“Daren Lane!” screamed Bessy.
Then the car halted, and with two strides Lane found himself face to face with the young friends he had not seen for months. Holt appeared a man now. And Bessy—no longer with bobbed hair—older, taller, changed incalculably, struck him as having fulfilled her girlish promise of character and beauty. “Well, it's good to see you youngsters", said Lane, as he shook hands with them.
Holt seemed trying to hide emotion. But Bessy, after that first scream, sat staring at Lane with a growing comprehending light in her purple eyes.
Suddenly she burst out. “Daren—you'rewell !... Oh, how glad I am! Holt, just look at him.”
“I'm looking, Bess. And if he's really Daren Lane, I'll eat him,” responded Holt.
“This is all I needed to make to-day the happiest day of my life,” said Bessy, with serious sweetness.
“This? Do you mean meeting me? I'm greatly flattered, Bessy,” said Lane, with a smile.
Then both a blush and a glow made her radiant.
“Daren, I'm sixteen to-day. Holt and I are—we're engaged I told mother, and expected a row. She was really pleased.... And then seeing you well again. Why, Daren, you've actually got color. Then Holt has been given a splendid business opportunity.... And—Oh! it's all too good to be true.”
“Well, of all things!” cried Lane, when he had a chance to speak. “You two engaged! I—I could never tell you how glad I am.” Lane felt that he could have hugged them both. “I congratulate you with all my heart. Now Holt—Bessy, make a go of it. You're the luckiest kids in the world.”
“Daren, we've both had our fling and we've both been hurt,” said Bessy, seriously. “And you betwe know how lucky we are—and what we owe Daren Lane for our happiness to-day.”
“Bessy, that means a great deal to me,” replied Lane, earnestly. “I know you'll be happy. You have everything to live for. Just be true to yourself.”
So the moment of feeling passed.
“We went down to your place,” said Holt, “and stayed a while waiting for you.”
“Daren, I think Mel is lovely. May I not come often to see you both?” added Bessy.
“You know how pleased we'll be.... Bessy, do you ever see my sister Lorna?” asked Lane, hesitantly.
“Yes, I see her now and then. Only the other day I met her in a store. Daren, she's getting some sense. She has a better position now. And she said she was not going with any fellow but Harry.”
“And my mother?” Lane went on.
“She is quite well, Lorna said. And they are getting along well now. Lorna hinted that a relative—an uncle, I think, was helping them.”
Lane was silent a moment, too stirred to trust his voice. Presently he said: “Bessy, your birthday has brought happiness to some one besides yourself.”
He bade them good-bye and strode on down the hill toward the cottage. How strangely meetings changed the future! Holt's pride of possession in Bessy brought poignantly back to Lane his own hidden love for Mel. And Bessy's rapture of amaze at his improvement in health put Lane face to face with a possibility he had dreamed of but had never believed in—that he might live.
That night was for Lane a sleepless one. He seemed to have traveled in a dreamy circle, and was now returning to memories and pangs from which he had long been free.
Next morning, without any hint to Mel of his intentions, he left the cottage and made his way into town. Almost he felt as he had upon his return from France. He dropped in to see his mother and was happy to find her condition of mind and health improved. She was overjoyed to see Lane. Her surprise was pitiful. She told him she was sure that he had recovered.
It was this matter of his physical condition that had brought Lane into Middleville. For many months he had resigned himself to death. And now he could not deny even his morbid fancy that he felt stronger than at any time since he left France. He had worked hard to try to get well, but he had never, in his heart, believed that possible.
Lane called upon Doctor Bronson and asked to be thoroughly examined. The doctor manifestly found the examination a task of mounting gratification. At length he concluded.
“Daren, I told you over a year ago I didn't know of anything that could save your life,” he said. “I didn't. But somethinghas saved your life. You are thirty pounds heavier and gaining fast. That hole in your back is healed. Your lungs are nearly normal. You have only to be careful of a very violent physical strain. That weak place in your back seems gone.... You're going to live , my boy.... There has been some magic at work. I'm very happy about it. How little doctors know!”
Dazed and stunned by this intelligence, Lane left the doctor's residence and turned through town on his way homeward. As he plodded on, he began to realize the marvelous truth. What would Blair say? He hurried to a telephone exchange to acquaint his friend with the strange thing that had happened. But Blair had been taken to a sanitarium in the mountains. Lane hurried out of town into the country, down the river road, to the cottage, there to burst in upon Mel.
“Daren!” she cried, in alarm. “What's happened?”
She rose unsteadily, her eyes dilating.
“Doctor Bronson said—I was—well,” panted Lane.
“Oh!... Daren, isthat it?” she replied, with a wonderful light coming to her face. “I've known that for weeks.”
“After all—I'm not going—to die!... My God!”
Lane rushed out and strode along the river, and followed the creek into the woods. Once hidden in the leafy recesses he abandoned himself to a frenzy of rapture. What he had given up had come back to him. Life! And he lay on his back with his senses magnified to an intense degree.
The day was late in June, and a rich, thick amber light floated through the glades of the forest. Majestic white clouds sailed in the deep blue sky. The sun shone hot down into the glades. Under the pines and maples there was a cool sweet shade. Wild flowers bloomed. A fragrance of the woods came on the gentle breeze. The leaves rustled. The melancholy song of a hermit thrush pierced the stillness. A crow cawed from a high oak. The murmur of shallow water running over rocks came faintly to Lane's ears.
Lane surrendered utterly to the sheer primitive exultation of life. The supreme ecstasy of that hour could never have been experienced but for the long hopeless months which had preceded it. For a long time he lay there in a transport of the senses, without thinking. As soon as thought regained dominance over his feelings there came a subtle change in his reaction to this situation.
He had forgotten much. He had lived in a dream. He had unconsciously grown well. He had been strangely, unbelievably happy. Why? Mel Iden had nursed him, loved him, inspired him back to health. Her very presence near him, even unseen, had been a profound happiness. He made the astonishing discovery that for months he had thought of little else besides his wife. He had lived a lonely life, in his room, and in the open, but all of it had been dominated by his dreams and fancies and emotions about her. He had roused from his last illness with the past apparently dead. There was no future. So he lived in the moment, the hour. While he lay awake in the silence of night, or toiled over his wood pile, or wandered by the brook under the trees, his dreamy thoughts centered about her. And now the truth burst upon him. His love for her had been stronger than his ruined health and blasted life, stronger than misfortune, stronger than death. It had made him well. He had not now to face death, but life. And the revelation brought on shuddering dread.