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Side of the Angels

<h2>CHAPTER XXXII</h2> Twenty-four hours after Claude turned to take the way of humiliation down the hill, undeceived by Jim Breen's friendly tone and the hope of future possibilities held out to him, Thor Masterman found himself almost within sight of home. On arriving in the city late in the afternoon he went to a hotel, where he took a room and dined. When he had devised the means of letting Lois know that he was camping outside her gates she might be sufficiently touched to throw them open. She might never love him again; she might never have really loved him at all; but he would content himself with a benevolent toleration. Like her, he was afraid of love. The word meant too much or too little, he was not sure which. It was too explosive. Its dynamic force was at too high a pressure for the calm routine of married life. If Lois could find a substitute for love, he was willing to accept it, giving her his own substitute in return. All he asked was the privilege of seeing her, of being with her, of proving his devotion, of having her once more to share his life. It was not to force this issue, but to play lovingly with the hope in it, that when dusk had deepened into evening he took the open electric car that would carry him to the village. He had no intention beyond that of enjoying the cool night air and loitering for a few minutes in sight of the house that sheltered her. She might be on the balcony outside her room, or beneath the portico of the garden door, so that he should catch the flutter of her dress. That would be enough for him—to-night. He might make it enough for the next night and the next. After absence and distance, it seemed much. County Street was as he had known it on every warm summer night since he was a boy, and yet conveyed that impression which every summer night conveys, of being the first and only one of its kind. The sky was majestically high and clear and spangled, with the Scorpion and the red light of Antares well above the city's amber glow. Along the streets and lanes dim trees rustled faintly, casting gigantic trembling shadows in the circles of the electric lights. The breeze being from the east and south, the tang of sea-salt mingled with the strong, dry scent of new-mown hay and the blended perfumes of a countryside of gardens. All doors were open as he passed along, and so were all windows. On all verandas and porches and steps faint figures could be discerned, low-voiced for the most part, but sending out an occasional laugh or snatch of song. Thor knew who the people were; many of them were friends; to some of them he was related; there were few with whom he hadn't ties antedating birth. It was soothing to him, as he slipped along in the heavy shadow of the elms, to know that they were near. <hr style='width: 45%;' /> On approaching his father's house, which he expected to find dark, he was astonished to see a light. It was a light like a blurred star, on one of the upper floors. From what window it shone he found it difficult to say, the mass of the house being lost in the general obscurity. The strange thing was that it should be there. He passed slowly within the gate and along the few yards of the driveway, pausing from time to time in order to place the quiet beacon in this room or in that, according to the angle from which it seemed to burn. He was not alarmed; he was only curious. It was no furtive light. Though the curtains were closed, it displayed itself boldly in the eyes of the neighbors and of the two or three ornamental constables who made their infrequent rounds in County Street. He could only attribute it to old Maggs, who lived in the coachman's cottage at the far end of the property, though as to what old Maggs could be doing in the house at this hour in the evening, at a time when the parents were abroad and Claude away on a holiday, he was obliged to be frankly inquisitive. An investigating spirit was further aroused by the fact that in one of his pauses, as he alternately advanced and halted, he was sure he heard a footstep. If it was not a footstep, it was a stirring in the shrubbery, as if something had either moved away or settled into hiding. He was still unalarmed. Night-crimes were rare in the village, and relatively harmless even when they were committed. The sound he had heard might have been made by some roving dog, or by a cat or a startled bird. Had it not been for the light he would scarcely have noticed it. Taken in conjunction with the light, it suggested some one who had been watching and had slunk away; but even that thought was slightly melodramatic in so well-ordered a community. He went on till he was at the foot of the steps, at a point where he could no longer descry the glow in the upper window, but could perceive through the fanlight over the inner door that, though the lower hall was dark, the electrics were burning somewhere in the interior of the house. He verified this on mounting the steps and peering into the vestibule through the strip of window at the sides of the outer door. Turning the knob tentatively, he was surprised to find it yield. On entering, he stood in the porch and listened, but no sound reached him from within. Taking his bunch of keys from his pocket, he detached his latch-key softly, and as softly inserted it in the lock. The door opened noiselessly, showing a light down the stairway from the hall above. He could now hear some one moving, probably on the topmost floor, with an opening and shutting of doors that might have been those of closets, followed by a swishing sound like that of the folding or packing of clothes. He entered and closed the door with a distinctly audible bang. Listening again, he found that the sounds ceased suspiciously. Whoever was there was listening, too. It was easy, by the light streaming from above, to find the button and turn on the electricity in the lower hall, whereupon the movement up-stairs began again. Some one came out of a room and peered downward. He himself went to the foot of the stairs, looking up. When the watcher on the third floor spoke at last it was in a voice he didn't instantly recognize. He would have taken it for Claude's, only that it was so frightened and shrill. "Who's there?" "Who are you?" Thor demanded, in tones that rolled and echoed through the house. There was a long, hesitating silence. Straining his eyes upward, Thor could dimly make out a white face leaning over the highest banister. When the question came at last it was as if reluctantly and shrinkingly. "Is that you, Thor?" Thor retreated from the stairs, backing away to the library, of which the door was the nearest open one. He distinctly recorded the words that passed through his mind. He might have uttered them audibly, so indelible was the impression with which they cut themselves in. "By God! I've got him." Out of the confused suffering of two months earlier he heard himself saying: "I swear to God that if I ever see Claude again I'll kill him." He hadn't meant on that occasion deliberately to register a great oath; the oath had registered itself. It was there in the archives of his mind, signed and sealed and waiting for the moment of putting it into execution. He had hardly thought of it since then; and now it urged itself for fulfilment like a vow. It was a vow to cover not merely one offense, but many—all the long years of nameless, unrecorded irritations, ignored but never allayed, culminating in the act by which this man had robbed him; robbed him uselessly, robbed him not to enjoy the spoil, but to fling it away. It was a moment of seeing red similar to many others in his life. For the instant he could more easily have killed Claude than refrained from doing it. That he should so refrain was a matter of course. Naturally! He still kept a hold on common sense. He would not only refrain, but be civil. If Claude were in need of anything or were short of cash he would probably write him a check. It was the irony of this kind of rage that it was so impotent. It was impotent and absurd. It might shake him to the foundations of his being, but it would come to nothing in the end. It both relieved and embittered him to foresee this result. From the threshold of the library he called up to Claude, "Come down!" The tone was imperious; it was even threatening. That degree of menace at least he was unable to suppress. Claude's steps could be heard on the stairs. They were slow and clanking because the carpets were up and the house full of echoes. To Thor's fevered imagination it seemed as if Claude dragged his feet like a man wearing chains, going haltingly and clumsily before some ominous tribunal. The sensation—it was more that than anything else—caused the elder brother to withdraw into the depths of the library, where he turned on a light. The room, with its bare floors, its shrouded furniture, its screened book cases, its blank pictures swaddled in linen bags, its long, gaunt shadows, and its deadened air, suggested itself horribly and ridiculously as a fitting scene for a crime. He might kill Claude with a blow, and if he turned out the lights and shut the door and stole back to his hotel no one would ever suspect him as the murderer. The idea would have been no more than grotesque had it not acquired a certain terror from the mingling of affection and anger and pity in his heart at the sound of Claude's shrinking, clanking advance. In proportion as Claude seemed to be afraid of him, he was the more aware that he was a man to be afraid of. The consciousness caused him to get deeper into the dimly lighted room, taking his stand at the remotest possible spot, with his back to the empty fireplace. But when Claude appeared coatless in the doorway, his head was thrown up defiantly in apparent effort to treat Thor's entrance as unwarranted. "What the devil are you doing here?" Because of the semi-obscurity his face was white with a whiteness that quickened Thor's sympathy into self-reproach. "What are you doing here?" "That's my business." In making this reply Claude seemed to take it for granted that they met on terms of hostility, though he added, less aggressively: "If you want to know, I'm packing up. Taking the train for New York at one o'clock to-night." Thor endeavored to speak with casual fraternal interest. "What brought you back?" Claude took time to light a cigarette, saying, as he blew out the match, "You." "Me? I thought it might be—might be some one else." "Then you thought wrong." He walked to a metal ash-tray which helped to keep the covering that protected one of the low bookcases in its place, and deposited the burnt match. He threw off with seeming carelessness as he did so, "I know only one traitor, to make me keep returning on my tracks." Because the impulse to violence was so terrific, Thor braced himself against it, standing with his feet planted apart and his hands clenched behind him till the nails dug into the flesh. He could not, however, restrain a scornful little grunt which was meant for laughter. "You talk of traitors! I'd keep quiet about them, Claude, if I were you. You make it too easy for an opponent." "Oh, well," Claude returned, airily, "I'm used to doing that. I made it infernally easy for an opponent—last winter. But, then, sneaking's always easy to a snake, till you get your heel on him." "And snarling's easy to a puppy, till you've throttled him." "And bluster's easy to a fool, till you let him see you hold him in contempt." "As to holding in contempt, two can play at that game, Claude; and you might find the competition dangerous." Claude came nearer, the lighted cigarette between his fingers. "Not on your life! That's one thing in which I'm not afraid to bet on myself." He came nearer still, planting himself within a few paces of his brother. His smile, his mirthless, dead-man's smile, held Thor's eyes as it had held Lois's a day or two before. He made an effort to speak jauntily. "Why, Thor, a volcano can't belch fire as fast as I can spit contempt on you. There! Take that!" With a rapid twist of the hand he threw the lighted cigarette into Thor's face, where it struck with a little smarting burn below the eye. Thor held himself in check by clenching his fists more tightly and standing with bowed head. It was a minute or more before he was sufficiently master of himself to loosen the grip with which his fingers dug into one another, and put up his hand to brush the spot of ash from his cheek. Being in so great fear of his passions, he felt the necessity for speaking peaceably. "What did you do that for, Claude? It's beastly silly." "Oh no, it isn't—not the way I mean it." "But why should you mean it that way? What have I ever done to you?" "Good Lord! what haven't you done? You've—you've ruined me." The charge was so unexpected that Thor looked more amazed than indignant. "Ruined you?" "Yes, ruined me. What else did you set out to do when you began your confounded interference?" "I didn't mean to interfere—" Claude might have posed for some symbolical figure of accusation as, with hands in his trousers pockets and classic profile turned in a three-quarter light, he flung his words and directed his glances obliquely and disdainfully at the brother who glowered with bent head. "When you don't mean to go into a thing you keep out. That was your place—out. Do you get that?—out. But you're never satisfied till you've made as vile a mess of every one else's affairs as you've made of your own." Feeling some justice in the charge, Thor began to excuse himself. "If I've made a mess of my own, Claude, it's because—" "Because you can't help it. Oh, I know that. No one can be anything but a damn fool if he's born one. All the more reason, then, why you should keep away from where you're not wanted." By a great effort Thor managed to speak meekly. "How could I keep away when—?" "When you're a rubber-neck bred in the bone. No, I suppose you couldn't. But you hate a spy and a liar even when he can't be anything else; and the worst of it is—" "Oh, is there anything worse than that?" "There's this that's worse, that your spying and your lying weren't bad enough till you got me into a fix where I have to look like a cad, when"—the protest in his soul against the rôle he was compelled to play expressed itself in a little gasp—"when I'm—when I'm not one." The elder brother found himself unable to resist the opportunity. "If you look like a cad, I suppose it's because you've acted like a cad. It's the usual reason." "Oh, there's cad and cad. There's a fellow who gets snarled up in the barbed wire because he runs into it, and there's another who deliberately lays the trap for him. The one can afford to crawl away with a grin on his face, while the other lies scratched and bleeding." It seemed to Thor that there was an opening here for a timorous attempt to cry quits. "If it comes to the question of suffering, Claude, it isn't all on one side. You may be scratched and bleeding, as you say, and yet you can get over it; whereas I'm lamed for life." "Ah, don't come the hypocrite! If you're lamed for life, as I hope to God you are, it's because you've got a bullet in the leg—which is what any one hands out to a poacher." The relatively gentle tone was again the effect of a surprise stimulated to curiosity. "When was I ever a poacher?" "You were a poacher when you went making love to a woman who belonged to another man, while you belonged to another woman." "Very well," Thor said, quietly, after a minute's thinking. "I accept the explanation. But I never did it." "Then you did something so infernally like it that to deny it is mere quibbling with words." "All the same, I insist on making the denial." Claude shrugged his shoulders. "I'm not surprised at that. It's exactly what your type of cur would do. Unfortunately for you, I've the proof." "The proof of what?" "Of your torturing a poor girl into saying she was willing to marry you—and then throwing the words in her teeth." It was from the flame in Thor's eyes that Claude leaped back a half-pace, though he steadied himself against a small table covered up from the accumulation of summer's dust by a piece of common calico. Giving himself time enough to have deliberately counted twenty, Thor subdued the impulse of the muscles as well as that of speech. "Who told you that?" he asked, at last, in the tone he might have used of some matter of no importance. "Who do you think?" "There's only one person who could have told you—" "Oh, you admit as much as that, do you? There is a person who could have told me?" "Yes, I admit as much as that—but you must have misunderstood her." Thor's dignity and self-restraint were not without an effect that might eventually have made for peace had not the brother's conscience been screaming for a scapegoat on which to lay a portion of his sins. For him alone the entire weight had become intolerable. Thor had been known to accept such vicarious burdens before now. In the hope that he would do so again, Claude answered, tauntingly: "I didn't misunderstand her when she said you were making me a cat's-paw to do what you wouldn't do yourself. What kind of stuff are you made of, Thor? You go flaunting your money before a poor little girl who you know can't resist it, and then, when you get her willing to do God knows what, you push her off on me and want to pay me for the job of relieving you of your dirty work. After you've dragged her in the dust she's still considered good enough for me—" "Stop!" The roar of the monosyllable echoed through the empty house, while Thor strode forward, the devil in him loose. With the skill of a toreador in throwing his cloak into the eyes of an infuriated bull, Claude snatched the calico strip from the table beside which he stood and flung it in Thor's face. The result was to check the latter in his advance, giving Claude time to dart nimbly to the other side of the room. As Thor stared about him, dazed by his rage, he bore out still further the resemblance to a maddened animal in the bull-ring. Fear struggled in Claude's heart with the lust for retaliation. Like Thor himself, he knew the minute to be one in which he could work off a thousand unpaid scores that had been heaping themselves up since childhood. For the time being it seemed as if he could not only make the scapegoat bear his sins, but stab him to the heart while he did it. "Stop?" he laughed, shrilly. "Like hell, I'll stop. Did you stop when you went sneaking after Rosie Fay till you got her in a state where she wanted to kill herself?" The red glare in Thor's eyes was an incentive to going on. "Did you stop when you tried to father your beastly actions off on me, and juggle me into marrying the girl you'd had enough of? Did you stop when you fooled Lois Willoughby into thinking you a saint, and breaking her heart when she found you out? Look at her now—" With a smothered oath Thor charged as a wounded rhinoceros might charge—in a lunge that would have borne his brother down by sheer force of weight had not Claude eluded him lightly. Once more Thor shook himself, stupefied by his passion, blinded by the blood in his eyes. He needed an instant to place his victim, who, with white face and wild, terrified glances, had found temporary shelter behind the barricade of the heavy library table. But before renewing his rush Thor marched to the door that led to the hall, the only door to the room, locking it and pocketing the key. The muttered, "By God, I'll have you now!" reached Claude's ears, bringing to his lips a protest which had not burst into words before the huge figure charged again. Behind his fortification Claude was alert, dancing now this way and now that, as Thor brought his strength to bear on the table to wrench it aside. But by the time that was done Claude was already elsewhere, overturning tables and chairs in his flight. Behind a sofa Claude intrenched himself again, a small chair raised above his head as a weapon of defense. Thor sprang on the sofa, only to receive the weight of the chair in his chest, staggering him backward while Claude bounded off to another refuge. Both were cursing inarticulately; both were panting in broken grunts and sobs; from both the perspiration in that airless room and in the heat of the July night was streaming as rain. The pursuit was like that of a leopard by a lion—the one lithe, agile, and desperate; the other heavy, tremendous, and sure. In darting from point to point Claude found himself near a window, where he fumbled with the fastening in the hope of throwing up the sash, though wooden shutters defended the outside. Driven from this attempt, he made for the locked door, pulling at it vainly on the chance that it would yield. Seeing Thor bearing down on him with redoubled fury, he obeyed the impulse of the moment and switched off the electricity as he crept swiftly along the wall. In the darkness he stumbled to a corner, where his labored breathing could not but betray his hiding-place. While he crouched in the corner, making himself small, he knew Thor was stalking him by the sound. He was stalking him, and yet in the inky blackness of the room accurate hunting down was difficult. It was like a duel between blind men. Thor was moving uncertainly, pausing from second to second to fix the object of his search. In the mad hope of reaching the fireplace and creeping into the chimney, Claude wriggled from his corner along the floor, keeping close to the wainscot. As he did so he touched the legs of a footstool which suggested its use at once. Controlling the thumping of his heart and the pumping of his lungs as best he could, he got noiselessly to his feet. Inch by inch, slinging the footstool by a leg, he moved toward the spot from which Thor's panting breath seemed to proceed. If he could but batter in that long skull he would be acquitted of responsibility on the ground of self-defense. But he was afraid of anything that approached the hand-to-hand. When it seemed to him that he could vaguely make out the swaying of a figure in the darkness, he hurled the missile with all his might—only to hear it crash into one of the covered pictures. Claude was disappointed, and yet in the din of the shattering glass he was able to escape again. He had lost all sense of direction. Even his touch on the furniture didn't help him, since everything was now displaced. Nevertheless, he continued to duck and dodge, to wriggle and creep and elude. Once Thor's clutch was actually upon him, but he managed to tear himself free with nothing worse than a long rent in his shirt-sleeve. Again Thor seized him, but only to tear his collar from the stud. A third time Thor's strong fingers were closing round his throat, and yet after a momentary choking groan he had been able to slip away. Never before had Claude supposed himself so strong. There was a minute when he had felt Thor's hot breath snorting in his face, and still was able to pick up a small, round table on which his mother sometimes placed her tea-tray, sending it hurtling toward his pursuer, checking him again. With a splutter of stifled oaths, Thor grasped the piece of furniture, throwing it violently back. Claude rejoiced as it crashed into a window and loosened the shutters outside. If he only knew which of the windows it was, there might be a chance of his getting out by it. With this possibility before him he took heart again. The sound of the breaking of the window enabling him to fix his whereabouts, he began feeling his way toward the unexpected hope of exit. It became the more urgent to reach it as he guessed by the fumbling of Thor's hands along the wall that the latter was trying to find the electric button so as to turn on the light. He groped, therefore, between the tables and overturned chairs, getting as far from his enemy as possible. If only his heart wouldn't pound as though about to burst from his body! If only his breath wouldn't wheeze itself out with the gurgle of water through a bottle-neck! He couldn't last much longer. He was so nearly spent that if Thor kept up the attack he must wear him out. In the end he must let those powerful hands close round his throat, as he had felt them close a few minutes before, while he strangled without further resistance. He felt oddly convinced that it would be by means of strangling that Thor's quiet, awful tenacity of revenge would wreak itself. <hr style='width: 45%;' /> During these horrible minutes Thor had the same conviction. All the force of his excited nerves had seemed to be centering in his hands. If he could only tear out that tongue which had hardly ever addressed him except with a sneer since it had begun to lisp! Now that the amazing opportunity was at hand, he wondered how he could have put it off so long. That he should do the thing he was bent on might have been written like a fate. It was like something he had always known, like something toward which he had been always working. The tenderness with which he had yearned over Claude ever since the days when they were children seemed never to have had any other end in view. So he stalked his prey while the minutes passed—five minutes—ten minutes—perhaps more, perhaps less—he had lost all count of time. So he stalked him—through the darkness, round and round, over tables and chairs, into corners and out of them. The room was sealed; the house was empty; the grounds were large. They might have been in some subterranean vault. When the right moment came he would find the button by which to turn on the light, and then.... Revulsion came from the fact that he had accidentally put his hand on the button and lit up the spectacle of the room. At sight of it he could have laughed. Nothing but the big library table and one of the heavy arm-chairs stood on its legs. One of the windows had a gash like a grin on its prim countenance, and one of the pictures sagged drunkenly from its hook, a mere bag of gilded wood and glass. Cowering in a corner, Claude was again arming himself with a chair. It was not his weapon, but his whiteness, that stirred Thor to a pity almost hysterical. One of his arms was bare where the shirt-sleeve had been torn from it; one side of his collar sprang loose where it had been wrested from the stud; his lips were parted in terror, his eyes starting from his head. The thing Thor could have done more easily than anything else would have been to fling himself down and weep. As it was, he could only hold out his hands with a kind of shamed, broken-hearted appeal, saving, "Claude, come here." Though his trembling hands dropped the raised chair, Claude shrank more desperately into his corner. When, to reassure him, Thor took a step forward, Claude moved along the wall, with his back to that protection, ready to spring and dodge again. If he understood Thor's advances, he either mistrusted or rejected them. "Don't be afraid," Thor tried to say, encouragingly, but after the attacks of the past few minutes his voice sounded hollow and unconvincing to himself. In proportion as he went nearer Claude sidled away, always keeping his back to the wall, with gasps that were like groans. He spoke but once. "Open that door!" It was all he could articulate, but it implied a test of the brother's sincerity. Thor accepted it, striding to the threshold, turning the key energetically, and flinging the door wide open. The quiet light burning in the quiet hall produced something in the nature of a shock. He stepped into the hall to wipe his brow and curse himself. He could never win his own pardon for the madness of the past quarter of an hour. Neither, probably, could he ever win Claude's, though he must go back and make the attempt. What happened as he turned again into the library he could never clearly explain, for the reason that he never clearly knew. The minute remained in his consciousness as one unrelated to the rest of life, with nothing to lead up to it and nothing to follow after. Even the savagery of their mutual onslaught had been no adequate preparation for what now took place so rapidly that the mind was unable to record it. As he re-entered the room Claude was standing by one of the low bookcases. So much remained in the elder brother's memory as fact. The vision of Claude raising his arm in a quick, vicious movement was a vision and no more, since on Thor's part it was blurred and then effaced in a sharp, sudden pain accompanied by a blinding light. Of his own act, which must have followed so promptly as to be nearly simultaneous, Thor had no recollection at all. By the time he was able to piece ideas together Claude was senseless on the floor, while he was bending over him with blood streaming down his face. For the instant the brother was merged in the physician. To bring Claude back to life after the blow that had stunned and felled him was obviously the first thing to be done. Thor worked at the task madly, tearing open the shirt, chafing the hands and the brow, feeling the pulse, listening at the heart. Whether or not there was a response there he couldn't tell; his own emotion was too overpowering. His fingers on Claude's wrist shook as with a palsy; his ear at Claude's heart was deafened by the pounding of his own. Meanwhile Claude lay limp and still, dead-white, with eyes closed and mouth a little open. Thor had seen many a man in a state of syncope, but never one who looked so much like death. Was he dead? Could he be dead? Had the great oath been fulfilled? He worked frantically. Never till that instant had he known what terror was. Never had he beheld so clearly what was in his own soul. As he worked he seemed to be looking in a mirror from which the passion-ridden fratricide whom he had always recognized dimly within himself was staring out. The physician disappeared again in the brother. "O God! O God!" He could hear himself breathing the words. But of what use were they? As he knelt and chafed and rubbed and listened they came out because he couldn't keep them back. And he was accomplishing nothing! Claude was as still and limp as ever. Not a breath!—not a sign!—not a throb at the pulse!—and the minutes going by! He dropped the poor arm that fell lifeless to the side, and threw back his head with a groan. "O God—if you're anywhere!—give him back to me!" The broken utterance was the first prayer he had ever uttered in his life, but, having said it, he went on with his work again. He went on with new vigor and perhaps a little hope. He fancied he saw a change. It was not much of a change—a little warmth, a little color, but no more than might have been created by a fancy. He ran for water to the nearest tap. In returning to the library his foot struck something on the floor. It was the metal ash-tray which had helped to keep the covering in place on one of the bookcases, and into which Claude had thrown a match. The picture of a few minutes earlier reformed itself—Claude standing just there, with the ash-tray under his hand—the rapid motion of the arm—the paralyzing pain—the dazzling light—and then the blow with which he must have hurled himself on Claude, striking him to the floor. There was no time to coordinate these memories now or to attend to the wound in his own forehead. The explanation came of its own accord as he touched the ash-tray with his foot while dashing back to Claude's side. The change continued. There were positive signs of life. The mouth had closed; there was the faintest possible quiver of the lids. When he threw a little water into Claude's face there was a twitching of the muscles and a slight protesting movement of the hand. "Thank God!" He couldn't note the involuntary expression of his gratitude, which had nevertheless been audible. Claude had need of air. Taking him in his arms, he lifted him like a baby and staggered to his feet. The body hung loosely over his shoulder as he crossed the room and laid it on the sofa. The broken window served its purpose now, for a little air was coming in by it through the spot where the wooden shutter had given way. Thor succeeded in forcing the shutter altogether, letting the light summer breeze play into the marble face. If he only had a little brandy! He summed up hurriedly the possibilities in the house, coming to the conclusion that nothing of the sort would have been left within reach. Even the telephone had been disconnected for the summer. It would be, however, an easy thing to run to his office. It would be easier still to run to his house, which was nearer. Claude was breathing freely now. He could be safely left for the few minutes which was all he needed to be away. With a simple restorative the boy would soon be on his feet again. He pushed the sofa closer to the open window, kneeling once more beside it. Yes, the danger was past. "Thank God! Thank God!" The words were audible again. It was deliverance. It was salvation. There was a positive tinge of color in the cheeks; the eyes opened wearily and closed again. Thor seized the two cold hands in his own and spoke: "It's all right, old chap. Just lie still for a minute, till I go and get you a taste of brandy. Be back like a shot. Don't move. You'll be all right. Fit as a fiddle when you've had something to brace you up." No answer came, but Thor sought for none. The worst was past; the danger was averted. With the two cold hands still pressed in his own, he bent forward and kissed the pale lips with a life-giving kiss such as Elijah gave to the Shunamite woman's son. Under the warmth of the imprint Claude stirred again as if making a response. He ran pantingly like a spent dog—but he ran. He had no idea what time it was. It might have been midnight; it might have been near morning. He was amazed to hear the village clock strike ten. Only ten! and he had lived a lifetime since nine. He rejoiced to see a light in the house. Lois would be up. As he drew near he saw it was the light streaming from her room to the upper balcony outside it. When nearer still he caught the faint glimmer of a white dress. She was sitting there in the cool of the night, as they had so often sat together in the spring. He called out as soon as he thought he could make her hear him. "Lois, come down!" The white figure remained motionless, so that as he ran he called again, "Lois, come down!" He could see her rise and peer outward. Still running, he called the third time: "Lois, come down! I want something!" There was a hurried "Oh, Thor, is it you?" after which the figure disappeared in the light from the open window. She met him at the door as he ran up the steps. There was no greeting between them. He had just breath enough to speak. "It's Claude. He's down there in the house. He's hurt. I want some brandy." He was in the hall by this time, while she followed. His own appearance, now that he was in the light, drew a cry from her. "But, Thor, you're all cut—and bleeding." He was now in the dining-room, fumbling at a drawer of the sideboard. "Never mind that now. It doesn't hurt. I'll attend to it by and by. I must get back to Claude. Is it here?" "No; here." She produced the bottle of cognac from a cupboard, thrusting it into his hands. "Now come. I'm going with you." They stopped for no further explanation. That could wait. Thor was out of the house, tearing down the empty street, while she followed scarcely less swiftly. At that time of night they were almost sure to have the roadway to themselves. She lost sight of him as he turned in at the avenue, but continued to press on. That there had been a struggle between the brothers she could guess, though she let the matter pass without further mental comment. The fact that filled her consciousness was that in some strange way Thor was back—wild-eyed and bleeding. Whatever had happened, he would probably need her now, accepting the substitute for love. Half-way up the avenue she saw that both the inner and outer doors of the house were open and that the electricity from the hall lit up the porch and steps. Thor was still running, but at the foot of the steps he surprised her by coming to a halt instead of leaping up them, two or three at a time. Stopping abruptly, silhouetted in the spot of light, he threw his hands above his head as if he had been shot and were staggering backward. He hadn't been shot, because there was no sound. He hadn't even been wounded, because as she sped toward him she could see him stoop—spring away—return—and stoop again. She was about to call out, "Oh, Thor, what is it?" when, on hearing her footsteps, he bounded to his feet and ran in her direction. "Go back!" he cried, hoarsely. "Go back! Go back, Lois, go back!" But she hurried on. If there was trouble or danger she must be by his side. He wheeled around again to that over which he had been stooping, but with a repetition of the movement of flinging up the hands. After that he seemed to crawl away—to crawl away till he reached the steps, where, pulling himself half-way up, he lay with his face hidden. The thing he had seen was something fatal and final, leaving no more to be done. The thought came to her that if there was no more for him to do, it was probable that her work was just beginning and that she must keep herself calm and strong. She came to him at last and bent over his long, prostrate form. It was racked and heaving. The sobbing was of a kind she had never heard before—the violent, convulsive sobbing of a man. Raising herself, she looked about for the cause of this grief, for a second or two seeing nothing. The respite enabled her to renew her sense of the necessity laid upon her to be helpful. Whatever was there, she must neither flinch nor cry out. She must take up the task where he had been forced to lay it down. It was a bare arm from which the shirt-sleeve had been torn away that caught her attention first—a bare arm with a spatter of blood on it. It lay extended along the grass just beside the driveway. She was obliged to take a step or two toward it before seeing that it was Claude's arm, and that he himself was lying on the sward of the lawn, with a little trickle of blood from his heart. She was not frightened. She was not even appalled. She understood as readily what she ought to do as if the accident had been part of every day's routine. But as her glance went first to the dead brother and then to the living one she knew that her substitute for love had been found. <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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