The interview was ended. Luther helped Elizabeth to her feet, and went away to his own house and waiting ch.o.r.es, leaving the question with her--Elizabeth Hunter--whose life had been punctuated with interrogation points.

Elizabeth walked back slowly, going over every hint and suggestion to be gained from Luther's discussion of her situation. Nothing was clear except that whatever her decision, it must be the nearest right of anything she was able to understand. She remembered as she stopped to fasten the barnyard gate behind her that Luther had said as he left her:

"He'll go away as soon as he is able, you say, Lizzie," and she remembered the lingering tones of fondness in Luther's voice when Hugh's name was mentioned.

It was not easy for Luther to say, let him die, either.

Elizabeth remembered at that point that Hugh's medicine was long overdue, that medicine was more important just now than any of the questions with which she had been struggling. With a frightened little cry she ran to the house and to the sick-chamber.

"Never mind, Elizabeth," Hugh said when he saw her shuffling the papers about in search of the bottle. "Jack came in and I had Hepsie give it to me. I've decided that it isn't a good plan to have it there, and I'll keep it under my pillow hereafter."

"I--I went out with Luther, Hugh, and I didn't realize that I was gone so long. You've missed two doses!" She noticed that Hugh called her by her given name altogether now.

Hugh laughed a sad little laugh.

"Well, I've had the one for this hour at least. I--I tried to take it alone. I guess I won't try that again. It stuck in my throat and I got a strangling spell. I coughed till--well, I thought I was going to get out of taking medicine altogether. It's a terrible fear that grips a fellow when he gets something stuck in his throat and knows that he can't lift his head off his pillow. It isn't so much that he's afraid to die--it's the death struggle he's afraid of."

Absorbed in his own thoughts, Hugh Noland closed his eyes and did not see the effect his words produced upon Elizabeth. By some sort of psychological process he had placed that death struggle before her very eyes. Hugh, all unconscious that he had made any impression, unconscious that her att.i.tude toward death differed from his own, or that his death could mean much more to her than deliverance from the presence and care of him, lay with his eyes closed, thinking his own bitter thoughts.

There was indeed enough in Hugh Noland's appearance to terrify the girl as he lay before her, wasted and woebegone, his low forehead blue-veined and colourless, his hands blue-veined and transparent, and all his shrunken figure sharply outlined under the thin summer covering of the bed with ghastly and suggestive significance. Instantly she wanted to go down by his side and with her arms about him give him the sympathy and comfort his lonely heart craved, but because it was so deliciously tempting she distrusted the impulse and, turning hastily, walked out of the room and out of the house, going on a run to her refuge in the willows. But though she agonized till dark she found herself no nearer a solution than before.

Hugh felt the distance Elizabeth maintained and also the fact that she was not well. How he hated it when she had to lift him for his medicine.

Doctor Morgan had especially talked about her lifting when she was at first convalescing. His heart was very bad that night.

About three o'clock the next afternoon Elizabeth tiptoed in to see if he slept.

"I'm awake," he said without opening his eyes.

Always when Hugh did not open his eyes Elizabeth was filled with premonitions. He was very pinched and wan to-day. With a pain at her own heart, Elizabeth brought a fresh gla.s.s of water for his medicine. She had to speak to him to get him ready to take it from her hand. Kneeling, she put her arm under the pillow to raise his head while he drank.

Hugh fumbled with the little bottle as he tried to return the extra disks he had accidentally poured out into his hand. Elizabeth waited till he had the cork in place, with her arm still under the pillow. He turned his face toward her as he thrust the bottle back, and accidentally touched her hand under his head. He glanced up consciously. Her breath, fresh, warm, full of the life man adores, came to him from her parted lips, and to get away from the impulse to say things he was resolved not to say, he closed his eyes and turned his head feebly.

A gasp of fright came from the girl as she saw the contortion of his haggard face.

"Hugh!" she exclaimed.

The gla.s.s she held fell from her fingers and rolled to the foot of the bed, scattering its contents abroad un.o.bserved, as she threw her other arm across him and lifted him for the air she supposed he needed. Their breaths mingled. Human nature is but human nature, man is but man and woman is but woman in the final a.n.a.lysis: they were in the hands of a fate stronger than either of them at that moment.

Elizabeth struggled no more; right or wrong, it had happened, and she brought her rocking chair and with her free hand clasped in his, read and took life as it came. After that, sin nor sickness could keep them from being happy. If the girl talked of the better course of restoring the old reserve, Hugh's hand would reach out imploringly:

"Only till I get well, dearest; I won't trouble your conscience after that. I know you don't feel right about this, but I can't go back to a life without any affection again while I'm here," and Elizabeth always responded to that call. She reflected that even Luther could not condemn her for it.

Yet when John was in the house or whenever she was obliged to be careful about Hepsie, as she often was, she was outraged in her own sight, and her colours trailed in the dust of humiliation, for she saw that the path she was treading was one of unaccustomed duplicity.

"If I could only approve of myself," she said to Hugh, and then was sorry she had spoken, for Hugh Noland's face grew more white and he closed his eyes with a little sob.

"Oh, my darling," he said when he could speak again, "you long for that and I like you for it too, but I'm weak. I want to be loved and petted, and--I'm so tired that I don't want to think about it at all. Kiss me, sweet," and Elizabeth kissed him, and was glad in spite of herself.

"You shall not have to think till you're well," she promised, and the days ran on throughout the blazing summer, and Hugh improved, and Elizabeth won Doctor Morgan's admiration as a nurse.

In the midst of the deceptions which Elizabeth Hunter was called upon to practise, however, she followed the natural trend of her character in ways which proved how fundamental truth and outrightness were in her make-up.

Having discussed Hugh with Luther, she told Hugh that she had done so.

This gave Hugh a wrong impression of affairs between the two which she was obliged to set right.

"No, Luther never loved me--that is, he never said that he did. That isn't the way we feel about each other. We've just been good friends always. We herded cattle together and told each other things all our lives. I could tell Luther anything."

"Well, he couldn't love that black-eyed thing he lives with," Hugh said.

"I don't know how it is myself, but he does, and Luther never lies. You can see that he's square with her. He gives her a kind of companionship that will keep her out of the position I'm in, too," she said with conviction, and then saw the kind of blow that she had dealt, and covered her face with her hands for shame.

Elizabeth heard the invalid sigh deeply. When she could speak again, she slid down on her knees by his bed and, laying her arm across the shoulders of the man she had hurt, faced herself and her deeds squarely, as was her way.

"It's of no use, Hugh. We've got to face it. I didn't intend to hurt you, but I'm in a serious position. I must think of this thing all my life--and I shall shrink whenever I do. I shall see everybody in the light of my own life. I made no comparison between you and Luther. There's love and love in this world, as I've found out. John thought he loved me and I thought I loved him--and look at us! I don't know what Luther would do if he were placed where we are, but that is not the question. I hurt you just now; but, oh, Hugh! I love you too--G.o.d help me, and in the midst of it all I want my self-respect back till I could almost die to get it. Sometimes I think I'll go and tell John yet."

When for sheer want of breath Elizabeth stopped and looked at Hugh Noland inquiringly, he asked eagerly:

"Could we?"

And for a long time she looked at him, till her eyes took on a faraway look which said that she was going over details and experiences of the past. In the light of those experiences she finally shook her head.

"No," she said with simple conviction. "You don't know John. He'd never understand that---- Well, he'd mix everything uselessly. It would fall hardest on Jack; his future would be spoiled by the humiliation of having everybody think I was worse than I----"

Elizabeth could not finish her sentence for the pain on the face before her, and hid her face on the same pillow and cried out her grief and heartache till Hugh had to warn her that Hepsie might come in.

It was well that Elizabeth's mind was occupied with Hepsie while she bathed and cooled her swollen eyelids. Long afterward she remembered Hugh had laid his arm across his white face at that moment, but she was never to know the fulness of the self-reproach nor the depths of the despair which Hugh Noland suffered--Hugh, who loved her. For himself, he did not so much care, being a man and accustomed to the life of men in those things, but he saw the endless round of her days, carrying with her through them all the secrecy and shame of it; she who loved openness! If she had been a woman who looked herself less squarely in the face it would have been less hard.

"I think I'll talk to Luther too," he said at last. "You couldn't drive Patsie over for him this evening, could you?" he asked.

Elizabeth looked down at him in surprise as she wiped her hands.

"Why--why, I thought you knew about Patsie," she said hesitatingly.

"Patsie's dead."

"Dead?"

"Yes. She died the night you were hurt. John drove her for Doctor Morgan,"

the girl said, wishing that she could keep the news from him.

After that first startled exclamation Hugh did not remark on the mare's death; he noticed that Elizabeth never blamed John for things when talking of him, and he liked her for it.

"What became of the horses that day--the ones on the binder? You kept me so stupefied at first that I sort of forgot about them."

He forced from her all the vital details of the purchase of the new horses. After he had received the answers she felt obliged to give he did not comment upon any feature of the story. They never criticised anything John did between them; in fact, they rarely mentioned his name, but Hugh was struck with the necessity of knowing methods and facts regarding the business and asking such simple questions as he was warranted in asking.

When the discussion was finished he asked again for Luther, and she promised to get him as soon as possible.

Hugh Noland had a long afternoon to think out the situation into which he had thrust Elizabeth, for when Elizabeth arrived at Luther's house he had gone to town and the sun was so hot that she rested before starting home.

Hugh was only disturbed by Hepsie, who came once an hour to give him the drink necessary when medicine time came around. It was lonesome with Elizabeth away, but it let him think more clearly. Hugh saw that he had entangled Elizabeth in a life which contained something altogether extraneous to her whole character. Because she was perfectly open, the greater would be the damage which must result to her if this life went on.

One wild moment of hope had been granted him when they had discussed the possibility of telling John. How well Hugh remembered the searching thought Elizabeth had given his question before she had shaken her head.