, to avoid further demonstration, he backed his machine from the avenue and turned toward the other house.
She seized the opportunity to say something she had at heart, which would also help to tide over a minute she found so embarra.s.sing. "Oh, Thor, I hope he"ll not have to suffer any more. He"s paid his penalty by this time."
"You mean--"
"I mean that I hope he"ll never have to be any more definite with himself than he"s been already. You can easily see how it is with him.
It"s as if he was two men, one accusing and the other defending. I don"t want to have the defense break down altogether, or to see him driven to the wall. I couldn"t bear it."
He waited a long minute before speaking. "If you"re thinking of the real responsibility for Claude"s death--"
She nodded. "Yes, I am."
Again he waited. "He puts that on me."
"He puts it on you so as not to take it on himself," she said, quickly, "because to take it on himself would be beyond human nature to bear.
Don"t you see, Thor? We know and he knows that if Jasper Fay did it, it was not to avenge himself on Claude, but on some one else. But now that the law says that Fay _didn"t_ do it--"
He interrupted, quietly: "I"ve talked it out with father, and we understand each other perfectly. You needn"t be afraid on his account.
I"ve taken everything on myself--as I ought to take it."
"Oh, Thor!"
"The only thing that matters about the law is that it shouldn"t condemn any one but me. Now that that danger is out of the way, I can--begin."
She forgot her embarra.s.sment in looking up at him with streaming eyes.
"Begin how, Thor?"