| OCR Text |
Show (Wk unci be r Iff idCs PEGGV Dsns W.N.U. RELEASE Imk they would well, feel that she should be locked away I Put in an institution " The pain of the thought silenced his words for a moment, and after he had got himself him-self somewhat under control he managed a smile at her that was little more than a grimace and said, "So now you know. What are you going to do?" Megan flinched from the look and from the words. She looked at him with wide, distressed eyes. "What's it got to do with me? I mean, why should I do anything?" she protested swiftly. "I'm terribly sorry I didn't mean to pry into your affairs " "I know," Tom brushed the words away with a gesture of the hand that held his pipe. "But I think, somehow, I wanted you to know. After all, you are my nearest neighbor. neigh-bor. We see each other often it's inevitable you should wonder. I I hope you won't feel it necessary to" Megan's face flamed with hurt. THE STORY THUS FAR: Megan Mac-Tavish Mac-Tavish and her father, with Annie, the servant, live on a small farm at the edge of Pleasant Grove. Their living Is made from chickens and a few cows, (or MacTavlsh has been a ne'er-do-well for years. Into Pleasant Grove came m woman who called herself Alicia Stevenson, Stev-enson, and having Inherited the old Brig-ham Brig-ham place she Is now a neighbor of Megan's. Alicia Is a woman of about forty years old, well dressed, and something some-thing of a mystery. A stranger comes to the MacTavish place to buy mirk and butter and eggs, and announces himself as Tom Falion, the new high school prln-clpal, prln-clpal, now living in the Westbrook place. He states that bis wife Is an Invalid. CHAPTER II Megan and Tom sat quietly on the big flat rocks, saying little, their eyes following the antics of the dogs and cats galloping around in circles on the Ridge. She thought she had never seen the pines look so beau-. beau-. tifuL He asked for permission to flu his pipe and light it, and tentatively offered of-fered her a cigarette. "Thanks, no," Megan answered lightly. "It's a habit I've avoided I don't think I'd care much for it, and it is expensive." Obviously Tom understood the logic of that, and for a moment they )were both silent, until he got his pipe going well. Megan said after a moment when the silence threatened to become awkward, "How is Mrs. Fallon? Does the climate seem to agree with her, as you'd hoped?" Tom's, brown hand tightened about the bowl of his pipe until the knuckles stood up in little white mounds. He tore his eyes from the landscape and gave her a look that was hard and cold and bitter, so much so that she was startled by the sudden, inexplicable hostility. "Mrs. Fallon is doing as well as could be expected, under the circum-itances," circum-itances," he told her. His voice was harsh, and the very sound of the words told her that he had repeated re-peated these words until they had ceased to have any meaning; yet he had never ceased to resent the necessity for them. "I'm sorry If I seemed inquisitive inquisi-tive or rude," Megan told him frankly, her face hot with color, her head up. "I had no such intention. You have made no secret of the fact that your wife is an invalid. Naturally, in a small town like this, eyes. Poor man! and poori woman! wom-an! She shivered a little and hurried hur-ried as she went, as though to run away from thoughts that bit too deeply. One of Pleasant Grove's favorite autumn diversions, when the harvest har-vest was in and the winter greens had been planted, and it was still too warm for "hawg-killin'," was quilt tag parties. Through the scant leisure time oi winter, most oi. Pleasant Grove's women pieced quilts, out of "scrap bags" and carefully hoarded bits oi material; and then when the quilt top had been pieced and finished, the owner notified her friends that she was "putting up" a quilt and they were invited to come and help her quilt it. A few days after her talk with Tom on the Ridge, Megan went over to Mrs. Stuart's, where there was a quilting. There were greetings, a breezy exchange of pleasantries, while Megan settled herself, brought her thimble out of her pocket, threaded her needle, and set to work. 'There were perhaps a dozen women wom-en about the big frame, which was opened to its fullest width, the width and length of a double bed. Megan talked lightly and carelessly to her neighbor, the pretty little Whitaker girl whose sweetheart had just been reported injured in action in Italy and who was grateful for the chance to talk about him. Suddenly Megan heard the name, " 'lessor Fallon" and looked up. Alicia Stevenson was watching her . shrewdly, a little knowing look in her small, dark eyes that made Megan Me-gan oddly and absurdly uneasy. Mrs. Burns, who was president of the Parent-Teachers' association of the local school, was saying, "I think we're lucky to get a man like Professor Pro-fessor Fallon here. The school board says his qualifications are excellent ex-cellent and his references are extremely ex-tremely good!" Mrs. Stuart bit off a thread and patted her last stitches into place before threading the needle afresh. "Sort of makes me wonder how come we could get a man like 'fes-sot 'fes-sot Tom, in a little bitty place like this," she said, as she moistened the tip of the thread and squinted at the eye of the needle, trying to insert in-sert one through the other. "I don't reckin it's anything ag'n the man, though, if he wants to live in a little country town " people are interested and anxious to be of service, if they may " "The only service anyone can do my wife or myself is to leave my wife alone," stated Tom, and Megan's Me-gan's eyes blazed at his tone. She was on her feet now, and she said swiftly, her voice shaking with anger. "You may be quite sure that in the future, I, at least, shall be happy to do so!" She turned blindly to walk back through the pines, but before she had gone half a dozen steps, Tom was on his feet, laying a hand on her arm, in swift, abject apology. "Please wait please, forgive me," he apologized humbly. "That was unforgivable of me! It's just that well, the subject is an extremely ex-tremely painful one " "I'm sincerely sorry that I mentioned men-tioned it," she told him stiffly, her face still hot. He looked down at her gravely, his hand still on her arm, restraining restrain-ing her as she would have walked away. "You see, Miss MacTavish," ne said at last, his voice raw with pain, "my wife's illness is chiefly mental." men-tal." He set his teeth hard when he had spoken the last two words, and Megan Me-gan looked up at him, puzzled. "Mental? You mean she merely imagines she is ill? That she is a hypochondriac?" she asked, in ail innocence. Tom's face was white and rigid ' now, but his eyes were alive with f pain. "No," he said huskily. "I mean that my wife is mentally ill that she has the mind of a young child that she is not not normal!" It was obvious that he had tried to say "insane" and had not been able to get the word past his stiff lips. Megan was conscious of a moment mo-ment of stunned, shocked horror. This man chained to an insane wife! This man, whom everybody liked, with his fine mind and his keen sense of responsibility, and a woman who had the mind of a young child! "Oh!" was all she could say, her tone shocked and rich with sympathy sympa-thy and touched with keen embar- rassment that she must witness his moment of naked, burning revelation. revela-tion. "I'm terribly sorry " Tom brushed aside the choked, inadequate words and said with a sort of forced quiet, "So you see why it has been necessary for us to deny the well intentioned callers call-ers " "Of course." Mpshi told him unsteadily, un-steadily, sick with pity for him. "She is entirely harmless," he told her, and his face was wrenched with the pain and the shame of having hav-ing to put that thought into words. "She is never left for a moment alone and she never leaves her bed. But if people here knew about her mental condition well, undoubtedly "Maybe Megan could tell us more about that," said Alicia silkily. "About what?" asked Megan, cravenly pretending not to understand. under-stand. "Why a man like Tom Fallon would be satisfied in a little hick town like Pleasant Grove," said Alicia, smiling. "After all, you know him so much better than any of the rest of us " "I sell him milk and butter and eggs, yes," Megan told her curtly. "I'd hardly say that made us old friends, though." "But I thought during some of those long hours you've spent together to-gether on the Ridge, he might have told you something of himself," suggested Alicia, limpid-eyed, her voice soft as satin. There was a startled gasp about the quilting frame, perhaps not so much a gasp, as a sense of movement move-ment that made Megan know they were all staring at her, startled, wondering waiting. Megan drew a long breath. "Just what do you rnean by that?" she asked Alicia sharply. Alicia's eyes were wide with surprise, sur-prise, but there was a trace of malice in their depths also. "But, darling." she protested, her voice artificially gay and sweet, "what could I possibly mean except that I've seen you and the gallant professor on the Ridge " "Once, quite by accident, when I was out for a walk " Megan began, be-gan, but Alicia interrupted her with pretty concern and an apology that was worse than the most open accusation. accu-sation. "Of course, I'm terribly sorry," "Alicia interrupted. "Please don't say any more. I never dreamed I mean I wouldn't have mentioned it for the world " She was prettily pret-tily confused, and Megan could feel the hint of tension, of curiosity, that crept about the room. The women who had been her friends and neighbors all her life looked at her and then quickly away, very carefully not meeting her eyes, trying not to meet each other's eyes, elaborately pretending to be very casual. "This is ridiculous!" said Megan hotly. "You're trying to make people peo-ple believe that I've been sneak' ing off to meet Mr. Fallon " "Why, darling!" protested Alicia, wide-eyed, hurt though secretly enjoying, en-joying, as she always did, this by no means unusual result of her malicious mali-cious dropping of bits of information informa-tion here and there. "I didn't say anything of the kind. All I said was that It was obvious that you knew the man better than any of the rest of us, and that you should therefore know better than we why he was willing to hide I mean to bury himself him-self in a little hick town like Pleasant Pleas-ant Grove." Mrs. Stuart eyed Alicia belligerents belliger-ents (TO BE CONT1NUF.D) He looked down at her gravely, bis hand still on her arm, restraining restrain-ing her as she would have walked away. "You may be quite sure that I shall reveal your secret to no one why should I? What right or necessity ne-cessity would I have?" she told him sharply. Tom smiled at her, a white, faint smile that was somehow very tragic. "I know you wouldn't. Forgive me. I'm clumsy and stupid, but not intentionally or wilfully so. Forgive For-give me for everything?" Megan melted beneath the look In his eyes, and put her hand in his and let him draw her back to the flat stone, where she sat down once more. And as though the revelation revela-tion of his tragic secret had cleared the air between them, as though they were friends now, they spoke of other things. His mind was keen and alert; Megan read a great deal and used her mind to think with, and it was for both of them a pleasant experience experi-ence to be able to talk of things that had nothing to do with Pleasant Grove. Megan liked her friends and her neighbors, but there were many times when she hungered for impersonal im-personal talk of matters far afield from Pleasant Grove, and she enjoyed en-joyed this contact with a stimulating stimulat-ing mind. He walked with her to the barbed wire fence, when she saw that she must go because the evening was ending; he laughed a little, and obligingly held up the lower strand of barbed wire so she could crawl under it without snagging her skirt. "There really should be a gate here." she told him, getting to her feet on the other side of the fence, laughing across the four strands of barbed wire at him. "But I'm like the man who was going to fix the leak in his roof,' only he couldn't work while it was raining; and when it wasn't raining the roof didn't need mending. I somehow never get around to it!" She whistled. The two dogs came bounding to her, and the four cats stepped daintily out of a great thicket thick-et of honeysuckle vines that sprawled at the corner of the fence. And as she walked back down the meadow path to the brook, she looked over her shoulder, and lifted her hand to him in a gay little gesture, ges-ture, as she saw him standing there. He lifted his hat to her and bowed in a gay burlesque of a sweeping old-world gesture, and she went on, her heart a little lighter for him. She was terribly sorry for him, but she admired the gallantry with which he earned his burdens. And. looking across the fields toward the drab little five-room frame house that was the Westbrook place and that now held this pathetic woman, his wife, she felt the tears in her |
