John Hunter was glad at this time to escape discussions of an unpleasant nature; he was more broken by the accident than he ever admitted; he accused himself more bitterly than any one would ever accuse him; he had broken up a working team, he had killed his best horse, and he had been all but responsible for the death of his best friend, and when John Hunter's own misdeeds. .h.i.t hard enough, he would face things squarely, and no matter how hard he worked to avoid owning up to others, would acknowledge to himself that he was in the wrong. Hugh's white face grew whiter each day and accused him enough without further words. To escape it, John worked busily, and there was need of work, for the rapidly drying fields required his entire attention during the day, and he left Hugh to his wife's care, glad to do so.

There were times, however, when John was alone with Hugh, and at such times, because he was full of self-blame and humiliation, he listened to what Hugh said with a peculiar attention. Hugh saw that John worried himself half sick over his misfortune, and reached out the hand of love and fellowship for which John hungered at this time. He talked of his possible death as if it were but a journey, which always convulsed John's face with child-like emotions. He talked of the farm work, and kept close track of what was done. He knew that John had had to go into debt for the team, and he wanted John to tell him, without being asked, that a note had been given. When he did not, Hugh pa.s.sed the matter over without reference and with a sigh. Hugh Noland was not criticising John Hunter or any of his actions these days, but Hugh studied John and found his weaknesses, and tried to give him such help as he thought possible. Hugh had long days to think, and he began to yearn over this man to whom he had been a sort of traitor. He saw John's wilfulness with Elizabeth--heard many things without being able to avoid hearing them, being pinned to his bed--he saw where John's irritability lost good help during the busy season and left double duty for faithful Jake, his supercilious att.i.tude toward Luther, and his illy concealed contempt for the farmers about them, and one of his ways of keeping his mind off John's wife was to keep it on John and John's needs. Hugh kept Luther with him whenever Luther could be spared from his home in the evenings, and he spoke to John of Luther with growing affection. When he grew stronger, he discussed farm work and farmers with John in a way that savoured of interest in their problems; he asked Nathan and Silas and Carter and Bob Warren in and talked to them of fertilizers and drainage, and when John insisted that those things were in the future, he said:

"Yes, but they will come up in our time; you see I come from a place where those things were already a necessity to the farmers. I am a farmer myself now and I think about those things."

Hugh knew that his consideration of fertilizers was superfluous in a country that was hardly past the sod-corn stage, but he longed to dignify this work to John Hunter, since John would give his formative years here and be unable to do other things if he ever made money enough to get away, as he hoped. Hugh had had enough work in the agricultural department of an eastern university before he had come to Kansas, to make it possible for him to interest these men in the future development of their state. Doctor Morgan, who had been rather unwilling that serious subjects should be discussed in the sickroom, asked curiously one day:

"What the devil do you want to prate such nonsense as that to these folks for? They won't need any kind of fertilizers in this country for twenty years. You'd better be resting instead of shooting such useless stuff as that at _them_."

"I want to talk farming to John Hunter as if it were a respectable business to engage in, Doctor. I don't have to tell you how he views it."

"What in Sam Hill's the difference how he views it?" the doctor asked in astonishment. "He's nothing but a cheap skate, and you can't make anything else out of him."

Hugh Noland looked at the doctor and made no reply; he understood that the unfortunate vision of John Hunter which Doctor Morgan had got would prevent him from seeing the point he was trying to make, and so let the matter drop, but he kept John with him evenings and worked along on his own lines and with persistence. He wanted to feel right about his stay in John's home, and one of the ways of doing it was to get close to John's heart on important matters. He spoke of Jack as a future farmer, and when John indignantly resented the implication and said that he expected his son to be an educated man, Hugh replied:

"Why, of course you do, but an educated farmer is exactly the thing to make of him. Look at the clean life you'd place him in."

And so the days ran on in the sick-chamber. If John was with Hugh, Elizabeth busied herself about the house elsewhere, and John rarely saw them together, unless there was medicine to administer, and then the girl gave it without remark. A growing fear had taken possession of her lest John should fly out at her in unpleasant fashion before Hugh. The situation between the two had been made so much more acute by Hugh's accidental reference to it when he had thought that she was crying about him, that she was supersensitive regarding her half-formed complaint in explanation. But for that reference, they could have gone along indefinitely with a pretence of indifference, but enough had been said to tear away the veil and leave them self-conscious and mutually humiliated.

Their little avoidances of touch or tenderness spoke in a language not to be misunderstood, and their eyes told unconsciously all that they refused to say with their tongues.

Elizabeth, in her own way, worried herself half sick in her endeavours to care for him gently and yet give him no cause to think she was making a demand for a love of which neither approved, but which having once been put into words was a constant factor in their a.s.sociation. Once when she was bathing his face, Hugh thought she lingered longer over it than was necessary and drew himself back on his pillow suddenly, saying:

"Don't Elizabeth. I should have my arms about you in a minute if you did that, and you are John's wife--and I couldn't look him in the face if I did a thing of that sort."

Elizabeth turned away without replying, her eyes full of tears. He had misunderstood her cruelly. The one thing Elizabeth Hunter was trying to do was not to show her affection for this man who was not her husband, but as she became worn and tired from duty at the sick-bed it became more and more evident that she could not accomplish it.

Hugh had the daily fear of her peritonitis coming back upon her; Doctor Morgan had warned him while John was away. Unable to lift his head from his pillow without a.s.sistance, Hugh saw her growing thin and discouraged, and knew that it was the enforced condition of caring for him which made her so; yet when she tried to avoid his sympathetic eyes, he instantly misunderstood her and was hurt. That she was not really strong enough to a.s.sume the care of him added to his uneasiness, and often when he was on the point of saying so, she mistook his glance and was so distant that it died on his lips. And so the days ran into each other with the pair. If for any reason one advanced, the other retreated, and at last the condition became unbearable.

Elizabeth gave much and consuming thought to the issue brought about by the fact that her husband, still living in the house with her, had no idea that she could be in love with another man, even though her husband no longer loved her. Any sort of love-making was a violation of her marriage vows, and for her to put love for another man into words was to fall to a level to which she had never in her life thought of doing.

What was she to do? John never saw anything except in the light of his own instincts and emotions, and an idea or a prejudice once fixed in his mind could be uprooted by nothing but death; therefore to confess to him and thereby make it possible to get away from Hugh would prejudice him against Hugh, whom he would be certain to think had stolen something to which he alone had the right, and against her whom he felt that he possessed, and upon whom he could wreak almost any form of public revenge. Hugh had tried to get away and John had himself held him, but John could not remember that nor listen to it if told. Every effort had been made by Hugh to avoid Elizabeth since he had found out the true situation, but nothing would convince John of that. Had John Hunter the right then, being the kind of man he was, to a confession from her that would confuse the whole issue and do vital wrong to everybody concerned, including the baby, who must suffer with the mother who would be made to seem much worse than she was.

This Elizabeth Hunter asked herself daily, and with the fear that her conscience would force her to confession should she permit any demonstration of affection, and to avoid any possibility of it, she became colder and colder in her manner toward the sick man.

The effort to keep off dangerous ground was disastrous, for Hugh instantly misunderstood it, and the gloom which settled over him increased the difficulties with which Elizabeth had to contend. Doctor Morgan saw that his patient, who had seemed slightly better, fell back again, and he worried about his despondent condition.

"Cheer him up, Mrs. Hunter! Read to him! Anything!" he would exclaim.

"He's got to have peace of mind, or there's no hope in the world of his recovery. Something more 'n staved-in ribs is keeping him down," the doctor urged, not knowing that he laid impossible burdens on shoulders too young to bear them.

The two duties, the one to her husband and the one to her patient, stared her in the face, and she had no one with whom to advise or consult.

"I don't care! His life's worth more than for me to approve of myself as a wife," she decided at last, and yet when she gave Hugh his next dose of medicine she was colder and more on her guard than ever.

Luther Hansen came to see Hugh that afternoon. Elizabeth received an inspiration when he started away and followed him out of the house.

"Luther, will he die?" she asked.

"I don't know, Lizzie," Luther said quietly, not knowing what to say to such a question, and too honest to evade.

At the time of the accident to the binder, when Elizabeth knelt, broken with exhaustion and terror, looking at the man she loved who lay under the ma.s.s of machinery with the colour of death upon him, no one but a blind man could have mistaken the utter abandonment of her grief, and certainly of all men Luther was not blind. Now he recognized the heartache back of Elizabeth's question and with an instinct to cheer was almost persuaded to answer in the negative. In his heart he thought Hugh would die. The rapidly failing strength of the man indicated that he would do so unless something came to buoy him up.

"I don't know, Lizzie," he added, as if squaring his conscience, "he looks so weak and troubled like."

Luther realized the moment it was out of his mouth that he had said the wrong thing. Elizabeth's lips grew white and she held her breath a moment as if preparing to accept what she knew must be the truth.

"Lizzie," asked Luther gently, "would you like to talk to me about it?"

The girl's face tensed strangely and her quivering lips refused to do her bidding for a full minute, the relief was so great.

"I--I came out for that," she said simply when she could speak. "It's so good of you to understand and make it easy for me. I'll walk over toward home with you."

They walked slowly through the barnyard, across the creek, and over the pleasant pasture land. Neither spoke. Elizabeth, now that she had decided to talk to Luther about the circ.u.mstances with which she contended, could not bring herself readily to do so. Luther had always the insight of true wisdom, which let others gauge their own inclinations. When they came to the fence which was the boundary line between Luther's and John Hunter's farms, they stopped. There was a line of willow trees running at intervals down the fence, and Luther waved his hand in the direction of a shady spot beside them.

"Set down, Lizzie," he said, seating himself half-facing her.

Elizabeth Hunter crumpled up on the gra.s.s with her back against a fence post, and thought while Luther got out his knife and looked for something to whittle.

"Tell me about it," he said at last. "You want to--and--and I'm a safe person."

She looked up at him, glad that he had a.s.sumed it, and smoothed the path to confession.

"I know you're safe, Luther. You're more than that, G.o.d bless you!"

And to this man whom she had always trusted Elizabeth poured out all her fears, her feelings, and her frantic cry for help.

"I've had no one to talk to, Luther," she ended, "and I don't believe a human being can go on always and not put things into words."

They talked on and on. Having started, she let him see the consuming struggle between right and wrong which she waged every day.

"Doctor Morgan says, 'Cheer him up! Cheer him up,' and what am I to do?"

she closed in desperation.

Elizabeth Hunter had told far more than she supposed. She had bared a yearning, struggling heart to Luther's gaze, a soul seeking a right path where there seemed no sure road, nothing but confusion.

Luther longed to help, but the problem presented insurmountable difficulties; to adopt a rigid code of morals as such was to come out at the end of the journey with something in herself and society satisfied, and Hugh Noland's life sacrificed, as Doctor Morgan had said; to adopt a sympathetic att.i.tude would spare the life of a useful man, but with her code shattered. If only she could take John into her confidence both might be possible.

"Lizzie, you couldn't tell Hunter, could you?" Even as he asked it he knew it could not be done.

"I would tell John instantly if he were like you, Luther," was her reply.

"I think Hugh himself would have been glad to. If he could have explained, he could have got away. No--John isn't the kind of man. He wouldn't understand, and he'd make it a great deal worse than it is to everybody.

He'd accuse me and spoil Jack's life, and----"

The hopelessness of it left her silent for a minute, and then Doctor Morgan's warnings came up to be reckoned with.

"The doctor says he'll die if he's worried, Luther. What am I to do?" she demanded, wanting him to settle the question for her, and letting the tears run unrestrained down her cheeks.

Luther Hansen looked at her pityingly and shook his head.

"There are some things we have to settle for ourselves, Lizzie, and this is one of them for you. I do know," he said trustfully, "whatever you do 'll be right."