"Why am I here alone in the night?" she heard herself asking. Her voice sounded strangely familiar, yet unfamiliar as if some one were speaking to her. Then she knew that the voice was her own soul in the silence.

"Mother will forgive me, mother wants me back, mother will help me get well--if there is any health in me. Mother knows that it wasn't all my fault--" her thought defended her against that voice.

"Why am I here alone in the night?" the question was repeated.

"I will go home. I will begin again. Men begin again. Oh!..." A sob came from her lips.... "No, no, no!"

She felt with every nerve of her quivering being that in the slow upward climb of s.e.x towards true love and true parenthood woman's battle is man's,--felt that G.o.d and Nature are now demanding not less of men.

The suffering girl could not put her certainty into words, but in her body and in her soul she knew--she knew.

Suddenly from the opened window of the nearest home she heard above the wind the cry of a baby, the loud, sweet, prolonged, fiercely-demanding cry of a hungry little baby.

A wistful smile twisted her lips as she listened.

Suddenly as the baby's cry was stopped she put her hands to her bosom and a strange lovely light shone on her face.

CHAPTER x.x.x

AT THE WEDDING FEAST

Brightly shone the sunshine on the fields and woods surrounding Millville and on the little house where Mrs. Welcome was busy putting the last touches to the order and sweetness of home.

Patience and her husband were coming on the noon train.

Later in the day a few of their friends had promised to come to the supper for which her mother had been making loaves of delicious cake.

"It is strange, strange that my child should be the wife of John Boland's son," she mused. "I wonder what my poor man would say. Would he feel less bitter if he could know that Boland sent me all that money, with that letter 'as justice to Tom Welcome's widow?' Patience and Harry are so happy now it makes me feel like wanting to forget the past. If only I could know where my baby girl is. But I just must go on trusting. Somehow I feel hopeful. Patience and Harry want me to be brave. Harry's father--he must find it hard to be brave too. He must be lonesome, estranged from his son, no one to comfort him. Perhaps he sent me that money really as a sign to Harry that he wants to be friends again. I won't say anything to Harry about it just yet, but maybe some of these days...." The direct train of her thought was interrupted by the sound of a bird singing on the bough of a tree close by the opened window.

She stepped out into the side porch and looked about her with a glance of pleasure in the neatness and charm of the little place. House and fence had been painted and mended, put in tidy order. A new gate and a cement sidewalk in front running down to the corner of the street spoke for the industry of Harvey Spencer who had worked like a son for her in his spare hours.

The song of the bird in the elm bough had dropped to a happy twittering.

The fragrance of late garden blossoms filled the air. At the end of the deep yard, beyond the vegetable garden and close to the back gate Harvey had built a pretty summer house and over it a madeira vine hung its abundant quick growing wreaths of green.

Mrs. Welcome in her light summer dress, her gray hair moved a trifle by the soft warm breeze, walked slowly down the garden path and sat down for a few moments of rest in this quiet spot. A sudden sadness came upon her face as almost always these months since her home coming when she rested from her working.

But she rose resolutely and banished the thought.

"Today is my oldest daughter's day. I must think of n.o.body but Patience and make her coming home with her husband as glad as can be."

She spoke aloud, to make her resolution stronger and walked back towards the house, gathering nasturtiums and asparagus as she went, to decorate the fresh and pretty parlor, with its new white muslin curtains and wall paper and the piano which Harry Boland had sent.

"It's perfectly lovely, mother," Patience was saying to her in this room within the hour, Patience whom everybody in Millville loved, standing radiant and happy beside her equally radiant bridegroom. "How did you ever get those flowers to trail over that picture as if they just grew there?"

"You're a great success as a decorator, and we can't begin to thank you enough," said Harry Boland. "I think Patience and I are in great luck that we can make our home with you. It's all settled that I'm to have that office opposite the court-house, going to buy and sell real estate and work up a regular business."

"Yes, and mother, Harry finds that a whole lot of these cottages the mill people live in are really his own, from his mother's estate directly to him. He's going to put them all in decent order."

"Do you remember Michael Grogan? He is going to help us do things in Millville. He has promised to build us a club house and dance hall, a social center for the mill young people if you and Patience will help run it."

"That's fine. Young folks need their fun," responded Mrs. Welcome heartily. "Come along, Patey dear, and see the cakes mother has been baking for you and Harry."

Mary Randall and Michael Grogan, Harvey Spencer and his sister and brother-in-law were the five guests who a.s.sembled in the late afternoon to honor the home-coming of Mr. and Mrs. Harry Boland.

Michael Grogan came first, arriving in a carriage of the hack type from the station. He brought a huge bouquet of roses for the bride and a case of grape-juice for the cheer of the festivity.

At supper he proposed the health of the young pair.

"May they always live happy ever after," said Grogan, standing up, gla.s.s in hand. "May they never have any troubles that they can't nip in the bud. As their principles demand of 'em to drink this stuff as the pure juice of the grape, may it be blessed to 'em forever and to their descendants."

Every body laughed and drank. Harry Boland toasted him in return:

"Here's the health of our very good friend, Mr. Michael Grogan. May all his mornings be golden and all his sunsets clear."

"Thanks for the sunrises in particular," said Grogan. "Now ladies and gentlemen I wish to toast the good health of another young lady who is with us today, one who has made me a great deal of trouble and scared me blue with blue envelopes. May she soon find a bridegroom for herself, one of them brave lads who can talk right back to her as I never could when she tackled this old man!" He lifted his grape-juice with a great flourish. "Here's to herself, Miss Mary Randall!"

Miss Randall blushed and nodded her thanks.

"Speech, speech," demanded Grogan.

"Thank you, thank you but I just can't, not here, not now," she said and quiet fell upon them.

The thoughts of all were with the young girl who had disappeared, for whom all had worked, suffered, prayed.

"I do want to say," Miss Randall, broke the silence, "that you all must know how glad I am that Mr. and Mrs. Harry Boland are to have a useful and happy life together and that I...." She stopped suddenly, looking out the opened door that led towards the garden, her whole expression changing, her lips parting, her breath coming quickly.

"What did you see out there?" asked Harvey Spencer, with the sharp intentness which he had learned from his maturing city experience.

"Now constable, don't get excited," chaffed Grogan, to whose aid Harvey's quick rise to prominence and office was in part due. "We don't want to be catching any burglars this happy day."

"What is it?" asked Patience Boland, rising.

"I--I don't know, to be really certain." Mary looked at Mrs. Welcome.

"Somebody came in at the back gate and went into the summer-house."

Mrs. Welcome leaned heavily on the table.

Harvey ran to the window. Grogan looked over his shoulder.

"Oh, Miss Randall, please go out and see." Patience's arms were already about her mother. "Mumsey, mumsey, can it be?"

Mary went out into the porch and down the garden path.

It was Elsie Welcome who came out of the summer-house and slowly along between the flower borders. She was shockingly emaciated. She stopped and put her suit case down on the ground; its weight seemed too great for her spent strength.