The Wayfarers Part 31

The telephone-bell had rung, and Girard ran to it, closing the intervening door behind him. The curtain of anxiety, lifted for breathing-s.p.a.ce for a moment, hung over them again somberly, like a pall. Where was Justin?

The two women clinging together hung breathlessly on Girard's movements; his low, murmuring voice told nothing. When he returned to where they stood, his face was impa.s.sive.

"Nothing new; I'm just going to town for a couple of hours, that's all."

"Oh, must you leave us?"

"I'm coming back, if you'll let me." He bent over Lois with that earnest look which seemed somehow to insure protection. "I want you to let me stay down-stairs here all night, if you will; I'm going to make arrangements to get a special message through, no matter what time it comes, and I'll sit here in the parlor and wait for it, so that you and Miss Linden can sleep."

"Oh, I'd be so glad to have you here! Redge has that croupy cough again.

But you can't sit up," said Lois.

"Why not? It's luxury to stay awake in a comfortable chair with a lot of books around. I'll be back in a couple of hours without fail."

A couple of hours! If he had said a couple of years, the words could have brought, it seemed, no deeper sense of desolation. Hardly had he gone, however, when the door-bell rang, and word was brought to Lois, who with Dosia had gone up-stairs, that it was Mr. Harker from the typometer office. The visitor, a tall, colorless, darkly sack-coated man, with a jaded necktie, had entered the little drawing-room with a decorously self-effacing step, and sat now on the edge of his chair, his body bent forward and his hat still held in one hand, with an effect of being entirely isolated from social relations and existing here solely at the behest of business. He rose as Lois came into the room, and handed her a small packet, in response to her greeting, before reseating himself.

"Thank you very much," said Lois. "This is the money, I suppose. I'm sorry you went to the trouble of bringing it out yourself, I thought you might send me a check."

Mr. Harker shook his head with a grim semblance of a smile. "That's the trouble, Mrs. Alexander, we can't send any checks, Mr. Alexander is the one who does that. Everything is in Mr. Alexander's name. I went to Mr.

Leverich to-day to see how we were going to straighten out things, but he doesn't seem inclined to take hold at all, though he could help us out easily enough if he wanted to. I-there's no use keeping it back, Mrs. Alexander. This is a pretty bad time for Mr. Alexander to stay away. He ought to be home."

"Why, yes," said Lois.

"Exactly. His absence places us all in a very strange, very unpleasant position." Mr. Harker spoke with a sort of somber monotony, with his gaze on the ground. "The business requires the most particular management at the moment-the most particular. I-" He raised his eyes with such tragic earnestness that Lois realized for the first time that this manner of his might not be his usual manner, but was called forth by the stress of anxiety. For the first time also, the force of the daily tie of business companions.h.i.+p was borne in upon her. She looked at Mr. Harker. This man spent more waking hours with Justin than she did-knew him, perhaps, in a sense, better.

He went on now, with a tremor in his voice: "Mrs. Alexander, your husband and I have worked together for a year and a half now, with never a word between us. I'm ready to swear by him any moment, if I've got him to swear by. I'll back him up in anything, no matter what, if it's his say-so-we've pulled through a good many tight places. But I can't do it alone; it's madness to try. If he doesn't show up, I'd better close the place down at once."

"Why do you say this to me?" asked Lois, shrinking a little.

"Why? because,-Mrs. Alexander, this is no time to mince words; if you know where your husband is, for G.o.d's sake, get word to him to come back-every minute is precious. He may be ill-Heaven knows he had enough to make him so; my wife knows the strain I've been through, she says she wonders I'm alive,-but he can't look after his health now. If he's on top of ground, he's got to _come_. I've put every cent I own into this business. I haven't drawn my whole salary, even, for months. I don't know what reasons he has for staying away, but his nerve mustn't give out now."

"Mr. Harker!" cried Lois. She turned blankly to Dosia, who had come forward. "What does he mean?"

"She doesn't know where her husband is," said the girl convincingly. Her eyes and Mr. Harker's met. The somber eagerness faded out of his; he sighed and rose.

"Anything I can do for you, Mrs. Alexander? I think I'll hurry to catch the next train; I haven't been home to my dinner yet."

"Won't you have something here before you go?" asked Lois. "It's so late."

"Oh, that's nothing, I'm used to it," returned Mr. Harker, with a pale smile and the pa.s.sive, self-effacing business manner as he departed, while Lois went up-stairs once more. The baby cried, and she soothed him, holding the warm little form close, closer to her-something tangible before she put him down again to step back into this strange void where Justin was not.

For the first time, in this meeting with Mr. Harker, Lois realized the existence of a world beyond her ken-a world that had been Justin's. New as the visitor's words had been, they seemed to open to her a vision of herculean struggle; the way this man had looked-his wife had "wondered that he was still alive." And Justin-where was he now? _She_ had not noticed, she had not wondered-until lately.

Slight as seemed her recognition, her sympathy, her help, it was the one thing now that kept her reason firm. She knew that she had not been all unfaithful; sometimes he had been rested, sometimes cheered, when she was near. She had suffered, too, _she_ had longed for his help and sympathy. No, she would not think of _that_; she would not! When two are separated, one must love enough to bridge the gulf-what matter which one? It seemed now as if there were so much that she might have given, as if all this torrent of love that nearly broke her heart might have been poured out and poured out at his feet-lavished on him, without regard to need or fitness or expense, as Mary lavished her precious box of spikenard on One she loved. Now that he was gone, there could be nothing too hard to have done for him, no words too sweet for her to have said to him.

Redge woke up and cried for her, and she told him hoa.r.s.ely to be still; and then, suddenly conscience-stricken and fearful at the slighting of this other demand of love,-what awful reprisal might it not exact from her?-she went to kiss the child, to infold him in her arms, the boy that Justin loved, before she bade him go to sleep, for mother would stay by her darling. And, left to herself again, the grinding and destroying wheel of thought had her bound to it once more.

He could not have left her of his own will! If he did not come, it would be because he was dead-and then he could never know, never, never know.

There would be nothing left to her but the place where he had been. She looked at the walls and the homely furnis.h.i.+ngs as one seeing them for the first time bare forever of the beloved presence, and fell on her knees, and went on them around the room, dragging herself from chair to sofa, from sofa to bed,-these were the Stations of the Cross that she was making,-with sobs and cries, low and inarticulate, yet carrying with them the awful anguish of a heart laid bare before the Almighty.

Here his dear hand had rested, while he thought of her; on this table-here-and here-and here his head had lain. Her tears ceased; she buried her face in the pillow. She must go after him, wherever he was, in this world or another. For he was her husband-where he was she must be, either in body or in spirit.

The telephone-bell rang, and Dosia answered it, the voice at the other end inquiring for Mr. Girard, cautiously, it seemed; withholding information from any other. The doctor rang up, in response to an earlier call, with directions for Redge. Hardly had the receiver been laid down when the door-bell clanged. This was to be a night of the ringing of bells!

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

This time, of course, the visitor was Mrs. Snow. In any exigency, any mind- and body-absorbing event of life, the inopportune presence of Mrs.

Snow was inexorably to be counted on, though it came always as one of those exasperating recurrences which bring with them a ridiculously fresh irritation each time. It seemed to be the one extra thing you couldn't stand; in either trouble or joy she affected you like a clinging, ankle-flapping mackintosh on a rainy day. She bowed now to Dosia with a patronizing dignity, pointed by the plaintive warmth of the greeting to Lois, who had come hurrying down-stairs out of those pa.s.sion-depths of darkness so that Mrs. Snow wouldn't suspect anything.

She had an uncanny faculty of divining just what you didn't want her to.

Once before Lois had suspended tragedy for Mrs. Snow. The same things happen to us over and over again daily in our crowded yet restricted lives-it is we who change in our meeting with them. We have our great pa.s.sions, our great joys, our heartbreaks, no matter how small our environment.

"How do you do, my dear? Mr. Girard has just told me that he was going to stay here to-night, in Mr. Alexander's absence. He said little Redge was threatened with the croup. Now, if I had only known that Mr.

Alexander was away, _I_ could have come and stayed with you!"

"Oh, that wasn't at all necessary," said Lois hastily. "Thank you very much. Do sit down, won't you, Mrs. Snow?"

"Only for a minute, then; I must go back to Bertha," said Mrs. Snow, seating herself and fumbling for something under her cloak. "I just came over to read you a letter. It's in my bag-I can't seem to find it.

Well, perhaps I'd better rest for a minute." Mrs. Snow's face looked unusually lined and set; in spite of her plaintiveness, her eyes had a hara.s.sed glitter.

"Isn't it rather late for you to be out alone?" asked Lois.

"Yes; Ada would have come around here with me, but she was expecting Mr.

Sutton. She was expecting him last night, but he didn't come. If _I_ were a young lady, I'd let a gentleman wait for _me_ the next time; it used to be thought more attractive, in my day, but Ada's so afraid of not seeming cordial; gentlemen seem to be so sensitive nowadays! I said to her, 'Ada, when a man is enough at home in a house to kick the cat, and ask for cake whenever he feels like it, I do _not_ see that it is necessary to stand on ceremony with him.' But Ada thinks differently."

"It is difficult to make rules," said Lois vaguely.

"Yes," sighed Mrs. Snow. "As I was saying to Bertha, you don't find a young man like Mr. Girard so considerate of everyone-not that he's so _very_ young, either; I'm sure he often appears much older than he is.

It's his manner-he has a manner like my dear father. He and Bertha have long chats together; really, he is what _I_ would call quite attentive, though she won't hear of such a thing-but sometimes young men _do_ take a great fancy for older girls. I had a friend who married a gentleman twenty-seven years younger-he died soon afterwards. But many people think nothing of a little difference of twelve or fifteen years. I said to Bertha this morning, 'Bertha, if you'd dress yourself a little younger-if you'd only wear a blue bow in your hair.' But no; I can't say anything nowadays to my own children without being flown at!" Mrs.

Snow's voice trembled. "If my darling William were here!"

"Have you heard from William lately?" asked Lois, with supreme effort.

"My dear, he's in Chicago. I came over to read you a letter from him that I got to-night. That new postman left it at the Scovels', by mistake, and they never sent it over until a little while ago. There was a sentence in it," Mrs. Snow was fumbling with a paper, "that I thought you'd like to hear. Where is it? Let me see. 'Next month I hope to be able to send you more'-no, no, that's not it. 'When my socks get holes in them I throw them'-that's not it, either. Oh! he says, 'I caught a glimpse of Mr. Alexander last night, getting on a West Side car'-this was written yesterday morning. 'I called to him, but too late. I'm sorry, for I'd like to have seen him.' That's all, but Mr. Girard seemed so pleased with the letter, I promised that I would bring it around to you that very minute,-_he_ had to run for the train,-but I was detained. He thought you'd like to hear that William had seen Mr.

Alexander."

Like to hear! The relief for the moment turned Lois faint. Yet, after Mrs. Snow went, the torturing questions began to repeat themselves again. Justin was alive-Justin was alive on Tuesday night. Was he alive now? And why had he gone to Chicago at all? Why had he sent her no word?

The wall between them seemed only the more opaque. Every fear that imagination could devise seemed to center around this new fact.

She and Dosia went around, straightening up the little drawing-room, making it ready for Girard's occupancy-pulling out a big chair for his use, and putting fresh books on the table. The maid had long ago gone to bed, and there was coffee to be made for him-he might get hungry in the night. When he came in at last, he brought all the brightness and courage of hope with him; he had wired to William, he had phoned to a dozen different places in Chicago.

"Oh, what should we do without you?" breathed Lois, her foot on the stairway.

"It doesn't seem to me I've helped you very much so far, our one clue has been from Mrs. Snow. I want you to go to bed now, and to sleep, Mrs.

Alexander; take all the rest you can. I'm here to do the watching. If there's anything really to tell, I'll call you, I promise faithfully.

What is it, Miss Linden? Did you want to speak to me?"