Part 23 (1/2)

Tim succeeded at last in forcing Keturah to dodge into a path that led to her corner, and the unique race ended.

Gilbert's visitors were laughing heartily; Rosalie had completely forgotten her ill-temper, and danced about consumed with merriment.

”Oh, I say!” cried Blackburn, leaning weakly against a tree, ”that's better than the king's plate!”

”Oh, if Piper Angus had only got in behind the kid!” cried Malcolm Cameron. ”There's never anything in this world so good but it might be a little better.”

”Well, this comes as near perfection as anything I ever saw,” said Blackburn's friend. ”Come, ladies, this makes a splendid finale; we must be getting on our way.”

Gilbert walked by Rosalie's side to the car. She was radiantly good-humored now, but not a word could he get from her of the subject nearest his heart. Of course she forgave him, she declared, choking back her laughter to say it, but oh! oh! did he ever see anything so frantically funny as that outrageous cow and that mad youngster after her? Gilbert felt almost as much resentment against Keturah as poor Sawed-Off must have experienced. Fate had always used him thus in his dealings with Rosalie. Whenever he wanted her especially to be serious, then something invariably occurred to set her laughing; but how charming she was, to be sure, when she laughed, with her little head thrown back, and the tears in her dancing eyes!

He tried to join her, with poor success. He was consumed with anxiety to know what the secret was she had intended to confide in him, and had almost made up his mind to obey her, and offend Miss Cameron and Malcolm and everybody. What did it matter when it meant Rosalie's favor? But she gave him no second chance. She sprang gaily into the car by Blackburn's side, and waved her hand in farewell. She was still laughing as they moved off, and he could hear her saying between ripples, ”Oh! oh! and to think I didn't want to come, and I might have missed that race!”

CHAPTER XII.

A RUSH FOR THE GOAL

The sh.o.r.elark soars to his topmost flight, Sings at the height where morning springs, What though his voice be lost in the light?

The light comes dropping from his wings.

Mount, my soul, and sing at the height Of thy clear flight in the light and the air, Heard or unheard in the night, in the light, Sing there! Sing there!

--DUNCAN CAMPBELL SCOTT.

Elmbrook felt keenly disappointed that the red thres.h.i.+ng-machine did not pa.s.s through the village on its return journey. Though no one guessed it, Dr. Allen was the most deeply disappointed of all. Indeed, such was the effect upon him, that he packed his suitcase the next day, Davy Munn hung his mother's sunbonnet upon the top of the stable, and the doctor boarded the train at the back lane and went to Toronto.

Elmbrook literally sat up nights, speculating as to the possible reasons for his sudden departure. Mrs. Munn hadn't the faintest idea.

She even wasn't sure of his destination, had forgotten whether he took many clothes or not, and was perfectly at sea in regard to his possible return. Her son was more explicit, if more imaginative. He bet that the doctor had gone to see the swell young lady that came in the thres.h.i.+ng-mill; he was quite sure he would get drunk and show people a few things when he came back, for he was a very wild and fierce young man, and n.o.body in the place, except Mr. Munn, knew just what awful things he could do.

Fortunately, people paid no heed to Davy, and when the doctor returned the following day, looking his usual self, no one suspected him of riotous conduct. Mrs. Munn kept her own counsel, of course, but she wondered secretly what had happened to make him so quiet, and why he did not run up the stairs three steps at a time, whistling loudly, as he used to do.

And yet, according to his own view, there was really no reason why Gilbert should have been less happy. Everything had turned out just as he had wanted. First, Rosalie had forgiven him--that was just like Rosalie, he reflected fondly--and, moreover, had promised--yes, promised faithfully this time--that if he would come down to her New Year's party she would that day announce their engagement. There was another provision attached, however; he must, yes, must, come to the city in the spring; no, not a month later. There was no use in his thinking she would live anywhere else, because she simply would die; and if he wanted to kill her, why, she would just marry Guy Blackburn, and go motoring over a precipice. Surely, when he saw that she was giving up so much for his sake, he might make a little sacrifice for her. And Gilbert had declared, with a rush of grat.i.tude, that he would do anything she asked.

So there was surely no good reason for his apparent lack of spirits.

There was every prospect of his being successful in Toronto, and Harwood, his old college chum, had a.s.sured him there would be a fine opening in the spring. Nevertheless, Gilbert Allen was not as glad at heart as might have been expected. For Rosalie had been right in her judgment; he was changed. Several influences had been at work to make a new man of him. Hitherto his life had been unconsciously selfish.

It had been all getting, and no giving. That had seemed inevitable in his college days; but when they were over, self-interest had still remained the strongest force. To attain, to gain what he desired most for himself, had brought him to this country practice, and for a while he was in danger of quenching finally the generous impulses that were a part of his nature. But until Gilbert Allen had almost reached man's estate there had been a good mother in his home, one who had never failed, day and night, to lay her boy's highest welfare before her G.o.d.

So it was impossible that he should go very far astray, and now, all unknowing, he was turning into the path where that mother had always desired he should walk. He had set himself the task of reaching the s.h.i.+ning mark of success, all for his own ends; but he found the road to it so absorbing, the daily duty demanding so strenuously the obliteration of self, that, little by little, he was losing sight of his own interests and living primarily for the people that needed his help. He smiled at himself in surprise one day, when, after an unusually busy fortnight, he found that he had forgotten to keep any account of the money owing him. That was not the Gilbert Allen who had sat down, in the first days of his career as a physician, to calculate carefully just how much each mile would bring. He found it was hard for a true physician to be selfish.

And as he went about his task of relieving pain, day by day, unconsciously he was trying to live up to the high ideal that Elmbrook had placed for him.

”Give a dog a bad name and you can be hanging him,” quoted old Hughie Cameron one evening when the doctor had joined the company on the milkstand, and the talk was more than usually profound. ”That will be a true saying, indeed. But, hoots! toots! it will be working the other way, whatever. Give him a good name, now, and----”

”And he'll git up on his hind legs and walk like a man,” said Spectacle John Cross, much to Uncle Hughie's disgust.

Dr. Allen had merely laughed, and forgotten the remark soon after.

Nevertheless, the underlying truth was working out in his own life. He was being made a better man because he had been given a fine name and reputation. He had no petty conceit to be fed by his patients'

adulation. It brought him only a saving sense of his own shortcomings and an honest desire to be more worthy. And there had been still another influence at work, one of which he was entirely unconscious--the quiet life of n.o.ble self-sacrifice lived by the girl on the other side of Treasure Valley was a constant source of reproach to him, though he recognized it not.