Joan shrugged her shoulders and smiled.

"Nan is like a rock underneath, Aunt Dorrie," she said. "I suppose it is--what shall I say?--blood! It is concentrated in Nan. She's like you. Disgrace, or what seemed like disgrace, would kill her--it would make me fight!"

And after that conversation all inclination to confide further in the girls as to their relationship or lack of it deserted Doris.

She saw a new cause for caution and went back to the stand she had taken when the children were babies--but with far less courage.

"When they marry, of course, it must be told."

Doris returned to New York in September, and after a fortnight in which she closed the old house and made arrangements for the servants, she was so exhausted that she gladly turned her face southward.

Nancy, already, was her mainstay. The girl had apparently got under the burden, and held it secure on her firm, young shoulders. She developed initiative and the healing touch. No one disputed her where Doris was concerned, and Martin grimly accepted her as the most necessary thing in the hope that lay in Ridge House.

Their appearance there was marked by two incidents that Doris alone heeded.

First was the effect Nancy had upon Jed.

The man stared at the girl as if he saw a ghost. Like the very old, his real sensations lay in the past. Nancy stirred him strangely. The emotion was like a warm ray of sunlight striking in a dark place. Doris watched him with interest and concern; but Jed had no words with which to enlighten her. He only smiled wider, more often, and took to following Nancy like a wavering, distorted shadow.

The second incident was Mary.

From her cabin across the river she had manipulated the arrangements at Ridge House so perfectly that the machinery was oiled and running when the family arrived.

Mary was more reserved, more self-contained than she had ever been, but again, as Martin said to Doris, she must be judged by what she did, not by what she suggested, and she had accomplished marvels not only at the old place, but in her cabin across The Gap. In her once-deserted home Mary had contrived to resurrect all the ideals that had perished with her forebears. The rooms shone and glittered; the garden throve; and Mary spun and wove and designed and made money. She was respected, feared, and secretly believed to be "low-down mean," but calmly she went her way.

What she knew lay buried in her stern reserve, and she saw a great deal.

She saw at once what had occurred since she left her years of service.

Mary no longer served--she ruled.

She saw that Joan, as she had given promise of doing, was controlling the forces of her small world. Doing it as once she had done it in the nursery, with a radiant witchery that had gained its ends with all but Mary herself!

While Mary's eyelids drew together, she focussed through the narrow slits upon Joan and with a hot, deep resolve she took up cudgels for Nancy.

And she bided her time.

Back and forth from her cabin to the big house she walked daily, and to Mary's cabin Nancy, presently, went--for comfort and inspiration, though she did not realize it.

Often, unknown to others, the two would sit near the fire, making a vivid picture. Mary in her plaid cotton gown, bent over her folded arms, swaying to and fro, making few comments but conscious of being understood. Nancy, fair and lovely, speaking more openly to the plain, silent woman near her than she had ever spoken to any earthly being and feeling, under her sweet unconsciousness, the underlying confidence.

"Of course," she once whispered to Mary, "I would love all the things that Joan loves and wants, but my duty to Aunt Dorrie is bigger than they, Mary. I am sure if Joan saw things as I do, she would act as I am acting. But we are keeping Joan from knowing."

"Why?" The sharp word startled Nancy--was Mary disapproving?

"Aunt Dorrie and Uncle David think best, Mary."

Mary touched upon the hidden hardness in Nancy's softness and retreated.

And during that red-and-gold autumn, their first in The Gap, Doris was soothed strangely to a state of perfect relaxation--a state not pleasing to Joan, and rather puzzling to David Martin, who postponed a proposed trip to the West until he felt sure of Doris's health. It seemed that, having dropped the old life, Doris was not merely willing to step into a new one--she was drifting in. Without resistance she floated. She would lie for a whole afternoon on the porch watching the play of colour on The Rock. She smiled, recalling, rather vaguely to be sure, the superst.i.tions concerning The Rock.

It was all delightfully restful and beautiful and not a care in the world!

Mary and Nancy saw to every detail. Joan was frankly interested in every phase of the experience. "It might be," mused Doris from her pillows, "that having left everything to that Power that does control, I am to have my heart's deep desire--keep both Joan and Nancy!"

CHAPTER IX

"_I count life just a stuff to try the Soul's strength on. Learn, nor count the pang; dare, never grudge the throe._"

No one but Mary, apparently, saw what was to happen. It was the old nursery problem re-acted.

Joan had tired of her game, had used all the material at hand, and was burning to be on the adventurous trail.

The old restlessness and defiance were singing in the girl's blood; mockery rang in her voice and that wonderful laugh of hers. She was about to smash into the safe joyousness of things as they were! She threatened Nancy's toys. And Mary, alone, took heed. Joan herself was unconscious. She always was of her changing mood; she simply realized that she was lost; somehow, astray.

And Nancy, looking mutely in Mary's eyes, seemed to say:

"It will all be so lonely; so terrible with Joan gone!"

That was it. The old fear of, or for, Joan had materialized--it was Life with Joan left out!

"And why should one have so much and the other so little?" asked Mary of that deep knowledge in her busy brain. "Why shouldn't they share alike--and twins at that!"

Then Mary stopped short in her thinking. Her own words took her back, back to a dark night--she was peering, aided by a dim light from within, at a baby lying in the arms of----

Mary drew her breath sharp; her thin, flat bosom heaved and her fingers clutched her gown.

David Martin had so far cla.s.sified his perplexity concerning Doris as to name it "Southern fever."

"Hookworm?" Joan broke in gleefully.

Martin frowned but did not reply.

"Doris," he turned to the couch, "I must go out West." She understood.

Martin never spoke openly about his family affairs. Until he was surer of that nephew of his he kept him in the background.

"Yes, David." Doris smiled up at him.

"I want you to promise me that you will take more exercise!" Martin said.

"Why, certainly, David, but I thought you wanted me to--to rest."

"I do--but you are rested. I do not want you to enjoy resting. It's dangerous."

"Oh! bully for you, Uncle David," Joan broke in, delightedly, "Aunt Dorrie is just plain flopping and Nan and Mary are abetting her."