And she wrought herself up into a state of desperation. "At any price, this must stop," she kept saying over and over. Every expedient was turned in her mind and its outcome followed as far as she could; and ever it came back to this—her hopes or his were to be sacrificed.
"I will not let him go," she said aloud, with all the force of a strong will become reckless. "It would certainly be my grave; but it need not be his. There are other colleges and other ways. I'm not afraid of that. At any price, I must keep him. I'll marry him now. We'll be married at once. That will settle it."
The storm was over. The one plan was clear. That she would take—take and win; but, oh, how selfish she felt in taking it! She was sacrificing his career.
Yet ever she crushed the rising self-accusation with the "There are other colleges and other ways. I'll open the way for that." That was the sop to her inner judge, but the motive power was this: "At any price I must hold him." And convinced that the time had come to play her highest trump she fell asleep.
The following morning found Belle fully prepared for energetic action. She cleared the table and washed the dishes, putting them in their accustomed places, and stopped suddenly with the last of the china in her hand, wondering how long it would be before she held it again. Upstairs, she quickly packed her hand-bag for "a one-night camp" and, keeping ears and eyes alert, noted when at length her father had gone to his office and her mother had settled to her knitting. Then she went to her room and set about a careful toilet. The rebellious forelock was curled on a hot slate pencil and tucked back among its kind. Over each ear, she selected another lock for like elaboration. She put on her most becoming dress and studied the effect of her two brooches to make sure which one would help the most. She dashed a drop of "Violetta" on her handkerchief and pinched her cheeks to heighten their colour and remove the traces of the previous night's vigil. The beauty-parlour methods were not yet known in Cedar Mountain.
Jim always dropped in for a chat in the morning and it was not long before his cheery whistle sounded as down the street he came to the tune of "Merry Bandon Town." In his right hand he twirled a stout stick in a way that suggested a very practical knowledge of the shillelah. The flush of health and of youth suffused his cheeks and mounted to his forehead. All signs of worry over his impending fate were gone; indeed, no worry could live long in his buoyant mind; its tense electric chargement was sure death to all such microbes. Arrived at the Boyds', he did not stop to open the five-foot gate. Laying his fingers on the post, he vaulted over the pickets.
Belle met him on the porch. From somewhere back, Ma Boyd called out a thin-voiced "good morning," as they went into the front room.
"My little girl looks pale to-day," he said, as he held her at arm's length.
"Yes, I didn't sleep well. I wish I could get out for a few hours. Can't you take me?"
"Sure, that's what I came for," he answered gaily.
"I don't feel much like riding, Jim. Can you get a good buckboard?"
"Why, yes, of course I can. Carson says I can have his double-harness buckboard any time, ponies and all."
"Good! Just the thing. I want to go out to Bylow's Corner to make a call, and maybe farther, if we can manage. I'll be ready by the time you are here with the rig."
She went to her desk and wrote a note to her father. Somehow, mother didn't seem to count.
Dear Dad: If I am not home to-night, I shall be with Aunt Collins.
Lovingly, Belle.
Then she put it in his tobacco jar, where he would be certain to see it on coming home for dinner, and where Ma Boyd would never dream of looking.
When Jim returned she carried a hand-bag: "Some things I need," and she laughed happily as he lifted her into the rig and inquired if she wasn't taking a trunk. Then away they went, as they had so many times before.
Youth and health, love and beauty; October and the Dakota Hills—what a wonderful conjunction! The world can do no better to multiply the joy of being alive. If either had a care, it was quickly buried out of sight. Jim was in rollicking mood. Not a prairie dog sat up and shook its tail in time to its voice, but Jim's humour suggested resemblances to some one that they knew; this one looked like Baxter, the fat parson of the Congregationalists; "that little one's name is likely Higginbotham; see how Hannah makes him skip around. And there goes Lawyer Scrimmons," he chuckled, as a blotched, bloated rattlesnake oozed along and out of sight at the hint of danger. Two owls that gazed and blinked in silence were named for a pair of fat twin sisters of their church; perfectly well-meaning, but without a word of conversation or any expression but their soulful eyes. And a solitary owl that gazed from the top of a post straight up in the sky was compared to an old-time Methodist woman with her eyes uplifted in prayer while the collection plate was shoved under her nose.
Bylow's Corner was reached all too soon. As Jim was about to draw up Belle said: "Let's go on farther; we can take them in on the road back. Let's go as far as Lookout Mountain." And Jim was happy to go.
They were six miles from Cedar Mountain now, with no more houses by the road for miles. Belle had fallen silent. It was all as she had planned, but somehow the firm resolve of the night before seemed open to question now. She gazed absently away over the level, toward a distant hillside, and the smile faded from her lips. To his next light speech she barely made response. He threatened to charge a "thank you ma'am" at high speed if she didn't laugh. Then, getting no response, he burst out:
"What the divil is the matter with my little girl to-day? Have ye anything on your mind, Belle?"
This was the fork in their traiclass="underline" either she must tell him or give him up. For a fraction of an instant she lived through the agony of doubt. Then, with a certainty she had not thought possible, she said: "Yes, Jim, I surely have."
"Well, shake it off, Belle. Let some other mind have it. Use mine, if you'll allow that I have one."
"I haven't slept all night for thinking of it, Jim," she began.
"Thinking of what?"
"Your going away."
His face clouded; he became suddenly silent and she continued:
"Jim, dear, I've tried to keep my feelings out of it altogether; I've argued it out, using nothing but my judgment, and it seemed the wise thing for you to go back East to college. All my judgment says: 'send him back'; but, oh, all my instincts say 'keep him here.'" She covered both his hands with hers and put her cheek on them for a moment.
"I'm always trying to be wise, Jim, but I suppose I'm really very stupid and very weak like most humans; and there come times when I feel like kicking everything over and saying 'what's the use?' This time I'm going to let my feelings hold the reins."
"Why, Belle darling! That sounds more like me than you."
"Jim, as I lay awake last night, a voice seemed to be sounding in my heart: 'Don't let him go. If he goes, you'll lose him, you'll lose each other.' Jim, do you suppose God brought you and me together in this way, to be so much to each other, to be exactly fitted to round out each other's life, to let us separate now?"
"Belle, I believe He sent me out here to meet you, and any one coming between us is going against God."
"I know, Jim. And yet I have the feeling, which I can't shake off, that as sure as you go back to college, I shall lose you."
"Then, by Heaven! I won't go; and that settles it, Belle. I'll chuck the whole thing." And his forehead flushed with passion.