第19章

THE DECISION.

When the sign-board on a station platform said "5.2 miles to St.

X," Pauline sank back in her chair in the parlor-car with blanched face.And almost immediately, so it seemed to her, Saint X came into view--home! She fancied she could see the very house as she looked down on the mass of green in which the town was embowered.The train slid into the station, slowed down--there were people waiting on the platform--her father! He was glancing from window to window, trying to catch a glimpse of her; and his expression of almost agonized eagerness made her heartsick.She had been away from him for nearly seven months--long enough to break the habit which makes it impossible for members of a family to know how they really look to each other.How gray and thin his beard seemed! What was the meaning of that gaunt look about his shoulders? What was the strange, terrifying shadow over him? "Why, he's OLD!" The tears welled into her eyes--"He's gliding away from me!" She remembered what she had to tell him and her knees almost refused to support her.

He was at the step as she sprang down.She flew into his arms.

He held her away from him and scanned her face with anxious eyes.

"Is my little girl ill?" he asked."The telegram made me uneasy.""Oh, no!" she said with a reassuring hug."Where's mother?""She--she's got a--a--surprise for you.We must hurry--she'll be impatient, though she's seen you since I have."At the curbstone stood the familiar surrey, with Mordecai humped upon the front seat."I don't see how the colonel ever knowed you," said he, as she shook hands with him."I never seen the like for growin'.""But YOU look just the same, Mordecai--you and the surrey and the horses.And how's Amanda?""Poorly," replied Mordecai--his invariable answer to inquiries about his wife.She patterned after the old school, which held that for a woman to confess to good health was for her to confess to lack of refinement, if not of delicacy.

"You think I've changed, father?" asked Pauline, when the horses were whirling them home.She was so busily greeting the familiar streets and houses and trees and faces that she hardly heard his reply.

"`I never seen the like for growin',' " he quoted, his eyes shining with pride in her.He was a reticent man by nature as well as by training; he could not have SAID how beautiful, how wonderful he thought her, or how intensely he loved her.The most he could do to express himself to her was, a little shyly, to pat her hand--and to LOOK it into Mordecai's back.

She was about to snuggle up to him as a wave of delight at being home again swept over her; but her secret rushed from the background of her mind."How could I have done it? How can Itell them?" Then, the serene and beautiful kindness of her father's face reassured her.

Her mother was waiting in the open front door as the surrey came up the drive--still the same dear old-young mother, with the same sweet dignity and gentleness.

"Oh, mother, mother!" exclaimed Pauline, leaping from the carriage into her arms.And as they closed about her she felt that sorrow and evil could not touch her; felt just as when she, a little girl, fleeing from some frightful phantom of her own imagining, had rushed there for safety.She choked, she sobbed, she led her mother to the big sofa opposite the stairway; and, sitting there, they held each the other tightly, Pauline kissing her, smoothing her hair, she caressing Pauline and crying softly.

"We've got a surprise for you, Polly," said she, when they were calmer.

"I don't want anything but you and father," replied Pauline.

Her father turned away--and so she did not see the shadow deepen in his face.Her mother shook her head, mischief in her eyes that were young as a girl's--younger far than her daughter's at that moment."Go into the sitting-room and see," she said.

Pauline opened the sitting-room door.John Dumont caught her in his arms."Polly!" he exclaimed."It's all right.They've come round and--and--here I am!"Pauline pushed him away from her and sank to the floor in a faint.

When she came to herself she was lying on the divan in the sitting-room.Her mother was kneeling beside her, bathing her temples with cold water; her father and her husband were standing, helplessly looking at her."Send him away," she murmured, closing her eyes.

Only her mother heard.She motioned to the two men to leave the room.When the door closed Pauline sat up.