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Place Beyond The Winds

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<h2>CHAPTER X</h2> Priscilla kept the fire alive. She laid the sticks and logs on cautiously; she turned wide eyes now and again on the tall clock whose white face gleamed pallidly among the shadows like a dead thing that had used its last breath to speak a message. If the clock struck again Priscilla felt that she might go mad. It was after midnight when Nature laid a commanding and relentless touch upon the girl, and, crouching by the hearth, her head in her arms folded upon a chair, she slept. Outside the storm sobbed itself into silence; the rain dripped complainingly from the roof of the porch and then ceased. At five o'clock the new day, rosy and full of cheer, made itself felt in the dim room where Priscilla, breathing evenly and softly, still slept. No gleam of brightness made its way through the heavy shutters or curtains, but a consciousness of day at last roused the sleeper. At first the experience through which she had passed made no demand upon her. She got painfully upon her feet and looked about. The fire was but embers, the air was hot and stifling, and then, with the thought of opening a door or window, the grim spectre of the black hours lay warning touch upon her. She shrank back and began again to—wait! Of course McAlpin would return—and what lay before her when he did? Her strength was spent, lack of food——And here her eyes fell on the broken fragments of stale bread and meat that Jerry-Jo had tossed aside. She took the morsels and devoured them eagerly; the nerves of the stomach were calling for nutrition, and even the coarse crumbs gave relief. The moments passed slowly, but presently, with the knowledge that day lay beyond her prison, she gained a new, a more desperate courage. If she must die, she would die in the open, where she at least might test her pitiful strength against Jerry-Jo's did he pursue her. The determination to act gave relief. The dark, damp room she could no longer bear; the lamp had hours before ceased to burn; the smell of stale oil smoke was sickening. No matter what happened she felt she must make a break for freedom. She knew full well that should Jerry-Jo enter now she could not combat him. Then, for the first time, she wondered why no one had come to seek her through the long, black hours of the night. The men of Kenmore never permitted a wanderer to remain unsought; there was danger. Why, even her father could not be so—so hard as to sleep undisturbed while she was unhoused! And her mother? Oh! surely her mother would have roused the people! And Anton Farwell? Why, he would have started at once, as he had for the McAdam boys. And with that conclusion came a new hope: "If they are searching it will be on the water!" Of course. Cheered by this thought, Priscilla made her way silently toward the door. With trembling fingers she turned the key and pushed gently outward. Through the crack the sun poured, and oh, the fresh sweetness of the morning air! Again she pushed, once again, and then with a rush she dashed through and was a hundred feet down the path when a loud laugh stayed her like a shot from a gun. She turned and braced herself against a tree for support. Jerry-Jo, pressed close to the house and not a foot from the door through which she had come, again shrieked with laughter. Presently he conquered himself, and, without moving, said: "You're free! The canoe's ready for you, too. Go home—if you want—go home and get what's coming to you! I've been busy. There's a boat stopping at the wharf to-night. I'm leaving for the States. I've told them, as will pass it on, that you and me are going together. I'll stand by it, too, God hears me!" "My—my father will kill you when he knows of this night!" Priscilla flung the words back savagely. She knew now that she was free—free for what? Again Jerry-Jo's laugh taunted her, and as she turned to the path her father faded from her hope. Only Anton Farwell seemed to loom high. Just and resourceful, he would help her! The soggy, mossy path made heavy travelling for weary, nervous feet, but at the foot of the hill Priscilla saw the little canoe bobbing at the side of the dock. Once out upon the sunlit water the soul-horror disappeared and the task before her appeared easy. Now that the real danger was past, her physical demands seemed simple and well within her control. If her father turned her away—and as she drew near to Lonely Farm she felt that he probably would—she would go to Farwell, and from him, with his assistance, go to the States. The time had come—that was all—the time had come! She was as ready as she ever would be. She had herself well in hand before she stepped from the canoe at the foot of her father's garden. The only signs of anxiety in evidence about the house were Nathaniel's presence in the kitchen at eleven in the morning, and Theodora's red and swollen eyes as she bent over the dishwashing of a belated breakfast. "Mother! Father!" They turned and gazed at the pale, dishevelled girl in the doorway. Neither spoke and Priscilla asked: "May I come in?" Had she wept, or flung herself upon their mercy, Nathaniel could have understood, but her very calmness and indifference angered him, coming as it did upon his real anxiety. He had not heard the village gossip that Long Jean had already started. He had been out alone most of the night on the water, and the relief of seeing his girl alive and unharmed turned his earlier emotions to bitterness. "Yes, come in," he said sternly. "Where have you been?" Had Priscilla been given more time, had she been less physically spent, she would have protected herself from her father's thought; as it was she could only summon enough strength to parry his questions with truthful answers, and until it was too late she did not realize how they damned her. "Up at—at—Far Hill Place." "All night?" "Yes." "With——" "With—with Jerry-Jo McAlpin." "Oh!" This came like a snake's warning. "The—the storm was—oh! Father——" "The storm!" roared Nathaniel; "the storm! Are you sugar or salt? Have you so little morality that you choose to stay overnight with a man in a lonely house instead of coming wet but clean-charactered to your safe home?" And then Priscilla understood! She had come into the room and was sitting near the door she had closed behind her. She, on the sudden, seemed to grow old and strong; the ancient distrust and dislike of her father overcame her; she looked at her mother, bent and sobbing over the sink, and only for her sake did she continue the useless conversation. "You—you judge me unheard!" she went on, addressing Nathaniel with an anger, glowing in her eyes, that equalled his own. "Have you not just incriminated yourself—you!" "Stop! Do you think that is all? Do you think I would have stayed there—if—if——" Here the memory of what she had endured choked her. "A woman who puts herself in a man's power as you have can expect no mercy." Nathaniel stormed. "Why?" "Because it is God's law. All decent women know it. That is what I've feared for you always, but I'll still stand by you if you show reason. I'll do it for your mother's sake and my good name. He shall marry you, by God! Say the word and I'll bring him here." Priscilla's upper lip twitched. This was a trick her nerves had of warning her, but she heeded not. "You—you would force me to marry Jerry-Jo even against his will? You would make that little hell for me without even knowing what has happened? You'd fling me in it to—to save your name?" "You've made your own hell! No matter what has happened, there is only one way out for you. If you refuse that——" And here Nathaniel flung his big arms wide, as if pushing his child out—out! With white face but blazing eyes Priscilla got up and went over to her mother. She drew the bowed and quivering form toward her and looked straight into the tear-flooded eyes. "Mother, tell me, do you believe me—dishonoured?" The contact of the dear, strong young body gave Theodora power to say: "Oh! my dear, my dear, I cannot, I will not believe evil of you. But you must do what your father thinks best; it is the only way. You have been so heedless, my child, my poor child." "You—side with her?" thundered Nathaniel, feeling himself defied. "Then heed me! If she refuses, out you go with her! No longer will I live with my family divided against me. The world with her, or the home with me!" Then suddenly and quite clearly Priscilla saw the only way open to her, the only way that led to even the poor peace she yearned to leave to the sad, little, clinging, broken creature looking piteously up at her. "My child, my child, your father knows best." "There! there mother. Now listen!" Still holding Theodora, she looked over the gray head at her father's cruel face. "I have only to tell you," she said slowly and with deadly hardness, "you will not have to force Jerry-Jo McAlpin to marry me; he's eager enough to do it. He leaves to-night for the States; he has arranged for me to go with him." She paused, then went on, speaking now to her mother: "As God hears me, I am not dishonoured, little mother. I will never bring dishonour upon you. I could have explained to you—you would have understood, but father—never! I am going to the States. Good-bye." "My child! oh! my girl!" "Good-bye, dear mother." "Oh, Priscilla! Do not leave us so!" "This is the only way." "But, you—you are not yet wedded." Priscilla smiled. "You must leave that to Jerry-Jo and me. And now a kiss—and the dear cheek against mine. So!" "But you will come back——" Theodora sank gently to the floor. She had fainted quite away! Priscilla bent with her, she lifted the white head to her knee, and again addressed her father. "You are satisfied?" she asked. The shield was down between them. Man and woman, they stared, understandingly, in each other's eyes. "Leave her to me!" commanded Nathaniel, and strode toward the prostrate form. "You've lied first and last. Neither McAlpin nor any other honest man will have you! Go!" "I will go and—my hate I leave with you!" And when Theodora opened her eyes she was lying on the rough couch in the sunny kitchen, and Nathaniel was bathing her face with cool water. "The child?" faltered the mother, looking pleadingly around. And then Nathaniel showed mercy, the only mercy in his power. "She's gone to McAlpin. They leave for the States to-night. It's you and I alone now to the end of the way." "Husband, husband! We've been hard on her; we've driven her to——" "Hush, you! foolish one. Would you defy God? Each one of us walks the path our feet are set upon. 'Twas fore-ordained and her being ours makes no difference. Every light woman was—some one's, God knows—and with Him there be no respecter of persons." "Oh! but if you had only been kinder. It seems as if we haven't gone beside her on her path. Couldn't we have drawn her from it—if we had expected different of her? Oh! I shall miss her sore. The loneliness, the loneliness with her out of the days and the long nights." Theodora was weeping again desolately. "Be grateful, woman, that worse has not come to us." Now that the deathlike faint was over, Nathaniel's softening was passing. "And she went from our door hungry, the poor dear! We wouldn't have treated a beggar so." "Had she come as a suppliant, all would have been different." Then Theodora sat up, and a kind of frenzy drove her to speak. "She had something to tell! You did not let her say her say. What kept her away all night? Jerry-Jo McAlpin has the devil blood in him when he's up to—to pranks. Suppose——" A sort of horror shook the thin, livid face. Nathaniel, in spite of himself, had a bad moment; then his hard common sense steadied him. "Would she go to him, if what you fear was true?" "Has she gone to him?" "Where else then—and all Kenmore not know? Wait till to-morrow before you leap to the doing of that which you may regret. Calm yourself and wait until to-morrow." And Theodora waited—many, many morrows. <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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