Part 17 (2/2)

Then one night the Reverend Orme slept and awoke no more. In the morning Natalie went into the room and found her mother sitting very still beside the bed, one of the Reverend Orme's hands in both of hers. Tears followed each other slowly down her cheeks. She did not brush them away.

”Mother!” cried Natalie, in the first grip of premonition.

”Hush, dear!” said Mrs. Leighton. ”He is gone.”

They buried him at the very top of the valley, where the eye, guided by the parallel hills, sought ever and again the great mountain thirty miles away. In that clear air the distant mountain seemed very near.

There were those who said they could see the holy cross upon its brow.

That night Mrs. Leighton and mammy sat idle and staring in the house.

Suddenly they had realized that for them the years of tears had pa.s.sed.

They looked at each other and wondered by what long road calm had come to them. Not so Natalie. Natalie was out in the night, out upon the hills.

She climbed the highest of them all. As she stumbled up the rise, she lifted her eyes to the stars. The stars were very high, very far, very cold. They struck at her sight like needles.

Natalie covered her eyes. She stood on the crest of the hill. Her glorious hair had fallen and wrapped her with its still mantle. Her slight breast was heaving. She could hear her struggling heart pounding at its cage. She drew a long breath. With all the strength: of her young lungs she called: ”Lew, where are you? O, Lew, you _must_ come! O, Lew, I _need_ you!”

The low hills gave back no echo. It was not silence that swallowed her desperate cry, but distance, overwhelming distance. She stared wide-eyed across the plain. Suddenly faith left her. She knew that Lewis, could not hear. She knew that she was alone. She crumpled into a little heap on the top of the highest hill, buried her face in her soft hair, and sobbed.

The conviction that their wilderness held Lewis no longer brought a certain strength to Natalie's sudden womanhood. It was as though Fate had cried to her, ”The burden is all thine; take it up,” and with the same breath had given her the sure courage that comes with renunciation.

She answered Dom Francisco's wistful questioning before it could take shape in words.

”We cannot stay,” she said. ”We must go. You will still help us to go.”

Nature's long silences breed silence in man. Dom Francisco ceased to question even with his eyes. He made all ready, delivered them into the hands of trusted henchmen, and bade them G.o.d's speed. They struck out for the sea, but not by the long road that Lewis and the stranger had followed. There was a nearer Northern port. Toward it they set their faces, Consolation Cottage their goal.

CHAPTER XXI

Three weeks to a day from the time he had left Lewis in Paris, as Nelton was serving him with breakfast, Leighton received a telegram that gave him no inconsiderable shock. The telegram was from Le Brux.

”Come at once,” it said; ”your son has killed me.”

Leighton steadied himself with the thought that Le Brux was still alive enough to wire before he said:

”Nelton, I'm off for Paris at once. You have half an hour to pack and get me to Charing Cross.”

Nine hours later he was taking the stairs at Le Brux's two steps at a time. As he approached the atelier, he heard sighing groans. He threw open the door without knocking. Stretched on the couch was the giant frame, wallowing feebly like a harpooned whale at the last gasp.

”_Matre!_” cried Leighton.

The sculptor half raised himself, turned a worn face on Leighton, and then burst into a tremendous laugh--one of those laughs that is so violent as to be painful.

”Ha! ha! ha! Ho! ho! ho!” he roared, and fell back upon his side.

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