_ CHAPTER XVIII. DONNA QUIXOTE
At ten of the following morning Mrs. Jensen had finished "redding up," as she called it, and had gone out into the yard. Doctor Barnes, alone at the bedside of his patient, was not professionally surprised when she opened her eyes.
"Well, how's everything this morning?" he said quietly. "Better, eh?"
She did not speak for some time, but turned toward him. "Who are you?" she asked presently.
"Nobody in particular," he answered. "Only the doctor person. I was up in the mountains with you yesterday."
"Was it yesterday?" said she. "Yes, I remember!"
"What became of him?" she asked after a time. "That awful man--I had it in my heart to kill him!"
Doctor Barnes made no comment, and after a while she went on, speaking slowly.
"He said so many things. Why, those men would do anything?"
"He'll not do any more treason," said Doctor Barnes.
"What do you mean?"
"A tree fell on him. I got there too late to be of any use."
"He's dead?"
"Yes. Don't let's talk of that."
"I've got to live?"
"Yes."
"Who are you?" she inquired after a time. "You're a doctor?"
"I'm your sort, yes, Miss Warren," said he.
"A gentleman."
"Relative term!"
"You've been very good. Where do you live?"
"Down at the Government dam, below here. I'm the Company doctor."
"Well, why don't you go? Am I going to live, or can I die?"
"What brought you out here, Miss Warren," said he at last. "You don't belong in a place like this."
"Where then do I belong?" she asked. "Food and a bed--that's more than I can earn."
"Maybe we can fix up a way for you to be useful, if you don't go away." He spoke so gently, she began to trust him.
"But I'm not going away. I have no place to go to." She smiled bitterly. "I haven't money enough to buy my ticket back home if I had a home to go to. That's the truth. Why didn't you let me die?"
"You ought to want to live," said Doctor Barnes. "The lane turns, sometimes."
"Not for me. Worse and worse, that's all. . . . I'll have to tell you-- I don't like to tell strangers, about myself. But, you see, my brother was killed in the war. We had some money once, my brother and I. Our banker lost it for us. I had to work, and then, after he went away, I began to--to lose my eyes."
"How long was that coming on?"
"Two years--about. The last part came all at once, on the cars, when I was coming out. I've never seen--him--Mr. Gage, you know. I don't know what he looks like."
"They call him Sim Gage."
She remained silent, and he thought best to add a word or so, but could not, though he tried. Mary Warren's face had colored painfully.
"I suppose they've told you--I suppose everybody knows all about that--that insane thing I did, coming out here. Well, I was desperate, that's all. Yet it seems there are good people left in the world. You are all good people. If only I could see; so I could tell what to do. Then maybe I could earn my living, someway--if I have to live.
"Good-hearted, isn't he--Mr. Gage?" She nodded with a woman's confident intuition as she went on. "He didn't cast me out. What can I do to repay him?"
He could make no answer.
"Little to give him, Doctor--but of course, if he could--in any sort of justice--accept--accept----"
Doctor Barnes suddenly reached out a hand and pushed her hair back from her forehead. "I wouldn't," said he. "Please don't. Take things easy for a little while."
She turned her dark and sightless eyes upon him. "No!" said she. "That isn't the way we do in my family. We don't take things easy."
"Has he said anything to you?" asked Doctor Barnes after a long time. "I have very much reluctance to ask."
"He's too much of a man," she said. "No, not yet. It was a sort of bargain, even if we didn't say so outright. 'Object, matrimony!' I came out here with my eyes open. But now God has closed them. . . . Will you tell me the truth?"
"Yes."
"Does he--do you think he----"
"Cares for you?"
"Yes!"
Doctor Barnes replied with extreme difficulty. "We'll say he does care--that he cares immensely."
She nodded. "I wanted to be fair," said she. "I'm glad I can talk to some one I can trust."
"What makes you think you can trust me?" blustered Doctor Barnes. "And you're so Puritan foolish, you're going to marry this man? You think that is right?"
"He took me in, when I deceived him. I owe my life to him. He's never once hinted or laughed since I came here. Why, he's a gentleman."
She turned her head away. "Perhaps he would never know," she added.
"Something to take on," commented Doctor Barnes grimly.
"I'd try very hard," she went on. "I'd try to do my best. Mrs. Jensen says I could learn a great many things. She has an aunt that's--that has lost her eyesight. It may be my place in the world--here. I want to carry my own weight in the world--or else I want to die."
"He seems hard to understand--Mr. Gage," she went on slowly, the damp of sheer anguish on her forehead now at speaking as she never could wish to speak, thus to a stranger, and of the most intimate things of a gentlewoman's life. "As though I didn't know he couldn't ever really love a woman like me! Of course it isn't right either way. It's awful. . . . But I'd do my best. Life is more of a compromise than I used to think it was. But someway, out here--I'd be shut in forever here in this Valley. No one would ever know. It--it wouldn't seem so wicked, some way? It's the end of the world, isn't it, to-day? Well, then----"
"I'm trying my best," said Doctor Barnes after a time, "to get at the inside of your mind."
She lay for a time picking at the nap of the rough blanket--there were no pillow slips and no pillows. At length she turned to him, her eyes wet.
"It's rather hard for a man to understand things like these--hard for a woman to explain them to a stranger she's never seen," said she. "But there wasn't ever any other man. I'm not here on any rebound. It's reason--it's duty. That's all. They keep telling us women we must reason. My brother was all I had left. You see, he didn't have a good foot--he was lame. That was why we lived together so long, and--and there was no one else. And then--you know about my eyes? Of course I didn't know I was going to be quite blind when I started out here. If I had, I should have ended it all."
"You're a good man, Doctor," said she presently, since he made no answer. "You didn't tell me your name?"
"My name is Allen Barnes. I've been down at the dam for quite a while. I'm only around thirty yet myself. I don't know a lot."
"Tell me about the country--it's very beautiful, isn't it?"
"Yes, very beautiful."
"And the people?"
"If you don't marry Sim Gage they'll tar and feather you. If you do, they'll back-bite and hate you. If you get in trouble they'll work their fingers to the bone to take care of you."
"There was another thing," she resumed irrelevantly, "I thought it was a
sacrifice, my coming out here to work. I thought I ought to make it. You see, I'm the only one left of all my family. I couldn't count much anyway."
"Donna Quixote!" broke out Allen Barnes.
"Oh, I suppose," said she, smiling bitterly. "I suppose that, of course."
"This is a terrible thing! I don't believe I can make you change."
"No, I suppose not," said she. "My brother went to France, crippled as he was. Do you suppose my duty's going to frighten me? You were in the army?"
"Yes," said he. "Mustered out a major. Medical Corps. In over a year--I saw the last days--before Metz and the armistice. I'm a doctor, but they crowd me into the service again now, because they think I'll be safe and useful here. But from what you know about things going on in this country, you know there's danger for any big public work like that plant. Our country's not mopped up, yet--though it's going to be! There must be some reason for suspicion at Headquarters--I think we all might guess why from the doings of the last day or so in here.
"I'm glad," said she. "That makes me feel much better. I shall be sorry to have you go away. But you'll not be so far. And you were in the war?"
"A little." He laughed, and Mary Warren tried to laugh. Then, hands in pockets, and frowning, he left her, and walked apart in the yard for a time.
Sim Gage, his face puckered up, was wandering aimlessly, shovel in hand, in the vicinity of the burned barn, engaged in burying his dead cattle. He had relapsed as to his clothing, and was clad once more in his ancient nether garments. His arms were bare, his brick-red shoulders showed above a collarless and ragged flannel shirt. His face, unreaped, was not lovable to look on. When Doctor Allen Barnes saw him, he walked away, his head forward and shaking from side to side. He did not want to talk with Sim Gage or any one else. _