Back to God's Country and Other Stories Part 21

"No. It is blond, and a little gray."

"And he is young--younger than you?"

"He is older."

"And his eyes--are dark?"

He felt rather than heard the throbbing of her heart as she waited for him to reply. There was a reason why he would never forget Peter G.o.d's eyes.

"Sometimes I thought they were blue, and sometimes gray," he said; and at that she dropped his hands with a strange little cry, and stood a step back from him, a joy which she made no effort to keep from him flaming in her face.

It was a look which sent a sudden hopelessness through Curtis--a stinging pang of jealousy. This night had set wild and tumultuous emotions aflame in his breast. He had come to Josephine McCloud like one in a dream. In an hour he had placed her above all other women in the world, and in that hour the little G.o.ds of fate had brought him to his knees in the wors.h.i.+p of a woman. The fact did not seem unreal to him. Here was the woman, and he loved her. And his heart sank like a heavily weighted thing when he saw the transfiguration of joy that came into her face when he said that Peter G.o.d's eyes were not dark, but were sometimes blue and sometimes gray.

"And this Peter G.o.d?" he said, straining to make his voice even. "What is he to you?"

His question cut her like a knife. The wild color ebbed swiftly out of her cheeks. Into her eyes swept a haunting fear which he was to see and wonder at more than once. It was as if he had done something to frighten her. "We--my father and I--are interested in him," she said.

Her words cost her a visible effort. He noticed a quick throbbing in her throat, just above the filmy lace. "Mr. Curtis, won't you pardon this--this betrayal of excitement in myself? It must be unaccountable to you. Perhaps a little later you will understand. We are imposing on you by not confiding in you what this interest is, and I beg you to forgive me. But there is a reason. Will you believe me? There is a reason."

Her hands rested lightly on Philip's arm. Her eyes implored him.

"I will not ask for confidences which you are not free to give," he said gently.

He was rewarded by a soft glow of thankfulness.

"I cannot make you understand how much that means to me," she cried tremblingly. "And you will tell us about Peter G.o.d? Father--"

She turned.

Colonel McCloud had reentered the room.

With the feeling of one who was not quite sure that he was awake, Philip paused under a street lamp ten minutes after leaving the McCloud apartments, and looked at his watch. It was a quarter of two o'clock. A low whistle of surprise fell from his lips. For three hours he had been with Colonel McCloud and his daughter. It had seemed like an hour. He still felt the thrill of the warm, parting pressure of Josephine's hand; he saw the grat.i.tude in her eyes; he heard her voice, low and tremulous, asking him to come again to-morrow evening. His brain was in a strange whirl of excitement, and he laughed--laughed with gladness which he had not felt before in all the days of his life.

He had told a great many things about Peter G.o.d that night; of the man's life in the little cabin, his loneliness, his aloofness, and the mystery of him. Philip had asked no questions of Josephine and her father, and more than once he had caught that almost tender grat.i.tude in Josephine's eyes. And at least twice he had seen the swift, haunting fear--the first time when he told of Peter G.o.d's coming and goings at Port MacPherson, and again when he mentioned a patrol of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police that had pa.s.sed Peter G.o.d's cabin while Philip was there, laid up during those weeks of darkness and storm with a fractured leg.

Philip told how tenderly Peter G.o.d nursed him, and how their acquaintance grew into brotherhood during the long gray nights when the stars gleamed like pencil-points and the foxes yapped incessantly. He had seen the dewy s.h.i.+mmer of tears in Josephine's eyes. He had noted the tense lines in Colonel McCloud's face. But he had asked them no questions, he had made no effort to unmask the secret which they so evidently desired to keep from him.

Now, alone in the cool night, he asked himself a hundred questions, and yet with a feeling that he understood a great deal of what they had kept from him. Something had whispered to him then--and whispered to him now--that Peter G.o.d was not Peter G.o.d's right name, and that to Josephine McCloud and her father he was a brother and a son. This thought, so long as he could think it without a doubt, filled his cup of hope to overflowing. But the doubt persisted. It was like a spark that refused to go out. Who was Peter G.o.d? What was Peter G.o.d, the half-wild fox-hunter, to Josephine McCloud? Yes--he could be but that one thing! A brother. A black sheep. A wanderer. A son who had disappeared--and was now found. But if he was that, only that, why would they not tell him? The doubt sputtered up again.

Philip did not go to bed. He was anxious for the day, and the evening that was to follow. A woman had unsettled his world. His mica mountain became an unimportant reality. Barrow's greatness no longer loomed up for him. He walked until he was tired, and it was dawn when he went to his hotel. He was like a boy living in the antic.i.p.ation of a great promise--restless, excited, even feverishly anxious all day. He made inquiries about Colonel James McCloud at his hotel. No one knew him, or had even heard of him. His name was not in the city directory or the telephone directory. Philip made up his mind that Josephine and her father were practically strangers in the city, and that they had come from Canada--probably Montreal, for he remembered the stamp on the box of cigars.

That night, when he saw Josephine again, he wanted to reach out his arms to her. He wanted to make her understand how completely his wonderful love possessed him, and how utterly lost he was without her.

She was dressed in simple white--again with that bank of filmy lace at her throat. Her hair was done in those l.u.s.trous, s.h.i.+mmering coils, so bright and soft that he would have given a tenth of his mica mountain to touch them with his hands. And she was glad to see him. Her eagerness shone in her eyes, in the warm flush of her cheeks, in the joyous tremble of her voice.

That night, too, pa.s.sed like a dream--a dream in paradise for Philip.

For a long time they sat alone, and Josephine herself brought him the box of cigars, and urged him to smoke. They talked again about the North, about Fort MacPherson--where it was, what it was, and how one got to it through a thousand miles or so of wilderness. He told her of his own adventures, how for many years he had sought for mineral treasure and at last had found a mica mountain.

"It's close to Fort MacPherson," he explained.

"We can work it from the Mackenzie. I expect to start back some time in August."

She leaned toward him, last night's strange excitement glowing for the first time in her eyes.

"You are going back? You will see Peter G.o.d?"

In her eagerness she laid a hand on his arm.

"I am going back. It would be possible to see Peter G.o.d."

The touch of her hand did not lighten the weight that was tugging again at his heart.

"Peter G.o.d's cabin is a hundred miles from Fort MacPherson," he added.

"He will be hunting foxes by the time I get there."

"You mean--it will be winter."

"Yes. It is a long journey. And"--he was looking at her closely as he spoke--"Peter G.o.d may not be there when I return. It is possible he may have gone into another part of the wilderness."

He saw her quiver as she drew back.

"He has been there--for seven--years," she said, as if speaking to herself. "He would not move--now!"

"No; I don't think he would move now."

His own voice was low, scarcely above a whisper, and she looked at him quickly and strangely, a flush in her cheeks.

It was late when he bade her good-night. Again he felt the warm thrill of her hand as it lay in his. The next afternoon he was to take her driving.

The days and weeks that followed these first meetings with Josephine McCloud were weighted with many things for Philip. Neither she nor her father enlightened him about Peter G.o.d. Several times he believed that Josephine was on the point of confiding in him, but each time there came that strange fear in her eyes, and she caught herself.

Philip did not urge. He asked no questions that might be embarra.s.sing.

He knew, after the third week had pa.s.sed, that Josephine could no longer be unconscious of his love, even though the mystery of Peter G.o.d restrained him from making a declaration of it. There was not a day in the week that they did not see each other. They rode together. The three frequently dined together. And still more frequently they pa.s.sed the evenings in the McCloud apartments. Philip had been correct in his guess--they were from Montreal. Beyond that fact he learned little.

As their acquaintance became closer and as Josephine saw in Philip more and more of that something which he had not spoken, a change developed in her. At first it puzzled and then alarmed him. At times she seemed almost frightened. One evening, when his love all but trembled on his lips, she turned suddenly white.

It was the middle of July before the words came from him at last. In two or three weeks he was starting for the North. It was evening, and they were alone in the big room, with the cool breeze from the lake drifting in upon them. He made no effort to touch her as he told her of his love, but when he had done, she knew that a strong man had laid his heart and his soul at her feet.

He had never seen her whiter. Her hands were clasped tightly in her lap. There was a silence in which he did not breathe. Her answer came so low that he leaned forward to hear.

"I am sorry," she said. "It is my fault--that you love me. I knew. And yet I let you come again and again. I have done wrong. It is not fair--now--for me to tell you to go--without a chance. You--would want me if I did not love you? You would marry me if I did not love you?"

His heart pounded. He forgot everything but that he loved this woman with a love beyond his power to reason.

"I don't think that I could live without you now, Josephine," he cried in a low voice. "And I swear to make you love me. It must come. It is inconceivable that I cannot make you love me--loving you as I do."

She looked at him clearly now. She seemed suddenly to become tense and vibrant with a new and wonderful strength.

"I must be fair with you," she said. "You are a man whose love most women would be proud to possess. And yet--it is not in my power to accept that love, or give myself to you. There is another to whom you must go."

"And that is--"