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The Precipice: A Novel, a novel by Elia W. Peattie |
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Chapter 35 |
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_ CHAPTER XXXV Morning came. She was called early that she might take the train for the East, and arising from her sleepless bed she summoned her courage imperatively. She determined that, however much she might suffer from the reproaches of her inner self,--that mystic and hidden self which so often refuses to abide by the decisions of the brain and the conscience,--she would not betray her falterings. So she was able to go down to the breakfast-room with an alert step and a sufficiently gallant carriage of the head. Honora was there, as pale as Kate herself, and she did not scruple to turn upon her departing guest a glance both regretful and forbidding. Kate looked across the breakfast-table at her gloomy aspect. "Honora," she said with some exasperation, "you've walked _your_ path, and it wasn't the usual one, now, was it? But I stood fast for your right to be unusual, didn't I? Then, when the whole scheme of things went to pieces and you were suffering, I didn't lay your misfortune to the singularity of your life. I knew that thousands and thousands of women, who had done the usual thing and chosen the beaten way, had suffered just as much as you. I tried to give you a hand up--blunderingly, I suppose, but I did the best I could. Of course, I'm a beast for reminding you of it. But what I want to know is, why you should be looking at me with the eyes of a stony-hearted critic because I'm taking the hardest road for myself. You don't suppose I'd do it without sufficient reason, do you? Standing at the parting of the ways is a serious matter, however interesting it may be at the moment." Honora's face flushed and her eyes filled. "Oh," she cried, "I can't bear to see you putting happiness behind you. What's the use? Don't you realize that men and women are little more than motes in the sunshine, here for an hour and to-morrow--nothing! I'm pretty well through with those theories that people call principles and convictions. Why not be obedient to Nature? She's the great teacher. Doesn't she tell you to take love and joy when they come your way?" "We've threshed all that out, haven't we?" asked Kate impatiently. "Why go over the ground again? But I must say, if a woman of your intelligence--and my friend at that--can't see why I'm taking an uphill road, alone, instead of walking in a pleasant valley with the best of companions, then I can hardly expect any one else to sympathize with me. However, what does it matter? I said I was going alone so why should I complain?" Her glance fell on the fireplace before which she and Karl had sat the night when he first welcomed her beneath his roof. She remembered the wild silence of the hour, the sense she had had of the invisible presence of the mountains, and how Karl's love had streamed about her like shafts of light. "I've seen nothing of Karl," said Honora abruptly. "He went up the trail yesterday morning, and hasn't been back to the house since." "He didn't come home last night? He didn't sleep in his bed?" "No, I tell you. He's had the Door of Life slammed in his face, and I suppose he's pretty badly humiliated. Karl isn't cut out to be a beggar hanging about the gates, is he? Pence and crumbs wouldn't interest him. I wonder if you have any idea how a man like that can suffer? Do you imagine he is another Ray McCrea?" "Pour my coffee, please, Honora," said Kate. Honora took the hint and said no more, while Kate hastily ate her breakfast. When she had finished she said as she left the table:-- "I'd be glad if you'll tell the stable-man that I'll not take the morning train. I'm sorry to change my mind, but it's unavoidable." The smart traveling-suit she had purchased in Los Angeles was her equipment that morning. To this she added her hat and traveling-veil. "If you're going up the mountain," said the maladroit Honora, "better not wear those things. They'll be ruined." "Oh, things!" cried Kate angrily. She stopped at the doorway. "That wasn't decent of you, Honora. I _am_ going up the mountain--but what right had you to suppose it?" The whole household knew it a moment later--the maids, the men at the stables and the corral. They knew it, but they thought more of her. She went so proudly, so openly. The judgment they might have passed upon lesser folk, they set aside where Wander and his resistant sweetheart were concerned. They did not know the theater, these Western men and women, but they recognized drama when they saw it. Their deep love of romance was satisfied by these lovers, so strong, so compelling, who moved like demigods in their unconcern for the opinions of others. Kate climbed the trail which she and Wander had taken together on the day when she had mockingly proclaimed her declaration of independence. She smiled bitterly now to think of the futility of it. Independence? For whom did such a thing exist? Karl Wander was drawing her to him as that mountain of lode in the Yellowstone drew the lightnings of heaven. In time she came to the bench beside the torrent where she and Wander had rested that other, unforgettable day. She paused there now for a long time, for the path was steep and the altitude great. The day had turned gray and a cold wind was arising--crying wind, that wailed among the tumbled boulders and drove before it clouds of somber hue. After a time she went on, and as she mounted, encountering ever a steeper and more difficult way, she tore the leather of her shoes, rent the skirt of her traveling-frock, and ruined her gloves with soil and rock. "If I have to go back as I came, alone," she reflected, "all in tatters like this, to find that he is at the mines or the village, attending to his work, I shall cut a fine figure, shan't I? The very gods will laugh at me." She flamed scarlet at the thought, but she did not turn back. Presently she came to a place where the path forked. A very narrow, appallingly deep gorge split the mountain at this point, each path skirting a side of this crevasse. "I choose the right path," said Kate aloud. Her heart and lungs were again rebelling at the altitude and the exertion, and she was forced to lie flat for a long time. She lay with her face to the sky watching the roll of the murky clouds. Above her towered the crest of the mountain, below her stretched the abyss. It was a place where one might draw apart from all the world and contemplate the little thing that men call Life. Neither ecstasy nor despair came to her, though some such excesses might have been expected of one whose troubled mind contemplated such magnificence, such terrific beauty. Instead, she seemed to face the great soul of Truth--to arrive at a conclusion of perfect sanity, of fine reasonableness. Conventions, pettiness, foolish pride, waywardness, secret egotism, fell away from her. The customs of society, with what was valuable in them and what was inadequate, assumed their true proportions. It was as if her House of Life had been swept of fallacy by the besom of the mountain wind. A feeling of strength, courage, and clarity took possession of her. There was an expectation, too,--nay, the conviction,--that an event was at hand fraught for her with vast significance. The trail, almost perpendicular now, led up a mighty rock. She pulled herself up, and emerging upon the crown of the mountain, beheld the proud peaks of the Rockies, bare or snow-capped, dripping with purple and gray mists, sweeping majestically into the distance. Such solemnity, such dark and passionate beauty, she never yet had seen, though she was by this time no stranger to the Rockies, and she had looked upon the wonders of the Sierras. She envisaged as much of this sublimity as eye and brain might hold; then, at a noise, glanced at that tortuous trail--yet more difficult than the one she had taken--which skirted the other side of the continuing crevasse. On it stood Karl Wander, not as she had seen him last, impatient, racked with mental pain, and torn with pride and eager love. He was haggard, but he had arrived at peace. He was master over himself and no longer the creature of futile torments. To such a man a woman might well capitulate if capitulation was her intent. With such a chieftain might one well treat if one had a mind to maintain the suzerainty of one's soul. The wind assailed Kate violently, and she caught at a spur of rock and clung, while her traveling-veil, escaped from bounds, flung out like a "home-going" pennant of a ship. "A flag of truce, Kate?" thundered Wander's voice. "Will you receive it?" cried Kate. Now that she had sought and found him, she would not surrender without one glad glory of the hour. "Name your conditions, beloved enemy." "How can we talk like this?" "We're not talking. We're shouting." "Is there no way across?" "Only for eagles." "What did you mean by staying up here? I was terrified. What if you had been dying alone--" "I came up to think things out." "Have you?" "Yes." "Well?" "Kate, we must be married." "Yes," laughed Kate. "I know it." "But--" "Yes," called Kate, "that's it. But--" "But you shall do your work: I shall do mine." "I know," said Kate. "That's what I meant to¸ say to you. There's more than one way of being happy and good." "Go your way, Kate. Go to your great undertaking. Go as my wife. I stay with my task. It may carry me farther and bring me more honor than we yet know. I shall go to you when I can: you must come to me--when you will. What more exhilarating? A few years will bring changes. I hear they may send me to Washington, after all. But they'll not need to send me. Lead where you will, I will follow--on condition!" "The condition?" She stood laughing at him, shining at him, free and proud as the "victory" of a sculptor's dream. "That you follow my leadership in turn. We'll have a Republic of Souls, Kate, with equal opportunity--none less, none greater--with high expediency for the watchword." "Yes. Oh, Karl, I came to say all this!" "Then some day we'll settle down beneath one roof--we'll have a hearthstone." "Yes," cried Kate again, this time with an accent that drowned forever the memory of her "no." "Turn about, Kate; turn about and go down the trail. You'll have to do it alone, I'm afraid. I can't get over there to help." "I don't need help," retorted Kate. "It's fine doing it alone." "Follow your path, and I will follow mine. We can keep in sight almost all the way, I think, and,¸ as you know, a little below this height, the paths converge." Kate stood a moment longer, looking at him, measuring him. "How splendid to be a man," she called. "But I'm glad I'm a woman," she supplemented hastily. "Not half so glad as I, Kate, my mate,--not a thousandth part so glad as I." She held out her arms to him. He gave a great laugh and plunged down the path. Kate swept her glance once more over the dark beauty of the mountain-tops--her splendid world, wrought with illimitable joy in achievement by the Maker of Worlds,--and turning, ran down the great rock that led to the trail. [THE END] _ |
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