Flamsted quarries Part 62

"You can tell that best yourself--there's no use your playing off--I don't pretend to know anything about it, but I can put my finger on the very year and the very month you turned against Champney Googe who never had anything but a pleasant word for you ever since you was so high--" he indicated a few feet on his whipstock--"and first come to Champo. 'T ain't generous, Aileen; 't ain't like a true woman; 't ain't like you to go back on a man just because he has sinned. He stands in need of us all now, although they say at the sheds he can hold his own with the best of 'em--I heard the manager telling Emlie he'd be foreman of Shed Number Two if he kept on, for he's the only one can get on with all of the foreigners; guess Jim McCann knows--"

"What do you mean by the year and the month?"

"I mean what I say. 'T was in August seven years ago--but p'r'aps you don't remember," he said. His sarcasm was intentional.

She made no reply, but smiled to herself--a smile so exasperating to Octavius that he sulked a few minutes in silence. After another eighth of a mile, she spoke with apparent interest:

"What makes you think Mrs. Champney wants to see Father Honore about her nephew?"

"Because it looks that way. This afternoon, when you was out, she got me to move Mr. Louis' picture from the library to her room, and I had to hang it on the wall opposite her bed--" Octavius paused--"I believe she don't think she'll last long, and she don't look as if she could either.

Last week she had Emlie up putting a codicil to her will. The nurse told me she was one of the witnesses, she and Emlie and the doctor--catch her letting me see any of her papers!" He reined into the road that led to the sheds.

"I hope to G.o.d she'll do him justice this time," he spoke aloud, but evidently to himself.

"How do you mean, Tave?"

"I mean by giving him what's his by rights; that's what I mean." He spoke emphatically.

"He wouldn't be the man I think he is if he ever took a cent from her--not after what she did!" she exclaimed hotly.

Octavius turned and looked at her in amazement.

"That's the first time I ever heard you speak up for Champney Googe, an'

I've known you since before you knew him. Well, it's better late than never." He spoke with a degree of satisfaction in his tone that did not escape Aileen. "Which door shall I leave you at?"

"Round at the west--there are some people coming out now--here we are.

You'll find me here when you come back."

"I shall be back within a half an hour; I telephoned Father Honore I was coming up--you're sure you don't mind waiting here alone? I'll get back before dusk."

"What should I be afraid of? I won't let the stones fall on me!"

She sprang to the ground. Octavius turned the horse and drove off.

On entering the shed she caught her breath in admiration. The level rays of the July sun shone into the gray interior illumining the farthest corners. Their glowing crimson flushed the granite to a scarcely perceptible rose. Portions of the n.o.ble arches, parts of the architrave, sculptured cornice and keystone, drums, pediments and capitals, stone mullions, here and there a huge monolith, caught the ethereal flush and transformed Shed Number Two into a temple of beauty.

She sought the section near the doors, where Jim McCann worked, and sat down on one of the granite blocks--perhaps the very one on which _he_ was at work. The fancy was a pleasing one. Now and then she laid her hand caressingly on the cool stone and smiled to herself. Some men and women were looking at the huge Macdonald machine over in the farthermost corner; one by one they pa.s.sed out at the east door--at last she was alone with her loving thoughts in this cool sanctuary of industry.

She noticed a chisel lying behind the stone on which she sat; she turned and picked it up. She looked about for a hammer; she wanted to try her puny strength on what Champney Googe manipulated with muscles hardened by years of breaking stones--that thought was no longer a nightmare to her--but she saw none. The sun sank below the horizon; the afterglow promised to be both long and beautiful. After a time she looked out across the meadows--a man was crossing them; evidently he had just left the tram, for she heard the buzzing of the wires in the still air. He was coming towards the sheds. His form showed black against the western sky. Another moment--and Aileen knew him to be Champney Googe.

She sat there motionless, the chisel in her hand, her face turned to the west and the man rapidly approaching Shed Number Two--a moment more, he was within the doors, and, evidently in haste, sought his section; then he saw her for the first time. He stopped short. There was a cry:

"Aileen--Aileen--"

She rose to her feet. With one stride he stood before her, leaning to look long into her eyes which never wavered while he read in them her woman's fealty to her love for him.

He held out his hands, and she placed hers within them. He spoke, and the voice was a prayer:

"My wife, Aileen--"

"My husband--" she answered, and the words were a _Te Deum_.

X

Octavius drew up near the shed and handed the reins to Father Honore.

"If you'll just hold the mare a minute, I'll step inside and look for Aileen."

He disappeared in the darkening entrance, but was back again almost immediately. Father Honore saw at once from his face that something unusual had taken place. He feared an accident.

"Is Aileen all right?" he asked anxiously.

Octavius nodded. He got into the surrey; the hands that took the reins shook visibly. He drove on in silence for a few minutes. He was struggling for control of his emotion; for the truth is Octavius wanted to cry; and when a man wants to cry and must not, the result is inarticulateness and a painful contortion of every feature. Father Honore, recognizing this fact, waited. Octavius swallowed hard and many times before he could speak; even then his speech was broken:

"She's in there--all right--but Champney Googe is with her--"

"Thank G.o.d!"

Father Honore's voice rang out with no uncertain sound. It was a heartening thing to hear, and helped powerfully to restore to Octavius his usual poise. He turned to look at his companion and saw every feature alive with a great joy. Suddenly the scales fell from this man of Maine's eyes.

"You don't mean it!" he exclaimed in amazement.

"Oh, but I _do_," replied Father Honore joyfully and emphatically....

"Father Honore," he said after a time in which both men were busy with their thoughts, "I ain't much on expressing what I feel, but I want to tell you--for you'll understand--that when I come out of that shed I'd had a vision,"--he paused,--"a revelation;" the tears were beginning to roll down his cheeks; his lips were trembling; "we don't have to go back two thousand years to get one, either--I saw what this world's got to be saved by if it's saved at all--"

"What was it, Mr. Buzzby?" Father Honore spoke in a low voice.

"I saw a vision of human love that was forgiving, and loving, and saving by nothing but love, like the divine love of the Christ you preach about--Father Honore, I saw Aileen Armagh sitting on a block of granite and Champney Googe kneeling before her, his head in the very dust at her feet--and she raising it with her two arms--and her face was like an angel's--"

The two men drove on in silence to Champ-au-Haut.

The priest was shown at once to Mrs. Champney's room. He had not seen her for over a year and was prepared for a great change; but the actual impression of her condition, as she lay motionless on the bed, was a shock. His practised eye told him that the Inevitable was already on the threshold, demanding entrance. He turned to the nurse with a look of inquiry.

"The doctor will be here in a few minutes; I have telephoned for him,"

she said low in answer. She bent over the bed.

"Mrs. Champney, Father Honore is here; you wished to see him."

The eyes opened; there was still mental clarity in their outlook. Father Honore stepped to the bed.

"Is there anything I can do for you, Mrs. Champney?" he asked gently.