"I know--Teddy," the lips formed slowly with an effort.
Ted kissed her, tears in his eyes.
"Be--a man, dear," the lips breathed softly. "Be--" and Granny was off again to a world of unconsciousness from which she had returned a moment to give her message to the grief stricken lad by her side.
To Ted in his overwrought condition the words were almost like a voice from heaven, a sacred command. To be a man meant to face the hardest thing he had ever had to face in his life. It meant marrying Madeline Taylor, not leaving her like a coward to pay by herself for something which he himself had helped to start. He rose softly and went to the window, staring out into the night. A few moments later he turned back wearing a strange uplifted sort of look, a look perhaps such, as Percival bore when he beheld the Grail.
Strange forces were at work in the House on the Hill that night. Ruth had gone to her room to rest as Ted bade her but she had not slept in spite of her intense weariness. She had almost lost the way of sleep latterly. She was always so afraid of not being near when Larry needed her. The night watches they had shared so often now had brought them very, very close to each other, made their love a very sacred as well as very strong thing.
Ruth knew that the time was near now when she would have to go away from the Hill. After Granny went there would be no excuse for staying on. If she did not go Larry would. Ruth knew that very well and did not intend the latter should happen.
She had laid her plans well. She would go and take a secretarial course somewhere. She had made inquiries and found that there was always demand for secretaries and that the training did not take so long as other professional education did. She could sell her rings and live on the money they brought her until she was self supporting. She did not want to dispose of her pearls if she could help it. She wanted to hold on to them as the link to her lost past. Yes, she would leave the Hill. It was quite the right thing to do.
But oh, what a hard thing it was! She did not see how she was ever going to face life alone under such hard, queer conditions without Doctor Philip, without dear Mrs. Margery and the children, without Larry, especially without Larry. For that matter what would Larry do without her? He needed her so, loved her so much. Poor Larry!
And suddenly Ruth sat up in bed. As clearly as if he had been in the room with her she heard Larry"s voice calling to her. She sprang up and threw a dark blue satin negligee around her, went out of the room, down the stairs, seeming to know by an infallible instinct where her lover was.
On the threshold of the living room she paused. Larry was pacing the floor nervously, his face drawn and gray in the dim light of the flickering gas. Seeing her he made a swift stride in her direction, took both her hands in his.
"Ruth, why did you come?" There was an odd tension in his voice.
"You called me, didn"t you? I thought you did." Her eyes were wondering.
"I heard you say "Ruth" as plain as anything."
He shook his head.
"No, I didn"t call you out loud. Maybe I did with my heart though. I wanted you so."
He dropped her hands as abruptly as he had taken them.
"Ruth, I"ve got to marry you. I can"t go on like this. I"ve tried to fight it, to be patient and hang on to myself as Uncle Phil wanted me to.
But I can"t go on. I"m done."
He flung himself into a chair. His head went down on the table. The clock ticked quietly on the mantel. What was Death upstairs to Time? What were Youth and Love and Grief down here? These things were merely eddies in the great tide of Eternity.
For a moment Ruth stood very still. Then she went over and laid a hand on the bowed head, the hand that wore the wedding ring.
"Larry, Larry dear," she said softly. "Don"t give up like that. It breaks my heart." There was a faint tremor in her voice, a hint of tears not far off.
He lifted his head, the strain of his long self mastering wearing thin almost to the breaking point at last, for once all but at the mercy of the dominant emotion which possessed him, his love for the girl at his side who stood so close he could feel her breathing, got the faint violet fragrance of her. And yet he must not so much as touch her hand.
The clock struck three, solemn, inexorable strokes. Ruth and Larry and the clock seemed the only living things in the quiet house. Larry brushed his hand over his eyes, got to his feet.
"Ruth, will you marry me?"
"Yes, Larry."
The shock of her quiet consent brought Larry back a little to realities.
"Wait, Ruth. Don"t agree too soon. Do you realize what it means to marry me? You may be married already. Your husband may return and find you living--illegally--with me."
"I know," said Ruth steadily. "There must be something wrong with me, Larry. I can"t seem to care. I can"t seem to make myself feel as if I belonged to any one else except to you. I don"t think I do belong to any one else. I was born over in the wreck. I was born yours. You saved me. I would have died if you hadn"t gotten me out from under the beams and worked over and brought me back to life when everybody else gave me up as dead. I wouldn"t have been alive for my husband if you hadn"t saved me. I am yours, Larry. If you want me to marry you I will. If you want me--any way--I am yours. I love you."
"Ruth!"
Larry drew her into his arms and kissed her--the first time he had ever kissed any girl in his life except his sister. She lay in his arms, her fragrant pale gold hair brushing his cheek. He kissed her over and over pa.s.sionately, almostly roughly in the storm of his emotion suddenly unpent. Then he was Larry Holiday again. He pushed her gently from him, remorse in his gray eyes.
"Forgive me, Ruth. It"s all wrong. I"m all wrong. We can"t do it. I shouldn"t have kissed you. I shouldn"t have touched you--shouldn"t have let you come to me like this. You must go now, dear. I am sorry."
Ruth faced him in silence a moment then bowed her head, turned and walked away to the door meekly like a chidden child. Her loosened hair fell like a golden shower over her shoulders. It was all Larry could do to keep from going after her, taking her in his arms again. But he stood grimly planted by the table, gripping its edge as if to keep himself anch.o.r.ed.
He dared not stir one inch toward that childish figure in the dark robe.
On the threshold Ruth turned, flung back her hair and looked back at him.
There was a kind of fearless exaltation and pride on her lovely young face and in her shining eyes.
"I don"t know whether you are right or wrong, Larry, or rather when you are right and when you are wrong. It is all mixed up. It seems as if it must be right to care or we wouldn"t be doing it so hard, as if G.o.d couldn"t let us love like this if he didn"t mean we should be happy together, belong to each other. Why should He make love if He didn"t want lovers to be happy?"
It was an argument as old as the garden of Eden but to Ruth and Larry it was as if it were being p.r.o.nounced for the first time for themselves, here in the dead of night, in the old House on the Hill, as they felt themselves drawn to each other by the all but irresistible impulse of their mutual love.
"Maybe," went on Ruth, "I forgot my morals along with the rest I forgot.
I don"t seem to care very much about right and wrong to-night. You called me. I heard you and I came. I am here." Her lovely, proud little head was thrown back, her eyes still shining with that fearless elation.
"Ruth! Don"t, dear. You don"t know what you are saying. I"ve got to care about right and wrong for both of us. Please go. I--I can"t stand it."
He left his post by the table then came forward and held open the door for her. She pa.s.sed out, went up the stairs, her hair falling in a wave of gold down to her waist. She did not turn back.
Larry waited at the foot of the stairs until he heard the door of her room close upon her and then he too went up, to Granny"s room. Ted met him at the threshold in a panic of fear and grief.
"Larry--I think--oh--" and Ted bolted unable to finish what he had begun to say or to linger on that threshold of death.
The nurse was bending over Madame Holiday forcing some brandy between the blue lips. Larry was by the bedside in an instant. The nurse stepped back with a sad little shake of the head. There was nothing she could do and she knew it, knew also there was nothing the young doctor could do professionally. He knelt, chafed the cold hands. The pale lips quivered a little, the glazed eyes opened for a second.
"Ned--Larry--give Philip love--" That was all. The eyes closed. There was a little flutter of pa.s.sing breath. Granny was gone.
It was two days after Granny"s funeral. Ted had gone back to college.
Tony would leave for New York on the morrow. Life cannot wait on death. It must go on its course as inevitably as a river must go its way to the sea.
Yet to Tony it seemed sad and heartless that it should be so. She was troubled by her selfishness, first to Granny living and now to Granny dead. She said as much to her uncle sorrowfully.
"It isn"t really heartless or unkind," he comforted her. "We have to go on with our work. We can"t lay it down or scamp it just because dear Granny"s work is done. It is no more wrong for you to go back to your play than it is for me to go back to my doctoring."
"I know," sighed Tony. "But I can"t help feeling remorseful. I had so much time and Granny had so little and yet I wasn"t willing to give her even a little of mine. I would have if I had known though. I knew I was selfish but I didn"t know how selfish. I wish you had told me, Uncle Phil. Why didn"t you? You told Ruth. You let her help. Why wouldn"t you let me?" she half reproached.
"I tried to do what was best for us all. I wanted to find a reason for keeping Ruth with us and I did not think then and I don"t think now that it was right or necessary to keep you back for the little comfort it could have brought to Granny. You must not worry, dear child. The blame if there is any is mine. I know you would have stayed if I had let you."
Back in college Ted sorted out his personal letters from the sheaf of bills. Among them was one from Madeline Taylor, presumably the answer to the one Ted had written her from the House on the Hill. He stared at the envelope, dreading to open it. He was too horribly afraid of what it might contain. Suddenly he threw the letter down on the table and his head went down on top of it.
"I can"t do it," he groaned. "I can"t. I won"t. It"s too hard."