CHAPTER XLV
In the innocence of that first hour Lewis told Natalie all. He even toldher of Folly, as though Folly, like all else, was something they couldshare between them. Natalie did not wince. There are blows that juststing--the sharp, quick blows that make us cry out, and then wonder whywe cried, so quickly does the pain pass. They are nothing beside theblows that slowly fall and crush and keep their pain back till theoverwhelming last.
People wonder at the cruel punishment a battered man can take and nevercry out, at the calm that fills the moment of life after the mortalwound, and at the steady, quiet gaze of big game stricken unto death.They do not know that when the blood of man or beast is up, when theheart thunders fast in conflict or in the chase, there is no pain. A mancan get so excited over some trifle that a bullet will plow through hisflesh without his noticing it. Pain comes afterward. Pain is always anawakening.
Natalie was excited at the sudden presence of Lew and at the wonder ofhis tale. In that galaxy of words that painted to her a climbing fairymovement of growth and achievement the single fact of Folly shot throughher and away, but the wound stayed. For the moment she did not know thatshe was stricken, nor did Lewis guess. And so it happened that thatwhole day passed like a flash of happy light.
Natalie, in her wisdom, had gone ahead to warn Mrs. Leighton and mammyof Lewis's coming. Even so, when the two women took him into their longembrace, he knew by the throbbing of their hearts how deeply joy canshake foundations that have stood firm against the heaviest shocks ofgrief.
Gip and the cart, with Natalie at the helm, whisked Lewis back to thehomestead. What memories of galloping ponies and a far, wide world thatride awakened they did not speak in words, but the light that was intheir faces when at the homestead gate they said good night was thelight that shines for children walking hand in hand in the morning landof faith.
Natalie could not eat that night. She slipped away early to bed--to thelittle, old-fashioned bed that had been Aunt Jed's. It, too, was afour-poster; but so pompous a name overweighted its daintiness. So lightwere its trimmings in white, so snowy the mounds of its pillows and thenarrow reach of its counterpane, that it seemed more like anesting-place for untainted dreams than the sensible, stocky little bedit was.
Natalie went to bed and to sleep, but scarcely had the last gleam fadedfrom the western sky when she awoke. A sudden terror seized her. Thepillow beneath her cheek was wet. Upon her heart a great weight presseddown and down. For a moment she rebelled. She had gone to sleep in thelap of her happiest day. How could she wake to grief? A single wordtapped at her brain: Folly, Folly. And then she knew--she knew the woundher happy day had left; and wide-eyed, fighting for breath, her armsoutstretched, she felt the slow birth of the pain that lives and livesand grows with life.
Natalie cried easily for happiness, and so the tears that she couldspare to grief were few. Not for nothing had she been born to the noteof joy. Through all her life, so troubled, so thinly spread withpleasures, she had clung to her inheritance. Often had her mindquestioned her heart: "What is there in this empty day? Why do youlaugh? Why do you sing?" And ever her heart had answered, "I laugh andsing because, if not to-day, then to-morrow, the full day cometh."
But to-night her inheritance seemed a little and a cruel thing.Wide-eyed she prayed for the tears that would not come. Dry were hereyes, dry was her throat, and dry the pressing weight upon her heart.Hours passed, and then she put forth her strength. She slipped from thebed and walked with groping hands toward the open window. In thesemi-darkness she moved like a tall, pale light. Down her back andacross her bosom her hair fell like a caressing shadow. Her white feetmade no sound.
She reached the window and knelt, her arms folded upon the low sill. Shetossed the hair from before her face and looked out upon the stillnight. How far were the stars to-night--as cold and far as on that nightof long ago when she had stood on the top of the highest hill and calledto the desert for Lew!
She stayed at the window for a long time, and found meager comfort atlast in the thought that Lewis could not have guessed. How could he haveguessed what she herself had not known? She arose and went back to bed.Then she lay thinking and planning a course that should keep not onlyLewis but also Mrs. Leighton and mammy blind to the wound she bore. Andwhile she was in the midst of planning, sleep came and made good itsancient right to lock hands with tired youth.
Leighton was crestfallen to see in what high spirits Lew had come backfrom his first day with Natalie. He lost faith at once in H lne's cure.Then, as they went to bed, he clutched at a straw.
"Lew," he asked, "did you tell your pal everything?"
"Everything I could think of in the time," said Lewis, smiling. "One dayisn't much when you've got half of two lives to go over. Of course therewere things we forgot. We'll have them to tell to-morrow."
"Was Folly one of the things you forgot?"
"No," answered Lewis and paused, a puzzled look on his brow. He waswondering why he had remembered Folly. To-night she seemed very faraway. Then he threw back his head and looked at his father. "Why did youask that?"
Leighton did not answer for a moment. Finally he said:
"Because it's the one thing you hadn't a right to keep to yourself. I'mglad you saw that. Always start square with a woman. If youdo,--afterward,--she'll forgive you anything."
Lewis went to bed with the puzzled look still on his face. It was notbecause he had _seen_ anything that he had told of Folly. He had told ofher simply as a part of chronology--something that couldn't be skippedwithout leaving a gap. Now he wondered, if he had had time to think,would he have told? He had scarcely put the question to himself whensleep blotted out thought.
On the next day Leighton had the bays hitched to what was left of thecarryall, and with Silas and Lewis drove over to Aunt Jed's to pay hisrespects to Mrs. Leighton. Natalie and Lew went off for a ramble in thehills. Mammy bustled about her kitchen dreaming out a dream of an earlydinner for the company, and murmuring instructions to Ephy, a palelittle slip of a woman whom the household, seeking to help, hadinstalled as helper. Mrs. Leighton stayed with Leighton out under theelms. They talked little, but they said much.
It was still early in the day when Leighton said:
"I shall call you Ann. You must call me Glen."
"Of course," answered Mrs. Leighton, and then wondered why it was "ofcourse." "I suppose," she said aloud, "it's 'of course' because of Lew.I feel as though I were sitting here years ahead, talking to Lew whenhis head will be turning gray."
"Don't!" cried Leighton. "Don't say that! Lew travels a different road."
Mrs. Leighton looked up, surprised at his tone.
"Perhaps you don't see what we can see. Perhaps you don't know what youhave done for Lew."
"I have done nothing for Lew," said Leighton, quickly. "If anything hasbeen done for Lew, it was done in the years when I was far from him inbody, in mind, and in spirit. Lew would have been himself without me. Itis doubtful whether he would have been himself without you. I--I don'tforget that."