Mrs. Lane

“ Lane, bursting into tears and sinking into a chair, while she hugged her child tightly in her arms, and laid its face against her own.
The woman seemed slightly moved at this exhibition of distress, and stood looking at the quivering frame of the unhappy fugitive, with a slight expression of regret on her face. After Mrs. Lane had grown calm, the woman said to her:
"Is your husband living?"
"He is," was answered, in a steady voice.
"Where does he reside?" continued the woman.
"In New York," replied Mrs. Lane. ”

“ That voice drew Lane's fixed gaze, and he saw a group in the far corner of the room. One man was standing, another was sitting beside a lounge, upon which lay a young woman amid a pile of pillows. She rose lazily, and as she slid off the lounge Lane saw her skirt come down and cover her bare knees. Her red hair, bobbed and curly, marked her for recognition. It was Helen. But Lane doubted if he would have at once recognized any other feature. The handsome insolence of her face was belied by a singularly eager and curious expression. ”

“ Blanche’s mother was kept in her room the next day with a headache, so Blanche’s time was divided between taking care of her invalid and lending a hand to Mrs. Lane till she could get another cook. Mrs. Lane had never expected Mary to help her; knowing how hard her own life had been, she was trying to fit her for a teacher, but as she watched Blanche flying about the house, setting the table, rolling out her cheese straws, running up and down to her mother’s room with a patch of flour on her curly hair, and singing gayly about her work, her tired eyes followed the young girl wistfully. ”

“ Miss Lane looked nervously down, then entreatingly up.
“I couldn’t,” she said, in a low voice.
He saw the pleading reluctance in her eyes, and pressed his advantage.
“You do not know how unhappy it makes me to think of your sacrificing your bright life alone in a dingy London lodging. However nice your pupils and their friends may be to you, their affection or—or esteem—can never be so strong as that of your own disinterested friends.”
He knew how to throw into these words a feeling and warmth which made the girl’s cheeks flush. ”

“ This man’s saying always that the mule is at the next house. These people know whether there’s a mule in the village or not. We needn’t stop in every house.”
“Yes, we do, Mrs. Lane. We are in Shoshi and this man will be killed if he does not take care. You do not look like a woman, Mrs. Lane. You look like a Montenegrin man, in those pants and that long gray coat. He has to stop in every house, so that the people will see he is traveling with a woman.”
“But, Rexh, I thought we were going through Pultit.” ”

“ Madame Lane is of the Irish breed; is red-haired, freckled, and dirty to a degree. Her dress was ragged, showing a soiled, dingy petticoat through the rents.
She seated her customer in the little room, produced a pack of cards, and proceeded to tell his future, at times shouting out threats and words of warning to the noisy brats outside. Then she said:
“You are a man as has seen a great deal of trouble in the past.” ”

“ Lane, who had once been Annie Barrimore, had just come to Hawk’s Nest from the White House, where a son had come for Eweretta and Philip.
It was again nearing the end of November, just a year since the events of the last chapter.
“Oh, there is great rejoicing, I assure you!” cried Mrs. Lane. “I came in to tell you before going home. And my dear Ted has such good news too! Phyllis is most happy with her husband, and according to Arbuthnot, is an altogether model wife! And I have yet another piece of news for you. To-day is a day of good news, I think. ”

“ There is nothing false about Mary Lane. She could no more trifle with a lover than she could commit a crime. Think, then, how almost impossible it would be for her to hear herself called, under existing circumstances, even in sport, a jilt, without being hurt. Words sometimes have power to hurt more than blows. Do you not see this now, aunt Rachel? ”

“ A still, hot summer morning does not incline the mind or the body to activity, and all of them had sunk into attitudes of ease. Mrs. Lane's work was reposing in her lap; her sister, Miss Jane Chambers, had ceased the pretense of reading; the Rector was enjoying what he kept assuring himself was only just five minutes' peace before he crossed over to his parsonage and his sermon; Lady Claudia Territon and Miss Katharine Bernard were each in possession of a wicker lounge, while at their feet lay two young men in flannels, with lawn-tennis racquets lying idle by them. ”

“ Lane—stout, thick of foot and nearer fifty than forty—it was a terrible exertion, and she paused between every step she took to catch her breath, muttering, “Lauretta Ann Lane, you are a fool if ever there was one. Suppose folks should pass by and see you creepin’ up here like a squawkin’ pigeon woodpecker hanging to a tree?”
She, however, did not in the least resemble even that heavy-bodied bird. Did you ever see a woodchuck mount a low tree when cornered by dogs? That was what Mrs. Lane looked like as she climbed. ”

“ Unable to hide my sense of the general embarrassment which my presence had called forth, I passed to the seat I have indicated and let my inquiring look settle on Miss Lane. She was staring in imitation of the others straight into her plate, but as I saluted her with a quiet good morning, she looked up and acknowledged my courtesy with a faint, almost sympathetic, smile. At once the whole tableful broke again into chatter, and I could safely put the question with which my mind was full.
"How is Miss Murray?" I asked. "I do not see her here."
"Did you expect to? Poor Gilbertine! ”

“ Daren, that day at Helen's, the minute I saw you I knew you were going to have something to do with my future."
"Bessy, a little while ago I made sure you had no romance in you," replied Lane, with a smile. "Now as we've gotten serious, let's think hard about the future. What do you want most? Do you care for study, for books? Have you any gift for music? Do you ever think of fitting yourself for useful work?... Or is your mind full of this jazz stuff? Do you just want to go from day to day, like a butterfly from flower to flower? ”

“ She looked at Lane, wide-eyed, in distress, caught between strange long-forgotten emotions.
"Helen, it's not dreadful to have to die," replied Lane. "That is not the dreadful part in coming home."
"What is dreadful, then?" she asked, very low.
Lane felt a great heave of his breast—the irrepressible reaction of a profound and terrible emotion, always held in abeyance until now. And a fierce pang, that was physical as well as emotional, tore through him. His throat constricted and ached to a familiar sensation—the welling up of blood from his lungs. ”

“ A glimmer of understanding began to dawn in Lane. Already an immense pity had flooded his soul, and a profound sense of the mystery and tragedy of Mel Iden. She had always been unusual, aloof, proud, unattainable, a girl with a heart of golden fire. And now she had a nameless child and was an outcast from her father's house. The fact, the fatality of it, stunned Lane.
"Daren, I must go in to see Dr. Bronson," she said. "I'm glad you're home. I'm proud of you. I'm happy for your mother and Lorna. You must watch Lorna—try to restrain her. She's going wrong. All the young girls are going wrong. ”

“ And the only change that seemed to rise out of his tumult was increasing love for this girl with whom his fate had been linked.
So once more Lane became a sufferer, burdened by pangs, a wanderer along the naked and lonely shore of grief. His passion and his ideal were at odds. Unless he changed his nature, his reverence for womanhood, he could never realize the happiness that might become his. All that he had sacrificed had indeed been in vain. But he had been true to himself. His pity for Mel was supreme. ”

“ She went.
"Well, I'm hanged!" cried Lane. "Of all the infernal, meddlesome old women—by Jove, I'd like to break something! Why do you sit staring at me like that, Viola? Don't you think it's irritating enough to a man to be scolded in his own house without having his wife stare at him as though he were an animal out of the Zoo? By Jove, it's enough to make any man lose his temper!"
"That's right, dear," she said soothingly. "We'll have some fresh tea up, and you'll feel quite a different man." ”

“ Eric looked in consternation at her puckered, pathetic face, suddenly colourless save for dark rings round the big, hollow eyes. Then he sat down and drew her to him, patting her hand and talking to her half as if she were a child, half as though she were capable of understanding his weighty diagnosis.
"Lady Barbara! Lady Barbara! Are you listening to me? You mustn't cry—really.... It takes away all your prettiness. Now, you were fairly hard on me at dinner, weren't you? But I do possess some intelligence; I didn't need to have Lady Poynter shouting from the house-top that you were ill. ”

“ But at that moment his joy was too great to harbor strange misgivings. How impossible for any one to understand his feelings then, except perhaps the comrades who had survived the same ordeal!
The vessel glided on. A fresh cool spring breeze with a scent of land fanned Lane's hot brow. It bore tidings from home. Almost he thought he smelled the blossoms in the orchard, and the damp newly plowed earth, and the smoke from the wood fire his mother used to bake over. A hundred clamoring thoughts strove for dominance over his mind—to enter and flash by and fade. ”

“ Britt, you’re going to be sorry for it if you drag that poor abused girl to prison,” said Lane, with such fire of conviction that the timber baron, cautious in his methods, and always fearing the notoriety that would embroil the great secrets of the timber interests with public opinion, blinked at the oracular old warden and then at the still defiant face of the girl. Like most untrained natures in whom passion has unleashed natural high spirit, she seemed incapable of calm reconsideration. ”

“ Lane loved the low hills, the deep, colorful woods in autumn. There he lost himself. He learned. Silence and solitude taught him. From there he had vision of the horde of men righting down the false impossible trails of the world. He felt the sweetness, the frailty, the dependence, the glory and the doom of women battling with life. He realized the hopeless traits of human nature. Like dead scales his egotism dropped from him. ”

“ 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. ”

“ You can trust me, Pepper," returned Lane.
"Son, I'm a wise old guy. There's not much that goes on in Middleville I don't get on to. And I'll make your hair curl. But I'll confine myself to what comes closest home to you. I get you, Lane. You're game. You're through. You have come back from war to find a hell of a mess. Your own sister—your sweetheart—your friend's brother and your soldier pard's sister—on the primrose path! And you with your last breath trying to turn them back! I'll say it's a damn fine stunt. I'm an old gambler, Lane. ”

“ On the way, which led past a hedge, Lane gathered a bunch of violets.
"'In the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love,'" he mused. "It's good, even for me, to be alive this morning.... These violets, the birds, the fresh smells, the bursting green! Oh, well, regrets are idle. But just to think—I had to go through all I've known—right down to this moment—to realize how stingingly sweet life is...."
Mel answered his knock, and sight of her face seemed to lift his heart with an unwonted throb. ”

“ Lane wondered if it was antagonism toward him. Helen drew Lane back toward her other friends, to the lounge where she seated herself. If the situation had disturbed her equilibrium in the least, the moment had passed. She did not care what Lane thought of her guests or what they thought of him. But she seemed curious about him. Bessy Bell came and sat beside her, watching Lane.
"Daren, do you dance?" queried Helen. "You used to be good. But dancing is not the same. It's all fox-trot, toddle, shimmy nowadays." ”

“ The mansion before which the car stopped was well lighted; music and laughter came faintly through the bright windows.
A maid opened the door to Lane and showed him into a drawing-room. In a library beyond he saw women and men playing cards, laughing and talking. Several old ladies were sitting close together, whispering and nodding their heads. A young fair-haired girl was playing the piano. Lane saw the maid advance and speak to a sharp-featured man whom he recognized as Hartley. Lane wanted to run out of the house. ”

“ She turned and left him, walking quietly along the narrow path through the harrowed field under the silent pines. The feeling of death was upon her. She wanted to cover her eyes, to blot out the sun, to run to some friendly darkness to make her moan. She knew he was watching her, however, and carried her head well up. She hoped that he could not see that her hands were clinched. As she went on, her cheeks scarlet, her carriage splendidly undejected, the wish came to her that she could sing. ”