Part 47 (1/2)
”I'm afraid he's failed,” said Field, as he put his arm about his wife and led her to the sleigh.
The ride home was made mainly in silence. ”Oh, the splendid stillness!”
the woman kept saying in her heart. ”Oh, the splendid moonlight, the marvellous radiance!” Everywhere a heavenly serenity--not a footstep, not a bell, not a cry, not a cracking tree--nothing but vivid light, white snow dappled and lined with shadows, and trees etched against a starlit sky. Unutterable splendor of light and sheen and shadow. Wide wastes of snow so white the stumps stood like columns of charcoal. A night of Nature's making, when she is tired of noise and blare of color.
And in the midst of it stood the camp, with its reek of obscenity, foul odors, and tobacco smoke, to which a tortured soul must return.
IV
The following Sat.u.r.day afternoon, as Ridgeley and Field entered the office, Williams rose to meet them. He looked different--finer some way, Field imagined. At any rate, he was perfectly sober. He was freshly shaven, and though his clothes were rough, he appeared the man of education he really was. His manner was cold and distant.
”I'd like to be paid off, Mr. Ridgeley,” he said. ”I guess what's left of my pay will take me out of this.”
”Where do you propose to go?” Ridgeley asked, with kindly interest.
Williams must have perceived his kindliness, for he answered: ”I'm going home to my wife, to my violin. I am going to try living once more.”
After he had gone out, Field said, ”I wonder if he'll do it?”
”Oh, I shouldn't wonder. I've seen men brace up just as mysteriously as that and stay right by their resolutions. I thought he didn't look like a common lumber Jack when he came in.”
”Ed, your playing did it!” Mrs. Field cried, when she heard of Williams'
resolution. ”Oh, how happy his wife will be! She'll save him yet!”
”Well, I don't know; depends on what kind of a woman she is.”
BEFORE THE LOW GREEN DOOR
Matilda Bent was dying; there was no doubt of that now, if there had been before. The gruff old physician--one of the many overworked and underpaid country doctors--shook his head and pushed by Joe Bent, her husband, as he pa.s.sed through the room which served as dining-room, sitting-room, and parlor. The poor fellow slouched back to his chair by the stove as if dazed, and before he could speak again the doctor was gone.
Mrs. Ridings was just coming up the walk as the doctor stepped out of the door.
”Oh, doctor, how is she?”
”She is a dying woman, madam.”
”Oh, don't say that, doctor! What's the matter?”
”Cancer.”
”Then the news was true--”
”I don't know anything of the news, Mrs. Ridings, but Mrs. Bent is dying from the effects of a cancer primarily, which she has had for years--since her last child, which died in infancy, you remember.”
”But, doctor, she never told me--”
”Neither did she tell me. But no matter now. I have done all I can for her. If you can make death any easier for her, go and do it. You will find some opiate powders there with directions. Keep the pain down at all hazards. Don't let her suffer; that is useless. She is likely to last a day or two; but if any change comes to-night, send for me.”