# Salt of the Sea

From Scribner's Magazine, Dec 1918
SALT OF THE SEA
By William John Hopkins
Illustrations by Henry Raleigh

### I

THE bench by the door of Laban's Folly is not much of a bench, but it must be comfortable enough, for it has supported many a back against the wall of the Folly, while the sun shone warm upon it and the gentle southwest wind blew in the faces of the owners of the backs. It has even performed that office many times in the mornings, when the sun does not shine upon it but it is in shade. And on this morning the shade would not have been ungrateful, and the breeze would have fanned the faces of the sitters, and they would have sat there whittling, perhaps, or doing nothing but smoke their leisurely pipes; and they would have looked out over the wharf, and their gaze might have been arrested by the three men who sat upon the string-piece fishing silently.
And the gaze of the sitters would pass beyond the men fishing, as it would pass beyond the nest of piles at the corner of the wharf, as being a thing familiar and of no moment, and it would linger on the surface of the harbor, where many small boats and a few larger ones swung at their moorings, and where the breeze ruffled the water and little waves danced in the sun; and it would soon pass to the opposite shore of the harbor, where many windmills turned above little square, weather-beaten roofs, pumping up water for the making of salt. Here their gaze would linger the longest, and they would marvel afresh that Hannibal Horne should have bought the old salt-works some years before. They were never done wondering at that. But they marvelled still more that he was engaged in the making of salt—or, rather, it was Helena, his wife, who attended to that. As for Hannibal himself, the war had taken him elsewhere.
But the bench was empty when a big motor-car came swiftly and silently down the wharf, and came silently to rest beside it, and the door opened and a girl got out—girl or woman, it was not easy to tell which, for a veil covered her face. Her figure was that of a girl but her bearing that of a woman, proud but listless, as if life had turned to ashes in her mouth.
She looked about her and she pushed her veil aside, disclosing the face of a young woman of a cold and stony kind of beauty. She spoke to the chauffeur, and her voice was low and even and clear and hard as steel.
"This must be the place," she said. "There are the harbor and the boats and the wind and the opposite shore and the windmills. There is even this ugly square building on the wharf. I will sit here a while. You may wait."
The chauffeur bowed, and the girl sat down upon the bench, rigid and erect, and again she looked around.
"Eleanor told me," she murmured, "to sit here for an hour and not to think. I will do the best I can."
So she sat there, gazing out and seeing nothing, while the sunshine lay hot upon the wharf and the shadow which the building cast before her got less and less. And the soft wind blew gently in her face as she sat, and it made little soft noises with its blowing, and there were the gentle sounds of the little waves and little distant noises—the cluck of a block, the sound of oars in a boat, the subdued talk of men that she could not see, the soft, drowsing silence of a hot morning, the lazy clatter of a horse's hoofs on the wooden bridge, the gentle clacking of the windmills on the opposite shore as they turned in the sun.
The salt wind and the little soft sounds soothed the girl sitting there. She was no longer erect and rigid, but leaning forward, crossed arms upon her knees. Her eyes had a softer look. The clacking of the windmills was louder and more rapid, and there was no shadow before her, but the sunlight lay upon the bench and shone upon her dark hair where it had escaped beneath her veil, and brought out a tinge of red in it.
She sat straight once more. "Fayette," she said, "how long have I been here?"
"An hour and a quarter. Miss Challis."
There came a burst of clacking from the windmills. She rose and went toward the car.
"I will go now and see the salt-works—those clattering windmills," she said. "They make salt over there, I have a fancy to see the place."
There is a long rack, lean and tall, filled with brush, and with three windmills on top. And beside the rack are low square roofs in rows, like a squat fishing village with windmills here and there among its roofs. And each roof rises to a peak in the middle, and under the roof is a shallow vat about breast high; and in some of the vats is what seems to be clear water, and in others is a faintly colored syrup, and the bottom and sides of the vat covered with a thick layer of white crystals. And the narrow streets of this dwarf village are carpeted deep with seaweed long grown dry and brittle and bleached almost white with age.
Lydia Challis stepped out upon the soft white weed. Far down the aisle she saw the figure of a man cross and recross. It was an ancient figure, tall and spare and angular. His movements were stiff and deliberate as he pottered about the vats. He did not even glance up at the approach of Miss Challis, but kept at his work of tilling a barrow with dripping crystals of salt, and she went on through a labyrinth of narrow passages, ducking under channels which carried sluggish currents of syrupy liquid, across soft carpeted aisles, and she came out in the heart of the salt-works.
It was a sort of little place or square, with an old ship's deck-house directly before her, set on low posts, forming one side. At the back of this place rose that long, lean rack, and against the rack, in the sun, lay an ancient ship's mast. It was a great mast that had journeyed over thousands of miles of ocean, and it lay now half buried in the seaweed and the earth, the upper side polished smooth and shiny with much sitting upon it. The floor of this place was covered thick with soft white weed, and on that weed, leaning against the old mast, sat a woman with uncovered hair, and her hair was in great ropes and coils that looked like half-pulled molasses candy. She was looking down and smiling tenderly, and at her knees as she sat were many shining new tins, and a baby about a year old played with the shining tins.
Miss Challis stopped short. There was a strange catch at her heart and in her voice.
"Oh!" she breathed. "A baby!"
The baby looked up and smiled adorably, and the mother smiled, too, and got quickly to her feet, her beautiful face flushing prettily. She was tall and stately.
"I feel like apologizing," she began, "for being found so. Baby and I spend most of our time here, and we have become accustomed to the lovely loneliness of it. We do not often have visitors. Will you sit down?"
"Oh, may I? Let me sit among the tins—with the baby."
The mother smiled once more. It was a lovely smile.
"The baby will be delighted," she said, "and so shall I."
Miss Challis bent and swept a place for herself clear of tins, which made a great clatter. The baby looked up and laughed at the noise and beat upon a tin between her knees with a soft little fist. Miss Challis sat on the white weed and leaned against the mast, with the baby and the tins at her right, and the mother sat as she had been sitting, with the baby and the tins at her left. It was a most desirable arrangement.
The baby looked up again and laughed and tried to take two tins in her hands to beat them together. They made a beautiful noise when they were beaten together so, but her hands were too small. So Miss Challis helped her with one, and her mother helped with the other, and one tin beat gently on the other, and they made a gentle noise. The baby laughed with delight, and the mother laughed, and Miss Challis laughed. She laughed aloud, just a joyous ripple of laughter. It was not just what would have been expected of Lydia Challis.
Miss Challis could hardly believe it herself. There was a lovely flush upon her face as she looked up with soft eyes.
"Do you know, Mrs. Horne," she said, almost with awe, "what you and your baby have done? I have not laughed for months."
"Oh, I'm sorry," said Helena Horne softly; "and I'm glad baby has done that."
And she bent to the baby, while the windmills clacked above them and the wind blew softly; and the baby smiled and made soft little noises, and the tins rolled away unheeded, and they sat for a long time in silence. Then the baby turned to Miss Challis and stretched her arms toward her, and Miss Challis took her. And she made a dive at a little gold chain that was about Miss Challis's neck, showing but a glint of the gold at the bosom of her dress.
"I am Lydia Challis, Mrs. Horne," Miss Challis began, holding the baby close. "I was told by a friend to come down here and to sit on the wharf for an hour and think of nothing. I did so this morning with some benefit. Then I was to go over your salt-works, and I came, thinking to find—almost anything but a baby."
The baby had been busy, meanwhile, tugging at the gold chain. Now she raised her head, regarded Miss Challis solemnly, and made a baby's sound of interrogation. She was holding up her hand with the chain dangling from it, and on the loop of the chain hung a ring which shone with colored lights.
Lydia Challis went red as the ruby in her ring, then white.
"Is it pretty?" she asked quietly. "Is it, baby?"
The baby signified that it was. She seemed to think that it might be good to eat, but Helena stopped her.
"No, treasure," she said. "Give it back now. See, there comes Mr. Barnet with the salt."
Miss Challis dropped the ring into the bosom of her dress.
"I'm afraid," Helena went on, hesitating, "it is time for us to be going. I—I should be glad to have you come home to luncheon with me, unless you have some other——"
"I have no engagements in the world. If you really want me, it will be a charity."
Helena looked at her shyly. "I really want you if you care to come. Baby and I are all alone, except for the servants, and I don't know when they may leave us. My house was burned down last winter, and I am in a cottage close by while it is being rebuilt. And I will not bore you with my salt-making. Eleanor Hamilton used to call me a salt herring."
Miss Challis smiled. "It was Eleanor Hamilton who sent me here."

### II

Lydia Challis sat on a pile of lumber and inhaled its fragrance and watched the men at work. She was Mrs. Horne's guest, and had been for three weeks, for Helena Horne was lonely, with Hannibal away, and had longed for an excuse to ask somebody to visit her; and Lydia Challis had been lonely and only too glad of an excuse to stay. Eleanor Hamilton had been the excuse.
And Lydia had been sitting on that pile of lumber, as it dwindled from day to day, leaning forward, her chin in her hand, and with interest in her eyes; or she had fished from the string-piece of the wharf, and had caught, perhaps, three chogset an hour; or she had gone to the salt-works with Helena and the laughing baby; or she had been sailing with Helena in the little white schooner.
Helena came out of the cottage, the baby in one arm, and stopped beside Lydia Challis.
"Will you go sailing?" she asked shyly. "To the ends of the earth."
Helena smiled. "There will hardly be time to go so far."
The little white schooner was ready, with her mainsail up. Lydia took the wheel and the baby, while Helena went to help Gotthard. It all went like clockwork. Helena walked aft and sat down beside Lydia.
"I didn't suppose you knew so much about a boat."
"Or a baby," said Lydia. "You thought, I suppose, that I was one of those useless women who don't know how to do anything but scream and who have no interest in life. Well," she added slowly, "I hadn't an interest in life—until I found you at your salt-works, Helena. And if you begin to tire of me you must let me know."
"Will you stay until I do? So long as you can put up with my cottage and with me——"
"And your disagreeable child," Lydia interrupted. "You are talking great nonsense, Helena."
The baby was growing sleepy, and now her little sunny head drooped against Lydia's side, and Lydia's arm tightened about her. There was a brisk wind, but they were well in the lee of the land, and there was no sea, only little waves which made a soft plashing as the schooner pushed through them.
And the soft salt breeze blew in their faces, and it made a sound as it blew, and above their heads there was the measured tapping of a slack rope on the taut canvas, and from the bow the sound of water as it was pushed aside, and down by the lee scuppers the gentle hissing of breaking bubbles that passed swiftly astern. Lydia's eyes were fixed on the far horizon, on the hazy blue line of the islands, and the baby was fast asleep in Lydia's arm, and she smiled in her sleep. And Gotthard was sitting on the coaming of the galley hatch, and he gazed out ahead and leaned his elbows on his knees.
They passed great bare rocks, like huge apple-dumplings, near the shore, their surfaces scarred with cracks and weathering, and of a tender brown, like pie-crust. And they passed a rocky cliff crowned with dwarf cedars that were gnarled and twisted, and a keg set high upon a spindle in the midst of the waters; and another rock, covered with barnacles, and with a fringe of rockweed waving gently in the water. And they came to the white lighthouse with its white dwelling, set upon the top of another rock, and anchored to it lest it slide off into the sea. Here the seas were suddenly greater, for there was no longer the lee of land, and a tide-rip ran past the rock. And the schooner began to bow gracefully, then to pitch and to throw the spray high; and suddenly Gotthard sprang to his feet and threw the hatch cover over, and the water fell upon the deck with a great noise and came racing down the scuppers. The noise of the hatch cover and of the water falling woke the baby, and she opened her eyes and looked up at Miss Challis and laughed gleefully. And once more the baby caught a glimpse of gold shining, and she clung to Lydia Challis's shoulder and pulled herself to her feet, and she snatched at the gleam of gold, and she got it, and she pulled forth the ring. And she pulled so suddenly and so hard that the slender gold chain was broken and the ring fell, and it bounded once upon the deck and rolled into the scuppers.
"Oh, baby!" Lydia cried. "My ring! What have you done!"
"I'll get it, Lydia," said Helena. And she went down upon one knee and retrieved the ring.
"Here it is, Lydia," she said, smiling. "It's not hurt at all."
Lydia sighed deeply. "If the ring had gone overboard," she said, "I think I should have gone after it." But she made no move to take it.
"I don't see," said Helena, "but you will have to wear the ring."
"Oh, no, no!" cried Lydia, looking up with tears in her eyes. "Never again, Helena. I couldn't." She smiled faintly. "Sit there and hold it."
She fixed her gaze once more upon the islands, which were no longer a hazy indigo line upon the horizon, but she could see the stone walls and the spire of a little church, with some sheep feeding in the bare brown field beyond.
"Two years ago," she began, gazing at the little church, "I was wearing that ring, and I thought I was happy. Then, one day, he came to me, hesitating. He had something to ask of me. He had fallen in with some British officers—they may have been Canadians—at his club. These officers had been talking of the war, and the result had been that quite a bunch of men, as he called it, had enlisted with the Canadians, and he was one of the bunch; and he wanted me to marry him within a fortnight. He was to go in three weeks.
"It was not much that he asked, and I ought to have been glad to do it. But it meant sacrificing my plans, and I was a proud, obstinate fool and I made difficulties. The war had never seemed very near; not our war, not my war. I said just that, and that I knew he looked upon it as I did, and that he was going because of some absurd spirit of adventure, and I was not inclined to humor him.
"He was as obstinate as I.
"'No, Lydia,' he said, 'you're wrong. I haven't yet got to the point of going because of Belgium and the Lusitania and all that, but if those men need my help, they're going to have it. They're fine men in a tight place. I would have gone before but I didn't realize their situation.'
"Then I forbade his going. He only smiled and said that it was too late; that he was not regretting, and that what he asked of me was not so impossible. Thousands of girls had been married on half an hour's notice.
"I made some retort, for I was angry and hurt.
" 'Lydia,' he said, 'does that ring mean nothing to you?'
"For answer I drew it off my finger and laid it on the table beside me. Then he laughed.
"I don't know how I got out of the room. Presently I heard the door shut. I was listening and waiting, and instead of his voice calling me softly, I heard the door boom like a distant gun.
"I ran down, and there was the ring on the table where I had put it. I snatched it up and went to the door, but he was gone. I have not seen him since."
She glanced at Helena with a little mournful smile; but the smile broke down and her eyes were brimming.
"Didn't he answer your letters, Lydia?"
"I didn't write him for a year and a half," said Lydia in a monotonous voice.
"But even in a year and a half—surely he answered that?"
"I did get a reply—of a sort—to that. They wrote me that he was missing and that they feared he was killed. It was not so blunt as that, but that was the substance of it."
Suddenly there came to them the measured tolling of a bell from the midst of the waters. Lydia started. "What is that?"
Helena pointed. "A bell-buoy, Lydia. Nothing more."

### III

Again the windmills clacked lazily in the gentle southwest wind, and the sunlight lay warm and comforting on the little square roofs and on the soft white weed that lay between the vats, from which came the sound of slowly trickling water, and upon the old log half buried in the weed, and upon Helena's coils of hair. Helena was sitting upon the log in an attitude of dejection, her head in her hands, gazing down with sombre eyes at a row of tins ranged before her and pretending to be busy inspecting the filled tins. She had to keep busy.
She did not look up even after she had become aware of a silent presence, for she thought it was the old man with his barrow of salt. But he did not move, and after a long time she looked up, and it was not Barnet she saw standing at a little distance before her, but a young man, or the wreck of one, tall and bronzed, but lean and thin to emaciation. His cheek-bones hung like ledges over his hollow cheeks, his hair was gray, and a great livid scar ran across one cheek; his upper lip was nothing but a scar, and his mouth seemed to have been cut back at the corners as if by a tight bit that was sharp. It was hard to imagine what he had looked like before he lost those great pieces out of his face, but he was not unpleasant to look upon even now. Strangely, his scars seemed to dignify him.
His hat was in his hand. "I beg your pardon," he said in a pleasant voice. "I landed here in my boat to look about the old salt-works, and I met an old man who directed me in here. I am afraid I have no excuse for my trespassing."
Helena had got to her feet. "We do not regard visitors as trespassers."
"I have never before seen a place of this kind," he said. "It is most soothing. I should like to spend a month or two in such a place. I suppose the old man can do all that is needed?"
"Why, yes," said Helena slowly. "Did you——"
"I want to get something to do in a quiet place like this for two or three months, or on a boat that is not too large."
Helena gave him a long look up and down.
"Forgive me, but are you strong enough to do the work on a boat?"
He laughed a little wryly. He could not laugh naturally, with those great scars.
"Is it so bad as that? I have been sick, but I hoped it was not so evident. I am quite able to do the work."
"Would you engage with me," she asked, "as a sailor on my boat? I am short of men."
"If the boat is not too large," he answered, "I will gladly."
Helena smiled. "It is that little white schooner."
"Then it is a bargain?"
"If you like. The pay——"
"The pay is not important. Make it what you please. The only condition I make is that when I am fully recovered you will release me. I must go back as soon as I am able."
"Back?" Helena asked. "Back where?"
"To France."
"Oh," said Helena softly. "And you are over here——"
"On sick leave. I have been pretty sick—body and soul—and my nerves rather battered about, but I am picking up. I got over on this side about three weeks ago, and have been nosing along the coast from New York in a borrowed cat-boat. When I got in here I thought I'd like to drop anchor for a while."
"What is your name?"
"You might call me William Henry. I'll go aboard now if I may."
Helena nodded, and she watched him striding catlike over the white weed and to the shore. She waited only long enough to give him a good start, then she went running to her boat.
Lydia was sitting sidewise on the string-piece of the wharf, leaning over and looking down at her line, when Helena came up behind her.
"Lydia, I want to ask you something. What did your man look like?"
Lydia lifted a startled face.
"What did—my man look like? Haven't I told you? Why, he was tall and rather handsome in a way, inclined to heaviness, but not stout. His face was well filled out, and he had brown hair and merry eyes, and a hearty laugh. I suppose," she said cynically, "that by this time he would have been a typical club-man, fat and blear-eyed and—and fat-headed. No doubt," she
added, looking down at the water again, "I am well out of it."
"Don't!" said Helena.

### IV

William Henry was crouching on the overhang just behind Lydia, where he seemed to like to be. And he trimmed the sheet in or eased it off at Helena's nod, and he watched the curve of Lydia's cheek, which was more than half turned away from him, and he watched the little curls at the back of her neck, and he caught glimpses of the foam sliding past under him, and of breaking green seas, and of the distant blue islands as the schooner rose and fell gently, and he was as content and happy as a man with his tastes and in his position ought to be.
He had been on the schooner for a week, and they had gone out every day, and it had got to be an established custom for him to crouch on the overhang; then he talked when Helena wished it, but he watched the curve of Lydia's cheek, and as soon as he saw signs that she was beginning to be bored he stopped. William Henry was a man of discretion.
On this afternoon there was more than a cupful of wind, and the schooner drove through the seas in a smother of foam and spray, and rose and fell in a way that made their hearts leap and made them all silent. The galley hatch was not an inviting seat, and Gotthard stood by the main shrouds, looking out ahead. Helena and Lydia sat silent by the wheel, also looking out ahead, their hair blown about. And William Henry watched the mad way in which the wind played with the curls at the back of Lydia's neck—watched enviously and smiled while he watched. Suddenly Lydia turned and spoke. She almost caught him at it.
"What regiment were you in?" It was the first time she had spoken to him directly, and perhaps she realized it, for she flushed faintly.
"With the Canadians, Miss Challis." And he told her the name and number of the regiment.
At his answer Lydia flushed the more and looked away.
"Were you? And did you happen to know a man named Seagrave? I believe he was in that regiment."
William Henry smiled faintly, "Harriman Seagrave?" he asked. "I have heard the name times enough, Miss Challis, but I have never met the man face to face."
She looked up quickly. "Why have you heard the name so often? Did he do anything—anything——"
"Heroic?" Wilham Henry supplied. "I don't know that he did anything worth mentioning; nothing more than hundreds of others did."
"Anything disgraceful?" Miss Challis demanded, rather stern.
"No," William Henry answered softly. "Nothing disgraceful. I think I am safe in saying that. If he had done such a thing—if any man in the regiment had done such a thing—I should be likely to know of it."
Lydia had lost her sternness. "I am very glad of that," she said. "Do you know what became of him?"
"He was missing one day, and it was generally supposed that he was killed. Simply disappeared. Spurlos versenkt."
He saw a faint shudder shake her shoulders.
"Shall I get you a wrap. Miss Challis?"
"Thank you, no. I am not cold. It is horrible to think of a man's being blotted out so utterly—as if he had never been."
"There are many horrible things," William Henry observed, "but that particular thing does not seem so bad. It's better than—oh, well, many things—some ways they have of putting a man out."
Lydia turned and glanced at him, at his scarred face. Then she stared forward again. The schooner drove through the seas, throwing the spray high at every plunge. Helena and even Gotthard had been giving more attention to William Henry than to the boat and her way upon the waters. A towering sea came with breaking top tumbling over, and it was followed by two others. Nobody saw it, and before Helena knew it the sea was upon them and had dumped its load of green water and tumbling foam upon the bows. The boat heeled a little more, stood almost upon her stern as the sea passed under, and the water on her decks came sloshing aft, filling the scuppers and running over the gunwale.
Lydia's hand was at her bosom, in the region of her heart, and William Henry half rose to his feet, when his legs seemed to give way under him. He pitched down with hands outstretched into the lee scuppers, made a futile effort to recover himself, and as the second huge sea came on in its turn he slipped quietly into the waters of the bay. But Helena saw that he was laughing, and one hand seemed to be clenched.
They picked him up; it took some minutes. Lydia was thankful, she found, and her heart sank gently back to its place, and she breathed more easily, and there was a flush upon her cheeks; but she did not look at William Henry. Seeing him in the water had stirred some memory—and she put her hand to her heart again and cried out.
"My ring, Helena!" she said. "It's gone."
"Oh, Lydia, I'm sorry. If you had it when we started it must be on the boat somewhere. If you see Miss Challis's ring, William Henry, will you give it to her?"
"I value it," said Lydia, in a low voice, "above everything."
"I have no doubt it will turn up, Miss Challis," said William Henry cheerfully, "and I will find it and give it to you."
He was smiling to himself as he turned away and went forward. He was much too wet to crouch upon the overhang.

### V

As time went by and days grew into weeks William Henry said nothing about the ring. Lydia said nothing about it either, which may appear strange. It may have seemed strange to her. And she had little to say to him, although she made no objection to his sitting on the string-piece of the wharf while she fished, which he did several times, and she let him bait her hooks and take off the fish that she caught. And he said little to Lydia, although he may have had much to say; but he attended to his duties on the schooner, and in the mornings when he was not baiting hooks for Lydia he was usually at the salt-works, where he pottered about after Barnet or wandered slowly over the soft white carpet of sea-weed, or sat on the old log, with Helena and the baby on the weed near, and spoke when he was spoken to and sometimes when he was not. But he would not talk about the war or his own part in it. And the sun shone upon them, and the south-west wind blew gently and the windmills clacked lazily, and each one of them lacked something to complete happiness, except the baby and perhaps Barnet.
One morning Helena and Lydia were sitting side by side on the old log, and the sunshine lay warm and pleasant on the log and on the white weed, and the gentle breeze fanned their cheeks, laden with pleasant odors of the earth and of the sea and of standing grass drying in the sun, and the windmills had almost ceased their clacking. William Henry was wandering somewhere among the vats, the baby in his arms.
"Lydia," said Helena, "you've never got your ring, have you?"
"No," said Lydia briefly, looking down at the seaweed and poking it with her foot.
"William Henry ought to have something to say about it, at least," Helena pursued. "Shall I speak to him about it?"
"No," said Lydia again. "It's no matter."
"Why, Lydia! You cherished it so! And he promised."
Lydia shook her head. "It's no matter," she said. "Let him wait until he is ready—or let him keep it, if he has it, until he has use for it."
Helena looked at her for a long moment. "Why, Lydia!" she said, and she laughed a little. "Do you know what you are saying?"
Lydia went red. "I don't care. I mean it." She fell to poking the weed very industriously with her foot. "Why shouldn't I? Would you think it strange and terrible? And you are not to think——"
"Sh!" said Helena. "Here they come now."
And in another moment William Henry strolled in with the baby in the crook of his arm. One of the baby's little dimpled brown arms rested about William Henry's neck, and she sat there picture of utter content.
Helena laughed softly. "My nose is out of joint," she said. "Oh, treasure, don't!"
For the baby had laid her hand upon the great scar on William Henry's face and was stroking it gently.
"Don't mind, Mrs. Horne," said William Henry. "At first it was sensitive, but not now. Her touch is like down."
"How did you get it?" Lydia asked unfeelingly.
"Lydia!" Helena cried low. "How can you!"
"I want to know," Lydia replied quietly. William Henry laughed, a crooked laugh.
"Oh, I'd as lief tell you. A piece of shell raked off that side of my face, Miss Challis. The whole thing was gone, from my ear to my mouth. I thought it never could be closed up again, which would have been inconvenient. But they patched me up. They have very skilful surgeons over there."
"And the rest of it?" Lydia pursued, without pity.
"The rest of it? Oh, you mean these?" He indicated the long, curved scars at the corners of his mouth and on his upper lip. "The Germans did the rest. After the shell I must have fainted, for the next thing I knew I was a prisoner. And they did things to me. They did things to others, too, many of them worse than mine. You wouldn't think it strange if we hated to have to take prisoners. That is not the worst of their iniquities; but I don't like to talk about them."
Lydia breathed a faint, shuddering sigh. "Thank you," she said, and she got up slowly, and slowly she walked off between two vats and disappeared.
William Henry looked at the narrow path between the vats. "I'm afraid I've driven her off with my tale of horrors. I'm sorry."
"It's her own fault and serves her right," said Helena. "But you'd better go after her and try to drive the horrors away. I'm sorry she asked you. You were very good to answer her. Give me the baby."
It was a long time before he found her, but he saw her at last in the farthest corner of the farthest aisle, seeming much interested in the contents of a vat. As he approached she looked down at the weed, her hands clasped before her.
"I'm very sorry, Miss Challis," he began. "I shouldn't have told you."
As she raised her eyes he saw that they were full of tears.
"It was not too horrible for me to hear," she said. "It was not that. Of course, I have read of these things, but I haven't half believed them. I am cruel, too, and I should like"—she clenched her hands—"I should like to see them all boiled in oil."
William Henry laughed. "It would take a lot of oil," he said, "and oil is not so plenty. And think what a mess it would make!"
Lydia laughed, too, which was what William Henry wanted, no doubt.
"I want to ask you something," he said hesitatingly. "Do you find it—is it so very bad—my having these scars to carry? Is it—do they make me repulsive? I wish you would tell me the truth. I have a reason for asking."
"No; oh, no," Lydia breathed quickly. "Not repulsive."
"But I suppose no woman could care for a man so disfigured?"
"Is that it?" She was looking at him under lowered lids, a faint smile upon her lips. "Why, I don't know that. Some women, no doubt, would be repelled, but not a woman like—like Helena Horne, for example. Most women do not set such store by a man's looks, and when he has got his disfigurement in the way you have—but why? Is there some woman you would like to have care?"
He nodded, leaning his spare figure against the side of the vat and looking down at her.
"There is—just one woman in the world. And I don't know what to do. If you were in my place—having these unpleasant scars—and you had found the woman, would you venture to show how you felt? Would you dare to ask her?"
"So much depends upon the kind of woman she is."
"Will you advise me? If the case were reversed—if it were your own case, and a man as badly disfigured as I am should ask you, how would you regard it?"
Lydia laughed low, her eyes cast down.
"Oh, that! Ask her, by all means. If she is like me she couldn't resist those badges of honor."
"But, Lydia—I beg your pardon, Miss Challis."
She glanced up at him. "Go on."
"Do you mean that?" His voice was low and it shook a little. "Shall I go on?"
There was a laugh in her eyes as she leaned against the vat and looked up at him. "Yes," she said, "go on."
William Henry was plainly nervous. "Thou art the woman, Lydia. Of course you knew it."
She did not move. "Well?"
He looked puzzled and said nothing.
"Well?" said Lydia again. "I am impatient." She tapped her foot upon the weed. "You have some thing to ask me?"
"Oh," said William Henry desperately. "I have. Will you marry me?"
"Well," said Lydia, with a sigh of relief, "you did get it out at last, didn't you? I thought you never would. And my answer is yes, on one condition. But wait," she added hastily, for he had moved suddenly. "Isn't it customary to say something else first? A sort of preamble to the resolution? Whereas——"
"Oh!" said William Henry again. "Whereas I love Lydia Challis with a great love, and hold her above all other women——"
"That is better," sighed Lydia softly, "but you don't——"
"I don't!" he said indignantly. "I'd like to know——"
"But you aren't holding me at all," said Lydia more softly yet.
He laughed. "You change so fast, Lydia." And the matter was instantly remedied. At last they reached the point of speech once more.
"How can you bear, Lydia," William Henry asked, "to marry a wreck like me?"
She laughed, and her eyes were very tender.
"It is not so difficult," she said. "But you remember that I said there was one condition."
"Anything at all," he replied. "I feel as if I could take Berlin."
"It is easier than that," she said. "My condition is that you marry me soon—in a week, or to-morrow would be better; or I should like it if we could be married to-day."
She laughed to see the amazement in his face.
"Then you will not do it?" she asked. "Have I scared you off?"
She did not seem to be much afraid that she had scared him off, but she stood there, smiling up into his face tenderly but mischievously, as if she knew some huge joke which she was keeping back.
William Henry caught his breath. "Will I do it! But you took my breath away for an instant. I thought you didn't like to be—but I will attend to the preliminaries now, and then I will capture a minister, if it has to be done at the point of the bayonet." He was starting, but he turned back. "I hate to leave you, Lydia, even for an hour and for that."
"You will not have to, for I will go with you; and we can go more quickly in my car. But I want to finish that preamble first—and the resolution. First position! As you were!"
They were as they had been. "Now," she went on, "it's my turn." She was holding her head back that she might see his face the better. "Whereas I, Lydia Challis, hold in great honor and love with all my heart——"
He interrupted her. "Wait, Lydia. I have something to tell you first. Listen, and perhaps you won't want to——"
"I know what it is. Put it on my finger. I have been waiting for that." And she held out her left hand, and he, smiling shamefacedly, drew her ring from his pocket and slipped it on her third finger. She shut her hand with a little sigh of content.
"I'll hold it fast," she said.
"I picked it up from the scuppers that day when I went overboard," he said. "But, Lydia, that wasn't all. There is something else."
"Oh, you make me angry," she cried. "Don't you want to hear my preamble? Well, then, don't interrupt again. Whereas," she began again, a touch of amusement and of anticipation in her voice, "I, Lydia Challis, do love with all my heart and hold in great honor above all other men a certain man named Harriman Seagrave——"
"What!" cried William Henry. "You do!"
Lydia buried her face in his shoulder.
"I do, I do. Oh, Harry, Harry Seagrave, how long did you think I could be deceived? I am ashamed that it took nearly a week for me to know you; but you are changed so, Harry—for the better, dear love."
He laughed at that. "Oh, Lydia, Lydia ! Shall I enter in the next beauty show?"
She was clinging to him passionately, her eyes still hidden.
"You look beautiful—divine—to me," she said. "Your poor face, Harry! And your hair! And your two years of horrors! And my pride that sent you away without comfort! But it was never my heart, Harry, and my pride is humbled. I could go on my knees to you and ask your pardon."
"No, no," he said. "It is I who should ask pardon of you for my effort to deceive."
She smiled up at him. "Did you dream," she asked, "that I would let any other man put your ring on my finger? But how did you happen to come here, Harry, of all places?"
"Just happened to, poking along the shore in the catboat. And I saw you fishing from the wharf. It nearly finished me, Lydia, but my mind was made up at that instant to stay here until——"
"The bitter end," said Lydia, "I suppose."
They heard the baby's laugh.
"There's Helena—and the baby," said Lydia, "looking for us. Come, and we will meet them."
Hand in hand they went toward the sound of the baby's laughing, and they met Helena as she came between two vats. She smiled as she saw them coming hand in hand. She was not surprised.
"Let me present Harriman Seagrave, Mrs. Horne," said Lydia with a sweeping curtsy.
"What!" Helena cried. She was surprised now. "Lydia, is it true? Oh, I am so glad! William Henry!" she said in tones of reproof, turning to him. "The duplicity of it!"
There was no chance for William Henry's excuses.
"And, Helena," Lydia pursued, "we're going to be married quite soon—but not until after luncheon—and we've made up our minds to be married on the wharf in front of Laban's Folly. I've a fancy for it."
"Mercy on us!" said Helena.
Lydia laughed gayly and so did the baby.
"Thank you," said Lydia, "for your so happily expressed good wishes."
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1926, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 97 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse