And thus it is that the threads of our story once more unite. Again the figure of a man is pacing up and down the platform, awaiting the incoming train and, at last it comes thundering in and makes a brief halt, Norman’s eyes rest upon the stalwart, manly figure of the companion of his earlier days, and the clasp of the hand that follows is almost painful. But even in that first quick meeting, when joy lights up the eyes of both, Norman sees the change in his old-time friend; sees the lines that the flight of years alone has not engraven on the handsome face.
“What is it Owen? There is that in your face which tells me all is not well. Have you been sick?”
“Heart-sick—yes! to the extent that life sometimes seems but a burden?”
“Why should a man of almost unlimited wealth, such as you possess, speak in such a strain?”
“Why, indeed! You speak as though wealth could buy happiness.”
“And can it not? Do you not know what untold, what inconceivable misery could be turned to joy with the assistance of wealth?”
“In thousands of cases, yes. In my own instance, no! Wealth cannot heal a breaking heart, cannot buy the happiness which has fled.”
“I believe I possess a panacea for an evil such as yours. The society of sweet women will restore you to life and love.”
“Don’t speak of woman and love to me. I have done with em!” Norman smiled.
“O, I have touched the right cord, have I? But that is a bold assertion which you have just made—that you have done with women forever. Yet I assert that you must—you must and you will be won.”
“Don’t you know that I am a married man?”
For a moment Norman looked him searchingly in the face; then, as if satisfied, replied,
“And what if you are? Are you sure that that fact should prove a barrier to future happiness?”
Owen Hunter in turn now looked Norman searchingly in the face—
“How am I to understand you? That the Norman I once knew, and who I know possessed such high-strung ideas of honor, should express himself thus?”
A slight flush rose to Norman’s brow. Hastily he opened his lips to answer but as quickly checked himself——
“No more, now! This is scarce a proper place to discuss the sort of topics we are drifting into. Without doubt ere we part there will be moments more opportune for thorough discussion. At present I am eager to introduce you into a most charmed and charming circle.”
Owen shook his head.
“I have come to you for quiet, Norman. My heart is sore, and needs rest. I would rather not meet strangers. Besides I have with me a friend whom I wish to introduce to you; also to ask your forbearance for thus imposing on your hospitality as that is what I am about to do. Another storm-tossed soul in need of rest and quiet; one who has drained the bitter-cup of sorrow to its very dregs.” Turning he approached a man who had hitherto stood motionless at some little distance. A man well worth looking at. Tall, well proportioned; dark, heavy beard and clustering hair; with an unspeakable sadness in the deep, gray eyes.
“I claim your hospitality for Milton Nesbit, as well as for myself, and promise that neither shall be too great a burden on your kindness, if you can secure us the welcome of your mother and sisters. I know it is much I ask of you, as our intimacy in the past years can scarcely be called by the name of friendship—but permit me, Mr. Nesbit, this is the friend of my college days, Norman Carlton, of whom I have been telling you.”
Extending his hand and firmly grasping that of the stranger, Norman said:
“Permit me to welcome any friend that Owen Hunter may introduce. You are worthy, or he would not ask it: As for our friendship in the past, if we have not been intimate friends it has not been for lack of mutual attraction but rather that the ties that bound us were not close enough, and it is not too late to make them closer. I always felt the most profound admiration for the sunny tempered youth I knew as Owen Hunter.
“Thank you, for your generous welcome,” replied a grave, musical voice. “I am but as an instrument in the hands of Mr. Hunter. I follow where he leads. Later I hope you will bid me welcome on my own account.”
“Spoken like a man. I feel that already I may speak the words of welcome in your own behalf. But come, dinner will be waiting, and in a well regulated household, as you both understand, to the good housewife that is abomination, and my mother knows what good housekeeping is. But set your mind at rest; she will tender you the welcome I ask for my friends. Formal and precise she may be, but she is also a most gracious hostess. My sisters also you will find pleased to meet you. But they do not belong to the charmed circle to which I insist on introducing you. No protests! I will have my way. You are already announced, and in this instance I mean to be firm. You would scarcely be a man if our many charmers cannot succeed in dispelling the clouds, and a man must be of flinty hardness who could listen to our song-bird, sweet, winsome Cora, without being moved.”
Owen started.
“Cora! did you say?—Cora? But pshaw! why should I excite myself over a name. There are hundreds of Coras in the world. But lead on. We are ready to follow.”
So they piled into the cutter and as they dashed over the snow quite forgot their sorrows, and as events of their college years were gone over they soon felt better acquainted than they had ever felt in the olden days. But Milton Nesbit was quiet, very quiet. He only spoke when spoken to, and Owen now realized that it would be better for him to mingle more with others in order to awaken again in that crushed and bleeding heart an interest in life—to deaden the pain that was ever gnawing at his vitals, and though at first Nesbit refused to join the two friends when evening drew near, preferring to remain at home, and although Owen, too, would have much preferred to remain in the seclusion of his room, he feared to hurt the feelings of his kind host, and therefore sacrificed his own desire to that of Norman’s. As for Milton, Owen believed it absolutely necessary that he should accompany them, and insisted on his doing so.
Unwilling to seem boorish, with a sigh Nesbit prepared to make a martyr of himself. So when Norman’s cutter drew up to the Westcot mansion he brought two guests instead of the one expected, but both were made equally welcome. For some reason Norman had not mentioned the name of his intended guest. No intentional oversight, I ween. He had never heard the name of Cora’s lover and therefore could not have known the link binding these two, so when the name of Owen Hunter was announced, each of the girls started. Owen must have thought, for an instant, that they acted strangely, but quickly recovering themselves they extended a hearty welcome. Soft white hands were clasped in the manly ones; rosy lips were wreathed in sweetest smiles. But as Norman’s eyes went about the room he missed Cora, and he asked Imelda where her sister was.
“I believe she was telling baby Norma a story and when that was finished Meta wanted a song, so when she gets through entertaining the little folks she will no doubt make her appearance,” she said.
Owen again started—upon being presented to Imelda Ellwood, and the two names kept forming themselves into one. “Cora, Ellwood; Cora, Ellwood!” Surely he must be going mad. It was only a coincidence, thought he. To find his own sweet girlie here would be too good to be true. So he devoted himself to Imelda and found himself admiring the intelligent, gravely sweet girl who was so well informed on whatever subject might be broached.
Milton Nesbit had been passed round, so to say, from one fair maid to another, and all were struck with the sad beauty of his manly face, but unable to elicit many words from him, as his thoughts were many miles away with the fair woman he had left behind him. But now it was Alice who was talking to him. That incessant little chatterbox did not give him much time to talk or to think, even if he had been so inclined,—she had so much herself to say. It was said in a way so quaint and sweet, and as she was mistress of the house and a married woman he felt himself more at ease and more free in her society, and ere long she managed to hold his attention, and soon he found himself admiring the dainty color in her cheeks, the pearly teeth gleaming from between rosy lips, the mischief sparkling in the clear blue eye, while her voice sounded like tinkling music. The large room was pretty well filled with ladies and gentlemen, but as she pointed each one out to him it was with a word of praise and love for some peculiar trait, attraction or accomplishment. Not one disparaging word, and as his eyes followed her indications he thought he had never found so much harmony.
While his eyes were roving from one to another they rested on Cora who had but just entered the room. Was it that he had not seen her before, or was it that she possessed some feature more attractive than the others? His eyes followed her every movement as she gracefully found her way to the piano and seating herself thereat began a prelude, and soon the rich, full voice filled the room with its rare music, while the sweet tones slightly trembled as the words dropped from her lips:
Across the sobbing sea of doom
The weary world is slowly drifting.
Eyes wet with tears peer through the gloom,
Yet see no sign of rest or rifting.
Still angels bright from some far height,
Repeat through hoots of weary waking—
“Hope’s starlight shines through darkest night,
To keep the world’s great heart from breaking!”
Listening to the words they all knew there was an undercurrent of meaning attached to the simple strain that a stranger would not be apt to detect. And yet Milton Nesbit understood, as well as if the story had been told him in so many words, that the gifted singer had known sorrow, and slowly his gaze sought Owen Hunter. What was it? Owen had risen from Imelda’s side, evidently unconscious that he was acting strangely, that he was, to say the least, impolite. He had neither eyes nor ears for anything else but the fair singer. As if fascinated the song drew him to her side. He repeated the words:
“Hope’s starlight shines through darkest night”—
whispering them close to the pink shell ear,
“O Cora, my own, is not the night over? May the morning now at last dawn?”
Quick as a flash Cora whirled about on her stool, and with the one glad cry, “Owen!” cast herself into his arms, regardless of the many eyes resting upon them, and was held by him in an embrace so close as if he meant never again to let her go.
As if in that one glad happy cry all her strength had been spent Cora lay back faint and white in her anxious lover’s arms. Had the sudden joy killed her? He strained her close and kissed the white cold lips; then bearing her to a couch he began chafing her hands, helplessly looking about,
“She has fainted; can no one help me restore her?”
Quickly an anxious circle gathered about her, but Paul Arthurs soon reassured them.
“It is nothing—only the reaction. She will be herself in a few moments.”
Taking a small vial from an inside pocket of his coat he forced a few drops between her lips and in a few moments had the satisfaction of seeing her open her eyes.
“Take her away where she can have rest and quiet for half an hour; then she will be quite herself again.”
Winding her arm about her, Imelda was about to conduct her away when Owen laid his hand detainingly upon her arm,
“Will you not permit me?”
There was so much pleading in the manly voice and clear blue eyes that Imelda could not refuse him.
“You will take good care of her?” with a smile.
“Will I?—as of my life! May I, Cora?”
For answer Cora quietly laid her head against his shoulder, smiling into his eyes, and thus he led her from the room.
What if instead of the half hour they remained two long hours? and what if they thought it such a very little while and that they had not had a chance to say anything at all? Who would blame them? Doubtless it was true that they had said very little. Their hearts were too full to speak: too full of unutterable love and happiness, and certainly none in that room thought of blaming them. And when they returned Imelda and Norman were the first to greet them. Cora’s arms wound themselves about her sister’s neck while the men clasped hands with an undercurrent of feeling such as they had not felt before,
“So this is your charmed circle?” asked Owen Hunter in a husky voice, and smilingly Norman made answer:
“Don’t you find it so?”
There was a suspicious moisture in Owen’s eyes and his voice visibly trembled when he again asked,
“And no censure meets us here?”
“Why should there be?”
But the man of the world could not understand. His friend knew that he had left a wife, that his love for this girl was an illicit one; yet here he stood clasping his hand in a manner that seemed to indicate to the fortune-tossed Owen that Norman was proud to do so. So he drew him aside and asked the meaning of it all.
Nothing loath, Norman devoted himself for the next half hour to answering his eager queries, seeking to initiate him into the sweet love-laden theories of the new doctrine to which he himself only a few months ago had been a perfect stranger. Leaning against a pillar Owen stood half hidden in an alcove, lost in amaze and wonder; his eyes following every movement of the girl he so madly worshiped.
But still another was watching and waiting for a solution of this mystery. Milton’s sad gray eyes saw the happiness of his friend; had seen him catch the fainting figure in his arms; had seen him press his face against hers and kiss the white lips. He could only guess that in some unlooked-for manner he had found the woman for whom he had so long been vainly seeking, and in the excitement which followed he for a time was overlooked and forgotten. But soon the merry peals of laughter, sweet music and soft strains of song again filled the room, and then, at the urgent request of Wilbur, Margaret read some strong dramatic scenes from various plays, holding her listeners spellbound with the purity of her voice, the strength and clearness of the rendition and the depth of feeling which she exhibited. So, as the evening passed, Milton Nesbit became more and more puzzled as to what it was that made this circle so charming—so delightfully entertaining that all his perplexities were for the time forgotten and that caused his sorrows to be dispelled as mist in the sunshine, and his heart to grow warm once more.
As he was one of the handsomest of the finely formed men in the room it did not take long for feminine eyes to detect that fact. Many were the admiring glances bestowed upon him. But there was something in the sad face which forbade intruding. Only Alice—airy, fairy Alice, was not backward. She again sought his side, showing him books, etchings, engravings, and albums filled with selections of art gems. Her sweet, airy manner, the soft tender voice, acted like a charm upon his overwrought nerves, and he soon found himself thoroughly enjoying her.
Lawrence, Wilbur, the young physician and the Wallace sisters had formed a little circle and were discussing economics. Imelda was devoting herself to her brother; making the evening pleasant for him; answering his questions as to the meaning of Cora’s strange demeanor in connection with this handsome and refined looking stranger. Frank had already learned much, was learning every day, but all was not quite clear to him yet as to what it was that made these pure-minded women and men so different from others he had met and known in his reckless and checkered life. She told him that it was a lover of their sweet and lovable Cora, who, like himself, had once been reckless and wayward. Margaret, her mother and Osmond formed another group to which still another was attached. Homer had found a seat at Mrs. Leland’s feet, resting his head against her knee, her hand gently toying with the clustering locks. The boy said scarcely a word, only listened. Mrs. Leland had also very little to say, only now and then a casual word. The brother and sister, however, who until a few days ago had been as strangers, had much to tell, and were opening their hearts, one to the other. Margaret was delighted with the gems she found stored away in this boy’s mind.
While in this quieter mood they were surprised by a sudden burst of melody from the piano, evoked by the touch of a master hand. Nesbit having confessed to Alice that he was musically inclined, that bewitching morsel of humanity had so importuned him that, unable to resist, he soon found his heart swelling with emotion as he evoked the rich strains. This burst scattered the groups, and once more they formed into one whole circle. Nesbit’s music was followed by singing and then by Margaret’s selections, then in what seemed a very short space of time, Cora and Owen were again of their number, and finally, when the good nights were spoken it seemed there never had been quite such a feeling of content lodged in the innermost recesses of every heart then and there present.
The following day brought back the two newcomers at quite an early hour. They did not now protest against coming. They were there every day and evening, until the hour of Margaret’s departure drew nigh. How brief the time allowed them had seemed. Wilbur drank in the glory of the blue wells, kissing the dewy lips again and again. Mrs. Leland folded her child close. It seemed almost harder to let her go now than it had been the first time. Osmond’s eyes grew dim.
“I did not know how dear a sister might be. It will seem like a dream, if I must give you up so soon.” And although Margaret’s heart was sad she tried to hide it under a smiling exterior.
“Never mind,” she said. “It will not be for long. A few short months will soon pass by, then a long summer will be ours to do with just as we see fit—a long delicious summer of enjoyment and planning. Listen! they are planning now. We are in that, and must hear all about it.”
Slipping one hand through Osmond’s arm, the other arm about the waist of her mother she drew them to where the others had drawn a circle about Hilda who, having been importuned, was trying to make plain that vague sweet dream of her future co-operative home, and none so attentive, or none more so than Owen. She spoke of the spacious halls where the ardent searchers after knowledge of any kind might find their teacher; of the library stocked with volumes from the ceiling to the floor; of the lecture hall and the theater; of the opportunities where every talent could be cultivated; of the liberty—the free life—where every fetter should be broken; of the dining hall where they would partake of their evening meal midst flowers and music; of the common parlor where every evening should be an entertainment for all wherein love and genuine sociability should always preside; of the sacred privacy of the rooms where each man or woman should reign king or queen—the sanctum of each, closed to all intruders, consecrated to the holiest and divinest of emotions and self-enfoldment. She spoke of the grand conservatories filled with choicest flowers—the sweet-scented blossoms, the trailing vines, the exotic plants; of the spacious gardens, the sparkling, ever-playing fountains; of the delicious, health-giving baths; of the life of unconventionality,—of the abandon; of the nursery rooms where baby lips were lisping their first words and little toddling feet taking their first uncertain steps; of the things of beauty surrounding the prospective mother; of the unutterably sweet welcome that awaited each coming child; of the full understanding that would be taught to woman of the responsibility of calling into a life a new being; of how man would revere her, how he would wait and abide her invitation; of the sweet co-operation and planning how all should be worked to keep up the financial part.
“O,” said she, “it should, it would be paradise!—this my dream. But ah me! it is only a dream.”
As a being transfixed Hilda stood among them, her eyes shining, her cheeks glowing, her bosom heaving, looking far beyond them into space. A feeling came over Lawrence Westcot as with bated breath his eyes rested on her, of how utterly unworthy he was of the love of a creature so grand, so superior. A still, small voice whispered, “Make yourself worthy!”—and then and there a high resolve was formed in his mind that he would surely do so. A solemn vow rose as a silent prayer from the depths of his heart that some day he would realize that sweet invitation. With him every man in the room became conscious of a feeling of inferiority, but not an impulse to bow in humility. Rather each head was crested higher with a feeling of lofty aspiration.
Owen Hunter answered the closing remarks of Hilda’s dream picture:
“Why, my dreaming maiden, should your dream be but a dream?”
A sad smile played about her lips,
“You forget that it is such an expensive one. It would take a fortune, an almost limitless fortune, to build us such a home. Of course we could be very, very happy in our little circle, as it is, in a much smaller and less expensive home, but I would have it large, so that we might welcome all who possess the same lofty thought to our circle, so that we should be able to give to the world an object lesson in the art of making life worth living, so grand and so glorious that the whole world would want to imitate our example.”
Owen smiled.
“What an enthusiast! Take my advice, little one, and until this grand, this glorious home can be ours, help us with your lofty aspirations, and help us not to despise our more limited advantages and privileges. In the meantime we will try to become more worthy of so perfect a home—as some years must of necessity elapse ere it can be completed.”
“Have I not said it is only a dream? How can I dare to hope it could ever be realized; and when I come to this home, day after day, and realize what privileges are ours the feeling sometimes comes to me, how wrong-headed I am to be constantly sighing for still more.”
Owen shook his head,
“You are mistaken, Miss Hilda. Your sentiments and aspirations are not wrong. Harmonious and beautiful as is the life that has been granted you through the mutual understanding and sympathy of our kind host and hostess, it is by no means complete. So dream on, plan on, and if there is an architect in our circle he shall transfer these plans to paper, and, as soon as practicable, we will look about us for a suitable site, and when the spring sunshine calls all nature again to life, work shall begin, and what has so long been only a vague dream shall, all in good time, bloom into a living reality.”
All eyes hung on the lips of the speaker. All ears drank in his words. Could such a thing be possible? Only Cora seemed to understand. Pressing close to his side, she drew his hand with a caressing motion to her smiling lips. With a hasty movement he withdrew the hand to lay it on the head covered with the soft fluffy hair; he pressed it close to him. Hilda drew a step nearer and extending both hands,
“You mean——O, Mr. Hunter! do you really mean that it can be done? that the home can and shall be ours? But how? how?”
Cora slipped down upon her knees at Hilda’s side and caught both hands in hers.
“Did I not tell you long ago, when I told you that story of my heartaches and my noble lover, that he possessed almost limitless wealth? He could not be one of us did he not consecrate some of his millions to the happiness of others. It is in his power to lay the foundation stone for the future ideal society, giving to the world an example of how people should live. Don’t you see, my Hilda? Owen is wealthy, and is going to build us our home.”