The Soldier of the Valley Part 26

"Well?" I exclaimed, angered by his mood.

"This is two weeks old, Mark," he said, handing me the paper.

"What of it?" I cried querulously, putting on my hat and moving to the door.

My hand was on the k.n.o.b turning it, when Tim said, "Mary has left the valley."

It did not bother me much when he said that. I was getting so used to being knocked about that a blow or two more made little difference.

The k.n.o.b was not turned though. It shot back with a click, and I leaned against the door, staring at my brother.

"And when did she go?" I asked. "And where--back to Kansas?"

"To New York," Tim answered, "and with Weston--she has married Weston."

I was glad the door was there, for that trip over the mountain, with the creek, and the powwowing and all that, had left me still a little wobbly. Tim's announcement was not adding to my spirit. Long I gazed at his quiet face; and I knew well enough that he was speaking the truth. And, perhaps, after all, the truth was best. It was all over, anyway, and we were just where we started before she came to the valley.

I was just where I was before I found that note lying on the door-sill.

I had been foolish, sitting there on the floor reading that message of hers that she had belied. But that was only for a minute, and I would never be foolish again. Trust me for that.

"She has married Weston," I said. "Well, the little flirt!"

Tim got down on the hearth and began piling paper and kindling and logs in the fireplace. He started the blaze, and when it was going cheerily he looked up to find me in my old chair by the table, with Captain beside me, his head on my knee as I stroked it.

"The little flirt!" I said again, bound that he should hear me.

He heard. He took his old chair, and resting his elbows on the table, resting his chin in his hands, a favorite att.i.tude of his, he sat there eying me quietly.

"The little what, Mark?" he said at last.

"Flirt," I snapped.

It was simply a braggart's way. I knew it. Tim knew it, too. He seemed to look right through me. I was angry with him, I was jealous of him, because she had cared for him. I knew she had. I knew why she had. Tim and I were far apart. But he had made the breach. All the wrong wrought was his, and yet he sat there, calmly eying me, as though he were a righteous judge and I the culprit.

"Why did you say flirt?" he asked quietly.

"She promised to marry me," I said.

"Yes."

"She loved you, Tim."

"Yes--and how did you know it?"

"Perry Thomas saw you that night when you went to stay a minute."

The color left Tim's face and he leaned back in his chair, away from the light into the shadow, and whistled softly.

"You knew it, then," he said, after a long while. "I didn't intend you should, Mark. I didn't intend you ever should."

"Naturally," said I in an icy tone.

"Naturally," said he. His face came into the light again, and he leaned there on the table, watching me as earnestly as ever.

"Naturally," he said again. "I was going away, Mark, never to bother you nor her. Did I know then that you loved her? Had you ever told me? Was I to blame for that moment when I knew I loved the girl and that she loved me?"

"No. I never told you--that's true," I said.

"And yet I knew you cared for her, Mark. I could see that. I saw it all those nights when you would leave me to go plodding up the hill.

That's why I went away."

"Why did you go away?" I cried. "You went to see the world and make money----"

"I went because I loved the girl and you did, too," said Tim. And looking into those quiet eyes, I knew that he spoke the truth and I had been blind all this time. "Weston knew it," he went on. "He saw it from the first. That's why he helped me."

"You are not at all an egotist," I sneered, trying to bear up against him.

"Entirely so," he said calmly. "I even thought that I might win, Mark.

But then I had so much and you so little chance, I went away to forget.

Weston knew that. He knew, too, that there was no Edith Parker."

"And what has Edith Parker to do with all this?" I asked more gently, for he was breaking down my barriers.

"She might have done much for you had I not come back when Weston was shot. Couldn't you see, Mark, how angry Mary was with me for forgetting her? But Weston knew it. And that night--that minute--I only wanted to explain to Mary, and she saw it all, Mark, and I saw it all--and we forgot. Then she told me of you."

"She told you rather late," said I.

"But she would have kept her promise. Couldn't you forgive her, Mark, for that one moment of forgetting? It was just one moment, and I left her then forever. We thought you'd never know."

"And thinking that, you came whistling down the road that night," I sneered. "You came whistling like a man mightily pleased with his conquest--or, perhaps you sang so gayly from sheer joy in your own goodness. It seems to me at times like that a man would----"

"A man would whistle a bit for courage," Tim interrupted. "Couldn't he do that, Mark? Couldn't he go away with his head up and face set, or must he totter along and wail simply because he is doing a fair thing that any man would do?"

"Why, in Heaven's name, couldn't you keep her for yourself?" I cried, pounding the floor with my crutch.

Then, in my anger I arose and went stamping up and down the room, while Tim sat there staring at me blankly. At last I halted by the fireplace and stood there looking down at him very hard. I looked right into his heart and read it. He winced and turned his face from me. I was the righteous judge now and he the culprit.

"You left her, Tim," I said hotly. "You might have known the girl could never marry me after that minute. You might have known she was not the girl to deceive me--she would have told me; and then, Tim, do you think that I would have kept her to her promise? Why didn't you come to me and tell me?"

"For your sake, Mark, I didn't," Tim answered, looking up.

"And for my sake you left the girl there--you turned your back on her and went away. Then in her perplexity she looked to me again, and I had gone. I didn't know. I went away for her sake, and when she sent for me I had forsaken her, too. That's a shabby way to treat a woman.

Do you wonder she turned to Weston?"

"No," Tim said, "for Weston is a man of men, he is--and he cared for her--that's why he stayed in the valley."

"I knew that," said I, "for I saw it that day when he went away from me to the charcoal clearing."

"Then think of the lonely girl up there on the hill, Mark," Tim said.