"What is it, Elaine?" he panted, "has Donaldson gone mad?"
"No," she answered, "I should say that he is quite sane3 now."
"But what the deuce was the trouble with him? He looked as though he had lost his senses."
"Perhaps he has just found them."
The nurse interrupted him, in an aside,
"I would n't agitate4 her further." To the girl, she said, "Don't you think you had better lie down for a little, Miss Arsdale?"
"Please don't worry about me," she replied calmly, "I am going to change my dress and then I shall come down-stairs. I wish you would go to Marie—both of you. It is she who needs attention."
"But—" broke in Arsdale.
"There's a good boy. Do what you can to make her comfortable. I will join you in a few minutes."
Uncomprehending, Arsdale reluctantly led the way out. She closed the door behind them and turned to her mirror again.
"Well," demanded her reflection, "what are you going to do now?"
"Do? I shall go on as I have always done."
"Shall you?"
"Why not? There is Ben. Perhaps we shall go out into the country to live—perhaps we shall travel."
"Shall you?"
"That is certainly the sensible thing to do."
"Shall you?"
She smoothed back the hair from her throbbing5 temples.
"He looked very much in need of help," suggested the mirror.
"Who?"
"Peter Donaldson."
"Oh," gasped7 Elaine, "why did he do it? Why did he do it?"
The mirror recognized the question as one which every woman has asked at least once in her lifetime. But somehow this did not swerve8 her from her insistence9.
"You must judge him from what you yourself have seen of him," the mirror harped10 back to Donaldson's own words.
"He acted bravely before me—before Ben. He did do bravely," cried the girl.
"And yet below these acts he had a craven heart?" hinted she of the mirror.
"No. No. It isn't possible! It isn't possible!"
"But he admitted the dreadful thing he tried to do."
"That was the folly11 of a moment. He has grown through it. He asked no mercy—asked no pardon. Did n't you see the expression upon his haggard face as he left the room?"
"Were you looking?" queried12 she of the mirror in surprise. "Your eyes were away from him."
"But one couldn't help but see that!"
The woman in the mirror found herself suddenly put upon the defensive13.
"Where has he gone?" cried the girl. "What is he going to do now?"
"Will he do bravely whatever lies before him?"
"Yes. He will! He will!"
"How do you know?"
"I know. That is enough."
"Then why do you not call him back?"
The girl's cheeks grew scarlet14.
"The shame of what I told him yesterday!"
"Was it not a bit brave of him to turn away from you?"
"He should have explained to me at that time why he was going. He needed me then."
"Do you not suppose that he knew it? Do you not suppose that it took the strength of a dozen men to go alone to what he thought was waiting for him?"
"I know nothing."
"And yet you saw his eyes as he stood before you then? And you saw his eyes as he left you five minutes ago?"
"I won't see. I can't risk—again!"
"Yet you love him?"
Once again the flaming scarlet in her cheeks. Her lips trembled. She turned away from the mirror.
"I said nothing of love," she insisted.
"Yet you love him?"
"Why did he do it?" she moaned.
"Yet you love him?"
"He did so bravely—he spoke15 so bravely, yet—"
"He learned. If, of all the world of men, you were to choose one to stand by your side when hardest pressed, whom would you choose?"
"I would choose him," answered the girl without hesitation16.
"Why?"
"Because—"
"After all, is n't that enough? You would trust him to fight an eternity17 as he has fought for you these few days. Twice he staked his life for you—once his good name."
"But he thought he was soon to die."
"All the more precious the time that was left."
Her eyes brightened.
"Yes. Yes. I had not thought of that."
"Yet he did this and further risked what was left to save an unknown messenger boy."
"Oh, he did well!"
"Then he came to you like a man and told what you might never have discovered, just because he wished to stand clean before you."
"Yes," she breathed.
"Why did he do that?" demanded her reflection.
"I—I don't know."
"Why did he do that?"
"Because—"
"After all, isn't that enough?"
"But he said nothing. If only he had turned back!"
"What right had he to say the thing you wish? If he had been less a man he would have turned back."
"Where has he gone? What is he going to do?"
"Why don't you find out?"
"It would be unmaidenly."
"Yes, and very womanly. Do you owe him nothing?"
"I owe him everything."
"Then—"
"I must send Ben to find him. I must—oh, but I need n't do anything more?"
"No. Nothing more."
Her heart pounded in her throat in her eagerness to finish her toilet. Her fingers were so light that she could scarcely hold her comb. She hurried into a fresh gown and then down-stairs where she found Ben anxiously pacing the library. He appeared greatly agitated—anchorless.
"Ben," she began, "I had no right to allow Peter Donaldson to go away as I did."
"Little sister," he demanded, "was he unkind to you?"
"No. No," she broke in eagerly, "he was most generous with me. But for the moment I could n't see it. It was my fault that he went."
"But what was the cause of it?" he insisted, puzzled and dazed by the whole episode.
"It was nothing that counts now. I want you to promise me, Ben, that you will never refer to it, that you will never permit him to tell you of it."
His face cleared.
"Just a little tiff18? But he took it hard. I never saw a man so worked up over anything."
"It belongs to the past," she hurried on, eager to allow it to pass as he interpreted it. "It would be cruel to him to bring it up again. Will you promise me, Ben?"
"I will promise. But I 'm afraid you overdid19 it. It is going to be hard to straighten him out."
"No. It is all straightened out now. All that remains20 for you to do is to find him and say that I—that I wish him to come back for lunch."
"Is it that simple?"
He smiled, his easy-going nature glad to seize upon anything that promised relief from such a jumble21 as this.
"You must say nothing more than that," she put in, frightened at the sound of her own words. Supposing that he would not come—supposing that even now she had presumed too far?
"You will tell him just that?"
"Yes," he agreed, "and this morning I would have thought that it was enough."
"It is enough now—whatever happens," she said hastily.
"I must hurry back to Marie," she concluded breathlessly. "You must not delay. It may be that he is planning to leave town. If so, you must catch him before he starts."
He placed his arm tenderly about her slight waist and led her to the foot of the stairs.
"You will let me know as soon as you come in?" she pleaded.
"Yes, and don't worry while I 'm gone."
Arsdale did not take a cab. He needed a walk to clear his head. The air was balmy with the fragrance22 of growing things and he was sensitive to its influence as he had never been in his life. As he strode along he felt twice his normal size. And yet what a puppet he was as compared to this Donaldson who had been willing to take upon his shoulders the ghastly burden which had been his own. He himself might bear it to-day, but yesterday it would have crushed him. He had not realized how low he had sunk until he learned that it was considered a possibility that he might have committed such crimes as those. If at first the suspicion had roused his wrath23, the sober truth that Jacques under the same influence was actually guilty had been enough to disarm24 him. The past was like a nightmare, and this Donaldson was the man who had found his hand in the dark and roused him. He quickened his pace. A small black dog nosing about the fresh dirt thrown from an excavation25 to his left attracted his attention to a new house which was going up. He glanced at the men at work and then stood still in his tracks. Down there, in his shirt sleeves, bent26 over a shovel27 was Peter Donaldson.
It was impossible to believe, but he stared at the illusion with his hands getting cold. Then he turned back to the dog. It was the same pup Donaldson had brought into the house with him.
He riveted28 his eyes once more upon the figure standing29 out among his fellow workers like a uniformed general in a rabble30. He strode to the side of the foreman of the gang who stood near.
"Who is that man down there?" he demanded.
"Dunno," the foreman answered briefly31, "he asked fer work this mornin' and I give him a job."
"I 'm going to speak to him."
"Fire erway."
Arsdale clambered into the hole and reached Donaldson's side before the latter glanced up. When he did raise his head, it was with an easy, unembarrassed nod of recognition.
"Good Lord," gasped Arsdale, "it is you!"
"Yes."
Donaldson wiped his wet brow. He was not in particularly good training for such heavy work.
"But what the deuce—"
"I needed money for a night's lodging32 and took the first job that offered," he explained.
There was nothing melodramatic in his speech or attitude. He was not posing. He spoke of his necessity in the matter-of-fact way in which he had accepted it. It was necessary to earn the sheer essentials of life, in order to get a footing—to get sufficient capital to open up his office again. He would not have borrowed if he could, and a penniless lawyer in New York is in as bad a position as a penniless tramp. Not only was he glad of this opportunity to earn a couple of dollars, but he found pleasure, in spite of the physical strain, in this most elemental of employments. There was something in the act of forcing his shovel into the earth that brought him comfort in the thought that he was beginning in the cleanest of all clean ways. He was earning his first dollar like a pioneer. He was earning it by the literal sweat of his brow.
He turned back from Arsdale's astonished expression to his task.
"See here, Donaldson," protested the latter excitedly, "this is absurd! You must quit this. I 've money enough—"
"And I have n't," interrupted Donaldson heaving a shovel full of moist dirt into the waiting dump cart.
Even Arsdale was checked by the expression he caught in Donaldson's eyes. He ventured nothing further, but, bewildered, stood there, dumb a moment, before he remembered his message.
"I came out to find you," he managed to speak. "Elaine wants you to come back to lunch."
"What?"
Donaldson paused in his work and searched Arsdale's face.
"What did you say?" he demanded slowly.
"Elaine wants you to come back for lunch. She sent me to find you."
Arsdale saw Donaldson's lungs expand. He saw every vein33 in his face throb6 with new life. He saw him grow before his eyes to the capacity of two men. He saw him step forth34 from this aching begrimed shell into a new physique as vibrant35 with fresh strength as a young mountaineer. It was as startling a metamorphosis as though the man had been touched with a magician's wand.
"Thank you," answered Donaldson on a deep intake36 of breath. "I shall be glad to come."
"drop your shovel then and come along now."
"No," he replied, as he dug his spade deep into the soil, "I can't quit my job. The whistle blows at noon."
At noon! At the seventh noon, the whistle was to blow! He tossed the weight of two ordinary shovelfuls of gravel37 into the cart as lightly as a child tosses a bean bag.
At noon! At the seventh noon, the whistle was to blow!
At noon! At the seventh noon, the whistle was to blow!
Perceiving the uselessness of further argument Arsdale climbed out to the bank, and, sitting on a big boulder38, watched Donaldson with dazed fascination39. The foreman passed him once.
"May be cracked," he remarked, "but I 'd' take a hundred men, the likes of him."
"You could n't find them on two continents," answered Arsdale.
The dog made overtures40 of friendship and he took him on his knee.
Donaldson never glanced up. With the precision of a machine he bent over his shovel, lifted, and threw without pause. The men near him looked askance at such unceasing labor41.
In time, the foreman blew a shrill42 note on a whistle and as though he had applied43 a brake connected with every man, the shovels44 dropped and the motley gang scrambled45 for their dinner pails. Donaldson for the first time then lifted his face to Arsdale. The seventh noon had come, and never had a midday been ushered46 in to such a sweet note as the foreman had blown on his penny whistle.
Donaldson, picking up his coat, made his way to the side of Arsdale, who had risen to meet him with Sandy barking at his heels.
"I have only an hour," apologized Donaldson, "I 'm afraid I 'm hardly in a condition to go into the house."
"You are n't coming back here?"
"Yes."
Once again Arsdale found his protest choked at his lips. What was the use of talking to a man in such a stubborn mood as this? He led the way to the house.
In the hall, he shouted up the stairs,
"Elaine, Peter Donaldson is here!"
The girl stepped from the library clutching the silken curtains. She hesitated a moment at sight of him and then faltering47 forward, offered her hand.
"I 'm glad you came back," she said.
His fingers closed over her own with a decisiveness that made her catch her breath. As the woman in the mirror had divined, there was nothing more left for her to do.
"But the old chump is going again in an hour," choked Arsdale, "he 's taken a job shovelling48 dirt."
She met Donaldson's eyes. For a moment they questioned him. Then her own eyes grew moist and she smiled. The joy of it all was too much for her. She stooped and patted Sandy who was clawing her skirts for recognition.
"Oh, little dog," she whispered in his silken ear, "I am glad you came back. Glad—glad—glad!"
THE END
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收听单词发音
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1
hysterical
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| adj.情绪异常激动的，歇斯底里般的 | |
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ominous
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| adj.不祥的，不吉的，预兆的，预示的 | |
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sane
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| adj.心智健全的，神志清醒的，明智的，稳健的 | |
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agitate
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| vi.(for,against)煽动，鼓动；vt.搅动 | |
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throbbing
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| a. 跳动的,悸动的 | |
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throb
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| v.震颤，颤动；(急速强烈地)跳动，搏动 | |
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7
gasped
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| v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要 | |
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8
swerve
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| v.突然转向，背离；n．转向，弯曲，背离 | |
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insistence
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| n.坚持；强调；坚决主张 | |
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10
harped
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| vi.弹竖琴（harp的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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11
folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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12
queried
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| v.质疑，对…表示疑问( query的过去式和过去分词 )；询问 | |
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13
defensive
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| adj.防御的；防卫的；防守的 | |
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14
scarlet
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| n.深红色，绯红色，红衣；adj.绯红色的 | |
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15
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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16
hesitation
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| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
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eternity
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| n.不朽，来世；永恒，无穷 | |
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18
tiff
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| n.小争吵，生气 | |
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19
overdid
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| v.做得过分( overdo的过去式 )；太夸张；把…煮得太久；（工作等）过度 | |
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20
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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jumble
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| vt.使混乱，混杂；n.混乱；杂乱的一堆 | |
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22
fragrance
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| n.芬芳，香味，香气 | |
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23
wrath
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| n.愤怒，愤慨，暴怒 | |
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disarm
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| v.解除武装，回复平常的编制，缓和 | |
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excavation
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| n.挖掘，发掘；被挖掘之地 | |
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26
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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27
shovel
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| n.铁锨，铲子，一铲之量；v.铲，铲出 | |
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28
riveted
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| 铆接( rivet的过去式和过去分词 )； 把…固定住； 吸引； 引起某人的注意 | |
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29
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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30
rabble
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| n.乌合之众，暴民；下等人 | |
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31
briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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32
lodging
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| n.寄宿，住所；(大学生的)校外宿舍 | |
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33
vein
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| n.血管，静脉；叶脉，纹理；情绪；vt.使成脉络 | |
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34
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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vibrant
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| adj.震颤的，响亮的，充满活力的，精力充沛的，(色彩)鲜明的 | |
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36
intake
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| n.吸入，纳入；进气口，入口 | |
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37
gravel
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| n.砂跞；砂砾层；结石 | |
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38
boulder
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| n.巨砾；卵石，圆石 | |
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39
fascination
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| n.令人着迷的事物，魅力，迷恋 | |
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40
overtures
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| n.主动的表示，提议；（向某人做出的）友好表示、姿态或提议( overture的名词复数 )；（歌剧、芭蕾舞、音乐剧等的）序曲，前奏曲 | |
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41
labor
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| n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦 | |
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42
shrill
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| adj.尖声的；刺耳的；v尖叫 | |
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43
applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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44
shovels
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| n.铲子( shovel的名词复数 )；锹；推土机、挖土机等的)铲；铲形部份v.铲子( shovel的第三人称单数 )；锹；推土机、挖土机等的)铲；铲形部份 | |
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45
scrambled
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| v.快速爬行( scramble的过去式和过去分词 )；攀登；争夺；（军事飞机）紧急起飞 | |
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46
ushered
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| v.引，领，陪同( usher的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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47
faltering
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| 犹豫的，支吾的，蹒跚的 | |
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48
shovelling
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| v.铲子( shovel的现在分词 )；锹；推土机、挖土机等的)铲；铲形部份 | |
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