"Hugh Noland, dear," she said aloud, "you have set me financially free, but there is another kind of freedom I have got to win for myself. I've got to tell John the things that we wanted to tell and were too cowardly to do. If we ever come together again I shall tell it out, if all this country gets to hear it. Jack can better afford to take the disgrace of it than to have a mother who carries it about with her as a secret. Without honesty no other virtue is a virtue at all."

Elizabeth's eyes were full of tears as she voiced her vow, but there was a sense of relief welling up within her that she had not known in all the five years Hugh had lain here. She stood very quiet till her emotions were under control and her sunny self in command again, then she blew a kiss at Aunt Susan's grave and went to the waiting child and with him rode a merry race toward Colebyville.

CHAPTER XXVII

TO DO OVER, AND TO DO BETTER, WAS THE OPPORTUNITY OFFERED

Elizabeth Hunter and her son were still breathing hard from rapid riding when they drew up in front of the post-office. Elizabeth dropped from the saddle, tossing her rein to Jack to hold till her return, and went inside.

She was to remember this day and the dingy little window through which mail was pa.s.sed. The postmaster was a new man and tossed the letters out carelessly; therefore he did not see the sudden start the girl gave as she began to gather them up.

John Hunter's familiar handwriting stared at her from the top envelope.

Elizabeth thought of many things while she waited for the man to run through the newspapers and magazines. Half an hour ago she had registered a vow beside Hugh Noland's grave. She was to be tested promptly. When all was handed out to her, she took the pile--Elizabeth's magazines supplied the entire community with reading material, and were handed from house to house till as ragged as the tumble weeds of her native Kansas--and put them all in the canvas bag at Jack's saddle horn. The letter was unopened.

Something made her wait. Something said that John was asking to return--to do over, and to do better, was the opportunity offered to her. Her vow rose up before her; without the fulfillment of that vow there could be no _better_, that she recognized--and yet----

[Ill.u.s.tration: "JOHN HUNTER'S FAMILIAR HANDWRITING STARED AT HER FROM THE TOP ENVELOPE"]

All through the long ride home she pondered upon the past and upon the possibilities of the future. Not till after Jack was safely tucked away in his bed, not till Hepsie had her supper work done and had gone upstairs and all the various members of her household had retired for the night, and she was certain of hours for uninterrupted thinking, did Elizabeth Hunter bring out the unopened letter and lay it on the table before her.

Even then she renewed her vow before she broke the seal. Was he the old John, who would fly out impulsively and cover them all with disgrace if she told him? she asked herself many times. In a cold sweat of terror, she asked herself also if it were possible to build right in this new endeavour without telling John of the love which she had shown to Hugh; the temptation was terrible, but she was compelled to shake her head. The habit of openness and fair dealing would not hold her excused; there was no other way, she must tell it out. Carefully she went over all the things that would be lost if this story should be bruited abroad. Jack would be disgraced, she would be stripped of her influence in the neighbourhood, slain in the sight of her friends who had fought her battles for her because they believed in her, stripped of everything which had gone to make life worth the living, and she would place herself in the power of a man whose only att.i.tude toward the story might be one of self-righteous justification. Was it worth the price? Her own words rose up before her, "Without honesty no other virtue is a virtue at all." Elizabeth pondered a long time, and again her own words rose up to confront her, "It does not matter _who_ is wrong, the thing that matters is _what_ is wrong," and for Elizabeth there was no escape. This had been the philosophy of her life; she was called upon to stand or fall on that ground. With her head bowed in acknowledgment, she drew the missive out of its envelope and began to read:

Dear Elizabeth: This letter will no doubt surprise you, but I couldn't wait any longer. I might begin by saying that I was homesick for Jack--which is true--but I'm going to confess that I'm homesick for you too. Is there still hope? I would have written you long ago, but I went into things too heavy and lost the money I got for the cattle--and then I couldn't. It would have looked like asking to come back to the land. As you know, I mortgaged the home eighty--it hurt some to do that, knowing you'd have to sign it--and began slower. I got along very well, but it was terribly tedious, and at last, after three years of steady work, and no debts, I couldn't wait any longer, and put half of what I had on the Board of Trade proceedings. _I won!_ Last Sat.u.r.day I sold all I had, and now while I can come to you right, I want to ask if you will take me? Take me quick, if you are going to, before I do some reckless thing and lose it again. I hear you have prospered; that was why I had to wait so long. I often think of dear old Hugh, and his interest in some of the things about the neighbourhood, and I have been given to see while living in this rotten hole of a city how much I underestimated the people about us in Kansas. I would be glad to come back and live among them. Will you let me? A telegram will bring me to you on the next train.

With love to both you and Jack, who will be seven years old this week,

Affectionately, John.

The tension was broken. Elizabeth laid the letter back with a smile. How like John to suggest a telegram! John never could wait. How well she knew his little weaknesses; the written characters of the missive had the flowing curves of haste in their running letters. He had written on the impulse of the moment, no matter how long the desire had been in his heart. The very spontaneity of the confession was unpremeditated and worked in John Hunter's favour. He had remembered Jack's birthday too!

That day seven years ago rose up in Elizabeth's memory to plead for Jack's father. She earnestly desired John's presence, and yet--could it be done?

Far into the night Elizabeth Hunter sat with the letter before her, reading and rereading it, pondering upon the possibilities of the future, seeing them in the light of the past she had spent with him, wondering what sort of man her husband had become in the five years since she had seen him. The letter sounded as if those years might have been profitable ones. There was both the openness of real honesty and the reserve of real strength in the confession about his financial affairs. The most hopeful thing she found in the letter was the sentence about Hugh's estimate of the neighbours among whom they had lived and the implied comparison regarding the city in which he now did business. Dear old John! Had Chicago business men tried the methods on him that he had thought it fair to apply to his dealings with her? In the midst of that question rose the one--would John Hunter feel the same toward Hugh Noland's estimates when he was told the truth about his wife's affection for Hugh, and of the weakness of both in the demonstrations of that affection? Well, it had to be told. Scandal would be hard to face with no denial possible. Doctor Morgan had known it all and still trusted her; likewise Luther; but Hepsie, and Jake, and Sadie? Besides, Jack would have to know, and would suffer for things of which he was innocent! The girl wrestled with the subject till midnight, and long after. At last, to put it where she could not deceive herself, she wrote a simple statement of the whole thing and sealed it up with John's address upon the envelope, and then raising her hand solemnly promised herself that this letter which contained the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth should be mailed as she had written it without being opened to change a word. She would answer John's letter in one apart from this and send it by the same mail, but this letter she would send as it stood.

As she got up to go to bed, she picked up the bag in which they brought the mail and felt in it to see if anything were left. A small narrow book that opened endwise and had the name of the Bank of Colebyville on it was all. It was a fitting end to her considerations. She had never owned a checkbook till recent years. Because of its presence, she might yet be able to answer John Hunter as he wished. She thought long on her situation. There was no sleep in her. The larger, the universal, aspects of the question began to crowd in upon her mind.

"There is no other way," she said. "A woman, to be free, must have money of her own. She must not be supported by a man."

She stepped out on the porch and stood looking toward the east. The refreshing breeze which had sprung up cooled and invigorated her.

"The wind before the dawn! The beginning of a new day!" she said aloud.

Turning toward the kitchen, she began to pack a box which stood waiting on the end of the kitchen table. Doughnuts, cookies and pies had been left there to cool the evening before. Mrs. Farnshaw was to have threshers to cook for to-day, and Elizabeth had grown thoughtful of the mother, who was aging visibly. In such ways as she could, she spared her mother's strength and gave her the comfort of frequent visits and companionship. In order to get the long eight-mile drive over before it became hot, it was necessary to get an early start, and Elizabeth, with Jack at her side, was on the road before the sun was fairly above the horizon.

About eight o'clock Mrs. Farnshaw turned at the sound of their feet on her doorstep. She set her cob basket on the floor, put the stove lid over the roaring fire, and turned to Jack with grandmotherly delight.

"You're a real comfort, Lizzie," she said, straightening up with Jack in her arms. "I never used t' think you would be, but you are. I'm that tired that I'm ready t' drop."

"Anything more than usual?" Elizabeth asked, noting the f.a.gged and heavy face, and the gathering tears.

"Oh, nothin' more 'n 'as happened many a time; only 'e grows crosser, seems to me, as 'e grows older. He was particular bad last night, and I didn't sleep none. It's awful hot weather t' lay awake."

When Elizabeth did not reply, the mother said testily:

"Now I s'pose You'll be thinkin' that you don't have t' care for what a man says."

Elizabeth laughed, but not in her usual merry way.

"Perhaps," she said slowly. "I was thinking farther than that--I was wondering----" She paused to think and then broke out suddenly. "John's written to ask if he can come back, and I was just wondering----"

Mrs. Farnshaw was all animation at once, her own troubles forgotten.

"You don't say?" she exclaimed. "Now look here, Lizzie, you're goin' t'

let him come?"

Elizabeth had told her mother on the impulse of the moment after withholding the news from Nathan and even from Jack. The child had been wriggling out of his grandmother's arms and had not heard what his mother said. Elizabeth waited till he was out of hearing. She half regretted having mentioned it. She was going to have to argue out her decision with her mother, and she had made no decision.

The mother's accidental remark had produced the impulse to tell. Well, it was all right. It might be that she could decide better after discussing it with some one. Elizabeth looked at her mother doubtfully.

"I don't know, ma. I may. It's all owing to whether we can agree on the terms of starting over."

"You ain't goin' t' lay down rules t' him?" the mother cried in amazement.

"Now's my time to find out what rules he's going to lay down to me at least," Elizabeth said dryly.

"But I never heard of such a thing! Say, don't you love 'im any more, Lizzie?"

"I--I think I do, ma," Elizabeth said slowly. "But there's the very trouble with women. They think they ought to love a man enough to take him without a definite understanding, and then they find that a woman's love means mostly obedience to a man. Yes, I think I love him. But I'm going to know what he expects, and I'm going to tell him what I expect, and make no mistakes this time. We'll know before we begin."

"But he may not take you," Mrs. Farnshaw said in a frightened whisper.

"I rather think I'm taking him," Elizabeth said, beginning to unload the box of provisions she had brought. "You forget that I'm making my own living."

"That _does_ make a difference," Mrs. Farnshaw admitted.

"That makes _all_ the difference," Elizabeth replied positively. "The longer I look at it the more convinced I am that the whole thing hinges right on that point. If we live together again I'll know that it isn't because he feels that having married me he must keep me in food and clothes, and he'll know that it's because I want to and not because I've got a child to be supported. I believe I love him; but if I didn't know I could leave him in a minute if he made me do things that I wasn't able to do I wouldn't dare to say yes. Knowing that I don't have to live with him if he begins to order me around, I think I'll try it."

"You're a queer girl, Lizzie," the mother said, puzzled and uncertain what to think of the philosophy she propounded. "You don't seem to be afraid of men at all."

"I don't have to be, ma, because no man will ever again pay for my food and clothes. You are not to tell anybody, even the boys. I may not do it yet. I didn't intend to tell you for a while, but you insisted on telling me what I was thinking about, and it popped right out at you."

Elizabeth gave her mother a tender look and added: "I told you first when he asked me before," which was a thing her mother could understand and appreciate. Elizabeth was considerate of the little mother whose life was hard, and who was afraid of a man.

At that point Elizabeth fell into a brown study. She argued for her own rights, knowing that only on that path could peace come to either herself or John, but she did not feel herself wholly worthy, and John wholly unworthy; she knew her weaknesses, and she knew she had wronged John Hunter as well as he had wronged her; she was willing to take him if he would be as willing to correct his faults and confess them as she was willing to do. She did not ask of John Hunter that he be always right in his actions toward her, but that he discuss their grievances and let them look together for better ways of settling what was right for each. She was so deep in her own thoughts that she did not hear Jack, who called to her from the door:

"Mamma, let's go! Come on! They're going right now, mamma!"

Elizabeth did not hear the child till he tugged at her skirts and exclaimed: