Dorian

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

Car­lia's ring­ing cry per­sist­ed with Do­ri­an all the way home, but he hard­ened his heart and went steadi­ly on. His moth­er had gone to bed, and he sat for a time by the dy­ing fire, think­ing of what he had just passed through.

Af­ter that, Do­ri­an kept away from Car­lia. Al­though the long­ing to see her surged strong­ly through his heart from time to time, and he could not get away from the thought that she was in some trou­ble, yet his pride for­bade him to in­trude. He bus­ied him­self with chores and his books, and he did not re­lax in his ward du­ties. Once in a while he saw Car­lia at the meet­ing house, but she ab­sent­ed her­self more and more from pub­lic gath­er­ings, giv­ing as an ex­cuse to all who in­quired, that her work bound her more close­ly than ev­er at home.

Do­ri­an and his moth­er fre­quent­ly talked about Un­cle Zed and the hopes the de­part­ed one had of the young man. “Do you re­al­ly think, moth­er, that he meant I should de­vote my life to the har­mo­niz­ing of sci­ence and re­li­gion?” he asked.

“I think Un­cle Zed was in earnest. He had great faith in you.”

“But what do you think of it, moth­er?”

Af­ter a mo­ment's thought, the moth­er replied.

“What do you think of it?”

“Well, it would be a task, though a won­der­ful­ly great one.”

“The aim is high, the kind I would ex­pect of you. Do you know, Do­ri­an, your fa­ther had some such am­bi­tion. That's one of the rea­sons we came to the coun­try in hopes that some day he would have more time for study­ing.”

“I nev­er knew that, moth­er.”

“And now, what if your fa­ther and Un­cle Zed are talk­ing about the mat­ter up there in the spir­it world.”

Do­ri­an thought of that for a few mo­ments. Then: “I'll have to go to the Uni­ver­si­ty for four years, but that's on­ly a be­gin­ning. Ill have to go East to Yale or Har­vard and get all they have. Then will come a lot of in­di­vid­ual re­search, and--Oh, moth­er, I don't know.”

“And all the time you'll have to keep near to God and nev­er lose your faith in the gospel, for what doth it prof­it if you gain the whole world of knowl­edge and lose your own soul.” The moth­er came to him and ran her fin­gers lov­ing­ly through his hair. “But you're equal to it, my son; I be­lieve you can do it.”

This was a sam­ple of many such dis­cus­sions, and the con­clu­sion was reached that Do­ri­an should work hard­er than ev­er, if that were pos­si­ble, for two or per­haps three years, by which time the farms could be rent­ed and the in­come de­rived from them be enough to pro­vide for the moth­er's sim­ple needs and the son's ex­pens­es while at school.

Spring came ear­ly that year, and Do­ri­an was glad of it, for he was ea­ger to be out in the grow­ing world and turn that growth to pro­duc­tive­ness. When the warm weath­er came for good, books were laid aside, though not for­got­ten. From day­light un­til dark, he was busy. The home farm was well plant­ed, the dry-​farm wheat was grow­ing beau­ti­ful­ly. Be­tween the two, prospects were bright for the fur­ther­ing of their plans.

“Moth­er, when and where in this great plan of ours, am I to get mar­ried?”

Do­ri­an and his moth­er were en­joy­ing the dusk and the cool of the evening with­in odor­ous reach of Mrs. Trent's flow­ers, many of which had come from Un­cle Zed's gar­den. They had been talk­ing over some de­tails of their “plan.” Mrs. Trent laughed at the abrupt­ness of the ques­tion.

“Oh, do you want to get mar­ried?” she asked, won­der­ing what there might be to this query.

“Well--some­times, of course, I'll have to have a wife, won't I?”

“Cer­tain­ly, in good time; but you're in no hur­ry, are you?”

“Oh, no; I'm just talk­ing on gen­er­al prin­ci­ples. There's no one who would have me now.”

The moth­er did not dis­pute this. She knew some­what of his feel­ings to­ward Car­lia. These lovers' mis­un­der­stand­ings were not se­ri­ous, she thought to her­self. All would end prop­er­ly and well, in good time.

But Car­lia was in Do­ri­an's thought very of­ten, much to his be­wil­der­ment of heart and mind. He of­ten de­bat­ed with him­self if he should not def­inite­ly give her up, cease think­ing about her as be­ing any­thing to him ei­ther now or here­after; but it seemed im­pos­si­ble to do that. Car­lia's im­age per­sist­ed even as Mil­dred's did. Mil­dred, away from the en­tan­gle­ments of the world, was safe to him; but Car­lia had her life to live and the tri­als and dif­fi­cul­ties of mor­tal­ity to en­counter and to over­come; and that would not be easy, with her beau­ty and her im­pul­sive na­ture. She need­ed a man's clear head and steady hand to help her, and who was more fit­ting to do that than he him­self, Do­ri­an thought with­out con­scious ego­tism.

If it were pos­si­ble, Do­ri­an al­ways spent Sun­day at home. If he was on his dry farm in the hills, he drove down on Sat­ur­day evenings. One Sat­ur­day in mid­sum­mer, he ar­rived home late and tired. He put up his team, came in, washed, and was ready for the good sup­per which his moth­er al­ways had for him. The moth­er bus­ied her­self about the kitchen and the ta­ble.

“Come and sit down, moth­er,” urged Do­ri­an.

“What's the fuss­ing about! Ev­ery­thing I need is here on the ta­ble. You're tired, I see. Come, sit down with me and tell me all the news.”

“The news? what news!”

“Why, ev­ery­thing that's hap­pened in Green street for the past week. I haven't had a vis­itor up on the farm for ten days.”

“Ev­ery­thing is grow­ing splen­did­ly down here. The wa­ter in the canal is hold­ing out fine and Broth­er Larsen is fast learn­ing to be a farmer.”

“Good,” said Do­ri­an. “Our dry wheat is in most places two feet high, and it will go from forty to fifty bushels, with good luck. If now, the price of wheat doesn't sag too much.”

Do­ri­an fin­ished his sup­per, and was about to go to bed, be­ing in need of a good rest. His moth­er told him not to get up in the morn­ing un­til she called him.

“All right, moth­er,” he laughed as he kissed her good night, “but don't let me be late to Sun­day School, as I have a top­ic to treat in the The­olog­ical class. By heck, they re­al­ly think I'm Un­cle Zed's suc­ces­sor, by the sub­jects they give me.”

He was about to go to his room when his moth­er called him by name.

“Yes, moth­er, what is it?”

“You'll know to­mor­row, so I might as well tell you now.”

“Tell me what?”

“Some bad news.”

“Bad news! What is it?”

The moth­er seemed lothe to go on. She hes­itat­ed.

“Well, moth­er?”

“Car­lia is gone.”

“Gone? Gone where?”

“No­body knows. She's been miss­ing for a week. She left home last Sat­ur­day to spend a few days with a friend in the city, so she said. Yes­ter­day her fa­ther called at the place to bring her home and learned that she had nev­er been there.”

“My gra­cious, moth­er!”

“Yes; it's ter­ri­ble. Her fa­ther has in­quired for her and looked for her ev­ery­where he could think of, but not a trace of her can he find. She's gone.”

Moth­er and son sat in si­lence for some time. He con­tin­ued to ask ques­tions, but she know no more than the sim­ple facts which she had told. He could do noth­ing to help, at least, not then, so he re­luc­tant­ly went to bed. He did not sleep un­til past mid­night.