Emerson Hough

“ For we, who know as much as Aurora Lane knew of Miss Julia's secret—who once saw her gazing adoringly at a certain framed portrait when she fancied herself alone—would have known that there was more than one mansion in the heart of the little lame librarian.
Helpless, resigned—but yet a woman—Miss Julia loved in the first place as every woman with any touch of normality does love in spite of all. She had known all these years that her love was hopeless, that it was wrong, that it was a sin—she classed it as her sin. ”

“ The two women in Judge Henderson's office sat still in the sultry heat, looking out of the window over the sultry, sordid, solemn little town; how long they did not know; until now there came again across the heat-hazy spaces of the maples, over the hot tops of the two-storied brick buildings, the sound of the wailing music—the same music which may come from the noblest organs of the world, the same music which may have pealed on fields of battle after heroes have fallen, speaking, as music may, of a soul passed, of a life ended, so soon to be forgot. ”

“ But I couldn't help it."
"That's the trouble," said Anne. "I can't help it, either."
"Ah!" he half groaned, "you ought to be kept from yourself."
"Kept from myself, Don? If that were true of all the women in the world, how much world would there be left? That's why I'm here—why, Don, I had to come!"
"Anne! It can't be. It's only cruel for you to tear me up by coming here—by staying here—by standing here. I love you! Anne! Anne! I don't see how it could be hard as this for any man to part from any woman." ”

“ Anne came closer to him and put her hands upon his shoulders. "Oh, Don," said she, "it's hard, awfully hard, isn't it, to start with such a handicap? But when did all the men in the world start even? And is it always the one who starts first that finishes best? Don, you played the game in college—so did I—we've both got to play the game now! We'll have to take our handicap. But you mustn't talk about sending me away. I can't stand everything. Oh, don't! I can't stand that!" ”

“ I can't allow these people to murder you a dozen times a week the way they will do now. You can't make this fight alone any more, Aurora—I can't any longer bear to see you try it. It's all out now. It's going to be harder for you after this."
She did not make any answer to him at all, but she heard his big voice murmuring on.
"I reckon it's love, after all, Aurora—I don't know. I don't know much about women. I just feel as though I had to take care of you—I feel as though you ought to depend on me. ”

“ Don Lane looked steadily at the face of Justice Blackman. Aurora Lane stared ahead, still icy pale, her hand clasped in that of Miss Julia's. She felt, rather than saw, the gazes of all these others boring into her very soul. Here were her enemies—here in what had been her home. It seemed an hour to her before at length those standing about the door shuffled apart to allow the two forensic enemies to reënter, though really it had not been above ten minutes. Neither man bore any traces of personal combat. ”

“ Your own ambition—your own pleasure, your own comfort—those were the things that have controlled you always—don't I know, haven't I heard? You've been a very leech in this town—you have taken all the success in it—all the success of everybody, from all its people—and used it for yourself! It has been so common to you—you are so used to it—that you can't think of anything else—you can't visualize anything else. You think of yourself as the source and center of all good—you can't help that—that's your nature. ”

“ And at about this same time—since after all the world and life and swift keen joy of living must go on just the same—two young persons stood not far distant from that scene; stood not in the full light of the sun, stood not in the wisdom and sadness of middle age, but in youth—in youth and the glory and splendor of the vast, ineffable, indispensable illusion. The dim twilight which lighted them might have been the soft, vague light of the world's own dawning—the same which poor Miss Julia had seen that very day. ”

“ Long since, Spring Valley had ceased openly to call up her story. If once she had been wearer of the scarlet letter, the color thereof had faded these years back. She was the town milliner, a young woman under suspicion always, but no man could bring true word against her character. She had sinned—once—no more. If she had known opportunity for other sins than her first one, she held her peace. Human nature were here as it is elsewhere—women as keen; men as lewd. But the triumph of Aurora Lane might now have been called complete. ”

“ Do you want to hang a man—are you anxious to begin that?"
Cowles' face grew pale. "God knows I don't! I never done that in my life, and I don't want to have to, neither. Don't talk about that to me, Miss."
"Then don't talk to me any more about those other things. I give you my word I'll not try to get him out, but I want to see him—I must see him—he'll want to see me. Don't you know—we've—we've just begun to be engaged."
"Some things I can't understand no ways," pondered Sheriff Cowles. "He's nobody, so far as I can learn. You're the Judge's ward—why, you're rich, they say." ”

“ I know you well enough to know what the decision will be in a case like that, Judge Henderson!
"As for me—" she was closer to him now, utterly fearless, as a woman is who loves and sees the object of her love threatened—"our paths part here, now! I'm of age and my own mistress. I know my own mind, as I've told you. I'm going to stay—I'm going to stick—do you hear? I'm going to love him long as he lives. I'm going to marry him, if it's in a jail!" ”

“ I've always longed to travel. You know, Don, I hear of people going over to Europe, and I'm guilty of the sin of envy. I live right here in this little place all the time—I've done so all my life. I've scarcely been out of this town in twenty years. If I could see pictures—if I could go to see the great actors—if I could see a real theater—just once, Don—you don't know how happy I'd be. And I'm sure there must be more beautiful countries than this. Still"—and here she sighed—"Miss Julia and I have lived quite a life together—in the books, the magazines—pictures too, sometimes." ”

“ Go home, and don't meddle in this case. It must take its course."
"I would follow him to the foot of the gallows, if need be, Judge Henderson!" broke out Anne Oglesby in a sudden flare of passionate anger. "Ah, fine!—to give your word, your promise—to give your love, and then within an hour forget it all—to leave the one you love when the trouble comes! Is that all one gains—is that all one may expect—is that all a woman ought to do for the man she loves? Is that all she ought to expect from a man? Suppose it were I in trouble—would he forget me? ”

“ So Aurora Lane did look at Julia Delafield. They comforted one another. It was from Miss Julia that year by year, falteringly, she learned to hope, learned to hold up her head. Thus gradually, by the aid of the love of another woman—a rare and beautiful thing, a wondrous thing—a thing so very rare in that world of jealousy in which by fate women so largely live—she got back some hold on life—she, mother of the son of no man, at the urge of a woman who could never have a son! ”

“ Men of that sort—Judge Henderson—sometimes they stop at nothing. They'd betray their very own. I'm not your blood, but if I were, I'd not trust you! Men like you are so absorbed with their own vanity, their own selfishness—they're so used to having everything given to them without exertion, without cost, they grow regardless of what that cost may be to the ones that do the giving. In time they begin to think themselves apart from the rest of the world—don't you think that about yourself now? ”

“ What I'm going to say to all the world! I've never been married to anyone and can't be now. It would be more horrible to me than—that other. It's too late. It—it means too much to me—marriage—marriage—marriage! Don't—don't—you mustn't say some things to a woman. Oh, if all this had happened twenty years ago, when I was young, I might have been weak enough to listen to what you say. I was weak and frightened then—I didn't know how I'd ever get on—all life was a terror to me. ”

“ I don't think I'll forget—it's too late in life for me to begin over again, it's you or nothing for me. There's never been any other woman for me—and that ought at least to speak for me. There's been no other man for you. So why not end it? The world's been cruel enough for you as it is. I'll not say it hasn't been cruel to me, too. I've sat tight and eaten my heart. I've had to fight, too. But don't I understand you, your fight, what it means to buck a game where all the cards are stacked? Don't I know? ”

“ A woman to the heart, feminine in every item, flaming with generous instincts, and yet denied all hope of motherhood; a woman steeped in philosophy and yet trained in emotion—what must she do—what could she do—she, one of the denied?
What Miss Julia had done long years ago was to select as her best friend the girl who of all in that heartless little town most needed a friend—Aurora Lane. She knew Aurora's secret—in part. In full she never yet had asked to know, so large was she herself of heart. All Spring Valley had scorned Aurora Lane, for that she had no father for her child. ”

“ She came through the little turnstile and tap-tapped her way up the wide brick walk. Her face, turned up eagerly, was flushed, full of great emotions.
Miss Julia was clad in her best finery. She had on a bright new hat—which she had had over from Aurora's shop but recently. She had worn it at the great event of Don Lane's homecoming—worn it to make tribute to her "son." She wore it now in search of that son's father—and she had not the slightest idea in the world who that father in fact might be. Miss Julia's divination was only such stuff as dreams are made on. ”

“ Not for her was to be ever the love of man. She was of those cruelly defective in body, who may not hope for any love worth having. Surrounded daily by her friends, her books, Miss Julia was an eager reader, and an eager lover. She knew more of life's philosophy perhaps than any soul in all her town, and yet she might enjoy less of life's rewards than any other. ”

“ To the tapping rhythm of the anthem of the dead, sometimes such a community as this does take thought—these uniforms are justified, these white plumes, these reversed swords are justified; for an humble man who has passed is dignified before his fellow men; and he has had his tribute. Sometimes at least men thus stand shoulder to shoulder, heads bared, and forget envy, backbiting, little jealousies, forget cynicism and ridicule. The diapason of the drums surely had its hearing. It sank deep to the soul of Aurora Lane, striking some chord long left unresponsive. ”

“ Why, it's the one thing I can never think of again without a shudder. Yes, I've come without your asking—and you—you've let me in.
"Aurie," he went on, "that's what leaves me so helpless. I know what I deserve—but I don't want to be despised.... I want more than I deserve! I've always had more than I deserved. It's about all any man can say. It's life itself, I suppose. I don't know what it is. But, Aurie, Aurie, I do see a thousand things now I never saw before." ”

“ The first lesson he had had yesterday; the next, yet more bitter, he must have today. The uninviting little kitchen seemed to him the center of a drab and dismal world, in which could never be aught of happiness for him or his.
"It's not much, Don," said his mother, smiling bravely as her eyes noted his abstraction. "I live so simply—I'm afraid a big man like you won't get enough to eat with me." ”

“ I'm a beggar, a pauper, and worse than that. I've got to pay you and Miss Julia. I've got to go on through life, with that secret on my mind. I can't confront that man and tell him. You and I—just today meeting—why, we begin to argue. And now I've got to face Anne Oglesby with that secret. It can't be a secret from her. I'd never ask her to join her life to one like mine. And—God! a woman like her.... I can't tell you.... Death—why, I believe this is worse."
"Don't tell me, Don, don't try." ”

“ And—with what logic or lack of logic, who shall say?—Julia Delafield had taken Aurora Lane close to her own heart—because she had the child!
It is not too much to say that these two hopeless women, the one outcast of society, the other outcast of God, had brought up that child between them. Those who say women have no secrets they can keep should have noted this strange partnership in business, in life, in maternity! This had gone on for twenty years, and not a soul in Spring Valley could have told the truth of it. Don Lane did not know of it even now. ”

“ A woman is a coward as to revealing her love for her chosen mate—she will conceal that, deny that, to the death. But for the child her love is different—then she becomes bold—she will defy all the world—will force herself even into situations otherwise unthinkable. Except for her love for Don Lane, the fatherless, Miss Julia would never have undertaken to find a father for him. ”

“ In any conversation Judge Henderson was sure to bring the talk around to himself, to his own deeds, his own ambitions. His was an egotism so extreme as to be almost beyond accountability—he was a moron not in mentality but in sense of proportion. He could not have put two square blocks together if one of these blocks had to do with the interest of another but himself. There are such men, and at times they go far.
Miss Julia flushed again prettily, but she was too much the lady to giggle or squirm or do any of those unlovable things by which the hopeless female makes herself more hopeless. ”

“ You don't think that, do you?"
"I don't know what I think!" said she, rubbing at the ceaseless tears, so new to her. "All these matters have been out of my life—forever, as I thought. But sometimes—I've been so lonesome, you know, and so helpless—I'm tempted. It's hard for a woman to live all alone—it's almost a thing impossible—she's so lonesome—sometimes I almost think I could depend on you, even now." ”

“ I'm going to meet her tomorrow. And when I do, I've got to tell her what I've learned today—every word of it—all—all! And I'll be helpless. I'll not be able to fight. I'll have to take it."
"That's right, Don, that's right. Even if I loved her as you do, even if it were the best thing in the world for you if you could marry her, I'd say that you should not. Don, whatever you do, don't ever be crooked with a woman. She's a woman, too. ”

“ Aurora Lane started back from him in sudden shocked loathing, swiftly resentful also of the mocking laughter that she heard from those who still stood within the sanctuary. Sanctuary? Was there such a place as sanctuary for her in all the world? Was there any place where she might be safe, where she might be unmolested?
"Go on away!" she said sharply, and would have hurried down the stair. She looked this way and that. There was not a man to whom she might appeal as her champion—not one! She must trust herself. ”

“ The making over of a soul; the cleansing of a life; the changing of an entire creed of conduct; the surrender of a dominating inborn trait; the tearing down and building over a vain and wholly selfish man.
"I think she's a good woman," said Hod Brooks simply, after a time.
"So do I!" broke out Judge Henderson at length, with a sudden gasp. "So do I! She's a good woman. ”

“ You can't mean that! No! no! One life ruined is enough—you've ruined yours enough now, today, by what you've done for Don and me."
He seemed not to hear her.
"I've watched you all these years, and you've lived like a recluse, like a widow. I can't reproach you. God! Which of us may first cast a stone?"
Aurora Lane turned to him now a brave face, the same brave face she had turned to the world all these years.
"Oh," said she, "if only I had learned to lie! Maybe some women could lie to you. And women get so tired—so awfully tired sometimes—I couldn't blame them. ”