The Seventh Noon

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He did not look at her, but as her voice answered him it seemed to be
stronger.

"I think--I think I do."

"Nothing can die, unless we let it die," he ran on, paving the way for
what he realized she must in the end know. "Some of it can disappear
from our sight. But not much. We can bury our dead, but we need n't
bury their glad smiles, we need n't bury the feel of their hands or the
brush of their lips, we need n't bury their songs or the brave spirit
of them. We can keep all that, the living part of them, so long as our
own spirit lives. It is when that dies in us that we truly bury them.
And this is even truer of our loves--intangible spirit things as they
are at best."

He did not wish that part of him to die utterly in her with his doomed
frame.

"But--" she shivered, "all this talk of graves and the dead?"

"It is all of the sun and the living," he replied earnestly. "You must
face the sun with me to-day. Will you?"

"Yes! Yes! But last night you made me afraid. Was it the dark,--did
you get afraid of the dark? I know what that means."

"Perhaps," he answered gently. "But if so, it was because I was
foolish enough to let it be dark. And you yourself must never do it
again. If things get bad at night you must wait until morning and then
come out here. So, if you remember what I have said, it will get light
again. Will you promise to do that?"

"Yes."

"I 'd like to make this day one that we 'll both remember forever. I
'd like to make it one that we can always turn back to."

"Yes."

"Perhaps after to-day we 'll neither of us be afraid of the dark again."

"I 'm not afraid now."

"Nor I," he smiled.

The voice of Arsdale came to them,

"Oh, Elaine! Oh, Donaldson!"

She led the way into the house with a lighter step and Arsdale met them
with a beaming face which covered a broad grin.

"I suppose you two can do without food," he exclaimed, "but I can't.
Breakfast has been waiting ten minutes."

"It's my fault," apologized Donaldson.

"You can't see stars in the morning, can you?" chuckled Arsdale.

"Maybe," answered Donaldson.

Elaine checked the boy's further comments with a frightened pressure as
she took his arm and passed into the white and green breakfast room.

There stood the table by the big warm window again, and as she took her
place it seemed as though they were stepping into the same picture
framed by the hedge. She caught Donaldson's eye with a little smile
and saw that he understood.

Arsdale broke in with renewed enthusiasm for his philanthropic project
and outlined his ambitions to Elaine.

"You see," he concluded, "some day, little sister, you may see the law
sign 'Donaldson & Arsdale, Counsellors at Law.' Not a bad sounding
firm name, eh?"

"I think it is great--just great, Ben!" she exclaimed enthusiastically.
"It's almost worth being a man to make your life count for something
like that."

"I want you to make out a list of books for me to get and I 'll go
down-town this afternoon. I suppose you 've a pretty good law library
yourself?"

"I had the beginning of one. I sold it."

"What did you do that for?"

"My practice was n't big enough to support it. But you--you 'll not be
bothered with lack of clients."

With school-boy eagerness Arsdale was anxious to plunge into the scheme
at once.

"And say," he ran on, "I 'm going to look up some offices. I 'll stake
the firm to some good imposing rooms in one of the big law buildings.
Nothing like looking prosperous at the start. Guess I 'll drop
down-town right after breakfast and see what can be had."

Donaldson didn't have the heart to check him. Later on he would write
him a letter sustaining him in his project and recommending him to a
classmate of his, to whom this partnership would be a godsend, as, a
week ago, it would have been to himself. That was the best he could
think of at the moment and so he let him rattle on.

As soon as they had finished breakfast Arsdale was off.

"I 'll leave you two to hunt out new stars as long as that occupation
does n't seem to bore you. I 'll be back for dinner."

Miss Arsdale looked a bit worried and questioned Donaldson with her
eyes.

"He 'll be all right," the latter assured her. "Good Lord, a man with
an idea like that is safe anywhere. It's the best thing in the world
for him."

A little later Donaldson went up-stairs to his room. He took out his
wallet and counted his money. He had over four hundred dollars. At
noon forty-eight hours would be remaining to him. He still had the
ample means of a millionaire for his few needs.

He was as cool as a man computing what he could spend on a summer
vacation. He was not affected in the slightest by the details of death
or by the mere act of dying itself. He was of the stuff which in a
righteous cause leads a man to face a rifle with a smile. He would
have made a good soldier. The end meant nothing horrible in itself.
It meant only the relinquishing of this bright sky and that still
choicer gift below.

He rose abruptly and came down-stairs again to the girl, impatient at
being away from her a minute. She was waiting for him.

"This," he said, "is to be our holiday. I think we had better go into
the country. I should like to go back to Cranton. Is it too far?"

"Not too far," she answered. "But the memories of the bungalow--"

"I had forgotten about that. It does n't count with the green fields,
does it? We can avoid the house, but I should like to visit the
orchard and ride behind the old white horse again."

"I am willing," she replied.

"Then you will have to get ready quickly."

They had just time to catch the train and before they knew it they were
there.

The old white horse was at the little land-office station to meet them
for all the world as though he had been expecting them, and so, for
that matter, were the winding white road, the stile by the lane, and
the orchard itself. It was as though they had been waiting for them
ever since their last visit and were out ready to greet them.

The driver nodded to them as if they were old friends.

"Guess ye did n't find no spooks there after all," he remarked.

"Not a spook. Any more been seen there since?"

"H'ain't heern of none. Maybe ye took off the cuss."

"I hope so."

They dismissed the driver at the lane and then went back a little way
so as to avoid the bungalow. Donaldson was in the best of spirits, for
at the end of the first hour he had solaced himself with the belief
that Arsdale had been mistaken in his statement. She was nothing but a
glad hearted companion in look and speech. They sat down a moment in
the orchard and he was very tender of her, very careful into what trend
he let their thoughts run. But soon he moved on again. He needed to
be active. It was the walk back through the fields to which he had
looked forward.

They brushed through the ankle-deep grass, pausing here and there to
admire a clump of trees, a striking sky line, or a pretty slope.

To Donaldson it did not seem possible that this could ever end, that
any act of nature could blot this from his mind as though it had never
been. It was unthinkable that through an eternity he should never know
again the meaning of blue sky, of blossoms, of such profligate pictures
as now met his eye at every step, but above all, that he should be
blind to the girl herself and all for which she stood. No matter how
long the journey he was about to take, no matter through what new
spheres, these things must remain if anything at all of him remained.
So his one thought was to fill himself as full of this day as possible,
to crowd into his flagging brain the many pictures of her and this
setting which so harmonized with her. The deeper joys of love he might
not know, save as his silent heart conjured them, but all that he could
see with his eyes should be his. He would fill his soul so full of
light that the unknown trail would be less dark to him. He would carry
with him for torches the sun and her bright eyes.

"Let's go back as the crow flies," he suggested. "'Cross country--over
hill and dale. We must n't turn out for anything," he explained, "we
must go crashing through things--trampling them down."

"My," she cried, mocking his fierceness--little realizing the emotion
to which they gave vent, "my, things had better look out!"

He paused, caught his breath, and turned to her, an almost terrified
smile about his tense mouth.

"Oh, little comrade, you 'd best let me be serious."

"No, no. Not to-day. Let us be as glad as we can,--let us celebrate."

"Celebrate what?" he demanded, lest she might think that he had
confessed his thoughts to her.

"Spring," she answered, with a laugh that came from deep within her big
happy heart. "Just spring."

"Then we must n't trample down anything?" he queried.

"Nothing that we can help. But we can take the straight course just
the same. We 'll turn aside for the flowers and little trees."

"And nothing else."

"Nothing else," she agreed.

He led the way, his shoulders drooping a trifle and his step not so
light as her step. She could have trodden upon violets without harm to
them. Still, he marched with a sturdiness that was commendable
considering the load he carried. They made their way down through the
orchard and over the sun-flecked grass until they encountered their
first obstacle. It was a stone wall made out of gray field rocks. He
gave her his hand. The fingers clung to his like a child's fingers.
Their warm, soft caress went to his head like wine so that for a
moment, as she stood near him, it was a question whether or not he
could resist drawing her into his arms which throbbed for her. He
spoke nothing; she spoke nothing. There was no boldness in her, nor
any struggle either. With her head thrown back a little, she waited.
So for ten seconds they stood, neither moving. Then he motioned and
she jumped lightly to the ground. He led the way and they took up
their march again, though once behind him she found it difficult to
catch her breath again.

They moved on down the green hill, across a field, ankle deep in new
grass, into the heavier green of the low lands. So they came to a
meadow brook running shallow over a pebbly bottom but some five yards
wide. There were no stepping stones, but a hundred rods to the right a
small foot bridge crossed.

Again she waited to see what he would do, while he waited to see what
he would dare. With his heart aching in his throat he challenged
himself. It was asking superhuman strength of him to venture his lips
so near the velvet sheen of her cheeks--he who so soon was going out
with a hungry heart. Her arms would be about his neck--that would be
something to remember at the end--her arms about his neck. He knew
that she expected him in even so slight a thing as this to keep true to
his undertaking and march straight ahead. She realized nothing of the
struggle which checked him. Tragic triviality--the problem of how to
cross a brook with a maid! There was but one way even when it involved
the mauling of a man's heart.

He held out his arms to her and she came to them quite as simply as she
had taken his proffered hand at the wall. He placed one arm about her
waist and another about her skirts. She clasped her fingers behind his
neck and sat up with as little embarrassment as though riding upon a
ferry.

He lifted her and the act to him was as though he had condensed a
thousand kisses into one. He walked slowly. This was a brief span
into which to crowd a lifetime of love. In the middle of the brook he
stopped--just a second, to mark the beginning of the end--and then went
on again. When he set her down he was breathing heavily. She had
become a bit self-conscious. Her cheeks were aflame.

Her low black shoes with their big silk bows tied pertly below her trim
ankles were a goodly sight to see against the green grass as he might
have observed had he looked at them at all. But he did n't. He wiped
his moist forehead as though, instead of a dainty armful, she had been
a burden.

She shook the wrinkles from her skirt and looked up at him laughing.
Then she frowned.

"Mr. Donaldson," she scolded, "you walked across there with your shoes
and stockings on."

"Why, that's so," he exclaimed, looking down at his water-logged shoes
as though in as great surprise as she herself.

"What are you going to do about it?"

"I don't know," he answered helplessly.

"You ought to spread them out in the sun to dry."

"You can't spread out shoes, can you? Besides we have n't time. We
must hurry right on. Right on, this minute," he added as the motherly
concern in her face set his throat to aching again.

With the stride of a pioneer he led off, praying that they might not
find in their path another brook. For a stretch of a mile, he pressed
on without once looking around, taking a faster pace than he realized.
The course was a fairly smooth one over an acre or so of pasture,
through a strip of oak woods, and up a stiff slope. It was not until
he reached the top of this that he paused. He looked around and saw
her about halfway up the hill, climbing heavily, her eyes upon the
ground. Even as he watched her, he saw her sway, catch herself, and
push on again without even looking up. It was the act of a woman
almost exhausted. He reached her side in a couple of strides. He
tried to take her arm but she broke free of him and in a final spurt
reached the top of the hill and threw herself upon the ground to catch
her breath.

"I did n't realize how fast I was going," he apologized kneeling by her
side. "That was unpardonable, but why did n't you call to me?"

She removed her hat. Then she leaned back upon her hands until she
could speak evenly. A light breeze loosened a brown curl and played
with it.

"Why did n't you call to me?"

"Because I wished to keep pace with you." He turned away from her.

"When you are rested we will start again," he said.

"Are you ready?" she asked.

He nodded.

"Then I am ready."

"You will take my arm?"

"No," she answered.

"Then you must keep by my side where I can watch you."

They took the remaining distance in more leisurely fashion, now
realizing that they were nearing the outskirts of this fairy kingdom.
With this thought he relaxed a little and instantly the sun and
burgeoning nature claimed him, making light of every problem save the
supreme one of bringing together a man and his mate.

They crossed a field or two and so came again into the road which they
had left three miles back. Walking a short distance along this, they
found themselves on a sharp hill overlooking the station a few hundred
yards below. With the same impulse they turned back far enough to be
out of sight of this. Twenty minutes still remained to them. They sat
down by the side of the road where they had rested before. A light
breeze pushing through the top of a big pine made a sound as of running
water in the distance.

With her chin in one hand, elbow on knee, she studied him a moment as
though endowed with sudden inspiration. A quick frown which had
shadowed his face at sight of the railroad had driven home a suspicion
which she had long held. Now she dared to voice it.

"Have things been mixed up for you--back there?"

The question startled him. He gave her a swift look as though to
divine the reason for it. It was so direct that it was hard to evade.
And he would not lie directly to her. So he replied bluntly,

"Yes."

She waited. He saw her expectant eyes, but he went no further. Part
of the price he paid for being here was renunciation of the balm he
might have in the sharing of his trouble with her. He knew that she
would take his silence for a rebuff, but he could not help that. He
said nothing more, the silence eating into him.

But something stronger than her pride drove her on.

"Mr. Donaldson," she said, "you have given a great deal of time to me
and mine--if there is anything I may do in return, you will give me the
privilege?"

"There is nothing," he answered.

He saw the puzzled hurt in her eyes.

"I know all that you with your big heart would do for me," he declared
earnestly, "but honestly there is nothing possible. My worry will cure
itself. I can see the end of it even now."

"Will the end of it come within a month?"

"Within a week."

"Perhaps," she said, "I could hasten the end to a day."

"No," he smiled, "I 'd rather you would n't. I 'd rather you would
prolong it if you could."

"Is that a riddle?"

"To you."

"Then I can't answer it for I never guessed one in my life."

So with his knuckles kneading the grass by his side, he made light of
it until she turned away from the subject to admire the blue seen
through the pine needles above their heads.

Soon he heard the distant low whistle of the engine which was coming
for them like a sheriff with a warrant.

He was not conscious of very much more until they were back again in
the house and he heard Arsdale's voice,

"I 've rented the offices, old man! Swellest in the city. To-morrow
you must come down and see them!"

CHAPTER XXII

_Clouds_

Arsdale was somewhere about the house and Elaine had gone up-stairs
when Donaldson, who had come out-doors to smoke, saw a man with broad
shoulders and a round unshaven face step from a cab, push through the
hedge gate, and come quickly up the path. He watched him with
indifferent interest, until in the dusk he recognized the stubborn
mouth which gripped a cigar as a bull-dog hangs to a rag. Then he
hurried forward with hand extended.

"Good Lord, Saul," he exclaimed, "where did you drop from?"

"Hello, Don. I rather hoped that I might run across you here."

"I 'm ashamed of myself," answered Donaldson guiltily. "I did n't
notify you that we had found him. But the last I heard of you, you
were out of town."

"Oh, that's all right. Tung gave me the whole story."

"The rat! He made a lot of trouble for us."

"And for me, too."

"Still working on the Riverside robberies?"

Saul glanced up quickly. Then looking steadily into Donaldson's eyes
as though the reply had some significance he answered,

"Yes."

"I wish you luck. And say, old man, I 've worried since for fear lest
you lost a good opportunity for a hot scent the time I kept you out."

"I did. But I picked it up again by chance."

"You did? Have you caught the man?"

"No," answered Saul abstractedly. "Not yet."

He chewed the stub of his cigar a moment, glancing frequently at the
house.

"Say," he asked abruptly, "come down the road here a piece with me,
will you?"

Saul led him to the street and far enough away from the cab so that
their conversation could not be overheard, yet near enough to the
electric light for him to see Donaldson's face clearly.

"I want you to tell me something about young Arsdale," he began. "Is
he in the house there now?"

"Yes. And happy as a clam at high water."

"Has he talked any since he came back?"

"Talked? He's clear-headed enough, if that is what you mean?"

"Has he appeared at all worried--as though he had something on his
mind?"

"Not in the slightest He's taken such a new grip on himself that the
last few days are almost blotted out. You 'd never know him for the
same boy, Saul. He's quit the dope for good."

"So? Remorse!"

"Not the kind of remorse you mean, Beefy. This is the real thing."

Saul thought a moment. Then he asked,

"You told me, did n't you, that he had no money with him that night?"

"Not more than a dollar or so."

"He spent a lot at Tung's."

"The heathen probably robbed him of it!"

"Yes, but where did Arsdale get it?"

Donaldson started. There was something ominous in the question. But
he could n't recount to Saul that disgraceful attack the boy had made
upon his sister when returning for funds. It wouldn't be fair to the
present Arsdale.

"I don't know," he answered. "What have you up your sleeve, Beefy?"

"Something bad," replied Saul bluntly. He lowered his voice: "It is
beginning to look as though your young friend might know something
about the robberies that have been taking place around here."

"What!"

If an earthquake had suddenly shattered the stone house behind the
hedge, it would have left him no more dazed.

"I won't say that we 've got him nailed," Saul hastened to explain,
"but it begins to look bad for him."

"But, man dear," gasped Donaldson, "he is n't a thug! He isn't--"

"If he 's like the others he 's anything when he wants his smoke. I
've seen more of them than you."

"Saul," he said, "you 're dead wrong about this! You 've made a
horrible mistake!"

"Perhaps. But he 'll have to explain some things."

Donaldson took a grip on himself.

"What's the nature of your evidence?"

"There 's the question of where he got his funds, first; then the fact
that all the attacks took place within a small radius of this house;
then the motive, and finally the fact, that in a general way he answers
to the description given by four witnesses. He 'll have to take the
third degree on that, anyway."

The third degree would undoubtedly kill the boy, or, worse, break his
spirit and drive him either to a mad-house or the solace of his drug.
It was a cruel thing to confront him with this at such a point in his
life. It was fiendish, devilish. It was possible that they might even
make the boy believe that in his blind madness he actually did commit
these crimes. Then, as in a lurid moving picture, Donaldson recalled
the uneasiness of the girl; the morning papers with their glaring
headlines of the Riverside robberies, which he had found that morning
scattered about the floor; her fear of the police, and the mystery of
the untold story at which she had hinted. Take these, and the fact
that in his madness Arsdale had actually made an attack upon the girl
and upon himself, similar to those outside the house, and the chain was
a strong one. The pity of it--coming now!

Yes, it was in this that the cruel injustice lay. Even admitting the
boy to be guilty, it was still an injustice. The man who had done
those things was outside the pale of the law; he was no more. Arsdale
himself, Arsdale the clean-minded young man with a useful life before
him, Arsdale with his new soul, had no more to do with those black
deeds than he himself had. Yet that lumbering Juggernaut, the Law,
could not take this into account. The Law did not deal with souls, but
bodies.

To this day--what a hideous climax!

Saul detected the fear in Donaldson's eyes,

"You know something about this, Don!" he asked eagerly.

He was no longer a friend; he was scarcely a man; he was a hound who
has picked up his trail. His eyes had narrowed; his round face seemed
to grow almost pointed. He chewed his cigar end viciously. He was
alert in every nerve.

"You'd better loosen up," he warned, "it's all right to protect a
friend, but it can't be done in a case of this sort. You as a lawyer
ought to know that. It can't be done."

"Yes, I know, I know. But I want to tell you again that you 're dead
wrong about this. You haven't guessed right, Beefy."

"That's for others to decide," he returned somewhat sharply. "It 's up
to you to tell what you know."

"It's hard to do it--it's hard to do it to you."

Donaldson's face had suddenly grown blank--impassive. The mouth had
hardened and his whole body stiffened almost as it does after death.
When he spoke it was without emotion and in the voice of one who has
repeated a phrase until it no longer has meaning.

"I realize how you feel," Saul encouraged him, "but there's no way out
of it."

"No, there's no way out of it. So I give myself up!"

"But it is n't you I want,--it's Arsdale."

"No, I guess it's I. See how your descriptions fit me."

Saul pressed closer.

"What the devil do you mean?" he demanded.

"Just this," answered Donaldson dully, "I can't see an innocent man go
to jail."

To his mind Arsdale was as innocent to-day as though not a shadow of
suspicion rested upon him.

"Are you mad?"

"Not yet," answered Donaldson.

Saul waited a moment. In all his professional career he had never
received a greater surprise than this. He would not have believed
enough of it to react had it not been for Donaldson's expression. Back
of the impassiveness he read guilt, read it in the restless shifting of
the eyes and in the voice dead to hope. Then he said deliberately,

"I don't believe you, Don."

"No? Yet you 've got as much evidence against me as against Arsdale."

"But, God A'mighty, Donaldson, why should you do such a thing?"

"Why should the boy?"

Saul seized his arm.

"You don't tell me that you've fallen into that habit?"

"Sit in a law-office and do nothing for three years, then--then,
perhaps, you 'll understand."

Saul threw away his cigar. He studied again the thin face, the
haggardness that comes of opium, the nervous fingers, the vacant shifty
gaze of those on the sharp edge of sanity. Then he lighted a fresh
cigar and declared quietly,

"I don't believe you!"

"You 'll have to for the sake of those in the house. They 've been
good to me in there."

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