XII
THE REAL FRANCIS RAVENEL
On the afternoon of the day upon which Frank said good-bye to Katrine hetook the evening train North. It was his intention to see Ravenel nomore for a long time, certainly not while the Dulanys remained. He wasafraid of himself, for there came to him at every thought of the affaira glow of admiration at the words Katrine had thrown back at him:
_"It could never have been like that. I should have died first."_
He had given her up, but the fight was not finished, and the strugglewent on constantly. In the silences of the night it was upon him again,gripping him with a pain around the heart. The most unexpectedhappenings would bring remembrances of her. The appealing gaze of anIrish newsboy, or a hand-organ grinding out the "Ah! che la morte,"which brought back the half-lighted piano and Katrine's singing in thetwilight; the dreariest; most sordid details of existence reminded him,who needed no reminding, of the time that he himself had decreed shouldbe no more.
For three days he endured Bar Harbor before he fled to the Canadianwoods with no companion save a guide. He gave his address to none savehis mother, and for six weeks tramped until his body ached for rest;rowed the sombre lakes for exhaustion and peace of mind, cursing thefact that he was a Ravenel, and knowing full well that his conduct wasboth foolish and illogical.
At the first stop for letters he found one from his mother, whichdisturbed him more than any letter of hers had ever done before. Shewrote:
DEAREST LADDY,--I am writing in much haste and some perturbation of mind for your advice. Last night, at the Desmonds', Nick van Rensselaer came to me after dinner for a chat. I knew he had something upon his mind when he wasted his time talking to a woman.
And what do you think it was? The most astounding, impossible, quixotic, unlanguageable thing in the world! He wants to send Katrine Dulany abroad to study. He wants it to be done in my name, however, so that it will in nowise compromise her, and wishes to have all the credit of the kindness given to me. He says he does not want to be known in the matter at all; that the girl can regard the money as a loan, and return it to him if she becomes a great singer, of which resulting he seems to have no doubt.
You see the part I shall be forced to take in the affair. I have asked him for a few days to consider the proposition, and am writing you for advice.
When are you coming? Every one is asking about you.
Lovingly always, MOTHER.
Lying on his back watching the crooked blue spots of the sky through thetree-tops of a Canadian forest, Francis read this letter over and over,and as he did so it seemed strange to him that he had not thought tohelp Katrine in this way himself. If she ever found out that he had doneso she would probably never forgive him, but there were ways, hereasoned, to arrange it so that she could never find out.
His decision being made, he acted upon it immediately, and that nighttwo letters, one addressed:
MONSIEUR PAUL ROGALLE, de Rogalle, Dupont et Cie, Paris, France,
and another:
M. JOSEF, Faubourg Saint Honore,
were mailed by him at the neighboring posting-place of Pont du Coeur.
The morning after the writing of these letters Frank started farthernorth, and heard nothing of the outside world for more than a month. AtNorth Point he found a bundle of letters, two from his mother, andanother from Doctor Johnston, enclosing the note which Katrine hadwritten him after her father's death.
He opened the doctor's first, and at sight of the enclosure his heart,in the homely old phrase, came to his throat.
It was a sad letter, thanking the doctor for all he had tried to do,speaking of her father's suffering at some length, parsimonious ofdetail concerning her own life or future plans.
It was ten o'clock in the hunting-hutch. The night outside was starless,the lamps flickered irregularly, the guides lay heavily asleep in theirblankets on beds of pine boughs in the corner. It was a strange placefor the birth of a man's soul, but as Frank Ravenel read the letter atenderness, a selfless tenderness, for the sad little writer of it cameto him. He had already protected her from himself--"somewhat late," heconfessed, with bitterness, and there had been some effort "not to dothe worst." But the feeling that held him as he read was different fromany he had had before. He dwelt on her lonesomeness in the world: thelong nights she must have passed alone watching the coming of death.Unspeakable tenderness brought a sob to his throat and a pain over hisheart, as though suffering from a blow. The remembrance of her on thewind-blown hill came back to him; the scarlet handkerchief waved againstthe blue of the sky, and the brave call over the brown grass: "_Don'tthink of me!_ Good-bye!" It seemed in some way to have been a cry ofvictory.
He went to the door of the tent straining his eyes into the blackness.Alone in the great woods with the night noises, under the silent stars,things took on a different value. What was he compared to her?
Stripped of family and wealth, how would each measure before a judgingworld. "She was so"--he hesitated in his mind for a word--"she was so_square_," he said to himself. Wave after wave of pity swept over him asmemory brought back to him her vividness, the fervid speech, the humor,the touch of her. He closed his eyes for a moment, she was in his arms,there came the odor of her dusky hair, and for the first time in hislife he was a man.
"Gregoire!" he called to the sleeping guide.
"Oui, monsieur."
"The distance to the nearest railroad?"
"By land--it is sixty miles, m'sieu."
"By the lakes?"
"It is much shorter, but of an extreme dangerousness."
"We will go by the lakes."
"When, m'sieur?"
"To-night, Gregoire!"