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Page 20
The young rector answered quietly: "As I said before, Mr. Litterny, you
have been most generous. We are grateful more than I know how to say."
His manner was very winning, and the older man's kind face brightened.
"The greatest luxury which money brings is to give it away. St. John's
owes its thanks not to me, but to you, Mr. North. I have meant for some
time to put into words my appreciation of your work there. In two years
you have infused more life and earnestness into that sleepy parish than
I thought possible. You've waked them up, put energy into them, and got
it out of them. You've done wonders. It's right you should know that
people think this of you, and that your work is valued."
"I am glad," Norman North said, and the restraint of the words carried
more than a speech.
Mr. Litterny went on: "But there's such a thing as overdoing, young man,
and you're shaving the edge of it. You're looking ill--poor color--thin
as a rail. You need a rest."
"I think I'll go to Bermuda. My senior warden was there last year, and
he says it's a wonderful little place--full of flowers and tennis and
sailing, and blue sea and nice people." He stood up suddenly and
broadened his broad shoulders. "I love the south," he said. "And I love
out-of-doors and using my muscles. It's good to think of whole days
with no responsibility, and with exercise till my arms and legs ache. I
get little exercise, and I miss it. I was on the track team at Yale, you
see, and rather strong at tennis."
Mr. Litterny smiled, and his smile was full of sympathy. "We try to make
a stained-glass saint out of you," he said, "and all the time you're a
human youngster with a human desire for a good time. A mere lad," he
added, reflectively, and went on: "Go down to Bermuda with a light
heart, my boy, and enjoy yourself,--it will do your church as much good
as you. Play tennis and sail--fall in love if you find the right
girl,--nothing makes a man over like that." North was putting out his
hand. "And remember," Litterny added, "to keep an eye out for my thief.
You're retained as assistant detective in the case."
* * * * *
On a bright, windy morning a steamship wound its careful way through the
twisted water-road of Hamilton Harbor, Bermuda. Up from cabins mid
corners poured figures unknown to the decks during the passage, and
haggard faces brightened under the balmy breeze, and tired eyes smiled
at the dark hills and snowy sands of the sliding shore. In a sheltered
corner of the deck a woman lay back in a chair and drew in breaths of
soft air, and a tall girl watched her.
"You feel better already, don't you?" she demanded, and Mrs. Newbold put
her hand into her daughter's.
"It is Paradise," she said. "I am going to get well."
In an hour the landing had been made, the custom-house passed; the gay,
exhilarating little drive had been taken to the hotel, through white
streets, past white-roofed houses buried in trees and flowers and vines;
the sick woman lay quiet and happy on her bed, drawn to the open window,
where the healing of the breeze touched her gently, and where her eyes
dreamed over a fairy stretch of sea and islands. Katherine, moving about
the room, unpacking, came to sit in a chair by her mother and talk to
her for a moment.
"To-morrow, if you're a good child, you shall go for a drive. Think--a
drive in an enchanted island. It's Shakespeare's _Tempest_ island,--did
I tell you I heard that on the boat? We might run across Caliban any
minute, and I think at least we'll find 'M' and 'F', for Miranda and
Ferdinand, cut into the bark of a tree somewhere. We'll go for a drive
every day, every single day, till we find it. You'll see."
Mrs. Newbold's eyes moved from the sea and rested, perplexed, on her
daughter. "Katherine, how can we afford to drive every day? How can we
be here at all? I don't understand it. I'm sure there was nothing left
to sell except the land out west, and Mr. Seaton told us last spring
that it was worthless. How did you and Randolph conjure up the money for
this beautiful journey that is going to save my life?"
The girl bent impulsively and kissed her with tender roughness. "It is
going to do that--it is!" she cried, and her voice broke. Then: "Never
mind how the money came, dear,--invalids mustn't be curious. It strains
their nerves. Wait till you're well and perhaps you'll hear a tale about
that land out west."
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