Nan Brent's departure from the Sawdust Pile was known to so few in Port Agnew that it was fully ten days before the news became general; even then it excited no more than momentary comment, and a week later when Donald McKaye returned to town, somewhat sooner than he had anticipated, Port Agnew had almost forgotten that Nan Brent had ever lived and loved and sinned in its virtuous midst. Even the small gossip about her and the young laird had subsided, condemned by all, including the most thoughtless, as a gross injustice to their favorite son, and consequently dismissed as the unworthy tattling of unworthy, suspicious old women. Life in the busy little sawmill town had again sagged into the doldrums.
For several days, a feeling of lassitude had been stealing over Donald. At first he thought it was mental depression, but when, later, he developed nausea, lack of appetite, and pains in his head, back, and extremities, it occurred to him that he wasn't feeling well physically and that The Dreamerie was to be preferred to his rough pine shanty in the woods, even though in the latter he had sanctuary from the female members of his family.
He came in unexpectedly on the last log-train on Saturday night; tired, with throbbing head and trembling legs, he crawled off the caboose at the log dump and made his way weakly up to the mill office. It was deserted when he got there at half-past six, but in his mail-box he found something which he had promised himself would be there, despite certain well-remembered assurances to the contrary. It was a letter from Nan. He tore the envelop eagerly and read:
Donald dear, I love you. That is why I am leaving you. We shall not meet again, I think. If we should, it will doubtless be years hence, and by that time we shall both have resigned ourselves to this present very necessary sacrifice. Good-by, poor dear.
Always your sweetheart,
NAN.
He read and reread the letter several times. It was undated. Presently, with an effort, he recovered the envelop from the waste-basket and examined the postmark. The letter had been mailed from Seattle, but the post-date was blurred.
With the letter clutched in his hand, he bent forward and pillowed his hot face in his arms, outspread upon his father's old desk. He wanted to weep--to sob aloud in a childish effort to unburden his heart, scourged now with the first real sorrow of his existence. His throat contracted; something in his breast appeared to have congealed, yet for upward of an hour he neither moved nor gave forth a sound. At last, under the inspiration of a great hope that came apparently without any mental effort or any desire for hope, so thoroughly crushed was he, the black, touseled head came slowly up. His face, usually ruddy beneath the dark, suntanned skin but now white and haggard, showed a fleeting little smile, as if he grinned at his own weakness and lack of faith; he rose unsteadily and clumped out of the office-building.
Gone! Nan gone--like that! No, no! He would not believe it. She might have intended to go--she might have wanted to go--she might even have started to go--but she had turned back! She loved him; she was his. During those long days and nights up in the woods, he had fought the issue with himself and made up his mind that Nan Brent was the one woman in the world for him, that there could never, by God's grace, be any other, and that he would have her, come what might and be the price what it would. Rather than the fortune for which his father had toiled and sacrificed, Donald preferred Nan's love; rather than a life of ease and freedom from worry, he looked forward with a fierce joy to laboring with his hands for a pittance, provided he might have the privilege of sharing it with her. And The Dreamerie, the house his father had built with such great, passionate human hopes and tender yearnings, the young laird of Port Agnew could abandon without a pang for that little white house on the Sawdust Pile. Round steak and potatoes, fried by the woman destined to him for his perfect mate, would taste better to him than the choicest viands served by light stepping servitors in his father's house.
What, after all, was there worth while in the world for him if he was to be robbed of his youth and his love? For him, the bare husks of life held no allurement; he was one of that virile, human type that rejects the doctrine of sacrifice, denial, and self-repression in this life for the greater glory of God and man's promise of a reward in another life, of which we wot but little and that little not scientifically authenticated. He wanted the great, all-compelling, omnipotent Present, with its gifts that he could clutch in his fierce hands or draw to his hungry heart. To hell with the future. He reflected that misers permit their thoughts to dwell upon it and die rich and despised, leaving to the apostles of the Present the enjoyment of the fruits of a foolish sacrifice.
"She came back. I know she did," he mumbled, as he groped his way through the dark of the drying-yard. "I'm sick. I must see her and tell her to wait until I'm well. The damned dirty world can do what it jolly well pleases to me, but I'll protect her from it. I will--by God!"
He emerged into the open fields beyond which lay the Sawdust Pile, snuggled down on the beach. The Brent cottage was visible in the dim starlight, and he observed that there was no light in the window; nevertheless, his high faith did not falter. He pressed on, although each step was the product of an effort, mental and physical. His legs were heavy and dragged, as if he wore upon, his logger's boots the thick, leaden soles of a deep-sea diver.
At the gate, he leaned and rested for a few minutes, then entered the deserted yard and rapped at the front door; but his summons bringing no response, he staggered round to the back door and repeated it. He waited half a minute and then banged furiously with his fist upon the door-panel. Still receiving no response, he seized the knob and shook the door until the little house appeared to rattle from cellar to cupola.
"Nan! Nan! Where are you?" he called. "It is I--Donald. Answer me, Nan. I know you haven't gone away. You wouldn't! Please answer me, Nan!"
But the only sound he heard was the labored pumping of his own heart and the swish of the wavelets against the timbered buttress of the Sawdust Pile. The conviction slowly came to his torpid brain that he was seeking admittance to a deserted house, and he leaned against the door and fought for control of himself. Presently, like a stricken animal, he went slowly and uncertainly away in the direction whence he had come.
* * * * *
Andrew Daney had put out the cat and wound the clock and was about to ascend to his chamber (now, alas, reoccupied by Mrs. Daney, upon whom the news of Nan's departure had descended like a gentle rainfall over a hitherto arid district) when he heard slow footsteps on his front veranda. Upon going to the door and peering out, he was amazed to see Donald McKaye standing just outside.
"Well, bless my soul!" Daney declared. "So it's you Donald. Come in, lad; come in."
Donald shook his head.
"No, I've only come to stay a minute, Mr. Daney. Thank you, sir. I--I notice you're running a light track from the drying-yard down to the Sawdust Pile. Stumbled over it in the dark a few minutes ago, and I--" He essayed a ghastly smile, for he desired to remove the sting from the gentle rebuke he purposed giving the general manger--"couldn't seem to remember having ordered that track--or--suggesting that it be laid."
"Quite so, Donald; quite so," Daney answered. "I did it on my own initiative. Nan Brent has abandoned the Sawdust Pile--moved away from Port Agnew, you know; so I decided to extend the drying-yard, and squat on the Sawdust Pile before some undesirable took possession."
"Hm-m-m! I see. Well, suppose Nan takes a notion to return to Port Agnew, Mr. Daney. She'll find our drying-yard something of a nuisance, will she not?"
"Oh, but she's not coming back," Daney assured him, with all the confidence of one free from the slightest doubt on the subject.
"She might. I could see rather dimly into the kitchen and it appears Miss Brent left her little home furnished."
"Yes, she did, Donald. I believe she just turned the key in the lock and went away."
"Know where she went, Mr. Daney?"
"No. She didn't even leave a forwarding address for her mail."
The young laird of Tyee lurched up to Mr. Daney and laid a heavy hand on the older man's shoulder.
"How do you know that?" he demanded, and there was a growl in his voice. "Has Mrs. Daney been asking the postmaster?"
Mr. Daney saw that, for some inexplicable reason, he was in for a bad five minutes or more. His youthful superior's face was white and beaded with perspiration. Daney had a suspicion that Donald had had a drink or two.
"There has been no gossip, Donald," he answered crisply. "Get that notion out of your head. I would protect you from gossip, for I think I know my duty to the McKayes. I learned that lesson a long time ago," he added, with spirit.
"You haven't answered my question, Mr. Daney," Donald persisted.
"I shall. I know, because she told me herself." Mr. Daney had not intended that Donald should ever discover that he had had an interview with Nan Brent, but his veracity had, for the moment, appeared to him to be questioned by his superior, and he was too truthful, too thoroughly honest to attempt now to protect his reputation for truth-telling by uttering a small fib, albeit he squirmed inwardly at the terrible necessity for such integrity.
"Ah! Then Nan called upon you again?"
Mr. Daney sighed.
"No, I called upon her."
"With reference to what?"
"To settle with her for the loss of the Brutus."
"When did you lose the Brutus."
Mr. Daney pulled at his ear, gazed at the porch light, rubbed his Adam's apple, and gave the exact date.
"What happened to the Brutus?"
"She just disappeared, Donald. She was tied up alongside the barge--"
The heavy hand on Mr. Daney's shoulder tightened a little. Donald was merely holding fast to the general manager in order to stay on his feet, but Mr. Daney credited him with being the victim of rising anger.
"When did Nan leave Port Agnew, Mr. Daney?"
"Let me see, Donald." Mr. Daney tugged at his beard. "Why, she left two weeks ago yesterday. Yes; she left on the nineteenth."
"When did you settle with her for the loss of the Brutus?"
"On the sixteenth," Daney answered glibly.
"How much?"
"Twenty-five hundred dollars. It was more than the Brutus was worth, but I disliked to appear niggardly in the matter, Donald. I knew you and your father would approve whatever sum I settled for--and the loss of the little boat provided a nice opportunity for generosity without hurting the girl's pride."
"Yes--thank you, Mr. Daney. That was kind and thoughtful of you." Donald spoke the words slowly, as if he searched his brain carefully for each word and then had to coax his tongue into speaking it. "You settled, then, two days after the boat disappeared. Fast work. Nobody up here would steal the boat. Too much distance between ports--run short of gasoline, you know, on her limited tank capacity--and if anybody had purchased cased gasoline around here to load on deck, you'd know of it. Hard to conceal or disguise a forty-foot boat, too." His fingers closed like steel nippers over Mr. Daney's shoulder. "Where did you hide the boat, Mr. Daney? Answer me. I'll not be trifled with."
"I scuttled her--if you must have the truth."
"I knew you wouldn't lie to me. On whose orders, Mr. Daney? My father's?"
"No, sir; it was my own idea." Daney's face was white with mental and physical distress and red with confusion, by turns. His shoulder was numb.
"Why?"
"I figured that if the girl had some money to make a new start elsewhere, she'd leave Port Agnew, which would be best for all concerned."
"Why, Andrew Daney, you old hero! Cost you something to confess that, didn't it? Well--I guessed you or my father had induced her to go, so I concluded to start the investigation with you," He passed his hand over his white dripping brow before resuming what he had to say. "The Tyee Lumber Company isn't equipped to carry on its pay-roll Mr. Donald McKaye and the man who interferes in his personal affair, even though actuated by a kindly interest. You rip up that track you're laying and leave Nan's home alone. Then you clean up your desk and hand me your resignation. I'm sick--and your damned interference hurts. Sorry; but you must go. Understand? Nan's coming back--understand? Coming back--devilish hot night--for this time of year, isn't it? Man, I'm burning up."
It came to Mr. Daney that the young laird was acting in a most peculiar manner. Also, he was talking that way. Consequently, and what with the distress of being dismissed from the McKaye service in such cavalier fashion, the general manager decided to twist out from under that terrible grasp on his shoulder.
Instantly, Donald released from this support, swayed and clutched gropingly for Mr. Daney's person.
"Dizzy," he panted. "Head's on strike. Mr. Daney, where the devil are you? Don't run away from me. You damned old muddler, if I get my hands on you I'll pick you apart--yes, I will--to see--what makes you go. You did it, Yes, you did--even if you're too stupidly honest--to lie about it. Glad of that, though, Mr. Daney. Hate liars and interfering duffers. Ah--the cold-blooded calculation of it--took advantage of her poverty. She's gone--nobody knows--May God damn your soul to the deepest hell--Where are you? I'll kill you--no, no; forgive me, sir--Yes, you've been faithful, and you're an old employe--I wish you a very pleasant good-evening, sir."
He stepped gingerly down the three wide stairs, pitched forward, and measured his length in a bed of pansies. Mr. Daney came down, struck a match, and looked at his white face. Donald was apparently unconscious; so Mr. Daney knelt, placed his inquisitive nose close to the partly open lips, and sniffed. Then he swore his chiefest oath.
"Hell's hells and panther-tracks! He isn't drunk. He's sick."
Fifteen minutes later, the young Laird of Port Agnew reposed in the best room of his own hospital, and Andrew Daney was risking his life motoring at top speed up the cliff road to The Dreamerie with bad news for old Hector. Mrs. McKaye and the girls had retired but The Laird was reading in the living-room when Daney entered unannounced.
Old Hector looked up at his general manager from under his white, shaggy brow.
"Ye, Andrew," he saluted the latter gently, "I see by your face it's not welcome news you bring. Out with it, man."
So Andrew came "out with it," omitting no detail, and at the conclusion of his recital, the old man wagged his head to emphasize his comprehension.
"My son is not a dull man by any means," he said presently. "He knows what he knows--a man sure of himself always--and oh, Andrew man, because of the brain of him and the sweet soul of him, it breaks my heart to give pain to him. And what does the doctor say?"
"From a cursory examination he suspects typhoid fever."
"Ah, that's bad, bad, Andrew."
"The boy has the strength of a Hercules, sir. He'll beat through, never fear."
"Well, he'll not die to-night, at any rate," old Hector answered, "and I can do no good puttering round the hospital to-night. Neither would I alarm his mother and the girls. Send for the best medical brains in the country, Andrew, and don't quibble at the cost. Pay them what they ask. 'Twill be cheap enough if they save him. Good-night, Andrew, and thank you kindly." He stood up and laid his hand affectionately upon the shoulder of his faithful servant and walked with him thus to the door. "My good Andrew," he murmured, and propelled the general manager gently outside, "there's no need to worry over the dismissal. When the lad's well, he'll rescind his order, so, in the meantime, do not leave us."
"But--if he shouldn't rescind it?" Daney pleaded anxiously. Although he was comfortably fixed with this world's goods and had long since ceased to work for monetary reward, the Tyee Lumber Company was, nevertheless, part of his life, and to be dismissed from its service was akin to having some very necessary part of him amputated.
"Tush, man; tush! Don't be building a mare's nest," old Hector answered and closed the door upon him. For The Laird was losing control of himself and he could not bear that any human eye should gaze upon his weakness.