8 6 5 E o Peter read the love letter penned by his wife to another Tnan. THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE BY DALE DRUMMOND Author of "A MAN AND A WOMAN" TKT NEW YORK BRITTON PUBLISHING COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY BRITTON PUBLISHING CO., INC. MADE IN U. S. A. All Rights Reserved THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE CHAPTER I To anyone who knew Peter Moore casually it would have seemed a far stretch of the imagination to connect him in any possible degree with the bright lights and Lobster Palaces of the Great White Way. That his love story, as well as his war story, should have such a setting, as only New York, with its cabarets, its Lounge Lizards and its Broadway can give, was almost laugh- ingly incongruous. That all these things, as well as many others, went into the make-up of his strangely complicated married life, and stalked boldly through it, is almost incredible. It is equally hard to understand his marriage to the small-town girl who was willing not only to barter her very soul for pleasure, but Peter's soul as well, and who for the sake of the flesh pots repudiated the man whom she had set out to win. ' Of course Peter Moore had his fling at the great world war but in no sense are his experiences in No Man 's Land to become the theme of this story. Rather it is the soul 7 2135178 quality of the man that stands out for chief consider- ation. On a certain night we find him doing sentry duty on new ground just won. The clouds had poured forth an incessant stream of tears since early morning and even now were oozing a cold mist, if anything, more uncomfortable than the rain itself. The ground was soft with mud the fighting had been fierce. From all sides feet and hands and faces stuck out. As he paced back and forth he crouched low, mindful of the ping of bullets. Now and again he quickly stepped aside, hav- ing almost stumbled over a protruding arm or leg whether of friend or foe he could not tell. The mud and blood sucked in at his boots with every step and this was the only sound. Yet as Peter Moore carefully shielded his flashlight to look at the watch at his wrist, his face did not reflect the misery of his surroundings. Far from it! There was an exalted look in his steady gray eyes ; a half teif der smile on his lips. Very carefully he pulled some- thing from his water-soaked pocket and, aided by an- other flash of the light, he looked at the object just for a second. Then, replacing it, he resumed his endless pacing back and forth. Peter was young just twenty-two. But he had no thought of discomfort, no feeling of horror when com- pelled to step over the gruesome objects strewed about him. Was he not a soldier? Was he not doing his duty ? His duty to his country, and to humanity ? Peter Moore was a thoroughgoing American. And back in America was the girl whose pictured face had brought the tender smile to his lips; the love light to his eyes. 8 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE In the mid-western town of Haynesville the citizens had been slow to understand that the French and the British were really at war with Germany. The con- ception of a war which involved the entire manhood of these nations, that threatened their very existence, had not yet penetrated their understanding. Of course, they read the papers, but always they spoke hopefully of the quick ending of the war; that in the very nature of things it could not last. And this they believed. But one day the entire town stood up, electrified. One of their own boys, a Haynesville boy, had volun- teered. It was Peter Moore who was going away to Canada to learn how to fight "Old John Moore's" only son. The townspeople were breathless at first. The thing was monstrous. It furnished a precedent other boys might follow. Then excitement became rampant, as the discussion waxed hot. "It's Peter's duty to stay home and take charge of the factory for John," many said, while others claimed that it would break his mother's heart if he went to war. It was his duty to stay at home with her. That Peter himself had known in a flash of patriotism, a thrill of inspiration, what his duty was, they had not the faintest understanding of. It was just a whim. Peter had always been a good quiet boy. A good son, too. Why should he go against them all now? "There ain't goin' to be no war! not to amount to nothin'," Martin Gormley declared as he sat on the edge of a cracker barrel, and aimed for the cuspidor several feet away. "Leastways, we ain't goin' to have 9 no war. Why Peter wants to help them Canucks is more'n I kin make out." "You know Peter says we will be in the war soon. That we will have to join the French and the British. He may be right," the preacher said quietly. He had dropped into the grocery for his mail, Uncle Sam having leased part of the store for that purpose. "Nonsense! the boy's crazy," Lemuel Griggs, a pros- perous farmer, spoke emphatically. "I ain't so sure," Old Thomas Martin said slowly. He had won his stripes in the Civil War, and since the newspapers had told them of the fighting going on in Europe he had resurrected an old uniform. "I ain't so sure the States won't get in it before they are through. Uncle Sam is a good deal like a married man- he '11 stand a heap, and he'll keep still for a long time; but when he does turn he means business. I only wish I was young like Peter ; I 'd go, too. ' ' He looked at his empty coat sleeve, the sleeve that had hung limp for more than fifty years. He was grizzled and gray, but his spirit was young. The spirit of the born fighting man who fights for right and justice. Peter's father was greatly distressed. "I can't see why it is necessary, Peter," said he. "You were just getting where you would be useful at the factory. It'll be hard to have you go. If the States were in the war, it would be different. But why you want to go off to Canada and learn soldiering is beyond me." "The States will be in before long, father," Peter replied. "I want to be ready to help to be of some use." 10 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE "I'm proud of you, Peter," said his mother, when they were alone together. "But I pray God you are not right about our going to war ; and I pray you won 't be needed by the British." One had only to see Peter and his mother together to know from what source he had imbibed his ideals, his view of life. But to one and all he gave the same reply : "I must go!" It was strange how that simple word "must" seemed to be in his mind. There was nothing equivocal in his answers to all the objections offered. They were terse and to the point. His companions, the boys and girls of the village, were thrilled that one of them had proved himself so brave, so courageous. He didn't have to go. He was going because he knew it was right ! But not yet would John Moore give up. Many times he argued with Peter. "If it was the United States, my boy, I wouldn't say a word," he complained. "But the other nations ain't got any claim on you." ' ' We '11 be in it, dad ! we 've got to be ! " was his only answer when his father urged him to wait. "And, dad, when the time comes there will be enough untrained men. I want to be all ready when America goes in. Ready to be of some use; not be just a green factory boy with everything to learn. Don't you see, dad? I must go!" "But, Peter, why not wait a little? Things over there may take a turn at any time." "Dad, they won't take a turn until we are all fight- 11 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE ing. Every mother's son of us. French, British, American, and the Lord only knows what other nations. ' ' "How do you know, Peter?" John Moore asked. He loved this big, visionary son of his. He was willing to argue, to hear him. "I feel it here." Peter laid his hand upon his heart. ' ' I see it in my dreams ; I know it will come true ; and before very long." Mr. Moore sighed. Not yet was he ready to acknowl- edge defeat. "But, son, to go to Canada to enlist! Aren't there enough British without you, an American boy, enlist- ing with them? Wait until your own country calls. Then I won't say one word. But, Peter, my boy, I am positive that there is a lot of Englishmen, Scotchmen and other British subjects in this country who haven't felt any call to fight. Why should you?" "If that's so, it is all the more reason why I should go, dad." Nothing his father could say, though he argued often and late, would change Peter's mind. Peter went to a camp in Canada to be made into a soldier. For though Peter had a soldier's spirit, he knew very little about the business of soldiering. It would be impossible for him to visit home often, even though he had leave; it was an expensive trip. He could not help his father in the factory, so whatever money he could save must be sent home to repay him in part for the loss of his services. But at the end of three months the homesickness be- came unbearable, and Peter did come home. If he had 12 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE been tall and straight before, he seemed taller and straighter now, and his bronzed face had taken on a more manly, more resolute look. As Bertha had imag- ined, a uniform was vastly becoming to Peter. What if he were only a common soldier. He might some day her thoughts always stopped there and took a more personal turn. The men and boys of the town treated Peter with a new deference. They no longer nodded a greeting, but stopped and shook hands with the strapping young soldier whom they had known since he was a wee toddler in knickerbockers and curls. His father said no more about the factory, but walked proudly by his side down the main street talking with him as one man to another. His mother well, Peter and his mother had many long, serious talks during those few days spent at home; talks he never would forget. Her soul braved the sepa- ration with the same courage as his looked forward to the inevitable combat. Some of them told Peter what they thought in ex- travagant terms. Only Bertha Hunter, the grocer's daughter, said nothing. She looked proud and happy when Peter walked with her, or escorted her home from church. She wondered how he would look in a uniform. Peter was tall and very straight. He should look well better than any of the town boys. Bertha and Peter had known each other always. They lived on the same street, had gone to the same school, graduated in the same class. They attended the same church and Sunday school. Bertha was a pretty girl that is, she had a certain 13 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE weak prettiness. An oval face, big blue eyes and an indeterminate chin; one thought that chin indexed her character. Yet Bertha usually managed to get what she wanted. She had little wheedling ways. Once she made up her mind she never gave up until she had what she desired. "Her mother spoils her," some of the townspeople grumbled. "It's her father's fault. He is a poor, hard-working man. He should be more strict with her. That's the trouble with people who have only one child." Bertha, like Peter, was an only child. But Bertha went on/ her way, untroubled. She was selfish. Much more selfish than even her poor, hard- working father and mother realized. She was their only child, however. They loved her passionately each in his own way. Bertha took all they did for her as her right. Peter never had singled Bertha Hunter out for any especial attention. He had occasionally taken her to a picnic, a house party or a church social; but so had he the other girls. As I said before, Bertha Hunter usually managed to get what she wanted. After Peter came home and she saw him in his uniform, bronzed, serious, manly, a look of determination and positive intent woke in her blue eyes. Bertha had made up her mind that she wanted Peter Moore. But Peter's furlough was short. He spent most of it at home with his mother, or at the factory with his father. Only once did Bertha see him alone, and then, 14 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE do what she would, she could not inject a personal note into the conversation. Peter was all enthusiasm over his camp work, over the possibility of soon being sent to France. He talked to Bertha of his tentmates, his duties, his amusements in the big Canadian camp. He told her also of his good times in New York on his way back home. How the boys, in groups of two or three those who, like himself, were on leave would visit all the places of interest. ' ' It is some town, Bertha ; lots of the fellows go around with their girls those who have girls in New York the remainder of us flock by ourselves," he finished, carelessly, as if it made no particle of difference to him. "Lots of the fellows go around with their girls." That sentence lodged in Bertha's mind. Only to his mother, however, did Peter talk of his camp life as it really affected him. He kept nothing from her. After Peter went back to camp Bertha thought of him constantly. He had no girl to go around with yet. And there was a sort of halo around Peter Moore, espe- cially in the mind of Bertha Hunter. He had been the first boy in Haynesville to enlist, and he was the best- looking soldier she ever had seen. What joy it would be to see New York, hanging on to Peter's arm. Bertha always had wanted to see the big town. She read the Sunday papers the advertisements and the society columns principally. What if she did not know the people talked about, by constant repeti- tion their names had become familiar to her. She also 15 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE copied the styles of the colored fashion page. Copied them well, for Bertha had one accomplishment. She was clever with her needle, and, although she had little money to spend, she managed to make a good appear- ance. Now each Sunday the papers had entire pages devoted to pictures of the soldiers in camp, on the march and in New York. Many of the latter taken in groups, some with girls, who looked smiling and happy. Bertha looked long and often at the pictures of the soldiers taken with their "girls" beside them. And every time she looked, her desire grew to get near the camp where Peter was stationed. But how? She couldn't go to Canada. Suddenly she knew. Peter passed through New York. Sometimes he stayed over for two or three days. She could see him there. "Ma, I'm going to New York if father will let me," she said as they did the dinner dishes. Mrs. Hunter always washed them so that Bertha wouldn't spoil her hands, Bertha drying and putting them away. "To New York! What do you want to go to New York for?" "I ain't never been anywhere, Ma. Aunt Martha has asked me to come and visit her, but you wouldn 't let me go. Please tease Pa to let me go now." "But that was five years ago that Martha asked you." Martha was Mr. Hunter's sister. "She might not want you now." "I'll write and ask her. If she says 'yes' will you get father to let me go?" 16 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE "I'll try." With that Bertha had to be content. Aunt Martha answered Bertha's letter at once. "Come right along," she wrote. "It won't be very lively for you. I have the rheumatism a good deal late years. But I'll be glad to see Henry's girl. Come with your mind made up to stay as long as your mother can spare you." What more pressing invitation could a girl desire f Now to get her father's consent. "It won't be easy to get him to give you the money, Bertha," her mother said as they talked it over. "Busi- ness ain't what it was before this war scare, and you know it never ain't been any too good. But I'll do the best I can for you. You ain't never been anywhere much. I've got a little chicken money saved up, you can have that." Mrs. Hunter had saved that chicken money for a much-needed dress for herself. But Bertha was her only child. Mr. Hunter had two to combat if he did not want to do whatever Bertha asked him; Mrs. Hunter always sided with her daughter. "Bertha had a letter from your sister Martha to- day," Mrs. Hunter remarked after Henry was partly through an exceptionally good dinner. Mrs. Hunter, like other wives, knew her husband's weakness for cer- tain things and this night she had catered to that weak- ness. Lamb stew with dumplings and strawberry short- cake made up the dinner menu. "What did Martha have to say?" his mouth full of hot dumpling. "She wants Bertha to come to New York and make 17 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE her a visit. She wants her to stay as long as we can spare her." "We all want a lot of things we don't get." "But, Henry, Bertha never has been anywhere, and go into the kitchen Bertha and get your father some more hot stew," she interrupted herself to say, at the same time giving her daughter a knowing look; which Bertha wisely translated as being an order to take her time getting the stew so her mother could talk to her father. "Now, Henry," she commenced again, "Bertha has always been a good girl. She ain't never given us any trouble. It won't cost much to let her go and see New York. She has wanted to for years. You know how she reads them Sunday papers till they are in rags." "Will she have to have any clothes?" "No ' Mrs. Hunter thought of the chicken money. That would buy Bertha the few things abso- lutely necessary after she got to New York. "She'll get along. You know how smart she is about fixin' herself up." "Well 111 think it over," he returned just as Bertha appeared with the stew. The girl looked surreptitiously at her mother. Mrs. Hunter nodded ever so slightly. "So you want to go to New York, do you?" Mr. Hunter asked as Bertha for the second time heaped his plate with shortcake. "Yes, father. Please let me go! I ain't never been anywhere out of Haynesville only over to Centerport to the circus, and I am most nineteen years old." 18 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE "I suppose you think you'll catch, one of them New York chaps," her father joked heavily as he lighted his pipe. Bertha knew her point was as good as won. Her father never attempted a joke unless he was in good humor. The stew and shortcake were getting in their work. She clapped her hands with glee as she threw her arms around his neck in what he called a "bear hug." "I may go, father, mayn't I? Please say yes, please do!" "Well yes. That is if your mother can manage without you. But you mustn't ask me for any money for clothes. I'll give you fifty dollars. That's every cent I can spare more'n I ought to." "Oh, thank you, father! that will be enough. I'll make it do!" Busy days and almost sleepless nights followed her father's consent to the visit. Should she write Peter, or should she wait until she reached her aunt's and let him know she was in New York? She worried for days over the course she should take in this, then decided to wait. Her father had refused to give her any money for new clothes, but what she had must be put in order. She no longer even dried the dishes for her mother, but turned and twisted and dyed her clothes until she could do nothing more to improve her wardrobe. The chicken money would be spent for new things ; stylish New York clothes such as she saw in the Sunday papers. So she told her mother. 19 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE Peter's name had not been mentioned. If Mrs. Hunter had any idea that Bertha had any other motive in wanting to go to New York save just the lure of the visit, she never mentioned it. But Bertha's thoughts dwelt by day upon the sensation she would make walking in Fifth Avenue with Peter, when he was away on leave. It wasn't so far from his Canadian camp. Her dreams by night were colorful for the same reason. Perhaps they would have their pictures taken and they would appear in the Sunday picture supplement. Haynesville would then sit up and take notice. 20 CHAPTER II SETTLED at Aunt Martha's, Bertha's first task was to let Peter know that she was in New York. She received an immediate reply to her carefully worded note. Peter could get to New York next Saturday. If she would meet him at the station, it would save time, and they would spend the entire day seeing the sights. Bertha looked very dainty, very attractive, when Peter spied her waiting for him in the big station filled with boys in uniform on their day's leave. He saw the envious looks of his mates as he greeted her; and it tinged the ardor of his greeting. And Bertha! she laughed and chatted and strutted proudly along by the side of her soldier escort. Never had she been so proud, so happy. When Peter stiffly saluted an officer she wanted to salute also. When they passed other soldiers with girls hanging' on to their arms, she wished Peter would offer her his arm. He would later, perhaps, but Bertha didn't like to wait, and it looked so much more intimate than walking as they did. But Peter didn't seem to think of it, and she hesi- tated to propose it. After all, she and Peter had never been anything but just friends. Maybe he her face flushed at the thought that maybe next time he would offer her his arm. 21 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE They visited the museum. They walked in the park and down that wonderful Fifth Avenue of which Bertha had read and dreamed. They stopped and looked in the shop windows, and Bertha held her breath at sight of the beautiful stuffs, the laces and silks. If she had those lovely materials, how charming she would make herself for Peter! She compared him to the other pri- vates they met of course she never dreamed of com- paring him to the smart-looking officers they passed, and it seemed to her that he stood apart; that he was of a little finer clay than the rest. She would not have known how to explain her feelings save as she did when she said to her Aunt Martha : ''Peter looks so nice, Aunt Martha. His eyes are so clear, he looks so straight at you, and he has such a nice skin. Some of the soldiers look so rough, and so much commoner than him." About one o'clock Peter said: ''Let's go eat, Bertha. I'm hungry." Reluctantly she turned away from a beautifully dressed window. There was a hat on display she was sure she could copy. "Where shall we go, Peter?" she asked as they re- sumed their walk. Now she was all a-thrill at the idea of having lunch with her soldier as she called Peter in her thoughts. "One of them white-front places, Bertha. The grub is all right, and they don't stick a fellow like they do in some places. ' ' It was all new and wonderful to Bertha. The Ritz or the Holland House could have given her no greater 22 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE thrills. The place was crowded and noisy. The white- gowned waitresses darted back and forth with what to Bertha was incredible quickness; although she heard grumblings over slow service from some seated near. There were many boys in khaki, some accompanied by girls, many alone. Often Bertha caught one of these latter looking in their direction. Then she smiled as she saw that Peter, too, had noticed it, and that he was glaring at the particularly insistent regard of one fellow. ''It's nice to be here," she returned softly. Then they both paid strict attention to their luncheon. The size of the check made Bertha gasp. It was her first meal in a public place. Peter must be fond of her to spend his money like that, she thought, not knowing that the same meal anywhere else would have been three times as much. They stood in the street hesitant. "How would you like to take a bus ride, Bertha? We'll get on top of one of them, ride way up as far as they go and then back again. After that we might go to a movie. What do you say?" "I'd just love it, Peter." "All right! then it's a go." Ten minutes later Bertha and Peter were seated a-top of a Fifth Avenue bus. The seat was narrow and Bertha felt happy over the personal contact now un- avoidable. "This is bully!" Peter said as they started. "It's nice to have someone from home to talk to." It wasn't just what Bertha would have liked him to say, but she smiled and agreed. 23 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE The bus was filled, every seat. How odd it seemed to be riding along the street, yet so far above it. In front of Peter and Bertha were another soldier and a very pretty girl. The soldier had his arm over the back of the seat; and every few minutes it would slip down and he would press the young girl closer to him. Bertha wished Peter would put his arm across the seat like that other soldier did; but Peter was too busy pointing out the things that interested him along the route. His mind was filled with wonder and disgust when he saw strapping young fellows of fighting age walking calmly along in civilian dress. How could they fail to realize that our time was coming ; that the United States would soon have to declare herself? ' ' We could lick them then sure ! ' ' he said in his eager young voice. "What what did you say, Peter?" Bertha had been so engaged watching the couple in front of them she had not heard. There had been a little catch in her throat as she noted the fellow's devotion. He didn't care whether America came into the war or not. Neither did he seem to care who won. He paid no atten- tion to all these things, he was too much occupied with the girl. "I said if America would only get in we would lick the Germans as sure as shooting. Gee! I can hardly wait." "Of course you will" Bertha answered a bit ab- sently, "that is, if the British and French soldiers are all like you, Peter." She accompanied her tactful 24 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE remark with a look of unadulterated admiration. "You see, Bertha, we have got to whip them. We must," Peter explained, yet she knew that in spite of his earnestness, her little speech had flattered and pleased him. He had flushed under the tan. They wandered into a moving picture house. The picture Bertha thought wonderful. It was a society drama adapted for the film. The beautiful pictured rooms, the clothes worn by both men and women were a revelation to her. But it didn't interest Peter nearly as much as did the pictures of camp life, of the soldiers drilling, the fighting ' ' Somewhere in France, ' ' the ruins of Belgium. Once when he recognized a picture of his own camp, he became excited at viewing the familiar surroundings, and grasped Bertha 's arm. She wished he would leave his hand there. She had watched a husky Canadian soldier sitting near them, just as she had watched that other soldier a-top of the bus. She saw he was frankly holding his girl's hand, and that when the house darkened his arm slipped about her slender waist. Some way she felt that although she had her soldier she was being cheated. She wanted all the glory of being looked upon by those around her as Peter's girl a soldier's sweetheart. She sighed, then was very quiet as more pictures of camp and army life were thrown upon the screen. But Peter talked on enthusiastically, unaware that their spirits did not meet ; oblivious that Bertha was not fully as interested as he. How should he know that she wanted him to hold her hand? How could he guess the jealous thoughts which filled her mind as she watched that other 25 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE couple? Why should he imagine she would rather he would hold her hand than talk to her about the pictures ? In spite of her resentment Bertha was happy. She was in New York; just so much nearer Peter's camp in Canada. She would see him whenever he had leave. She, too, would have a soldier to go around with. Aunt Martha was old, her rheumatism was very bad. She had made no objection to Bertha going out with Peter when she had learned he was from Haynesville. "He couldn't get away often," Bertha explained. It came to be the regularly understood thing that when Peter could get leave he was to spend it with Bertha in New York. She helped her aunt between times, and made over her clothes that she might be more attractive to Peter when he came. She had spent the chicken money carefully. She copied a hat she saw in a smart shop window, and bought a pair of light-topped shoes. She also had bought some white gloves, and lastly a military cape, which Peter admired immensely, and which she therefore wore whenever she was with him, regardless of the weather. While Peter's mind was filled to overflowing with his new responsibilities, his desire to perfect himself as a soldier he had determined to win his straps as quickly as possible he was not entirely unconscious of Bertha 's attractions. Gradually his attentions had seemed to take on a deeper meaning. Almost unconsciously he had begun to give Bertha those little marks of liking which she craved, and to which she attached so much meaning. 26 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE Yet Peter at times seemed still very remote. His interest all centered upon the war, upon all that counted for so little in Bertha's mind. She was proud to be with a soldier, yet she was strangely indifferent to the soldier's military interest. As Peter walked the streets and noted the young men in citizens' clothes a great pity came into his eyes. Did they not realize what they were missing? Could they not understand that a great privilege had come to them, the wonderful chance to be of use to their country? What ailed them? He watched them hurry or slouch along the streets, and wondered if they had any red blood in their veins. How could they hear the call of country and not answer? It had seemed to him that everything in him had tugged at his vitals until he had volunteered. He often went into the recruiting places. Naturally a quiet sort, he frequently forgot himself and pleaded with the bystander to enlist in the army, successful occasionally, failing often. When he failed, when the young men whom he approached gave thin and obvious excuses, a great sadness would envelop him. On such days he went back to camp without thinking of Bertha. Often he forgot to ask for her letter, which was sent regularly. He must work. He must do double duty, he decided, to make up for the slackers. ' ' Slackers ! ' ' How Peter hated the word. How could any man endure to go round under the slight that word carried with it when applied to himself? Peter was not a religious youth. Not that he was 27 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE irreligious, either. He really never had thought much about such things. But he now wondered that God didn't do something terrible to those men who hesitated to fight for their country. He had the childish literalness that men so often get into their faiths; women so seldom. Peter had met this new phase of his life with awe, with love and with hate. He was awed by the great task before him, passionately in love with the cause to which he had given himself, and filled with hate for the enemy. Not that Peter dissected his feelings at this time or that he actually realized their force, but they were there, deep down in his soul. He read the papers, did Peter. But he had no very keen understanding. It seemed to him that we in America muddled things a good deal ; that the govern- ment did. He would wrinkle his brows and puzzle over it a bit. Yet he never for a single moment lost his faith that, even though we muddled some things, we would finally muddle through all right. He had a conviction that America was invincible ; and it never left him. He didn't speak of it often. But when he occasionally talked to a fellow he was sure to impress his listener. Sometimes Peter heard them dub him as "queer." One day a fellow said "nuts" and pointed to his head; then winked at a pal. Peter had quite unconsciously and unintentionally given them a peep into the close recesses of his mind. Strangely enough, Peter stopped talking of the war when he saw Bertha. Had you asked him why, he would have disclaimed any idea that he kept quiet be- 28 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE cause of her; he would also have denied that she was unsympathetic. He just didn't feel like talking to her of things that touched him deeply. That was all. Peter never thought that America might fail to enter the war. That would be little less than treasonable. No people capable of ruling themselves as Americans had ruled themselves would consent to be ruled by German despots. The intense patriotism that lurked in his bosom rose like a mighty wave and swept all doubts before it. The Hun, his kultur, must perish. Democracy must prevail. That was Peter's attitude. There were no mays or mights in his lexicon. It was always must even though every man laid down his life to secure that end. Once, and once only, had Peter attempted to talk o these things that so filled his heart and mind, to Bertha. But she was so unaffectedly bored, so lacking in sympa- thetic understanding, so anxious to talk of other things, that he soon withdrew into himself and never again attempted to make her understand how he felt. She was just a girl, anyway. Strange as it may seem, New York men,, the civilians, made absolutely no impression upon Bertha at this time. It was no fault of theirs, either. For Bertha was very pretty and naturally received many admiring glances. Occasionally a bolder spirit than the rest would make unmistakable advances to the pretty country girl, but to no effect. Now when Peter came to New York and Bertha walked on the Avenue with him she hung gracefully upon his arm. No longer was she jealous of the other girls; no longer did she feel she was being cheated. When they 29 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE rode on top of the bus in the long summer evenings Peter's arm found the back of the seat, and sometimes it dropped down to her waist and stayed there. Even in the movies he no longer gave his undivided attention to the pictures, but his hand would often find Bertha's, or his arm would drape itself across the back of the seat when the house was darkened and draw her toward him with a gentle pressure. Yet Peter had said no word of love to Bertha. Some- times she wondered why, but mostly she was content to drift happily and easily along. Then one day he woke her from her content. He said he hoped they would soon be sent "over there," 30 CHAPTER in BERTHA had written her father and had his permission to remain with Aunt Martha until Fall. Peter had hinted more than once that he thought they might go almost any day. He always finished by saying that he "hoped they would." He said it, too, in his letters to her. Whenever she read it Bertha almost despaired. Every day she read the list of marriages in the papers. Only those of the soldiers interested her, however. She would read them over and over, and think how proud those girls must be. Once she said something of the sort to Peter. He made no reply, but what she said remained with him, and bothered him. ' ' When you like a person, it must be awful to have them leave you unless you know you belong to them and they belong to you, ' ' she had said, ostensibly refer- ring to a marriage of which she had just read an account. "You see, lie wouldn't be so lonesome thinking his wife is waiting for him, and getting her letters," she added, cannily, showing she was not quite as innocent of design as she appeared. Peter sensed nothing of this. His mind, as well as his letters, were filled with a soldier's thoughts, a soldier's aspirations. Yet at times there filtered through his con- sciousness an idea of Bertha's sweetness: an idea that 31 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE he would like her for his own. Yet when he was with her he said nothing; neither did he mention it in his letters. He was, perhaps, a trifle more tender, a bit more self-conscious in his embraces and his good-night kisses only lately indulged in were more fervent, his parting more prolonged. ' ' If he only came of tener I believe he would, ' ' Bertha said to herself. ' ' I hate to go back to Haynesville ! If I was his wife I could stay in New York. Father would have nothing to say about it." Selfish as always, un- thoughtful of the father and mother who had denied themselves so much, for her. Then one never-to-be-forgotten day the summons came. Peter was to "go over there to help the British carry on. " So he wrote her. He had just time to go home to Haynesville and bid his father and mother good-bye. Also he would be able to stay a day in New York with her. Bertha spent the next few days in such an agony of longing as almost unnerved her. She had so little time. Would it be possible to do anything? But she had reckoned without taking Peter's youth, his young blood into consideration. He was very quiet when he came. The parting with his mother had been hard. He spoke of going. Bertha grew pale, then, swept suddenly by her emotions, she threw herself, sobbing unrestrainedly, into Peter's arms. "I can't bear it, Peter! I can't bear it!" her arms clung to him, drew him down until their lips met. Her tears were hot and wet on his cheeks. 32 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE Bertha!" he said, his voice hoarse. His temples were pounding so he could scarcely think. "It don't seem right, Bertha, but would you do you shall we get married ? ' ' He held her off a little, that he might see her face. ' ' Oh, Peter ! I do love you ! ' ' and once more her arms crept around his neck ; once more her lips found his. "Bertha!" Peter said again, a strange awe almost mastering him. ' ' I guess we better get married. Or would you rather wait until I come back?" He saw refusal in her eyes. "Ill go tend to it," he said, sud- denly sobered, himself once again. The tide of emotion that had swept him nearly off his feet had passed. He was calm once more. Peter found that he was late for the license bureau that day, so he went back to Bertha. He would try again in the morning, taking her with him. They spent the evening quietly together in Aunt Martha's parlor. "It don't seem just right to marry a girl then leave her," Peter said, his arm around Bertha. "But you say you have to go, Peter. And I shall be happy here. You'll be careful for my sake, won't you, dear?" her eyes bright and dry. ' ' Of course I will. As careful as I can. But I imagine I shan't be thinking much about myself." He kissed her tenderly. He was stirred at the thought that she was to be his wife. It seemed a holy relationship as he thought of his mother. Then, he reflected, that Bertha would write to him, and that would help him to be brave. 33 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE That night he left early. He had his packing to do. Then he said, "I must write to your father. I want to tell him just how it happened, that we didn't know until the last minute. I want him to know, too, that you will have part of my pay. All I can spare. It won't be much now; but I shan't always be a private." That was all Peter said about money. The ordinary things of life seemed not to worry him. ' ' I can earn more if I need it, ' ' Bertha replied. "You mean that you want to stay here in New York?" "Yes. I shall stay with Aunt Martha until you come back," she said, very decidedly. Had Peter been less absorbed he must have wondered that she had so soon planned her future, and without consulting him. But his mind was on other things. He never noticed. Months afterward that speech occurred to him. He bade her good night. They would meet in the morning. They would be married ; then, in a few hours at most, he would be on his way to Canada, and then "over there." Nearly all night did Peter sit up writing. His letter to his mother was the outpouring of his boyish soul- things he could not have said, even to her. He told her of his hopes, his aspirations, his sure belief that America would soon enter the war. He told of his willingness to die for his country as well as to fight for her. If he died before that country wakened to her need to fight, he would be giving himself for the same cause the 34 TEE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE liberty of peoples and the democracy of nations. He told her he should be glad to go, although he would miss some of the fellows who were not to go until later. He had made few close friendships it wasn't his way. But one or two he spoke of by name. Those his mother realized had meant much to him. He wrote of the camp songs, how "Keep the Home- fires Burning Till the Boys Come Home," was his favorite. He liked the Canadian soldiers. "They are different from us, but they are great fellows," he said. All this Peter had told in simple, often ungrammatical language, for Peter had no more education than had Ber- tha or the other boys and girls of the town. Just went through the common school ; then had to help his father. Then after he had assured his mother of his love, and spoke of her as having the harder part, that of waiting while he would be fighting, he added : "You know Bertha Hunter is in New York with her aunt. On my way back and forth I have seen a lot of her. We love each other and are going to be married in the morning before I go back to camp, and then 'over there.' It seems hard to think of leaving her, but she wants it that way. Please write to her, and if she comes back to Haynesville see as much of her as you can. She says she is going to stay in New York, but I don't think she will, not for long. She will be lonely. "Now, once more, dear mother, good-bye. Comfort father all you can. He, I am sure, does not yet feel reconciled to my joining the British army. Had it been our own he would have understood. Later when I switch 35 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE over as I surely shall he will feel better about it. You have understood from the beginning. Mothers always understand their boys, I guess. Anyhow you have al- ways understood your loving son, PETER." It would have puzzled Peter as to what she meant could he have heard his mother sigh and say "poor boy" as she read that he was to marry Bertha. Surely she could have nothing against a girl she had known all her life. But once again as Mrs. Moore folded her son's letter and placed it between the leaves of the family Bible for father to read when he came home, she whispered to herself, "poor boy." Mothers sometimes plumb the shallowness which is not apparent to their sons. That Peter's father did not understand the attitude of his son is not to be wondered at. The country at large had no conception that we would ever be mixed up in the war. No one in America had a real understanding of its true dimensions; no one of the people. Britons were trained soldiers. They and the French could fight their own battles. It was none of our affair, we of the States. So Mr. Moore, and not only he, but nearly the entire population figured. The bitter tragedy, the atrocious cruelty and injustice which were to be brought upon the world by the unspeakable Hun were not con- ceivable. Anyway we were too far away to have it affect us. Peter had written of his mates in camp: The Aus- tralians, the Canadians, "Canucks," he called them, the men from the great northwest, from Hudson bay and Alaska. He had to confess there were few Americans. 36 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE "There will be more later when they understand," he said, in explanation. Mr. Moore did not agree with his son and had written many letters urging Peter to come home and wait. Not yet could he believe America would join the war; al- though old Thomas Brooks still insisted he "warn't so sure. ' ' But Peter's mother had imbibed much of Peter's spirit. She said but little when John grumbled because he needed his boy's help, then she would ask: "Wouldn't you be ashamed of him, John, if, feeling as he does, he hadn't gone? Try to see it from his point of view, father. It is hard to let him go, our only child, but he will be twice the man when he comes back and " "If he comes back." "He will come back, father!" Then she added so low he could not hear, "in spirit anyway." The marriage bureau was doing a rushing business when at last Peter and Bertha had their turn. But it takes only a few minutes to tie the knot that is so hard to loosen. They walked out into the busy street, Peter very pale, Bertha very rosy, chatting gaily, walking proudly beside her soldier-husband. Peter had not told her. He lacked the courage. But the ship was to sail sooner than he had expected. His train left almost immediately. He must take it to get back to camp in season. Instead of a few hours to-, gether, they had to count the minutes. They parted at the station, Peter still very pale, Bertha flushed and 37 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE crying softly as she twisted the gold band Peter had slipped over her finger. She begged to go with him. It was hard to make her understand it was impossible, that it was against orders. "Send me away with a smile, Bertha," he begged huskily. And to do Bertha justice, she did her best. She wiped her eyes while they planned their letters, how they would tell each other everything. It was not until the train had pulled out of the station that Peter remembered how little they had talked of what Bertha would do when he had gone. Save that she had declared she would remain in New York, there had been nothing said on the subject. Queer way for a husband and wife to part, he thought, then forgot all about it as he talked to an officer, who was also going overseas at the same time he was. If afterward Peter gave Bertha's plan any thought it was that she would soon tire of staying in the city and go home to her father and mother. It was the natural thing for her to do. In camp all was hurry and bustle. Peter had little time to think of Bertha or anyone. Yet it was not Bertha's image which came before him as he hustled about making ready; it was that of his mother, who "understood," and who had said she was "proud of him." Peter had an open mind. He had learned much while in camp ; much that he never could have learned from books. In his dreams he saw Germany's grasp- ing fist reaching out even to the quiet little home in the middle west. It must be prevented. America must 38 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE not fall under German dominion. God never meant a free people, a free country to be so outraged. If her men were slow in waking up it would be so much the harder for them when the time came. So many more would have to be sacrificed before the insatiable Hun could be annihilated. Out of what he dreamed was born a new religion; a new faith in the God of wisdom and of justice. "God couldn't be just and let us perish," he would say aloud. He had formed the habit of communing with himself. And often he would forget there were men to whom he might have unbosomed himself; who would be glad to argue with him. Keally, he did not want to argue. He felt that things were so. The fellows, the slow, heavy-moving British mind, might not understand. They, too, might call him "queer" and say he was "nuts," as had the fellows in the recruiting station when he was taking a day off in the city. He was treading a new path; not only were his feet solidly upon it, but his spirit was also keeping step, marking time with his marching feet. He shut his eyes and tried to see Flanders' field as some of the wounded men who had been invalided home to Canada described it the seas of mud, the unburied dead, who sometimes came to the surface under the feet of the soldiers ; the desolation. He visualized it all, and more. Yet his soul never quailed; never once did he draw back even in spirit from the task he had set him- self. It was on and ' ' over the top ' ' always. He laughed when they told him of the discomfort of the trenches. 39 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE What was a little mud? What mattered sleeping in wet clothes? What mattered anything save only the salvation of the world? Always, after thinking of these things, his mood was exalted. Then he would feel that to serve, even to die, was not only a duty, but a pleasure. But, mostly, the grimness of things set his lips firmly together as his love for country and hate for the Hun filled his thoughts. "He's a good hater!" his comrades said of him. "He'll make a good fighter." ' ' Them quiet sort always give a good account of them- selves," one husky from the northwest said. "It's the man who blows about what he can do that hides behind the other fellow, when it comes to fighting. ' ' So while Peter was not what you would call popular with his mates, he was respected, which means much more. Not that he was unpopular, but he was too ab- sorbed, too quiet to become more than casually acquainted with the men in camp with him. Then one morning they sailed under sealed orders. Like the rest, Peter stood on deck until the gray-blue line of shore disappeared in the distance. But, unlike the majority of the boys, there were no eager, tear- dimmed eyes to watch him go. He was away from home ; an American enlisted, going of his own free will, to fight in His Majesty's army because his own country was not ready. When Peter finally arrived "Somewhere in France," after an uneventful voyage, he, with the rest of the boys, mailed cards telling of his safe arrival. Then home, Bertha, everything was blotted out for the time being. 40 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE The strangeness, the excitement of this new existence upon which he had entered, which was to be his hence- forth, absorbed all his faculties. The unknown country, the people; it was like a wonderful dream. Bertha was fairly inundated with letters and ques- tions. Her own mother and father were pleased that she had married a steady boy like Peter ; displeased that she had not been content to wait until he came back from the war. Peter's mother wrote very kindly, call- ing her "daughter," and telling her that now she had two homes in Haynesville, so she must hurry back to brighten them both. A perfect storm of protest greeted her when she wrote of her determination to remain in New York. Her father vowed that home was the place for her, married or not married unless her husband was with her. He told her that New York was no place for a young girl to live, and that her mother needed her to help about the house. Her mother also wrote her, a pitiful appeal to come home, telling her they would do all they could to make her happy and contented. Also she said that her father had sworn not to give her another cent as long as she remained away. That everyone took it for granted she would come right back and spend her time between the two homes. Her marriage had been put in the county paper and the boys and girls were all excited over it. But to all their pleadings Bertha returned a deter- mined "No!" she would live her own life now; she would stay in New York. She would have part of Peter's pay. She would manage to get along without any of her father's money. 41 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE New York had lost none of its lure because Peter had gone so far away ; it had simply changed in quality. Now she walked the Avenue more often. The store windows, the beautifully dressed women, the smart-looking men all interested her much more than they did when her thoughts were upon Peter. She managed to get along with very little money. She would find something to do when she got ready. There was no hurry. Then one day as she walked the Avenue as usual, she saw a sign in the window of a very exclusive hat shop, "Help wanted." All suddenly it came to her that she would like to work in such a place. It was an experienced trimmer they wanted, the stylishly gowned saleslady told her in answer to her questions. But when the owner of the store stopped to listen to the conversation and saw Bertha, noted her lovely hair, her complexion, the trig way she wore her little self -trimmed hat, she asked her how she would like to come to the shop and learn how to sell hats; to try them on for the customers, so they could see how they liked them, etc. Bertha gasped at the vista opened before her. To spend her days in that wonderful shop instead of at Aunt Martha's. To handle those beautiful hats, to try them on, to wait on the ladies who mostly came in motor-cars and carried pet dogs under their arms. It would be heavenly! So it was settled. Bertha for the first time in her nineteen years became a wage earner. She gave her name when asked as Bertha Moore. No one noticed that she hesitated and stuttered a little over it : she had had 42 You'll have a lot better time if they don't know you. are married." THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE no occasion yet to use it, and it seemed odd. No one asked her if she were married, so she said nothing about it. She was entered upon the books of the firm as ' ' Miss Bertha Moore. ' ' Her salary was very small, little more than what she spent for lunches and carfare. But they assured her it would soon be advanced, and she was content. They did not know it, but she would have worked for nothing rather than give up the delight she felt in the place. At first Bertha wrote faithfully to Peter, although she rather neglected the folks at home. But gradually her new life absorbed her. She became friends with one of the salesgirls, and they often went out in the evening together; sometimes by themselves, sometimes with a young man, a friend of Julia Lawrence, the other girl. In a burst of confidence Bertha told Julia of her soldier husband. And Julia, after she had wormed all the circumstances from Bertha, how Peter had gone away immediately they were married, and so forth, ad- vised Bertha to say nothing about herself. "You'll have a lot better time if they don't know you are married, ' ' she told her ; and Bertha, easily led, con- sented to keep still about her marriage, which Julia assured her was really no marriage at all, and hinted that Peter might never come back to claim her. Peter Moore, like so many other American boys have since done, had gone through a process of evolution. He had taken his duties more seriously than most from the very beginning of his life as a soldier. He took them more and more seriously as time went on. You would go far before finding a manlier, better 43 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE looking fellow than this young American soldier who had joined the ranks of the British army. Lithe and tall, he was every inch a man. Too quiet, some said, but a thoroughbred, they all agreed. "He will win his shoulder straps," they said before he had been with them many days. And not a Tommy of them was heard to say an envious word. He so eagerly offered himself heart and soul to the army; he was so sure it was the right thing he had done, the only thing, that his earnestness won him the unstinted praise of all, officers and men. Peter now saw the great, the raw, the terrible facts of life for the first time. He saw death and unthought- of, unimagined suffering. He realized anew that trifles didn't count. That if there was anything really big in life it was the thing you went after with all your soul, all your strength. You went after it straight; you didn't hesitate nor beat about the bush. Essentials were the only things that counted. He was fiercely rebellious that America, her men, did not sense the need of preparedness. This war was to be no life tragedy of an individual or of an individual country ; it was to be the life tragedy of the world. Why could not those at home see it? It was doomed to be the great heart-tearing tragedy of all humanity ; nothing could prevent that. And they were so slow to see it; so slow. So he agonized, but none knew it. He was too much of an American to criticise his country to an alien, if a friendly one. But as the days passed he grew more and more imbued with the one thought the thought that, 44 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE sooner or later, America was bound to take a stand, a stand for the liberty and democracy of the entire world. Then, too, he was getting an idea of the German at close range. He had hated, now he both hated and mistrusted. There was no such thing as honor in the Hun, no real civilization. The Hun of Attila, of whom he had read in a book loaned him by an English soldier, was far and away a civilized being compared to the Hun who had ravaged Belgium; who had inflicted unspeakable hor- rors on innocent women and children; who had held maidens as so much food for lustful soldiers. Only when he was busy, when he was given something to do, could he forget the awfulness of his country's indecision. Only then did he feel that he, an American, was doing his part in this great world struggle. A struggle that had been started by a lie; the making of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, by a Bosnian student, the flimsy pretext to start a war for world domination. But so it was. And as Peter read and heard he grew more and more bitter that America so calmly looked on ; while his hatred for the grasping monarch who had snatched at this straw to increase his power, grew greater. But what could he do? He was but an infinitesimal speck in this great army battling for the right. He could only do his duty; more, if it came his way, and wait. Strange to say, his faith in the ultimate decision of the United States never wavered. They must come in was always the last word in his mental cogitations. And 45 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE in the meantime he was at the front as sentry in No- Man's Land on nights when the mud oozed forth the corpses of murdered British and French soldiers; on nights so dark that he had literally to feel his way almost on hands and knees to escape the pits dug by the Ger- mans; on nights when the light made him a target for the foe. It was all one to Peter. He had gone ever to serve. Often his thoughts reverted to Bertha, but never in more than a questioning way. He sometimes wondered just why she stayed on in New York she had told him nothing of the shop why she didn't go home. But it was of so little importance compared with what was going on about him that he dismissed it with little more than a shrug. Bertha had made more than good as a millinery sales- woman. Her salary had been increased to one of such generous proportions that she could now indulge her love for dress to a certain extent. And as always, owing to her good taste and her wizardry with her needle she looked much better dressed than girls who spent far more. Then Bertha was stylish. She had an air. In the shop this was a great asset, and they were not slow to recognize its worth to them. She had a nice way, too, with the customers. She really loved to handle the hats, to make a plain-looking woman attractive by suiting her style and type with a becoming cha- peau. But Bertha did not spend quite all her airs and graces upon the customers. Through Julia Lawrence she had 46 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE become acquainted with a small coterie of salesgirls in other establishments, and of course with their "gentle- men friends. ' ' She accepted the invitations to the thea- ter and to dinner from them. They all called her ' ' Miss Moore," and she, acting on Julia Lawrence's advice, took no pains to set them straight. Really, she gave it very little thought. Had anyone asked her pointblank if she were married she would have told them the truth ; but no one asked her. Sometimes she wondered how she could have thought she wac having a good time riding on a bus, or at a cheap movie with Peter. She smiled in a superior way as she thought of the day they lunched at the white-front eating place and she thought the bill extravagant. Now she often dined at the Fifth Avenue restaurants, the places that she and Peter had scarcely dreamed of even talking about, and when she went to the theater she sat in the orchestra chairs. The young men who "took her out" now would not think of asking her to sit any- where else. She also wondered why she did not appreciate the charm of the "New York fellows" in those days. Haynesville boys were so countryfied beside them. Some way she did not really include Peter in her esti- mate of Haynesville boys. Not that she intentionally made an exception of him, but she at times almost forgot there was such a person as Peter. More seldom still did she remember that he was her husband. Once in a while it was brought to her notice in a man- ner she hated. At some dinner party, or some other gay affair someone would joke about married people, and 47 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE perhaps some of the company would "get fresh" as Bertha called it. "New York men aren't bashful," she once said to Julia. ' ' They make me mad when they get fresh!" "Oh, they don't mean anything!" Julia responded, thereby giving Bertha rather a shock. A Haynesville boy would not dare make such advances to a girl unless he meant marriage; hardly even then. "I don't like it, Julia. I feel as if I ought to tell them I'm married. I don't see why they wouldn't like me just as well, and perhaps it would keep them from acting so silly." "Don't fool yourself!" Julia answered. Her longer experience had made her wise. "Men, New York men, ain't got no use for married women. Not to give them a good time and get nothing out of it. But a pretty girl like you, Bertha, why you always have them guess- ing. They might want to marry you themselves some day; so they don't dast make you mad by acting fresh." "But I don't see what difference it makes my being married. I can't marry twice, you know. And if they like me, like to take me out, why should my having a husband on the other side of the world make them act any different?" "You're a silly, Bertha!" Julia said impatiently. ' ' Don 't you know that a man thinks he can make a fool of himself and her, with a married woman and nobody will know it? She dasn't tell, and he won't, so there you have it. But it's different when they are going with a girl. They know if they are fresh, that the girl may turn them down, and if they like the girl they are 48 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE pretty careful." Then after a minute Julia added, "and you ain't really married, Bertha; you never lived with him." "But the notice was in the HaynesvUle Times, and alf the folks out home know it." "Yes, that may be, but New York folks don't know that Haynesville is on the map. They ain 't never heard of it; and wouldn't know you came from there if they did. I have lived in New York a good many more years than you have, Bertha, and believe me the New York fellows are so busy trying to make money and having a good time they don't have no time to look up your history." Bertha did not know until long afterward that as far as Julia was concerned that was a blessing. Among the young men Bertha had met, and seemingly impressed, was Bates Freeman, the son of a banker. A slight, rather effeminate looking fellow, but exquisite in his dress and manners when in public. He had ' ' oodles of money," Julia told Bertha, and all the girls were crazy over him. "You mean over the way he spends his money, don't you?" Bertha asked. She also liked Bates. He seemed so elegant, so refined as she thought of refine- ment. In her mind she had compared him to Peter, and to Peter's disadvantage. Bates was lithe and slender, graceful in all his movements. Peter was big and broad- shouldered, narrow-hipped, but strong and healthy looking. Bates, too, was a college man, and to Bertha the very expression meant something different from any of the boys or men she ever had known. A "college 49 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE man" was of a little different fiber, naturally, she imag- ined from boys and men whose education had been lim- ited to high school. Bates talked of the college, of the societies to which he belonged, the ' ' good fellows ' ' whom he had met while there, and whose friendship he valued at least enough to make them his companions when having a good time. Once he spoke of his "Alma Mater," and Bertha would not eat her dinner until she had looked in a dictionary to find out what he meant. She had liked the sound of it. Bates had telephoned Bertha at the shop. Would she go to dinner with him ? She had been with him several times, but she hesitated. Finally she told him she would call him during her luncheon hour and let him know. At noon she confided in Julia. "Don't be an idiot, Bertha! Bates Freeman can have all the girls he wants. If you treat him so cold you'll lose him. All the girls are envious of you, some of them so jealous they can't see. And, believe me, that kind who blow their money like he does don't grow on bushes, not even in New York. He's handsome, too." "I know, Julia, and I like him awfully well, and it is nice to go out with him. He gives me a dandy time. But I can't go on letting him make such fierce love to me when I am married. I ought to tell " "Ought to nothing!" Julia interrupted. "For heaven's sake, Bertha, don't make a fool of yourself! You ain't really married any more than I am. That fellow you tied yourself to most likely won't ever come back anyway. He 's probably making love to some French or English girl this very minute. Just hang on to 50 Bates, and work him for all you're worth. He's easy!" "It don't seem fair to him Mr. Freeman, I mean," Bertha objected, weakly. "He seems to care a lot for me, Julia." "You mean you think he might want to marry you? Land! You country girls are the limit! You think every man who buys a dinner, or a bunch of flowers wants to marry you. New York men, my dear, ain't so keen on raising a family." "I don't think I am quite as bad as that, Julia. But when he wants to kiss me, and makes love to me, why Bertha blushed crimson as she broke off; She had not yet become accustomed to the promiscuous love making Julia seemed to think so innocuous. To Bertha a kiss, an embrace still meant unusual in- terest, if not love, on the part of the man bestowing them. "It's pretty near as bad as that! What if he does want to kiss you? A kiss never killed anybody." "No but why, Julia if anybody out home in Haynesville knew I went out with other fellows and had a good time they would think it was perfectly awful. And if they knew I let anyone make love to me and kiss me well not one of them would ever speak to me again. Even my own folks would think I could not be good and do things like that." "It makes me tired. Country folks are so narrow. They don't know nothing about city life and city folks." Julia had found her favorite topic, and, once launched upon it, she would tell Bertha all she thought she knew of human nature. "The city men don't think nothing 51 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE of a kiss. It don 't mean anything to them or to the girls, either." ' ' Oh, but it must to the girls some of them, anyway. ' ' "Not on your life! Not to a girl who is a good sport. They just take it as part of the good time. They have to do something to please the men, or they stop asking them to go out." Bertha frowned. She had not adjusted herself to Julia's worldly viewpoint. It shocked the little delicacy still innate in the country-bred girl. She thought of her modest mother, of Peter 's mother. She was on the point of declaring she would not go out with Bates Freeman again. Julia saw the indecision in her face. It did not suit her plans to have Bertha refuse. "Very well, Bertha, I know another girl he likes. She will be only too glad to go with him. I think you are real mean, though, to be such a spoil-sport. You know I like you better than I do any of the other girls and would rather have you along. ' ' It was a little dinner party of four, it seemed. Bates had said nothing about that; he had telephoned Julia first. Julia's regular young man was to be the fourth. "Why didn't you tell me right away that you were going, too?" Bertha asked, not acknowledging even to herself that it was what Julia had said about the other girl, not the fact that she was going, that made her hesi- tate. "What difference did that make? Bates never minds us. He'd kiss you just as quick as if he was alone with you. ' ' "Oh, but that's different. When there's someone else 52 around it seems like fun. It don't seem so in earnest." "You're a funny girl, Bertha. So you'll go?" "Yes I guess so." ' ' Then hurry up and phone Bates. It 's time we were back to the shop." Bertha hurried to the telephone. "Hello Bates! Yes I'll go. What oh, you mustn't say such things on the telephone. Yes, I'll be ready at seven." "What did he say to make you get so red?" Julia asked when Bertha had hung up the receiver. "He said I was a little darling, and that I wouldn't be sorry." ' ' I don 't see anything to blush about in that. ' ' Julia, as may be imagined, did not blush easily nor often. That night Bates was more open in his love-making than he had ever been. But Julia and her ' ' beau ' ' were along so Bertha laughed and really gave it very little thought. If she had it would have been to give Julia credit for being right. No man would mean things he said before others not such things as Bates said. And when he kissed her she just teased him a little by pre- tending she hated to be kissed by anyone. "I'll bet some of those hayseeds in that country town where you came from kissed you all right. ' ' Bertha had told him she was from the country, but, acting under Julia's instructions, she had not told him the name of the town. "No honest! I never did!" she returned. Then thought of Peter and a wave of crimson dyed her face as she thought of his kisses the night she told him she loved him. 53 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE 1 ' There ! Look at her, Julia ! She never blushed like that for me. Tell me his name so I can go out and kill him!" he said in so comic a manner they all laughed uproariously, and then the subject was changed. "What in the dickens did you blush like that for last night when Bates talked about hayseeds?" Julia asked the next day. "He'll be getting suspicious." "What if he does? He'll have to know some day, Julia." "I don't see why?" "Honest, Julia, he is so sure of me, sure I am free, haven't any other beau that I am getting afraid. He said a lot of things coming home in that lovely car of his ; and he kept his arm around me all the way. He was nice and different, too. He seemed someway to mean more, to be more in earnest. He talked low so the chauffeur couldn't hear. He says he hates to have me work in the shop ; and when I told him I just loved it, and wouldn't stop working for anything he laughed at me and called me a 'funny girl.' Then he asked me how long I had been in New York, .and why I didn 't live home. I made out dad was too poor to keep me. Then he wanted to come up to Aunt Martha's and call on me there. I expect "he wants to know how I live. You know I have always met him downtown. I told him he couldn't come. I'd be so ashamed of Aunt "Mar- tha's parlor. I never minded Peter, but he wasn't a swell like Bates Freeman." "He was getting pretty inquisitive, wasn't he?" Julia said in a peculiar tone. "But don't get the idea into 54 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE your head that he would marry you, Bertha. He'll give you a jolt some day if you do." "He's awfully nice, anyway," Bertha replied. "He said he'd send me some flowers today. I had to give him Aunt Martha's address. I hated to, but I didn't know how to get out of it." "He'll be up there spying around or I miss my guess. ' ' Bertha felt troubled and anxious all the rest of the day. Would Bates go up to her aunt's, and see the poor way she lived? She prayed not. It would be too em- barrassing. Bertha knew she dressed well, that she had more style than the average girl. She never felt em- barrassed to meet him downtown, to be with him. But that would be altogether different. 55 CHAPTER VI PETER had already commenced to find the higher meaning of war. The lower meaning affected him not at all. He saw only the beauty of sacrifice, the necessity for conquest. The ugliness, the rank barbarity of con- flict he would not consider. He kept himself from war's debasements; from the excesses that loosen the life and destroy the fiber of the soldier; from the lust and the drunkenness; from all things that would tend to make him either coarse or common. In reality Peter had no time for such things. His whole mind, every spare minute, was given to self- improvement. Not because of self, however, but so that he might be of more use. He hesitated at nothing that would increase his efficiency in helping to rid the earth of the beasts who had snatched at nothing at all to start their battle for world dominion. And always he visioned the time when that efficiency would be thrown in the scale with America. Peter fairly ached to carry the flaming message of war, this war, to his own countrymen. He disliked to talk of the horrors of war, yet they were constantly in his mind urging him to greater effort. In his letters home he seldom spoke of these things which so occupied him, yet his mother, her insight as keen as his own, read 56 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE between the lines, and sensed something of the agony of spirit those horrors awoke in her boy. Peter didn 't talk much. There were many other quiet men around him. The English aren't a voluble race. Each at times seemed insulated from the others by his own aura of sorrow and desire to accomplish. The sudden emergence of Peter from a factory boy in a small town to a soldier with the British forces was one of those mysteries that baffle analysis. A few months before he was only one of a number of small town boys. Now he was a soldier. What was the magic secret which had enabled this boy to so outstrip his friends ? If heredity had anything to do with it, it might have been that indomitable spirit, that sensitive nature in- herited from his mother, that clearness of vision which had always been hers, and which had descended upon him. Peter did not try to evade life. He called upon it. It played upon his soul from all angles. He took it in his hands with a large courage and flung it back with all his might. In the midst of war he was continually folded in a dream of peace which isolated him in an age of unrest. His dream, the entrance of America into the war, and its resultant effect upon the world. He eagerly pounced upon the books supplied the sol- diers. He ardently studied the histories of other wars. The Franco-Prussian war in particular interested him. He determined to know all about those "damned Prussians" as he stigmatized them in his thoughts. Occasionally he wrote his mother of his studies. He did not tell her how he envied the college men who 57 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE grasped so easily the truths he had to dig so hard to understand. She praised and encouraged him. "Tell me what you are reading, Peter. I will get the same books and read them too. Then when you come back, dear son, I shall not be left hopelessly behind. I want to share your thoughts, to get the same view of things you have. But it will be hard, living the con- stricted life I do, unless you keep me fully informed of what you are doing so that I can keep in touch with you." In an unusual burst of confidence Peter read this part of his mother's letter to an Englishman with whom he had struck up a certain sort of friendship. "What a ripping letter!" the Englishman said. "It would hearten any soldier to do his best if he had a mother like that. ' ' ' ' She is wonderful, ' ' Peter replied, his voice prideful. Occasionally, without meaning to, Peter would compare his mother's letters with those he received from Bertha. Always he would rebuke his thoughts by saying, ' ' She 'a only a girl." ' ' I am longing to get into the thick of things, ' ' he had once written his wife. "It seems as if I can scarcely wait. I have done only a little as yet, but the real fight- ing is near. I shall be so happy when they think me fit. I want to stand side by side with the Tommies and fight for what will soon be a common cause. Soon it will be our cause, America's cause. Sooner than you think." There was much more which Bertha skipped over very quickly. It was a queer letter, she thought, not one word about loving her, or a question of her feeling for him. 58 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE Why the careless notes Bates Freeman wrote her ex- pressed more feeling for her. That the one big, mon- ster fact of war had overshadowed all else in Peter's mind never occurred to her. "He's with them soldiers all the time and he can't think of anything else, ' ' she grumbled to Julia Lawrence. ''Don't you care! You are having a pretty good time, too," Julia replied, showing that she, too, had no con- ception of Peter's feelings. Bertha answered Peter 's letters, but while at first she carefully tried to catch the next outgoing ship, she now waited until she found time. ' ' I received your letter, ' ' she wrote. ' ' I am glad you liked the things I sent you. Let me know what else you want and I will send it to you. I am well. Aunt Martha is having lots of trouble with her rheumatism this winter. I shall stay with her. I have met lots of nice people and I am not lonely here. I never could live in Haynesville again after living in New York. I have some dandy times. I don't see why you keep talking and writing about America getting in the war. No one talks so here in New York. With love, BERTHA. ' ' When Peter read the short, uninteresting missive he folded it and laid it away in his kit. Unlike his mother 's letters, one reading would suffice. "She's only a girl," he said with a sigh. Poor Peter ! Peter's very soul longed for understanding. He felt so spiritually alone, although he was always with a crowd. But it was peculiar to him that he never thought of blaming Bertha for her lack of understanding. He 59 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE didn't really comprehend that she had nothing in common with him, not so much as a thought. She didn't like to put her thoughts on paper as he did. She was probably shy about talking of the things she felt keenly. She wasn 't to blame. He had married her and left her before they were even acquainted as man and wife are ac- quainted. In his heart and mind Bertha, his wife, had kept pace with him. As he had broadened and expanded, so, he thought, had she. His family, his father and mother, meant more to Peter now than ever before. Especially his mother. At, times he almost felt that she was with him, so near were they in spirit. As I have said, Peter was neither religious nor irreligious. But in a way religion had taken on a new meaning. He trusted God and felt through that trust that the war would be won by those who were fight- ing for a righteous cause. Peter had stopped saying his prayers at night when he was about fifteen years old; he had thought them silly. Now he never laid down to sleep without breath- ing a prayer. Often it was a very simple petition ; then again it was a soul-agonizing prayer for America. That she had hesitated so long was the hardest cross Peter had to bear a cross he must bear in silence. He would as soon have thought of shooting himself as of criticising his government to the British. He heard them speculate, heard America called laggard, almost cowardly, and yet he held his peace. His day would come. He remembered what old Thomas Martin said : "Uncle Sam is a good deal like a lot of married men. They stand a heap ; they keep still for a long time. But 60 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE when they does turn, look out! they mean business." Peter was sure Uncle Sam would turn; and he was sure that when he did he would mean business. The Canadian troops with whom Peter was affiliated were among the most daring and reckless fighters in the British army. They went ' ' over the top ' ' with a courage almost superhuman. The infantry was perhaps entitled to the greatest praise for dauntless courage. Peter was not the least of these courageous ones. He seemed not to know the meaning of fear or the harassing effect of doubt. "We must win" was his slogan now, as it had been before he left home. The inferno as pictured by Dante was but a pale corpse compared to the inferno of the trenches of No Man's Land. The far-reaching sea of mud, filled with unburied dead, was the very " abomina- tion of desolation. ' ' It was enough to make the strongest man hesitate, the strongest spirit quail. But Peter Moore never hesitated, his spirit never quailed. He justi- fied his manhood, his Americanism, by his devotion to his ideals, and his contempt for death. Not that Peter wanted to die. Far from it. He had only commenced to live. His soul was reborn, his outlook upon life changed and glorified. But he had no fear of death ; if it came in the line of duty, it was ' ' part of his job," as he once told a soldier who had openly marveled at Peter's courage when under hot blighting fire of the enemy he had been the first to go ' ' over the top. ' ' In a way Peter was also happier than ever he had been in all his life. His duties, his sometimes uncongenial work, his studies helped him to measure up to the stand- ard he coveted. He did not mind any deprivation that 61 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE made him a better soldier ; or that gave him time to add to his mental equipment. "It is damnable!" he wrote his mother, "yet I am happy. I am continually in active service now. The waiting is over. I know you watch the papers for the casualties. But I feel that some way I shall be spared to see you again. So don't worry. Just be happy to think I am fortunate enough to have a chance to help." Bates Freeman became more outspoken in his devotion as time passed. To him Bertha was an enigma; she piqued him. Accustomed to being run after by the young women in the fast set in which he 'mingled, he could not understand her attitude. She was poor; he was rich and generous. That she repulsed his advances made him the more keen to win her. Julia Lawrence had not been quite right when she declared that Bates wouldn't marry Bertha. He wouldn't, perhaps, if he could get her any other way, but he saw that to have her he must call in a parson. At least that was the way he figured. So the millionaire youth set himself to the task of winning Bertha Moore, Peter Moore's wife. The irony of the attempt never seemed to strike Bertha, although she dimly sensed the change in Bates. Now she knew he cared for her. Before it had been only surmise. Her life "was one long, good time," as she naively confided to Julia. Dinners, theaters, books and bon-bons were daily features of her existence. An occasional more expensive gift she accepted without protest. A 62 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE ring, a diamond pin, a bracelet watch, and one day a check for five hundred dollars. Bates told her he had bought some stock for her and that was her profit. She banked the check. And she never told Julia. They were still as intimate as ever, but Julia had devel- oped the borrowing habit, and some way it was hard for Bertha to refuse her. "She is the only one that knows," Bertha said to her- self the night Bates told her he truly cared for her. He told it seriously. Bertha knew he really meant it. Now if he found out that she was married she would surely lose him. And in losing him she would lose all the good times she had begun to think necessary to her very existence. She must keep him from asking her to marry him. It would be hard. But Bertha, with all her foolishness, was keen where anything concerning her- self was at stake. So she hedged and pretended to be surprised ; that she liked him, but that was all. "I'll make you love me!" he had answered. "I'll make you, and then " "Make me first and then," Bertha had mimicked saucily. Bates intrigued himself to gain her. He increased his gifts. He spent his days planning for her happiness; his evenings were entirely given over to her whims. One thing he had not been able to compass. Bertha would not give up her position. To all his urgings she answered, "Not yet," and he was obliged to be content. Julia looked on at the little game of hearts, waiting her time. When everything was settled she would gain by it one way or another. Not that Julia was worse 63 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE than many other girls, but she was mercenary. She always kept at least one eye open for the main chance. Under her tutelage Bertha had learned to appreciate luxuries. She would be heartsick if she were compelled to give up all the things for which she had so easily acquired a taste. The casual mention of Peter's name would chill her; she would shiver and turn pale. Julia was not unobservant. Bates was proud of Bertha. She was very pretty, very chic. In his world prettiness in a girl was sine qua, non. He used to think of her as a lovely picture in a common frame. If he had his way he would soon make the frame an appropriate one. He was telling her this one night when they were out riding in his roadster. He was a reckless driver always, and to-night they had been drinking champagne. Both were in high spirits. Bates' love-making was in- sistent. Bertha saw two blinding lights bearing down upon them. There was a terrific crash, then a crunching sound that made her feel sick and weak. For an instant it seemed as if they were doomed. When next she sensed her surroundings she heard: "Are you hurt, Bertha?" It was Bates who spoke, but his voice sounded unnatural, hoarse, and far away. "We had a close shave." Bertha shook her head. She was very white ; her teeth chattered. Then she saw that Bates was holding his right arm as though it pained him. "I fainted, I guess, Bates. What was it?" She struggled to her feet. 64 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE "A farmer going to market. I guess we made hash of his vegetables, all right." "But you are hurt!" He had winced as she touched his arm. "Sprained wrist, I guess. It don't matter as long as you are safe. Nothing matters but you any more. "I thought I had lost you killed you with my care- lessness," he said after they were seated in the car. "I should have died, too, if I had. Bertha, I can wait no longer, dear heart. When will you marry me? Tell me, dear." The motor accident had brought about the very con- dition Bertha had successfully averted for so long. There was no mistaking the sincerity of Bates Freeman's proposal. Bertha, too, was shaken and not a little frightened. She could not laugh and joke as usual, so as to keep Bates from insisting upon an answer. Suppose she told him she would marry him to keep him, then she could defer the marriage just as she had deferred her promise to have him. This thought ran swiftly through her mind as he, his arm around her, his face close to hers, pleaded for an answer. She shivered slightly in his arms. Another thought had flashed across her mind; she wanted to marry him and she couldn't. Bates felt her shiver, and thinking she had not yet overcome her fright, said tenderly: ' ' I 'm a brute to worry you when I almost killed you. Never mind, dear, I know you love me. I '11 come up to- morrow night for my answer. ' ' And he started the car, this time driving very slowly, and with one hand. "Yes, do, Bates," Bertha said, the relief of the short 65 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE reprieve so welcome it made her feel faint. By to- morrow night she would have planned what she would say to him. She, perhaps, could spar for time again; although she feared it had come to what Julia called ' ' a showdown. ' ' When Bates left her she made him promise that he would immediately drive to a doctor and have his wrist looked after. She could see by the lights of the car as they stood on the sidewalk in front of her aunt's home that he was very pale. He did not need to be urged, his wrist had swollen badly, and pained him excruciat- ingly. Before he left her he once more drew Bertha tenderly to him, and kissed her fondly. Frivolous, almost heart- less as she was, Bertha sensed a difference in his caress; a tenderness not so evident before. It left her trem- bling, uncertain, almost dazed. While believing that he loved her, nattered that he wanted to marry her, never had she felt the seriousness of his wooing, the manliness of it at all forcibly, until then. "Good-night, darling; thank God you weren't hurt," he said as he released her. Bertha ran into the house and quietly crept up the stairs to her room. She didn 't want to speak to anyone, she wanted to be alone to think. Very slowly she un- dressed, although it was late, and she had always to rise early so that she would be on time at the shop. At times she stood motionless in the act of disrobing, and muttered to herself. Could she put Bates off longer? Did she want to? Bertha had not gone so far as to think of freeing her- 66 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE self from Peter; she knew she couldn't. But she hated to lose Bates and unless she promised to marry him she was almost sure that she would. His new serious- ness would not be put off as it had been put off before. When at last she went to bed she had decided nothing save that she must not lose Bates Freeman's gifts, his society, him. How to keep him had become a vital, though, at present, an unanswerable, question. Bertha slept fitfully. She had been terribly fright- ened at the time of the accident, and not a little shaken. She dreamed of motor-cars going over embankments, of being in one and trying to save herself, then that Bates was the one who was in the car and that he had been killed. She woke unrefreshed, and in no frame of mind to think out her problem. She dared not tell her aunt why she looked so worn and tired. Mrs. Eobinson was always telling her she would be brought home dead if she didn't stop riding in ' ' them devil wagons, ' ' as she called them, and would have no sympathy for her. At first she con- sidered remaining at home. Then that would be harder than to go to business, where she would be kept busy. "What ails you, Bertha?" Julia asked during the morning. "You look as if you had seen a ghost, you are so white. Better put on some rouge before we go out to lunch. If you was sick why didn 't you stay home ? With Bates Freeman to back you up you can afford to lose a day once in a while, I guess." "I'm not sick. Bates took me out for a ride last night and we had an accident, ran into a farmer 's wagon. It shook me up a bit, like it did the vegetables. Bates 67 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE said it made 'hash' of them," she laughed nervously. "I'll tell you all about it at lunch time." She meant about the accident. She had no slightest intention of telling Julia of Bates' proposal. Really, the thought of doing so had not entered her mind. Of late she had been wary of what she told Julia; how much of her confidence she gave her. She sensed that Julia was beginning to use her to further her own ends, and she rebelled. That is she rebelled inwardly. She had been very careful not to let Julia notice any difference. So she had not considered telling her of Bates' latest pro- posal, a proposal so different in tone from those which had gone before. 68 CHAPTER VII PETER'S letters home were getting intensely interest- ing. His mother read and reread them, as also did his father. Then they were passed around to the townfolk with many cautions as to their careful handling. The preacher; old Thomas Brooks, who continued to wear his faded uniform, and ' ' reckoned we might git into the war yet;" even grouchy Martin Gormley, were allowed to read the young soldier's letters; all save the extra sheet that was "mother's." The sheet which was in- tended only for her loving eyes, and upon which all his enthusiasm, his soul hunger, his longings for, and his Teachings out after the higher and nobler things of life were inscribed. But the letters that told of the roar of artillery, of the bursting of shells so near that he was almost blinded by the dirt they flung up, of the necessity for "tin hats" as the Tommies called them, and the gas masks which some way he said seemed to make him hate the Germans more than did anything else these were read by all. He told of his patrol duty, of the long night on Flanders field, when rain and mud and the smell of dead men was in his nostrils which at first had nauseated him, but which he no longer minded. How many of the soldiers told him he was a "bloomin' fool" to leave home 69 TEE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE to help them, at the same time they would be doing some- thing for him. "They are like that over here. They grouse a lot, we call it growl, but at heart they are great friends and great soldiers." "I always have a feeling that I would like to dig the graves deeper," he wrote his mother privately, "that I would like to cover decently with earth those brave fel- lows so lightly covered. Yet perhaps when Gabriel sounds his trumpet they will be among the first to answer the call. Who knows?" He often said such things to her. But his letters were not entirely sad or filled with har- rowing tales. He often told of laughable experiences, of words the British soldiers used whose meaning he did not know, and so he would do exactly opposite, and in many cases had ridiculous experiences as the result. Old Thomas Brooks would chuckle over such passages and say: "The lad's all right; he'll make a good soldier." Then invariably finish by saying, shaking his empty sleeve spitefully : "I only wish I was with him. ' ' He told them how Fritzie was always on the job. How he was sure to get you if you try to take a peep over the top. And how it was almost impossible not to look. "They tell us to keep our 'nappers' down, almost the first thing when we are sent into the trenches. But you know we Americans are chuck full of curiosity, and I came pretty near losing my bean by peeping over the top after I had been warned. I don't try it any more. It is hard to learn trench lingo. It is almost like learn- ing a new language. And when you are trying to do 70 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE that too, it gets you all balled up occasionally. But the hardest thing of all to get acquainted with so that you feel like being polite and asking them to come again is the ' cootie ; ' tell Mr. Brooks they called it a ' body louse ' when he fought." ' ' You bet they did, ' ' the old soldier chuckled when he read the letter, ' ' and lively company they was, too. They sure kept us scratchin' all right." Peter wrote of the raiding parties, how they got into the enemy trenches by stealth, killed as many as pos- sible, and took prisoners. It was risky work, he said, but exciting. So exciting one forgot the risk. They blacked their faces, he explained, so that the whiteness of the skin would not show under the flare lights, and a lot of other things he told which were intensely interest- ing to those who had known him always ; but to whom the war seemed so remote. The editor of the county newspaper heard of these letters, and begged to be allowed to publish them, clev- erly adding to his list of subscribers by so doing. In fact, Peter Moore had become rather famous in the little town where before he had gone "over there" he had been simply "John Moore's son and a fine boy." His mother's heart swelled with pride, the while she shivered with dread that something might happen to her boy; while John Moore, even though he still claimed he didn't see why Peter felt he must go and fight with the British and the French, even though he walked a little straighter, there had come a swing to his walk, a squaring of the shoulders when he realized that his boy had become a kind of glorified hero to the townsfolk. 71 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE His letters, after being read, some of them published, were always folded carefully between the leaves of the family Bible, and each night when the two lonely ones prayed for his safety, they would read snatches to each other, and talk softly of their boy, from whom they so anxiously awaited news. Never a ship went out that did not carry to that boy loving messages and boxes of sweets he loved, with other things allowed sent to the soldiers. Nothing was for- gotten by his mother, nothing overlooked to give her boy pleasure, and the knowledge that they thought of him constantly, that always they prayed for him. Peter also wrote to Bertha. He wrote of his daily duties; of the things his comrades did and said. He tried to make his letters interesting by detailing as much of the camp and trench gossip as possible. He himself cared nothing for the ordinary gossip of the barracks and the trenches, but he would listen if he heard laughter, so that he might have something to write Ber- tha; something that would interest her. He told her about his food and what his rations were. When it was good and plentiful he would say so ; when it was badly cooked and, scanty he made a joke of it. But of his life in the trenches, the dangers, his escapes from guns and gas he said nothing. He never men- tioned the long lonely nights in No Man 's Land ; he said nothing of the horrors of Flanders Field. "She's just a girl," he would say to himself as he would read over her last letter to him, trying to get an idea of what would interest her in his reply. Her letters had become very infrequent. So, too, 72 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE they had grown even shorter, less interesting. The longer he remained away from her the more careless she became. "It is because I am not acquainted with anyone she knows that she writes me nothing of her companions," is the way Peter would excuse the lack of news. Beyond the fact that Bertha was working in a smart millinery shop he knew nothing of her or her environ- ment. He supposed her working hard for little pay so that she might remain in New York. Although he had not even yet been able to understand her desire to stay there with an aunt, for whom she cared nothing in particular rather than to return to Haynesville with her father and mother who loved her so dearly, and all the boys and girls with whom she had grown up. He had figured that it couldn'ti be the money she earned. He knew something of what girls were paid in Haynes- ville ; what his father paid those who worked in the fac- tory, and while, of course, she might get a little more, she couldn't earn enough to have even the comforts she had at home, where she had always been so indulged. She had told him when he was in camp that she wanted to be in New York to be nearer to him. Surely that reason could not apply now that he was at the front. A few miles made no difference now. He did not men- tion it. Bertha had written so decidedly that she should stay in New York that it seemed foolish to try to urge the advantages of going home. So gradually he said nothing more of Haynesville to her although his mother had advised him to keep trying to get his wife to come 73 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE home with her own people where she too could occasion- ally see the girl who bore her son's name. So his letters were naturally wearisome to write. Yet never because of this did he fail to send them. Often he wrote two or three to her one, and if inclined to criti- cise her he would catch himself up with the thought that she was a working girl, probably was standing nearly all day, and was too tired to write when night and Sunday came. Peter's simple honest mind never once grasped the idea that Bertha might be having so good a time that she begrudged the time spent writing the short unsatis- factory scrawls he received. He would have rejected at once any suggestion that she was> not acting as she should ; or that she was not true to him as he was to her. True in thought as well as in deed. Naturally he would have liked to know who her friends were, and he spoke of it to her. "Why don't you tell me of your friends, the girls you know ? If you would I might feel a little bit acquainted with them, and so seem nearer to you." When she replied she said: "It wouldn't do any good to tell you of the folks I know in New York. They are so different from Haynes- ville folks you would not feel like you was acquainted with them anyway. That was such a funny thing for you to say. How could you feel acquainted with people you hadn't ever seen?" Peter sighed over that letter. He would scarcely have known how to express himself; but Bertha's lack of vision was what he could not understand. Brought up 74 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE with a mother who never failed to see, to feel the under- current of his mind, the trend of his thoughts, although she was without education save of the simplest sort, he often was puzzled that Bertha had failed to compre- hend what he had tried to convey. He need not have worried. Bertha scarcely read his letters. She ran through them hurriedly, then stuffed them into the top bureau drawer with ribbons, laces and gloves, and there they remained. Unlike those he sent to his mother, they never were resurrected and re-read, neither were they proudly shown to anyone, not even to Aunt Martha, who supposed them so full of love- making that Bertha felt delicate about showing them to her; but were tossed over and over in the drawer until they rested on the bottom under the other articles and remained there. Unconsciously Peter had changed. He was no longer a boy. Innumerable things had gone to the making of the man he now was. His boyhood was a faint, in- tangible thing, driven far back into his memory. The daily life of a soldier, the habit of discipline, the stern demands of the fighting line, the life in the trenches, the horrors of dead men lying unburied, the call upon all his forces, had developed in him a certain domi- nance. The Peter who had dreamed, who had stood by when life was turbulent and vivid waiting the word to do his part, did not hesitate now when he had his chance. There was time now for nothing but action. Even thought was in abeyance. He was fortunate, too, even in his companions, was 75 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE Peter. They were fine sturdy fellows all of them. Some of them college men, others, men of absolutely no educa- tion. But they were clean, clean to the core. And some of them, like Peter, anxious to improve themselves. He was always stumbling over someone who, like himself, was toning up on drill regulations, textbooks on infantry and artillery fire, and all sorts of war manuals, one and all eager for promotion. Then, too, he ran across others who were studying French, a language in which he was determined to perfect himself. He would lay aside his shyness and parlez vous with them whenever he got a chance. In fact, Peter never let slip an opportunity to improve himself. He had access to a good library, and almost every moment he was free from duty he spent browsing over the books. He had done as his mother asked and sent her regu- larly a list of what he was reading. She kept pace with him, so now they had another tie, and they discussed what they read, each helping the other by argument, and expression of opinion. When he started the study of French, he laughingly told his mother that he wouldn't require her to also study it. In her reply she quite indignantly told him that she had already commenced the study of the lan- guage, and that she had Heloise Guiery, a French laund- ress in Haynesville, come and help her. He had suggested to Bertha that in New York she might easily come in contact with some French girl, and that it would be interesting for her to learn to speak French. She had replied that she was too busy to want to learn French or any other language but her own. 76 And Peter had felt conscience stricken because he had mentioned it. Of course, she was tired. Peter was most economical. He knew that his father had expected part of his pay to reimburse him for the loss of his services in the factory. He had religiously sent Bertha half of what he received. So whenever he could he went without even necessities so that he might send his father something. Not that the little he could send helped much ; but it showed he meant to be square, so he told his mother when she wrote him that his father did not expect it now that he was married. Could he have known it, the money he sent Bertha hardly kept her in shoes, so fastidious had she become. When he received his commission as sergeant, he wrote to Bertha immediately. Sent the letter on the same steamer as the one he wrote his mother. The latter immediately replied in an epistle so full of pride, of joy that he was being recognized for what he was even in so slight a way it brought tears to Peter's eyes. Weeks afterward he received a short note from Bertha. "I suppose you feel very grand now you are a ser- geant," she wrote. ''I don't see what difference it makes, you will have to fight just the same. If they had made you a lieutenant or major it might have been something to brag of, and you would get more pay, and only boss the soldiers instead of fighting yourself. But I guess you don't care much about getting on," showing how little Bertha knew of the business of soldiering, how pitifully little she knew, Peter Moore. "She's just a girl," Peter repeated the usual ex- 77 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE pression after he had read the note which showed her ignorance so plainly. An ignorance which seemed to him almost unbelievable. Her husband a soldier and she knew nothing of a soldier's business. He must try and send her at least some sort of a manual so that this fault might be in a measure corrected. This letter of Bertha's he carefully tore up and burned. Something might happen to him, and then someone might see it, someone who would not know that Bertha was just a girl, and who might laugh at her. In his next letter he carefully explained the rank and duties of both commissioned and non-commissioned officers. He never knew that when Bertha saw the dry- looking list she shrugged her shoulders and stuffed the letter into the drawer, saying to herself she would read it some other time, and that the time never came. There were many things happening that Peter Moore knew nothing about. Many things. 78 CHAPTER VIII BATES FREEMAN had been very seriously in earnest when he told Bertha he loved her too well to wait longer. The danger in which they had been, although she had escaped injury, had wakened in him a new tenderness for this working girl, who had so strongly resisted him and his millions. Bates was really in love deeply in love for the first time in his life. He knew people would say he had made a fool of himself if he married Bertha, the sales- girl, but let them; let those who wanted to, laugh. He knew what he wanted, so he reasoned, and he wanted Bertha Moore. It surely was his business if he made a laughing stock of himself. Such love as his only comes once in a lifetime, and he was not going to be cheated out of his happiness just because his friends thought he was marrying beneath him. There was one thing Bates Freeman had not been quite able to understand, and that was the difficulties he had in the way of wooing Bertha. Always before, he had to be careful what he said to certain girls whose society he, like many young men of millions, sought. They might take him up ; sue him for breach of promise or something. But from the very first there had been something in Bertha that held him off, and so piqued 79 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE his interest, roused his jaded curiosity, as well as his passions. That she liked fun, good times, he soon discovered. Also, that she liked everything that money could pro- cure: jewels, good clothes, expensive furs. Yet, while accepting all these things from him, she had persistently held him aloof. Lately she had seemed more amenable. More as if she were beginning to care for him, yet even now he dared take no liberties with her such as he never had hesi- tated to take with other girls as a reward for lavishly spending his money on them. To him Bertha was a type he never before had met. Perhaps that added to his interest in her; her fascination for him. Whatever it was it had grown into love, and he was determined to make her his wife. Bates Freeman always had been able to get what he wanted. He had no idea he would fail in this. Up to the night of the accident the novelty of the chase had been rather interesting. But now he wanted things settled. "He wanted her promise, and no long engagement, either," he said to himself as he also lay sleepless after going from the doctor's to his luxurious bachelor quar- ters. His wrist had been badly sprained, and because of the long time which had elapsed before he could give it atten- tion, it was very badly swollen. It pained him a good deal, too, so that it, as well as thoughts of Bertha may have helped to keep him wakeful. He planned to see her at noon. To telephone her he would meet her at luncheon and demand her answer. 80 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE But when daylight came he had fallen asleep, and it was nearly noon when his valet wakened him. His wrist was still painful, he felt disinclined for effort ; so he clung to his original idea. He would go up to her aunt's house and talk to her there in the evening. Bertha had rather expected he would find a way to meet her at luncheon, and was immensely relieved when he did not appear. It gave her longer to think, to plan what she should say and do. ''For heaven's sake, what ails you?" Julia grumbled. ' ' I 'd as soon be with a dead one. I '11 bet you and Bates Freeman had a row last night ! ' ' "No, indeed, we didn't," Bertha replied, at a loss to understand the note of something very like alarm in Julia's voice. That Julia meant her to hold Bates be- cause of the advantage it was to her, Julia, Bertha had dimly sensed several times; now she said: "You seem mighty anxious about Bates and me, Julia. Perhaps you think if we had a row you could get him yourself." "Don't be a fool! Haven't I got my own beau? Though I don 't mind saying to you that if I could have caught Bates Freeman myself you'd never got a chance at him, and I 'd have thrown Claude over. Bates ain't near so good-looking as Claude, but he's got lots more dough. And that's what counts." "I only thought you acted so interested," Bertha apologized. "I am interested. Ain't you my chum, and I'd be a queer sort if I wasn't interested in your keeping a good thing like him. Of course, I have lots of nice times, 81 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE too, because you are my chum and he in love with you up to his eyebrows. Claude and me couldn't afford to take motor-car rides and lunch at Sherry's and Del's, the way we do when we are with you and Freeman. ' ' "But it can't go on forever," Bertha said, trying Julia out. She wanted to hear what she would say ; yet she was determined not to tell her about Bates' last proposal. "You're a fool if you let him go." "Peter may come back." "Nonsense; he's bound to be shot. Anyway, he'll not be back for years." "I am afraid I can't put Bates off much longer." "Don't be so squeamish. Promise to marry him when you can 't keep him any other way. Promises never killed anybody. ' ' Bertha remembered, as she listened to Julia's advice, that the same idea had crossed her mind as she lay awake thinking of what she could do; what she should tell Bates. As Julia had said, a promise wouldn't hurt her, and perhaps by the time when she reached this point in her thoughts she halted them. While she was foolish, Bertha wasn't really either wicked, or willfully heartless. To wish Peter dead was going too far. But there had come another, perhaps a more danger- ous, element into her friendship for Bates Freeman. She had begun to care for him, even more than for his gifts. At first she had felt no stirrings of love when he declared his feeling for her; she had laughed away her embarrassment, and his love-making. But the new tenderness which had crept into his treatment toward 82 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE her, the sincerity of his manner, and lastly his real anxiety had wakened in her a responsiveness never before given him. Bertha had never been wooed. Peter's courtship had been a passive affair, managed from the beginning by Bertha herself. The whirlwind marriage, never thought of until she had thrown herself into his arms; the sud- den leave-taking, all had been gone through without any of the love-making, the wooing, that usually make for and accompany the situation. That Bertha felt little responsibility toward Peter is, considering her disposition, not to be wondered at. He was somewhere abroad, fighting with the allied nations. Bates was here at home with her, loading her with flowers and gifts, making life easy for her, and at' the same time wooing her with an intensity, a tenderness she never before had experienced. All the afternoon as she sold and tried on hats, Julia 's advice so in line with her thought of the night before kept recurring to her : "Promise to marry him when you can't keep him any other way. Promises never killed anybody. ' ' Then, too, something might happen. What, she would not allow herself to think. But something that would make it possible for her to some day keep her promise to Bates. In the meantime she would have her lover, and also all the luxuries which now seemed to her indispensable. But other thoughts came also. Suppose Bates insisted upon being married at once. Suppose her excuses would no longer avail. What should she do then ? She turned 83 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE first hot and then cold as she thought that then she would lose him. Intuitively she felt that she could no longer keep him dangling after her unless she married him if he so determined. She had no real excuse to urge. She had frankly told him she would not return to Haynes- ville to live ; had also told him much of the poverty of her people. She was practically alone in the world be- cause of her decision to remain in New York or so Bates Freeman thought. What good excuse could she give for postponing the marriage once she had agreed to marry him? At times she thought no day ever passed so slowly; at others she wished she could stay the time. She would have to give him his answer when he came that night, and as yet she had no answer ready. Julia watched her keenly all the afternoon. She was sure that something had happened; she feared some- thing inimical to her plans; her plans for feathering her own nest through Bertha's friendship for the mil- lionaire; his infatuation for her. But Julia was cau- tious. She would not appear to notice, and would offer to go home with Bertha. She had done so several times, so Bertha would think nothing strange. "If you haven't any engagement, and will invite me, I '11 go home with you to-night, ' ' she said to Bertha dur- ing a lull in business. "I am sorry, Julia, but Bates is coming up. Maybe we will go somewhere," she added, fearing Julia might insist. "Oh, that's all right! I can come any time," Julia replied, relieved that she had been wrong in her suspi- 84 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE cions. Surely if they had quarreled he wouldn't be going up to the house to see Bertha, something she sel- dom allowed. Her aunt's plain home still made her feel embarrassed before her millionaire lover. "I thought you was kidding me, Bertha, and that you had quarreled with Bates." "No, we haven't quarreled," Bertha said wearily. Her lack of sleep added to her worrying thoughts had tired her. Even her aunt noticed when she reached home that she did not look well, and made an extra dish of toast for her. Bertha tried to eat it to please her, but she had no appetite. A little after eight Bates arrived. He had a box of orchids for her, and, taking her in his arms, he said: "Dearest, I have come for my answer. I am not going to leave you until you tell me when you will be my wife," and he kissed her again, before he let her go. That word "when" had sent shivers over Bertha. He had not said if, but "when." That meant she must decide now, at once. As she led the way into Aunt Martha's parlor she grew hot, then cold, at the thought of what was before her; what it meant to her. Bertha fussed over the orchids, refusing to pin them on because Bates would crush them. His embraces were almost rough so Bertha said so gaining an apology and a tenderness hard to resist. She found a vase and insisted upon putting them in water. "I'll have them to wear to-morrow." "There are more where those came from. I'll send 85 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE you another bunch," he replied, loath to have her leave him. "You are an extravagant boy," Bertha had declared, and unheeding his protest that he couldn't spend his money if he tried, she filled the vase and then set it upon the table in the parlor along with the wax flowers cov- ered with a glass dome, sole memento of the child Aunt Martha had lost in its infancy. There, as much out of place as was their giver, in the shabby little parlor, they stood while Bates again told Bertha of his love, and refused to let her from his arms until he had his answer. And it was always "when?" "But I haven't said that I would marry you," Bertha said coyly, sparring for time. "But you are going to, sweetheart, and very soon. I have been very patient, Bertha dear, but I shall be patient no longer. Tell me when you will marry me, dear?" "But your people they will " "I have no people who can say anything anything for which I care. As you know I have lost father and mother, both. My brother, the only near relative I have, has no control of either me or my money. You are alone, too, dearest. Why not marry me next week?" Bertha drew in a sharp breath. Next week! Why she hadn 't figured upon such short notice even when she thought of the very worst that could happen. "Oh, I couldn't !" "Why not? All that nonsense about getting ready buying clothes, etc., you can dispense with. We won't have a society wedding, you know ; just the parson and a 86 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE couple of friends. Then you can buy anything you need or want afterward. Here, give me your hand." Taking her hand he slipped a wonderful diamond ring over her finger. Once more she drew a quick breath, this time of delight at the beauty of the ring; her en- gagement ring. That was what he called it. She had been given no engagement ring by Peter, just the plain narrow gold band he had slipped over her finger the day they were so hurriedly married down at the license bureau and which she had never since worn. This flash- ing gem represented not only the generosity and the wealth of the giver, but the romance she had missed. That was what lured Bertha the romance. She had been accustomed to expensive gifts from Bates, but this was different; it meant something. And Bates watching her felt his cause won. "When, dear?" he asked as again he took her into his arms. "Didn't I tell you I had not promised to ever?" she asked, trying to speak with her old saucy manner and failing utterly, as she drew away from him. "Honestly, Bates, I don't want to get married. Why can't we go on as we are?" "Because we I can't! I will not. You belong to me. You must not keep me waiting longer for what already is my own." "But, Bates, I am happy now aren't you? So many people aren't so happy after they get married. Don't let us be in a hurry." The words seemed to come of their own volition. She had not realized until after they were uttered that she had, by saying what she had, 87 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE virtually promised to marry him. Well, let it go ! She would see what he said. Perhaps she could coax him to wait. "If that is your reason, we'll get married to-night!" he laughed gleefully. "Why, dear, I never really cared for any other girl not like I care for you! I'll make you happy. I couldn't help it. Come, dear, tell me when, and make it soon." "I should think you might be satisfied with one thing at a time. If I have promised to marry you to-night, you might wait until to-morrow at least before making me tell you just what day." "All right, I'll wait until to-morrow, but not another minute, mind you. Now thank me prettily for giving in to you, and make up your mind to tell me to-morrow that you will marry me next week," he said, paying no attention to her little joke, as she had meant it when she said to-morrow. Bertha sighed with relief. Even twenty-four hours more might give her time to concoct some schemes whereby she could keep Bates a lover without either marrying him or compromising herself. Never for one moment had she considered the latter course. Her healthy, sane bringing up would have made such a course revolting to her. When Bates bade her good-night an hour later his last words were: "Remember, you are to tell me to-morrow." Bertha went to her room immediately Bates left. She refused to stop and talk to her aunt, though she hurt that good lady's feelings by so doing. She stood 88 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE before her bureau, turning and twisting the beautiful solitaire Bates had put on her finger. She was a married woman, and she had just become engaged to another* man. For the first time since she had known Bates Freeman she hunted around among the ribbons and laces until she found one of Peter's letters. Perhaps, unfortu- nately, or was it a trick of fate, she found the one which she had never finished reading ; the one in which he had told her of the duties of an officer, and had tried to cor- rect her ignorance of army matters. She compelled her- self to read it, every word. It was dry, prosy. She had not enjoyed the reading. Then she found the last note she had received from Bates. He had made a short business trip to Chicago, and had written her twice a day while he was away. The note, although short, breathed his love for her in every line. To compare the two was out of the question. There was no parallel 1 between Peter's dry lesson in army tactics and the red- blooded love letter of Bates Freeman. Peter's letter Bertha thrust back into the drawer, while after reading Bates' the second time she pressed it to her lips before she carefully put it away in the box where she kept all her treasures under lock and key ; away from the prying eyes of Aunt Martha. That night also she had little sleep, and was disturbed by dreams, but her dreams were all of Peter. She saw him fighting. She saw him lying dead. But it was always her he was fighting, and she who had killed him. It was queer that Peter should be in his uniform fighting her. Men in uniform fought other soldiers. And how 89 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE had she killed him? She had nothing to fight with. She awoke several times only to dream again of Peter when she slept. Finally she got up and slipping on a kimona sat by the window. It was better to lose her sleep than to go on dreaming such horrid things. She hadn't answered Peter's last letter; in truth he had written twice since she had sent him a single line. To ease her conscience she found paper and ink and wrote him. Just a short commonplace little note, as usual. But after it was written she felt better. Then she found a ribbon and hung her ring, her engagement ring, around her neck. It would not do to let Julia see it. Aunt Martha would believe anything she might tell her; but Julia was different. It wasn't easy to fool her. Perhaps it would be better to talk things over with Julia. She was sure she never could find a way out of the tangle alone not a way she would want to take. Julia, no matter what her failings were, was smart. No one could deny that! Smart and clever. She was sly, too, but one had to be sometimes. To her aunt she said : "I may bring Julia home with me to-night." "Yes, do! she hasn't been up in a long time," Mrs. Robinson replied. She liked Julia, was always pleased when Bertha brought her up to spend the night. Julia was rather a gossip, and she flattered Aunt Martha. She, too, liked to hear about Bertha and her people in Haynesville. Who could tell but that some day the knowledge so gained might not be of use? 90 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE "I'm not sure, so don't do anything extra. What's good enough for us is good enough for her, any- way. ' ' Ever since Bertha had been getting good wages she had paid her aunt a reasonable sum for her board and room. Often since Bates Freeman had been so generous with her she had paid extra, or given Mrs. Robinson a gift of clothing. She really felt that she more than paid her way, so did not scruple to ask Julia to spend the night occasionally. But she was sorry she had men- tioned that she might invite her. Aunt Martha was sure to spend the day fussing and baking, and perhaps she would change her mind after all and not tell Julia anything, or ask her home with her. She was early at the shop, but early as she was she found a note from Bates. "I am called out of town. Back in a couple of days. Remember I shall expect a decided answer the minute I see you. ' ' Then followed a tender bit of love talk, and a caution not to work too hard. "I shall be glad to get you away from that shop. We will take a long trip some- where and stay away until you are rested. You looked tired last night, dear, and I felt guilty that I had not insisted that you remain at home to-day. Please take care of yourself for my sake." A respite. Instead of one day she would have three. She would not ask Julia to go home with her; instead she would go home early and go directly to bed. She, would try not to think of Bates or Peter. She was astonished that Peter should intrude upon her thoughts. He never did. It must be because she had dreamed of 91 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE him the night before. She hoped she never again would be so disturbed. Bertha did as she had planned. She asked permission to leave the shop early. She went directly home and immediately to bed. Determinedly she put all thought from her mind. She had two days' grace, and now she needed sleep more than anything else. The following morning she received a letter from Peter. She tore it open, glanced quickly at its contents, then slipped it back into the envelope. ''How's Peter?" her aunt asked. "All right. He says he's a second lieutenant. He's going to get more pay." " That's fine! Peter '11 get on. You ought to be proud of him, Bertha." "What does he say about the fighting, anything?" her uncle asked. "Nothing much, just says he keeps busy," Bertha returned, consulting the letter. "Your aunt's right! You ought to be proud to be married to such a fine fellow. Think of him being a lieutenant already. Why that shows what they think of him over there." ' ' I don 't see as it makes any difference to me, ' ' Bertha yawned. She had slept heavily ; she was as yet scarcely awake. "You say he's going to send you more money?" her aunt inquired. Mrs. Robinson was a thrifty soul, and Bertha's extravagant ways, her fine clothes, worried her not a little. "Yes, so he says." 92 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE "You don't need any more. Why don't you save all he sends you? You earn enough yourself to live on. Does he send his folks anything?" "I suppose so. I don't know. I don't see why he should. His father has a factory, you know." "Well, you are a funny girl. Most girls would be wild over such news, and you don't seem to care any- thing about it. He'll be a fine looking officer. He looked so good in his uniform that he's sure to look even better as an officer." Mrs. Robinson trailed on, eager to talk of Peter, and yet discouraged by Bertha's lack of interest. "You haven't half read your letter. It is early. You'll have plenty of time to read it before you go." Bertha picked up the letter and sipping a second cup of coffee she read it through. It was not a long letter ; really there was very little in it. Peter feared she was ill, he had not heard in so long. Of course, her letter of the night before might be weeks in reaching him. He urged her once more to give up her position and go back to Haynesville. "I earn enough now," he said, "so that you can have the pretty things you want without working in that store. Go home, Bertha, and help your mother, and be a comfort to your folks and mine. They are lonely. I know from my mother's letters. She says your father and mother have grown old, and seem so sad. You know they loved you very dearly, and they are all alone. I will send you every cent I can spare. I spend hardly anything save for tobacco; that I must have. I don't think a soldier can get along without that." Bertha read about the 93 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE tobacco to her aunt and uncle, but she skipped what Peter had said concerning her going home. "That's right!" her uncle declared. "Soldiers de- pend on their smokes to cheer them up. We must send the lad tobacco; a lot of it in the next box you send, Bertha; good American smokes." Bertha went on reading: "I wish I might run in and see you, Bertha; talk to you; let you know just how I feel about things this war and all. We hear all sorts of rumors over here about the United States coming in, so far they seem to be just rumors. But it is a great fight, a just fight, and because it is just we shall win it. It may take years, but the French and the British will never give in as long as they have a man who can carry a gun. "There are quite a number of boys from the States with us. I talk to them occasionally. It seems good to hear good old United States talk. They are fine fel- lows, these Americans who are fighting with the Allies, fighting for a principle. They are brave men, too. One of them was killed yesterday. I was so near him I was a bit stunned myself. Before he died he gave me his mother's address and that of his sweetheart. He had letters written ready to be sent to both of them in case of accident. He died bravely. I hope if I am taken I shall die as gallantly. "This isn't a very bright letter, Bertha, but somehow I feel rather sad and depressed. I guess it is because my letters have been delayed. I look for them very anxiously. They are like a bit of home to me. Remember me to your aunt and uncle. I hope to hear from you 94 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE soon and that you have decided to go back to Haynes- ville. It would make me quite happy if you would. With love, PETER." Bertha read aloud that part which had to do with the death of the soldier and Peter's remembrances to her aunt and uncle. But she skipped all that referred to her leaving New York or had to do with the people back home. 95 CHAPTER IX PETER'S letter both annoyed and cheered Bertha. She was annoyed that he should start that talk about her going home again. She had supposed he understood that no matter what happened she would not go back to Haynesville. How silly he was to think just because he had a few dollars more pay she would give up her position, her friends, her good times and Bates Free- man, and go back to that stuffy country town, where the only excitement was a fair or a church social occasion- ally. No, indeed. Her hand went to her bosom and she felt the ring on the ribbon, the ring which had cost what Peter's pay as second lieutenant would amount to in a year. He wanted her to go back and wash dishes in her mother's kitchen, to go and sit and talk to his mother while she knitted socks and sweaters for him and his comrades. Bertha's mother had written her that Mrs. Moore 's hands were never idle ; that she knit constantly. What good would a little more money and all her pretty clothes do her if she were to bury herself alive in Haynesville? She would tell him once more that she intended to remain in New York; tell him so that he would understand it. She was tired of his talking of 96 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE Haynesville, of her duty to her people and his. She knew her own business and would attend to it. She would send him a box ; that always salved her con- science in a way, and plenty of good smokes, as her uncle called the tobacco. She didn't really need his money, but she couldn't say so, or he might get suspi- cious that someone was doing things for her. She knew, too, that Peter probably had not the faintest idea how much she earned, that her salary was greater than his pay even now that he was a commissioned officer; that she was worth even more than she was getting. Sales- women who could dispose of the amount of goods she did were born, not made. In her infrequent letters to Peter she never had given him the slightest inkling as to what she earned. The only time she had mentioned money to him was when she had her first advance at the store, then she had written that she had been promoted and was paying her aunt for her board and room. Peter had hinted that she might be a burden on them in his efforts to get her to go home. But if what Peter said about her going home annoyed Bertha, there was one sentence in his letter that did not annoy her and which she could not dismiss from her mind. All the way down in the crowded subway, all the morning while she sold hats it ran insistently through her mind and colored all her thoughts. He had said: "It may take years to win the fight, but the French and the British will not give in as long as they have a man to carry a gun. ' ' 97 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE Peter had enlisted with them; he would stay with them, fight with them until the end. Of that Bertha was sure. While she never had appreciated him, his strength of character, she knew something of his determination. He would never turn back. And he had said the war might last for years. Was her life to be ruined, was she to moon along without love and a home of her own just because Peter chose to fight with a lot of foreigners? Because he fought their battles? It wasn't fair. What did he marry her for if he intended to stay away for years? Yet as she asked the question she knew she did not wish him back. She also knew he never would have married her had she not made it almost impossible for him, with his chivalrous ideas, to go away without doing so. But it pleased her mood to throw blame on someone and so take it from herself. ' ' It may take years. ' ' She could almost hear Peter saying it as she advised one customer to take a hat trimmed with a certain shade of blue because it matched her eyes. ' ' It may take years. ' ' She almost heard Peter's vibrant, earnest young voice say it as she fitted a mourning bonnet on the pale golden hair of a young widow. "It may take years." She almost persuaded herself that Peter knew it would be years and that she heard him warning her to be prepared for his long absence as she laid a jaunty pink-flowered hat upon the head of a young girl. "It may take years." 98 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE The words, accented by a certain sadness in Peter's voice, rang clearly in her ears as she deftly fitted a bridal veil and wreath of orange blossoms upon the head of a happy, blushing girl who, on the morrow was to marry the man she loved. Her hand went up to her neck. The ring, her en- gagement ring, held clasped in the fold of her waist, she murmured to herself: ' ' It may be years. ' ' When Peter wrote to Bertha that the war might last for years he was persuaded that it would. In fact, that was one reason he urged her so strenuously to go home to Haynesville with those who loved her. In a way Peter had a guilty feeling about Bertha, not that he had married her because she had chosen that he should, but that he had left her alone in the big city instead of insisting that she go home at once. He had not the slightest idea that even then she would not have obeyed him; that she had wanted to marry him partly to give her a reason, an excuse, to remain in New York; that the town's glamor had already seized upon her. When he thought of her stubbornness in remaining he always laid it partly to the fact that she was earning money and that, as a married woman, she felt more independent than if she were at home simply helping her mother. So now that he had his lieutenant 's pay he saw no possible reason why she shouldn't go home, and had written her accordingly, impressing the loneliness of her parents upon her as an added reason. Peter was very busy. He had not won his commission by loafing. After he sent his letter off to Bertha he 99 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE felt an immense relief. Her staying in New York had worried him. Now that she knew she was to have more money she would, of course, go home at once. He smiled happily as he thought that most likely her reply would be postmarked Haynesville. Then, too, Peter had other reasons for wanting Bertha to go home. She would have more time to write, more time to read and study. He intended to ask his mother to get Bertha to read with her those books he was read- ing on the other side of the world. He longed inex- pressibly for her, his wife, to have the interests which had come to him. He yearned to be able to write her as he did his mother ; of his thoughts, his aspirations, his inmost feelings and emotions. It seemed almost unnat- ural not to. One other thing Peter hoped for Bertha if she returned to Haynesville. He hoped that his mother's influence would make Bertha find out, understand the things which made his mother what she was so much worth while. That through her Bertha might have vision, might be- come such a woman as she was, so that if he were spared and they had children they would respect and love her as he loved his mother. Whenever Peter thought of returning to America, to Bertha, he had, unconsciously almost, the thought of home and children in his mind. Bertha would have been astounded could she have known his dreams: to take over the factory and so relieve his father; to own a cottage near so that he could see his mother every day ; to have her, Bertha, his wife, keep it neat and tidy for him^and to have children run to meet him when his 100 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE day's work was done. Those had been the dreams of the man of whom his comrades said : "Moore fights like a demon." Surely peaceful dreams for a fighting man. Fortunately for Peter's peace of mind, Bertha knew nothing of the young soldier's dreams. Had she, she might have dissipated them by telling him the truth in so brutal a manner as to take from him even that com- fort. It was also fortunate for Bertha's peace of mind that she knew nothing of Peter's plans and hopes. Not that it would have affected her as it did Peter; but it might have rushed her into doing things over which she now hesitated. Such a plan would not have fitted into her scheme of things, of life her life. If Bertha ever seriously had thought of what they would do should Peter return it was in the first days of his absence, before she met Bates Freeman ; or, perhaps, it would be better to say before she made a confidante of Julia Lawrence. But even then her plans would have been antipodal to his. She would have planned a flat in New York. Four or five rooms in a building with a gaudy entrance and an elevator. Peter was bright, he could easily find something to do. He could be a clerk or a floorwalker, something where he could wear good clothes which would show his figure. She would keep her job in the Fifth Avenue shop and between them they would get along fine. No thought of father or mother or children entered into her plans. Haynesville was hateful to her, even the thought of the stupid town nauseated her. While she would have declared, if asked, that she loved her father 101 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE and mother, yet no tender thoughts of home or of them ever disturbed her mind. As for Peter's parents, why they were really no more or less to her than they always had been. His mother was too sad, too much given to reading and to charity to have time for anything else; while his father was just like all the other men in Haynesville. But it had been a long time since Bertha had thought of the flat with the gaudy entrance. Her taste had been educated since then. Now she understood the difference between the quiet elegance of some buildings, and the cheap imitation of others. Just as she understood the difference between the men she now went with, and the dlerk or floorwalker she had thought Peter might be- come. Now Bertha's dreams were more colorful. She dreamed of handsome houses instead of a five-room flat. She thought in thousands instead of hundreds. She was accustomed now to ride in automobiles, she used to think the subway and the street cars a good means of locomotion ; quite wonderful, in fact, because there were neither in Haynesville. But now it mussed her hand- some clothes to ride in the crush in the subway or in the crowded street cars. So when Bates didn't send or take her home in his car, she rode in the Fifth Avenue buses. They weren't crowded, and so people didn't walk all over one. In every respect was the country girl changed. And, strange to say, not for the better. Yet no one ever yet could truthfully say that Bertha had transgressed the moral code. People talked, they always do when a 102 millionaire pays attention to a shop girl, but Bertha was singularly impervious to their gossip. ' ' I know I 'm decent, what do I care what folks say ? ' ' she said when Julia repeated some gossip she had heard anent Bertha and Bates Freeman. "They are jealous, that's all." And Bertha really believed she had been as she expressed it, ' ' decent, ' ' because she had not broken the one commandment. That at heart she was, had been for some time, a courtesan she would have indignantly denied. She had repeatedly done so when Julia would argue with her as to the right and wrong of things. It was only her ' ' old- fashioned bringing up that made her so afraid," Julia would tell her again and again. Perhaps it might have been. Early teaching sometimes keeps a wonderful hold upon certain natures. "When they went out to luncheon Bertha asked Julia to come up and spend the night. "I couldn't have you last night, I was tired almost to death," she had said. "Bates is away, and we can have a nice long talk. I want to talk to you about some- thing, something I have to decide, and honest, Julia, I can't tell what to do, I'm almost crazy thinking about it." "I knew something was troubling you; can't you tell me now ? ' ' ' ' No it would take too long, there is too much to talk about. Will you go home with me?" ' ' Of course I will ! Did you ever know me to refuse ? Your aunt is too good a cook for me to say no to an invite." 103 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE Bertha felt suddenly relieved that she had decided at last to confide in Julia. It would help just to talk things over with her, even if she didn't take her advice. In fact, Bertha had no intention of doing so. She wanted her views, she wanted to know what she thought as to her ability to hold Bates Freeman for any length of time if she promised to marry him. In fact, she wanted encouragement in her idea that she might, on one pre- text and another, put him off, yet keep him tied to her as he now was. Julia Lawrence had made a very shrewd guess as to what was troubling Bertha, but wisely she had not allowed a hint of her suspicions to escape her. After dinner they went up to Bertha's room. They could talk there sure of being undisturbed. ' ' Now, Bertha, fire away ! What 's the matter ? ' ' Julia said as she lighted a cigarette. "It's Bates." ' ' What 's he been doing now ? ' ' "You remember that night last week when we had the accident and ran into the farmer?" "Yes what happened?" "Bates was frightened for fear I was hurt. Fright- ened almost to death. You should have seen him and heard him, ' ' Bertha explained a trifle boastfully. ' ' Then when we got into the car to come back home he tried to make me promise to marry him." "He's done that before hasn't he?" "Yes, Julia, but not like he did this time. He just took it for granted I was going to marry him, and in- stead of asking if I would, he kept asking when. I tried 104 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE to put him off, but I couldn't. Then he came up here the next night and tried again to make me set the day. He brought me this engagement ring." She pulled out the brilliant and showed it to Julia, who went into ecsta- sies over it, cleverly appraising its value and telling Bertha she was a lucky girl. "I've got to give him an answer when he comes back. I'm almost crazy over it." "When did you hear from that husband of yours last ? ' ' Julia said after a moment, apropos of nothing. "Yesterday." "Say anything particular?" "No only that the war would probably last for years." "What more do you want him to say! That's all you want to know. I don't see for the life of me what you are making such a fuss over; why you say you can't decide about Bates!" Bertha looked at Julia in a dazed fashion when she said that she couldn't see what she was making a fuss about. She had not connected the two; Julia's question about Peter and what she had said about Bates. "You see, Julia," Bertha went on, now that she was started she was anxious to talk, to tell it all, "Bates has made up his mind to get married. And the worst of it is he wants me to marry him right away. When you come to think of it, I haven't any real excuse for waiting, that he knows about. I can't bear to lose him, Julia, but I guess I'll have to." Bertha wiped away the tears of self-pity that had gathered in her eyes while she talked. 105 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE "Rot!" exclaimed Julia inelegantly. "You make me tired! You just told me that husband of yours said the war would last for years, yet you sit there talking about giving up that million dollar kid, and sniveling over it. I only wish I had your chance. I'd know what to do mighty quick." ' ' What would you do ? " listlessly Bertha asked. Julia was not being as sympathetic as she would wish. 1 ' I 'd hurry up and marry Bates before he changed his mind. That 's what I 'd do ! " "Yes, but you're not married. I wish I had told him about Peter when I first met him, perhaps he would have liked me just as well, or perhaps I wouldn't have learned to like him so much." "1*116 idea of thinking he would have liked you as well if he had known you were married. He just wouldn't have had anything to do with you and " "Perhaps that would have been better than " "Don't be a fool!" Julia interrupted. "Bates Free- man wouldn't have looked at you twice for any good if you had been a married woman. Bates is wild and spends his money like a drunken sailor, but he ain't no fool to go and get tied up with a married woman. He 's cleverer than you think." "I know he's clever, and it is just that that makes me afraid. I hate to give him up; honest, it ain't all the money, either, Julia. I have grown awfully fond of him lately. He's been so nice to me I couldn't help lik- ing him. But he wants me to marry him next week. If I thought I could promise to marry him some time and get away with it why, I'd do it rather than give 106 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE him up. But I'm afraid to take the chance, because if I tell him that, and he insists, I shall have to tell him. about Peter, and that would be awful. He'd hate me then. I guess I better make a clean breast of it when he comes back. Maybe if I do he will help me out in some way. I ain't married like some people, you know. I ain't ever lived with Peter." "Don't be a fool!" once more Julia exclaimed. "Bates Freeman would never forgive you for deceiving him all this time. Never in the world ! Taking his pres- ents and his money, to say nothing of the time he has wasted on you ! He would be furious and right, too. ' ' "But you advised me " ' ' That 's right ! Blame me ! Nice time you 'd have had all this time if you'd gone around telling you were married! No one would have looked at you," which Julia knew was not quite true. Bertha was so pretty people could not help looking at her, and the fact that she was married would not have prevented her receiving a certain amount of admiration. "I don't blame you; Julia, but I am most crazy." Bertha was weeping now. "Why not promise to marry him? Hold him off as long as you can, and then " "Then what?" "Then marry him. Who'll know about it? No one will dream that Bates Freeman's wife is the same Bertha Moore who married a soldier five minutes before he went away." ' ' But they could arrest me lock me up if they found it out." 107 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE ' ' People have to take some chances. Don 't be a ninny ! Promise to marry him, and I'll help you think of some way to stave him off for a while. If it wasn't that you had married a soldier and folks would talk so because of that, perhaps you could get a divorce. But I guess you couldn't, either. You have to have some grounds for divorce." "Oh, if I only could!" Bertha sighed. Then, "But if I got a divorce or would get one, Bates would know all about Peter, and maybe he wouldn't want me then. Oh, come to bed ! ' ' she added in desperation. ' ' I '11 think of something to do before Bates gets back." Julia hadn't been any help after all. Julia slept soundly all night, but Bertha again was wakeful. All through the long quiet hours she thought and thought, but never arrived at any conclusion. She was Peter Moore's wife ; and she wanted to marry Bates Freeman. It was not so simple as it sounded. 108 CHAPTER X THE next morning the subject wasn't mentioned by the girls until they were on their way to the shop. I'hen Julia said: "You didn't sleep much, did you? You look like a ghost this morning. Better fix up a little before you wait on customers." "No, I didn't sleep five minutes. I've a notion not to go near the store. ' ' "What good would that do? You'll be thinking all the time, no matter where you are. Come on; maybe something will come to me some way to manage." Julia had no notion of letting Bertha away from her influence. She intended to do all she could to make her keep Bates Freeman. Bertha took Julia's advice and applied a liberal amount of rouge and powder before she attempted to wait upon customers. She did look ghastly. All the morning she was absent-minded, inattentive. For the first time she drew a sharp reprimand from the pro- prietor of the shop. She replied impatiently, and thought in her mind that if she could marry Bates no one would dare speak sharply to her. Peter, in his letter, had urged her to go home; per- haps that was the best way out. Just go home and stay 109 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE there; wash dishes and help her mother. A wave of disgust swept over her at the thought, almost nauseating her. Go back to that little one-horse town and settle down ! It would be worse now than before she left ; worse for her. Then she could go around occasionally with the boys, but back there a married woman couldn't stir. She would be Peter's wife, and, of course, could not expect to join the unmarried boys and girls. It would not be considered decent. No, she'd rather die first. But that her fate was on the knees of the gods, and that they might take a hand in deciding things for her she never dreamed. About noon she received a note from Bates. A gay, loving little note in which the new tenderness for her still glowed. Bertha was neither very sentimental nor very romantic, but before she tucked the note away she pressed it to her lips. At luncheon, which, as usual, she and Julia had to- gether, she asked: "Well, Julia, have you thought of any way out of the muddle?" "No honest, I don't see anything to do but just to promise to marry him, and then string him. Some- thing may happen most any time, so it would come all right for you." Bertha shuddered. She knew what Julia meant ; that she thought Peter might get killed, and so she, Bertha, would be free. What an awful way to plan. Yet if it should happen The thought was with her all the afternoon. She was not very busy and had too much time to think. Think- ing did her no good. 110 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE About four o'clock she was called to the telephone. To her astonishment it was her aunt. "A telegram came for you. I opened it. Your mother is very sick, perhaps dying. Your father wants you to come at once." Bertha reeled as she left the telephone. She never had thought of her mother as sick or dying. She had only remembered the disagreeable things she used to do at home, the narrow, joyless life she led. But it was strange how now there crowded upon her mind one thing after another. She recalled how her mother always washed the dishes and let her dry them so she would not spoil her hands ; how she would go without a new dress and give Bertha the money to buy herself something she coveted. Even when she had left home hadn't mother given her all her chicken and vegetable money so she could make a brave appearance in New York? And whenever she had been ailing, even ever so little, hadn 't mother run up and down stairs waiting on her, making her broth and fixing little dainty dishes to tempt her appetite? Queer she had forgotten all these things for so long! "What is it?" Julia asked as Bertha returned to the salesroom. Something in her face arrested attention. Without replying, Bertha went directly to the pro- prietor and told her news. "You will want to go, of course," she said kindly. "Do you need money or anything?" "Yes, I'll go." Until she said it, Bertha had not known she was intending to go. "No, thank you; I don't need anything." Ill THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE "Go right along, then. Yon can catch a train to- night, can't you?" "Yes, I can get the night train," she repeated dully. As she went for her hat, Julia followed. ' ' What is it, Bertha ? Bates ? ' ' "No!" impatiently. "It's my mother. She's dying, maybe. I am going home." Julia consoled her, hoped she would find her mother better and would soon be back. To herself she said: "Such luck! Bates can't insist on her marrying him right away if her mother dies." Julia wasn't particu larly hard-hearted. It was only that she never forgot the main chance. Bertha hurried home, packed her bag, wrote a little, hurried note of explanation to Bates Freeman, then caught her train for Haynesville. It was a long, lonely ride. Unaccustomed to a sleeping car, she could not rest, and the thought of her mother, that she might be dying or dead, made night a horror. Her father met her at the train, and greeted her affectionately. "Your ma is better," he said, as he took her bag. He felt a little awed by the stylish girl at his side, so unlike the girl who a year and a half ago had left home for the first time. Although she wore a plain, tailored suit and turban to match, he would have been amazed had he known the cost. Even her shoes were such as no dealer in Haynesville carried. Then, too, this was the first time he had seen her since she and Peter were married. 112 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE ''How's Peter?" he asked after Bertna had expressed her joy that her mother was better. "He's all right." "His ma and pa and pretty near all the village are mighty proud of Peter. His pa told me he's a lef tenant now. ' ' "Yes, he wrote me." "He gets more pay, too." "Yes." To Bertha's relief they were at home. She hated to be questioned about Peter. Mrs. Hunter wept when she saw Bertha. She, while better, was still very weak, and the sight of the girl on whom she had lavished so much affection, and whom she had not seen for so long affected her to a degree. ' ' Oh, Bertha ! ' ' she cried, stretching out her arms. "There, ma, don't cry," and Bertha, her own eyes suspiciously moist, kissed her mother tenderly. "Have you come to stay, Bertha?" her mother asked anxiously. "Don't worry, ma, I'm here now." Mr. Hunter had left immediately for the store. He had neglected his business to take care of his wife, and Bertha's coming had been a relief. He had asked no questions about her remaining. He had not thought but that she would. She had brought a big trunk, very new looking, which he had sent up to the house on the grocery wagon. He wondered a bit what she could have to need such a big trunk. She had taken all her possessions in a suitcase when she left. Bertha went immediately to work tidying the house 113 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE and doing what was necesasry for her mother. She had not much time to think, there was so much to do, and when night came she was too tired. The boys and girls hearing she was at home stopped a moment at the gate or on the porch to say how-de-do, and then to go home and report how stylish Bertha was, even in her working clothes. The girls spent hours trying to do their hair like hers. Peter's mother had been over the first day Bertha reached home. "I won't stay, dear, but I had to come over and wel- come Peter's wife. When your mother is well enough to spare you, you must spend some of your time with me. We shall have a great deal to talk over to- gether. ' ' Bertha shivered. She knew what having a great deal to talk over would mean. Endless discussion of Peter, his good qualities, and her duties as his wife. Her own mother had questioned her very little. Partly because of her weakness, and partly because she was satisfied to have Bertha with her. She improved rapidly and was soon about again although still unable to do any work about the house, save some of the lighter tasks which she insisted upon doing to relieve Bertha. Bertha had been obliged to spend several afternoons with her mother-in-law. Peter's letters had been taken from beneath the leaves of the family Bible, and she had to listen while his mother read them aloud. These let- ters, parts of which were absolutely unintelligible to Bertha because of the vision they revealed, the spiritual feeling and outlook the boy confided to his mother, bored 114 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE Bertha almost to death. She got so that she hated the thought of going over there to talk of Peter, and to listen to things that were "so silly she didn't under- stand them," she said to herself. But she knew if she refused it would cause gossip and make her own mother feel badly. Among her callers had been old Thomas Brooks. "I wanted to shake hands with you, Bertha. We are all very proud of Peter; proud that he is a Haynes- ville boy. They tell me he is a second lieutenant now. He'll make his mark if he lives; I always said so," and the old soldier shook his head solemnly as he extended his left and only hand to Bertha. "Old bore," she said under her breath after he left. He had talked war for an hour. Civil war first, then the war that had caused Peter to leave home. She sighed with relief and hoped he would not come again. There were two things about Bertha that worried her mother. One was the way she dressed. Although Ber- tha had only worn her simplest clothes, they were of so stylish a cut, so different from the clothes worn in Haynesville that her mother feared the neighbors would comment upon her extravagance. When she spoke of it, Bertha answered: "I earn my clothes, I guess I have a right to wear what I please. I don't even use Peter's money to buy them." "What do you do with his money, then?" "I save the little he sends me. It wouldn't be a drop in the bucket for my clothes." 115 "You mean that you earn more than Peter does?" Mrs. Hunter asked, aghast. That a woman, a girl, should earn more than a man was unheard of in Haynes- ville. ' ' I should say I do ! ' ' but she did not tell her mother how much she earned, and the meek little woman, rather afraid of her stylish, capable daughter did not like to ask her. But after that Bertha was more wonderful than ever in her eyes. The other thing that worried Mrs. Hunter was Ber- tha's daily trips to the store to get her mail. "Father will bring it up," she said to her one rainy day as Bertha started out as soon as the mail train had arrived. "I prefer to get my mail myself. I don't like to be quizzed about my letters." So notwithstanding that she had noticed the many let- ters Bertha brought home, and had occasionally caught a glimpse of bold masculine writing on the envelopes, she asked no questions. But she wondered who it was who wrote to Bertha, a married woman, so regularly. Once she found an envelope, empty, and looked curiously at the address, "Miss Bertha Moore," probably just a mistake, but it worried her, without her knowing in the least why. Bates Freeman wrote Bertha nearly every day. As her mother improved and Bertha told him, he threat- ened to come after her if she did not return soon. Ber- tha replied that she would be back the moment she could leave her mother, and begged him not to come. She gave as an excuse that then they would fight her 116 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE going back at all. But she would make the loss of her position the excuse to return. Julia wrote frequently. Bertha often read portions of her letters to her mother, especially those parts in which Julia told of how Bertha was missed in the shop, and that there never was another saleswoman like her; even that the customers refused to buy hats until she came back. Julia had received a tip from Bertha that if she wanted her to come back to write in that way. Not that it really would have made any difference, for as her mother grew stronger there was nothing in the world that could have kept Bertha Moore in Haynes- ville. "Wash dishes and sweep; go over to listen to Peter's letters, and play the part of Peter's wife in the com- munity not if she knew it!" she said to herself after receiving a particularly urgent letter from Julia in which she said she didn't believe Bertha intended to return. Gradually she. commenced to talk of going back to New York. Her mother could scarcely grasp her mean- ing at first. She, like all the townsfolk, had supposed that Bertha, Peter's wife, had come home to stay. Peter could support a wife all right now, so why should she work outside of her own home which, until he re- turned from the war, would naturally be her mother's home. "And her an only child," Martin Gormley, the town gossip, had said with an indescribable accent when he heard. "It's them fine clothes that's done it. She's 117 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE got used to 'em and can't be contented with what Peter can give her." "A woman what can't live on a lieutenant's salary, especially when she ain't no board to pay, ain't no busi- ness bein' a soldier's wife," Martin Brooks averred. The girls of the town, those of Bertha's age, fairly held their breath at her daring, her independence. She, a married woman, going away and working in New York instead of living in Haynesville. It was an unheard of thing to do; yet while it amazed them, it excited their admiration. Peter's mother heard, but was slow to believe. " Bertha wouldn't leave us all now that Peter can take such good care of her, ' ' she said to Mr. Moore. "I don't know about that, Ma. Bertha ain't very keen on staying; at least she don't seem so to me. She acts as if we bored her. Ain't you noticed it?" "Yes, John, but I hoped I was mistaken. Poor Peter." "There ain't no reason she can't stay if she wanted to, Ma. He sends her most all his pay." "Yes, John. Poor Peter!" Peter's mother had sent for Bertha and her mother to come over and spend the afternoon. Mrs. Hunter was now able to go out, and so Bertha could think of no excuse to refuse the invitation. Mrs. Moore had hinted that she had a surprise for them. Both the older ladies had their knitting in their hands while they visited. Both were knitting socks for Peter. Bertha sat with her hands folded in her lap, bored, uneasy, her thoughts on Bates Freeman, Julia, the shop, 118 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE New York. She wondered how she had endured Haynes- ville so long. While they knitted the talk ran on town gossip, the church doings, the newest baby, a coming marriage, and the burial of one of the town's oldest inhabitants, and other things in which Bertha had not the slightest inter- est. Then, too, Bertha was nervous. Peter's mother must also be told that she intended to go back to New York. Must be told she was going at once, now that her mother was getting over her illness. About four o'clock Mrs. Moore served tea and crisp, delicious home-made cakes to her guests. She was famed for her cooking, and, as she explained to Bertha, the cakes were the same as the ones Peter loved and which she had been sending him ever since he left Haynesville. The simple loving soul had no idea that Peter's wife would not be as interested in the little homely detail as she was herself. "Now I have a surprise for you!" Mrs. Moore said after they had finished their tea and cakes. Bertha had not been able to eat but one, not that she didn't find them good, but her mind was so occupied. Peter 's mother opened the family Bible and drew from between its leaves a letter. It had been written immedi- ately after the one he had written Bertha telling her he was a second lieutenant and in which he had urged her to go to Haynesville and stay because now he could send her more money. Peter told his mother of his commission, simply, not boastfully. He emphasized his pleasure in his promotion becauae of the fact that now it would enable 119 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE him to send Bertha more money, and that because of the extra money she would now be able to return to Haynes- ville, instead of working in the millinery shop. He said that he had already written Bertha to that effect, and that he was sure that by the time his mother received this she would be in Haynesville. Then followed a description of the battle, in which, because of what he had done, he had been promoted, as he put it. He told of the chaplain, what a bully good fellow he was. How he made you feel that heaven was mighty close to a soldier who did his duty. He told how his ear drums ached with the roar of the guns, and how he wished the terrible racket would stop. He was a non- com then and he must not show his nervousness any more than if he were a real officer, he told his mother, although he acknowledged that at times he was fright- ened almost to death. "I guess we all get it at times the fright, I mean. But as long as we don 't show it it don 't hurt. I remem- ber wishing you were here. Just imagine, mother, wish- ing you were here. You, in the midst of all this blood and killing. But I had the feeling of a small boy who has been hurt or is scared, and the first, last, and only thing he wants is his mother." Mrs. Moore stopped reading to wipe her eyes; Mrs. Hunter was also softly weeping. But Bertha's lip had a sneer. Such silly stuff to write. Saying he wanted his mother when he was fighting. "But, mother," she read on, "when the whistles shrilled, we went over. Men were dropping around me all the time. Some of them I knew, and, mother, that 120 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE was hardest of all to see them go down and not stop to help. I fought on. Why I wasn't wounded I can't see. We had the Boches on the run all right. We took a lot of prisoners. I was fortunate to get a couple of my own, that's why they noticed me, I guess. Our com- pany was pretty well wiped out. We lost nearly half. It's never ceased to be a wonder to me how I escaped. I guess maybe it was because you were praying for me. I never go into a battle but I think that back home in little old Haynesville you are praying for me, praying and loving. It helps a man a heap to feel sure someone is doing that." Again she stopped reading to wipe her eyes. And again if she had glanced at Bertha she would have seen no sympathy on her pretty young face. The idea of anyone's praying keeping him from getting shot. ' ' Peter is a good boy, ' ' Bertha 's mother said. "Yes, Peter has always been a good boy," his mother agreed. ''Not that he wasn't up to pranks like all boys ; but he always was serious at times, full of quaint ideas. ' ' There was little else in the letter. Soon Bertha and her mother rose to go. Tea had to be ready for Mr. Hunter when he came home from the store. "I shall say good-bye," Bertha remarked as she pinned on her hat. ' ' I am going back to New York to-morrow. ' ' 121 CHAPTER XI WHEN Bertha announced that she was going back to New York on the morrow, Peter's mother gasped, then stood as if petrified. It was several minutes before she spoke : ' ' But Peter expects you to remain here, now that he is earning more enough to give you what you want." Bertha was not intentionally cruel, but she had a disagreeable task and wished it over. She replied: "He can't give me half what I can earn. And I hate Haynesville anyone would after living in New York," her tone slightly apologetic. "But we hoped we love you here," Mrs. Moore stopped, overcome by her emotion. She was thinking of Peter, of his disappointment when he found that Bertha would not stay. For herself it made no difference. She had plumbed the depth of Bertha's shallow nature, and the words "Poor Peter" were often on her lips. "I am going back," Bertha said, a finality in her tone Peter's mother did not attempt to gainsay. Bertha's own mother looked distressed, not only on her own account, but because of Peter's mother. While of a totally different caliber than Mrs. Moore she sensed in a way her disappointment and it made her own the more intense. But she had already exhausted all her 122 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE powers of persuasion on Bertha, so she simply looked her regret, but did not voice it. With her usual perspicacity, the other mother under- stood. And when they shook hands at parting she held Mrs. Hunter's hand in a close grasp and said: "We will have to be more neighborly when Bertha goes." Bertha's father did not take her leaving them quite as easily as she had hoped he would. He scolded, he tried to exert his authority until Bertha reminded him that she was a married woman now, that he did not sup- port her, and that she would do as she pleased. After she had so expressed herself he tried to get her to stay on the plea that her mother's health was such that she was not able to take care of the home. "I'll pay for a hired girl," Bertha said to silence that objection, and as she well knew her mother would not have a girl if she was able to get about she was safe. But she would gladly have paid the wages of one rather than have stayed on a day longer. She could scarcely wait for the time to come to be on her way. She wanted to telegraph Bates Freeman, but thought it unwise. She would get the porter to send him a wire from the train. He would meet her, she was sure. She parted from her father and mother pleasantly enough in spite of the feeling they had that she should remain. But when the little Haynesville station finally disappeared she said to herself : "Never again ! Mother will have to get along without me." And before they reached the next stopping place 123 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE the porter had taken her message to Bates Freeman. It read: "Reach New York 5.50. Love, Bertha." The trip was uneventful. She reached New York on time and found Bates waiting for her with a brand-new car. "A surprise," he told her after he had welcomed her and attended to her luggage. "I am going to have you learn to run it." "This is something like living," she thought, as she leaned back in the car. Bates was taking her directly to a fashionable place for dinner. "I know it is early, but you are probably starved," he said, and Bertha acknowledged that she was. Her leaving Haynesville had not been pleasant. She had been made to feel that she was doing something wrong; that it was her duty as Peter's wife to stay there. If she had forgotten many times in the last year and a half in New York that she was married to Peter, she had had no possible chance to forget it in Haynes- ville, where Peter was the village hero. "They almost made me stay," she laughingly told Bates. "I should like to have seen them. If you hadn't come this week I was coming after you ; was going to surprise you. It might have been better anyway," he went on; "your folks will have to know some time." Bertha shivered as she thought of her narrow escape. "What if he had come? It was too horrible to think of. They had a delicious dinner, then Bates took her up to her Aunt Martha's. 124 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE "It's only for a few days,'* he told her. "You are going to marry me right away, Bertha, aren't you, dear?" "Perhaps pretty soon," she parried. "But do let me get used to you again, Bates; I feel as if I had to commence to know you all over. It was awful; that country town, the people, everything!" Peter was a non-com no longer. As second lieutenant he commanded by force of his rapid promotion even more respect from his comrades. He had written Bertha and sent the letter to Haynesville. It never occurred to his simple mind to doubt she would do as he desired and remain there. Had he known Bertha better, been better acquainted with his own wife, he never would have expected her to give up anything she desired to do unless she were compelled. She had been in New York three or four days before she received the readdressed letter from Haynesville. Peter began: "DEAR BERTHA: I feel so much happier about you now that you are back in Haynesville with your folks and mine. I know they will enjoy having you with them. It will give you plenty to do, so you won't get lonely if you divide your time between the two. For you have two now, Bertha, your own home and mine. My mother is ready to love you, and father will be de- lighted. He has always wished for a daughter. Be a real daughter to them, Bertha, won't you? But, of course, you will. "It isn't like going among strangers, they have known you all your life. I don't think I could have married 125 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE a strange girl; strange to Haynesville, and to mother. ' ' I have been in the German gas attack. I shall never forget it. It is hard to tell of it so that you can under- stand. But it was terrible. We had no gas masks nothing to protect us. I never had seen it before; a thick heavy gas that rolled across No Man's Land. It came upon us and nauseated us terribly. I choked and gasped and coughed ; so did all the other fellows. Some of the men turned green, and rolled their eyes horribly as they gasped for breath. I had an awful taste in my mouth, and a dreadful feeling that it was the last, that I was dying, and so could do no more for my country. Thousands of our men over two-thirds of them lost their lives in that abominable wholesale asphyxiation. I saved myself by wetting my handkerchief in the water I had in my canteen and holding it over my face. Don't tell mother. I would not like her to know how near death I had been. ' ' Peter wrote as he felt. His mother would grieve. Somehow he never thought of Bertha as grieving, she never seemed to understand. She had been called away when she reached this point in his letter, and did not hurry back. ' ' Peter always wrote such solemn letters, ' ' she once told Julia Lawrence, but finally she was free and once again she picked up the closely written sheet. "Germany thinks she is so big and strong she never can be whipped. And, Bertha, I don't believe she can unless the good old U. S. A. comes in. I want to tell you that the Germans are awfully hard fighters. They learn to fight so they tell me over here as soon as they are weaned. And they are awfully cruel. We have no 126 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE idea how cruel. Our ideas of the Germans have been formed by knowing a few delicatessen storekeepers and others like them. Perhaps they would be cruel, too, if we should come into the Avar. I know I never shall trust anyone who has a drop of German blood in his veins. I suppose you have heard some of the stories of the ter- rible things they do to the soldiers, and to women and children. But if you could see them crucify these Cana- dians, and could see the little children with hands cut off, and could know the awful things they do to women and girls like you, you would pray every moment of your life that America would wake up. The Germans are in this war to win. They have no mercy, no pity. Don't believe anything good of them. It isn't in their nature. "I expect you think I am foolish to write so much about the Germans. It doesn't make a bright letter, does it, Bertha? But when you see such things as I have seen, and think about them, you can't help writing about them. "Last night I dreamed you were with mother and that she was so happy because you and she could talk of me. Mother is a very wonderful woman, and I hope you will try to understand her. Take up the reading with her, and if you feel that you can I wish you would also study French with her. You are young and would learn more easily, so could be a great help to her. "Walk over to the factory with father occasionally. It will please him enormously. Talk to old Thomas Brooks once in a while, and remember me to Martin 127 TEE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE Gormley. Even if lie is an old grouch, he has lots of good in him. "When you go to church tell the minister that the chaplains over here are real fellows. Tell him that they make a fellow want to be good; they don't scare him into it. "I shall be anxious to hear from you. Tell me how mother and father look ; try and keep them from worry- ing about me. With love, PETER. ' ' "The idea! he must be crazy to think I am going to spend my life carrying messages to old man Gormley and Tom Brooks; and going to the factory with his father ; and sitting with his mother while she talks about him. I'd rather be dead!" Bertha read Peter's letter to Uncle Nat and Aunt Martha, to whom she had returned. She didn't intend to remain with them much longer, so she told Julia, but just at that time she didn't know what else i;) do. ' ' You should be mighty proud of that young husband of yours," Uncle Nat had said, making her read twice over the account of the gas attack. "And he's a good son or he wouldn't have told you not to tell his mother. He's a fine young man, and I don't know as he's far wrong about the United States having to get in before we're through. If them Germans are doing the awful things the papers say, and now Peter says so, too, and he ain't the kind of a boy to tell 'em if they ain't so, it is about time we took a hand." Bertha had skipped the part which had to do with her remaining in Haynesville, and had added messages to her aunt and uncle, such messages as Peter never had 128 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE failed to send them when he knew she was with them. ' ' I tell your Uncle Nat that you 're a lucky girl. There ain 't many girls got a fellow nowadays like him. Young men ain't as steady as they was when your uncle and me was married. They are extravagant, too. They want to commence where their fathers and mothers leave off. That's real cute what he says about the chaplains bein' real fellows, nobody but Peter would think of saying such a thing. And he saying they ' make a fellow want to be good instead of trying to scare him ! ' I guess maybe Peter might have been a minister or something like that if he hadn't been a soldier." Her aunt had admired Peter from the first, and never failed to praise him to Bertha when she had an opportunity. "Thank goodness he isn't a preacher! Being a soldier is bad enough. I don't understand him half the time now; I am sure I shouldn't at all if he was a min- ister." "Some boys and girls is like that like Peter," her aunt went on. "They see things different from other folks. They don 't reason things out ; they just feel 'em. Now if Peter had stopped to reason he would have known that it was foolish to tie himself up by getting married just the very day he went away, even if the girl he married is my own niece. Not that I ain't awful fond of you, Bertha, but I ain't blind, and I can see that you are fretting because you ain't as free as Julia Lawrence and the other girls. ' ' "I should say I was!" Bertha exclaimed, for just a moment forgetting her usual prudence, "I should say I was tired of bein' tied to a man away off in Europe," 129 yet she thought as she said it that she hoped he would stay there. "Never mind, honey, he'll perhaps soon be back. Think how proud you'll be to be a lieutenant's wifef Mrs. Lieutenant Moore. It sounds fine. ' ' "Oh, who cares how it sounds. I don't see what I ever married him for." Bertha took her letter and went to her room. "Poor girl, she's fretting over Mm. It is too bad he couldn't have stayed with her a little while. It's almost like being a widow to be like she is, ' ' her aunt murmured sympathetically, but her uncle grunted: "It's them gay boys and girls she goes out with that ails her. It would have been better for her and Peter, too, if she had stayed at home with her pa and ma. ' ' Bertha read her letter over, this time skipping the gas attack, and reading the remainder with growing disgust. "Dreaming of me and his mother, was he?" she mut- tered. "That we were together! He'll know better when he wakes up! Nice time I would have studying- with that old woman. What does Peter Moore think I am made of I'd like to know? I'll see him further be- fore I'll ever put my foot in Haynesville again," and to emphasize her remark she stamped her foot upon the floor so loudly her aunt called up to ask if she wanted anything. Bertha's aunt and uncle had no idea that she had concealed the fact that she was married from her em- ployer, or from her associates. They would have been inexpressibly shocked at such deception. They were 130 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE good, plain, simple folk, really still country folk in their ideas, though they had lived many years in New York. But in their simple frugal existence the froth of city life had simply passed over them without leaving a trace. Mrs. Robinson, however, was a little anxious over Bertha's choice of companions. She liked Julia Law- rence, but she was not pleased when Bates Freeman came for Bertha in his high-powered car, or when that or a taxi honk-honking at the curb showed he had brought her home when she had been out for the evening. "Young things have to have their pleasure," she told her husband, "but I am afraid sometimes Bertha will forget she is a married woman." 131 CHAPTER XII BACK in Haynesville there was sorrow. The two humble homes in which there was neither son nor daugh- ter to brighten them seemed lonelier than ever after Bertha left. For even though she had been unhappy while with them, she was young and couldn't always be sad. Peter's mother, perhaps, grieved more than did Mrs. Hunter. Her grief, however, was not for herself. She had sensed Bertha's selfishness to the full; and she grieved for Peter. She knew he expected Bertha to re- main in Haynesville, that he wished her to. And she also realized that he hoped her being there would be a comfort to them all. Bertha's shallowness, her utter callousness where her parents were concerned, was un- known to Peter, and Peter's mother would be the last one to enlighten him. Mrs. Moore would have smiled sadly and "poor Peter" would again have been on her lips could she have read that last letter Peter had written Bertha, the one for- warded from Haynesville. That Peter would think of Bertha 's offering to walk to the factory with Mr. Moore ; that she would willingly read and study with Peter's mother, and would comfort and help her own parents, was almost laughable if it had not been so sad. 132 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE "I tremble for Peter's future," his mother said as she and Mr. Moore as usual read his last letter over before evening devotion. "Now he doesn't seem to realize Bertha's selfishness, her lack of depth in the least." Which was a good deal for Peter's mother to say. "Don't worry, mother." Mr. Moore, too, began to understand more of Bertha's character when she refused to remain at home where she was so needed and where Peter, her husband, wished her to stay since he had money enough to care for her. "She is young yet. She'll sober down and be glad to come back after a while." "It isn't that she is so gay, John. I think Bertha is rather quiet, and I used to think she was sort of weak, too. But she isn't, she is very determined. I often wonder how Peter came to marry her. He never seemed to care any more for her than he did for the other girls." "Well, you see, mother, Peter saw her in New York. He didn 't know any girls there I guess, and Bertha made it pleasant for him." "That was it, father. They were thrown together at a time when Peter was susceptible to almost any in- fluence. His mind was in a peculiar condition. I imagine, filled with thoughts of this war; and Ber- tha is very pretty, and can be very sweet and ap- pealing. ' ' "Come, mother, let us read." John Moore opened the Bible and commenced: " 'Let not your hearts be troubled, etc.,' " while Peter's mother, scarcely hearing, 133 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE thought of her boy so far away in such danger, with a wife in New York who neither seemed to think nor care for him and he so young. Had one heard John Moore pray for his son's safety, they would not have been surprised that Peter had written that he never went into battle but he thought that back home they were praying for him, praying and loving, and it helped a man to feel sure someone was doing that. The simple soul of the man was poured out in an appeal to his Maker that by its very quietness and sim- plicity was the more impressive. His soldier son was very dear to John Moore, although he did not have the understanding of him that the mother did. In Bertha's home they were not as religious but Mrs. Hunter also prayed fervently that Bertha would come to realize their loneliness, their need of her and come home. She had not recovered her usual strength, and the care of the home, simple though it was, left her tired and languid. "Do you think she will come back?" she said to her husband as they talked of Bertha. "I doubt it! I'm disappointed in Bertha, mother. I thought when she came home she was going to stay and help you be a comfort to you. You need her and she ain't no call to stay in New York with Peter in France. I'd like to know how they come to be married in such a hurry; he never showed her any particular liking when he was here in Haynesville, " he said, voicing the same wonder as had Peter's mother at the hasty marriage of the two. 134 ' ' Perhaps he hadn 't thought of marrying when he was here. And when he got to New York and saw how pretty Bertha was she is very pretty you know, Henry ; there ain 't a girl in Haynesville can touch her for looks, ' ' with motherly pride, ''he just felt sure someone else would get her most likely if he didn't marry her before he went. I have an idea them New York girls ain't as wholesome as our Haynesville girls are," she finished. Mrs. Hunter had the same idea of New York that many other country mothers have. "Well, it's too bad she won't stay with you when you need her." Mr. Hunter's anxiety for his wife over- shadowed all else. Peter's mother answered his letter before Bertha had again written. Indeed, Bertha's mind was in such a condition that she could scarcely set herself at anything ; least of all could she write Peter. Mrs. Moore, thinking that Bertha had written, nat- urally referred to her visit, and the fact that she had returned to New York. "I was sorry, Peter, that Bertha felt she could not stay in Haynesville," she wrote her son. "It would have been a great comfort and pleasure to have her near us. Her own mother, too, feels disappointed, but, of course, Bertha must do as she pleases. She seems to think she could not be happy in Haynesville any more. If you were here she would naturally feel very different. She is looking very well, and if anything she grows prettier as she grows older. She has become very stylish in her dress, and quite put the Haynesville girls in the shade. You will be very proud and happy to be with 135 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE her when you come home. Your father and I are making great plans for you. "I wonder if you remember that little cottage at the foot of the hill on the way to the factory but of course you do. The one with the honeysuckle vines growing over the front porch. Father has bought it for you. It was for sale, very cheap, and he thought it a pity not to secure it. You can pay him back when you come home. He is paying for it on installments. It is so pretty a place, and I only wish you and she were there now. Yet, dear son, don't think I wish you back; not as long as you feel your duty lies over there. "Old Tom Brooks always asks for you. He says he now thinks we will soon be in the war, and that you were right to go. "We do hear some war talk, more than when you left. But we are so far away I can't quite believe we will be obliged to take part in it. Yet the papers are giving up more space to war articles. You may be sure I read every word." Then followed some town gossip and little intimate things that were of interest only to Peter and herself. "When she closed she told him to be careful not to run into danger heedlessly. That for the sake of those who loved him it behooved him to take care of himself yet ever heeding his duties. And, wise mother that she was, she realized that Peter needed the caution. She sensed that once engaged in the conflict he would have almost fanatical disregard for his own safety. Her letter was brought to Peter one night when he was in the trenches. A cold, dismal, rainy night, when he was depressed because of the weather and because he 136 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE had not heard from Bertha. He had gone over the top the day before, and had seen his mates mowed down by the hundreds when subjected to the deadly fire of the German guns. He had not yet become accustomed to the horrors of close conflict, had not become inured to seeing the men with whom he was associated killed before his eyes. Not that he ever flinched, that wasn't Peter's way, but it had a depressing effect. That day, too, one of the few young Canadians with whom he had become friendly had been taken prisoner, and the stories of what had happened to other prisoners, things he him- self had seen of the frightfulness of the Hun; did not tend to make him cheerful. So that he welcomed the letter from his mother with even greater joy than ever. He read the paragraph in which his mother told of Bertha's return to New York over twice. He could not quite grasp it at first. That she would disregard his wishes did not mean so much to him as the thought of the disappointment of her refusing to live at home would mean to her mother, and to his. Neither could he under- stand why she could not be happy in Haynesville. It was her home, all her young associates were there. Her parents idolized her and were foolishly indulgent. Had they been different he would not have wondered so dazedly just why she could not be happy with them. He smiled rather sadly when he read how pretty she was. Then he took out the little picture and gazed at it as if to refresh his memory. That his father had bought the little cottage touched him deeply. He knew it meant self-denial for both his parents. 137 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE He muttered to himself, nodding his head in ap- proval when he read of old Tom Brooks' belief that the United States would soon be in the war. But as a whole the letter did not cheer him very much; although he pressed it to his lips and murmured "dear mother" before he put it carefully away in an inside pocket. "It is strange Bertha doesn't write," he said aloud, thinking of what his mother had said of her return to New York. Then he wondered if she had received his last letter the one he had sent to Haynesville, sure she had gone there to stay. Whatever Peter's motives had been in joining the British army they had crystallized into one overwhelm- ing desire to lick the Huns. He had seen one of his comrades crucified by them, others had been gassed. He had seen mutilated boys and girls, pale-faced women and maidens whose lips had forgotten how to smile because of what the Hun had done. Honest, legitimate fighting, Peter understood and gloried in; but such atrocities as were constantly committed by the foe he could neither understand nor forgive. "It wakes all the wild beast in a man to see and know of such things," he said to one of his mates after a particularly ferocious attack in which he had distin- guished himself by the number of Germans he had ac- counted for single handed. ' ' Gad, Moore, but hi didn 't think it was in you. Strike me pink if hi did!" one of the men who had seen the fierceness with which Peter had fought said to him. 138 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE "It makes my blood boil!" Peter returned. "I see red every time I see a Hun. ' ' "So hi sye, Yank ! ' ' chimes in a private who had also been a witness of the stiff fight Peter had put up. "Gawd lumme, we 'ave got to fight th' 'ole blinkin' lot, that we 'ave!" From that day on Peter was not looked upon as quite so reserved, and when he wasn't around he was dubbed "The Fighting Yank" by his comrades. Their respect for him had increased tremendously. Peter had felt the thud of shrapnel fragments on his tin hat, he had seen men in front waves going down like ten pins, men with whom he had the moment before stood shoulder to shoulder, and as the next wave came on he was still standing his ground with a different companion on either side. Men were dropping all around him, some of them he knew. As they disappeared in a welter of blood he only fought the more fiercely. The thought that he must do their work as well as his own dimly outlined in his mind forced him to almost superhuman endeavor. Peter's ear drums ached, the terrific noise of thou- sands of guns roaring and screeching deafened him. When it was over about one-half of the company was gone; either killed or taken prisoners. Peter hadn't a scratch. Peter was "jolly well done," as the Tommies say, but no one heard him complain. He just flopped down and rested a bit, ready to go over again the minute the call came. 139 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE Strangely enough, Peter never thought of Bertha either before or after a fight. His mother was in his thoughts, the fact that she was praying for him was al- ways present as he waited for the whistle to blow, and then follow it by blowing his own before they went over the top. And when he found himself safe, unscratched, if he gave that fact any consideration it was because of what his mother had said ; because of the knowledge of what his safety meant to her. Often Peter thought of those who had ridiculed his ideas about the length of the war, the sureness with which he had declared the United States must eventually "come in." He had been almost constantly in action for weeks. Not that fighting had been severe all the time, but he had lived in dugouts and extemporized dwellings. He wasn't always comfortable. The mud in the trenches was often up to his knees as he waded down the shell-torn tunnels. But Peter never was heard to make a complaint. His only desire seemed to be to fight the Boche. He constantly talked to his comrades during a lull in the fighting, telling them that he was sure his country would soon "be in it." His faith often heartened the worn, tired men, who, because of the superior numbers of the Huns, sometimes became dis- couraged. He wrote his letters when taking the night-firing. He had little time during the day. He told his mother that he felt he was constantly protected by her prayers; that he hadn't yet been even scratched although he had been in some pretty tight places. Peter was not at all unhappy. He was even extraor- 140 dinarily cheerful for him. There was something excit- ing, something bracing in taking the risks he did, and coming through all right. He literally packed up his' troubles in his old kit bag, and went on smiling. Or what amounted to the same thing, he went on being cheerful. Yet always in his thoughts, back of everything, was the wish that his country would hurry up. That Amer- ica, with her millions of men, her unlimited wealth, would realize that she also must fight for the good of the world. The word must was still very prominent in Peter's lexicon. He knew no half measures would win the war. 141 CHAPTER XIII BERTHA was evidently doing her best to "get used" to Bates Freeman, as she had said when she asked for more time. Bates had been very patient. He thought Bertha looked tired and thin. "You worked too hard taking care of your mother. I wish I had come out there. I would have made you hire a nurse." "Oh, ma wouldn't let a nurse come near her," Ber- tha had declared, turning cold, then hot, as she always did when Bates mentioned that he came near following her to Haynesville. "I would have made her," he replied with quiet determination. "It wasn't right for you to take all the care." Bertha had developed nerves. She who before had scarcely known the meaning of the word was noticeably nervous. Impatient, too, was she at times. The long strain she had been under in Haynesville, the deception she had been obliged to practice, the boredom of it all had affected her. Now that she was back in New York it was no better. Bates was kind, but he was anxious to marry and was accustomed to doing as he wanted. Bertha's constant excuses had begun to wear on him. Not that he suspected anything wrong, but he imagined 142 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE she was putting him off because she was not ready to marry. He considered that a foolish reason if she loved him, and so told her. "You are old enough to marry, and I surely am. I have more money than we can spend. Why do you keep putting me off ? Don 't you love me ? ' ' "You know I do!" Bertha declared and she meant it. She did love Bates Freeman more than she loved anyone else in the world. That is, she thought she did. She certainly loved what he could do for her. The things his money made possible. Bates never thought of Bertha as mercenary not like other girls he had known. She never had been bold in asking for anything, although she had accepted all he had offered. That the thought of Peter had made her demands modest he, of course, did not know. "Then let's not wait any longer. I'll take you away somewhere, anywhere you want to go, and let you be as quiet as you like until you get rested. ' ' Had Bertha appeared more willing, more anxious, to marry Bates Freeman he would not, perhaps, so have urged his suit. But her very unwillingness; her draw- ing back when he felt so sure of her ; had enhanced her value in his eyes. Now he was getting weary of being put off. He had persuaded himself that he was very much in love with Bertha, that no one else would make him such a wife that he never would care for another girl as he did for her. And Bates had had experi- ence. Bertha was the only girl he ever had known who piqued him by refusing him anything he wanted. So 143 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE she continued putting him off only made his desire for her more keen. "What shall I do, Julia?" moaned Bertha after tell- ing her chum that Bates was getting so impatient she* could put him off no longer. "I shall have to tell him about Peter." ' ' You 're a fool ! ' ' Julia snapped. ' ' A perfect fool ! ' ' ' ' What else can I do ? " Bertha wailed. She really was most miserable and unhappy. She was weak, but not wicked. There was nothing she could do. Nothing but confess her deception. Bates would hate her, of course ; all her good times would be over. And he would tell others ; if he didn 't, they would find out some way, and she would be plain Mrs. Moore, Peter's wife, the rest of her life, instead of Bertha Moore, pretty millinery sales- woman in a smart shop, a girl with whom all the fellows were glad to be seen. "I'm nothing but an old married woman," she said, the result of her cogitations. "Married nothing! If I wasn't married more than you are I shouldn't consider I was married at all. You never lived with him. He went off and left you alone. Married! Pshaw!" said Julia. Peter, with his tender thoughts, his feeling of respon- sibility and absolute faithfulness, even in his mind to- ward Bertha, would have been shocked could he have known how lightly her marriage with him was held by her friends. Marriage to him meant allegiance. Noth- ing could alter that fact. "Those whom God had joined together" remained together, in Haynesville. No one ever separated or divorced, there. Julia's ideas were 144 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE unknown to Haynesville folk, and Bertha was a Haynes- ville product, in spite of her weakness of character. She could not grasp Julia's viewpoint, "not to save her life/' as she told her when the argument became heated, and Julia urged her to go on and marry Bates, trusting to luck that Peter never would show up or learn of it. As time passed it was apparent to Peter's clear vision that the titanic conflict in which nations were engaged was one in which he inevitably must have borne a part ; and that in time all America would also come to see the inevitableness of it. For it was not a struggle of peoples, but of governments, or rather over systems of govern- ment. Where in the one case the people were to be protected; in the other they were used as pawns acting in defiance of all decent and ethical rules that should govern human beings. Peter often said to himself that Germany's revolting departure from all the codes of civilization; from all that went for decency and right living would eventually unify the world. That it must, because in time all other nations would instinctively unite to crush out her fright- fulness, to oppose her. There was one man to whom Peter now occasionally talked of what was in his heart. A French officer be- tween whom and himself had sprung an esprit de corps. The Frenchman, Monsieur Albert, was, like Peter, made of finer clay than many of his companions. The two had drifted together, their intimacy fostered by Peter's de- sire to learn the language and the Frenchman's willing- ness to help him. 145 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE This man, educated, aristocratic, refined and brave, was in many ways a wonderful companion for Peter at this time. A Parisian, speaking purest French, he en- couraged Peter in his studies by giving up much of his spare time to talking with him. Peter returned his kind- ness in every way possible. Always he shared his moth- er's boxes of goodies with his friend; always divided anything he had with him. Monsieur Albert's family had been absolutely impoverished by the war, and he thoroughly appreciated the American's attempt to repay him. Peter discovered, to his delight, that the Frenchman was conversant with American literature. Some of the books he talked of Peter had read since he had been in France. Others he scarcely knew existed. Monsieur Albert, anxious to forget the horrors of the war, the mur- der of many of his relatives, the loss of his revenues and his home, was almost as interested in the study of Amer- ica as was Peter in learning of the literature and people of France. One day monsieur caught Peter looking at Bertha's picture. Peter's first thought had been to hide it. His cogitations had not been wholly pleasant. Then im- pulsively he extended it with the words : "A picture of my wife, Monsieur Albert." "Oh!" the Frenchman gasped in admiration of the piquantly pretty face in the cheap little frame. "Madame est tres belle." "0~k, oui! surement, je vous assure.'' Peter answered with a laugh, using a phrase the Frenchman had but lately taught him. Yet he had aired his French more to 146 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE f?ct a chance to collect himself than for any other reason. In some way he disliked the thought of answering any questions about her, although, of course, he had a certain pride in Bertha 's beauty. Yet, after all, there was some- thing missing in Peter's thoughts of his wife. He did not acknowledge it, but he would have liked to think of her as more perfect in every way than all the other women in the world save only his mother. Not that he allowed himself to find fault with Bertha even in his thought, but her refusal to remain in Haynesville, the careless tone of her letters, her persistent rejection of his plea that she inform herself of things pertaining to his life as a soldier, were beginning to affect him without his being aware of it. So when Monsieur Albert reluc- tantly relinquished the picture, Peter put it away, and immediately changed the subject. Peter came to realize during these strenuous days that war was a very real business. He came to see that sol- diering required all there was in a man. All the punch, the grit, the nerve and all the religion. That he had grown since he entered the war he knew. Strangely, until her refusal to remain in Haynesville, he never had thought of Bertha save as growing also. She, in his thoughts always had kept pace with him; had walked side by side with him in spirit. Now he occa- sionally had a doubt of her understanding of him, of his idea of life and things ; stll it was not strong enough to worry him. He recalled how Bertha clung to him in those short visits he made her when on leave ; how happy she seemed riding on the buses, or sitting in a moving-picture theater 147 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE watching the screen. He hadn't the slightest idea that even then she was not en rapport with him; that her spirit and his were as far apart as the poles almost as far as they now were. He had no conception that it was New York, not he, that had lured Bertha on; that it was the city's fascination, not her fear of losing him, that made her want to marry him before he left. It is doubtful if he could have understood had he been told. Such a thing was so foreign to his nature, and would have been so impossible to him. Peter Moore had many fine qualities which the war had developed. Since he had been made a second lieuten- ant he had the more strenuously tried to be the man he, in his inmost thoughts wished to be. He must be an example to his men. Peter had not failed to keep the word must before him over there, just as it had been in his mind at home. At first the abomination of the battlefields was, to a certain degree, nerve-racking to the Haynesville boy. The shell-holes into which he stumbled, the trenches zig- zagging in a sort of maze which at first confused him, the hands and feet and the faces of the dead which sick- ened him, were racking in their own way. But now he could pick himself up from the shellhole, find his way through the maze of the trenches, and step over the dead without scarcely giving any of these things a thought. He was doing his duty. No hardships, no horrors could interfere with that. Peter was still almost continually in action. His es- capes were marvelous. Shrapnel falling all about him, shells bursting almost under his feet, yet he had so far come through unscathed. His men whispered to each 148 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE other that he had a charmed life, that it was good to be under him. If Peter had to "go west," as the Tommies spoke of their passing, he would go very quietly. The thought of his mother 's grief, his father 's loneliness was the only disturbing factor. Someway, whenever his mind turned in that direction, which was seldom, he never thought of Bertha save in an inconsequential sort of a way. He never visualized her as grieving. He remembered he had his insurance for her, that was all. One night when charging the Huns Second Lieutenant Moore was knocked down by a shell explosion. He lost consciousness for some time. Then, in spite of his wounds, he began to search for his men lying dead and wounded all about him. For three hours he, assisted by a sergeant of his detachment, helped his wounded men back to the trenches ; part of the time under the fire of German guns, the bursting of shells. Then just as he dragged a corporal into safety he again collapsed. When Peter regained consciousness he was in the hos- pital. A doctor and a Red Cross nurse were working over him, deftly dressing the wounds, which were pain- ful, but they hoped not serious. "A good rest for you, my boy!" the doctor said as the last bandage was adjusted. "It will be some time before you'll get another shot at a Boche. They tell me you kept going for hours after the damned Germans got you. If all the Americans are made of the same stuff you are I wish they would hurry them along," the French surgeon grumbled as he left him. Peter smiled into the eyes of his nurse, then slept. The next day the same clear-eyed nurse brought him 149 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE Bertha 's long-delayed letter. He let it lie on his coverlet unopened for a while as he watched the nurse go from cot to cot, always smiling with her lips, although her eyes were sad. She talked French to the wounded poilus, calling them "mes enfants," and they spoke of her as "Petite mere de mon coeur." She humored her "en- fants," the bearded poilu, and the smoothed-cheeked British Tommies. Peter wished it were time for her to come to him. Would she call him her "baby," too? He was so glad he had studied French. For, although he did not have a large vocabulary as yet, he spoke with a fairly good accent, thanks to Monsieur Albert. He would not be ashamed to talk with her. He looked around the large room in which he lay with so many other wounded men. An improvised hos- pital close behind the lines used for those too severely wounded to be moved any distance. Men of varied types, ages and of different nationalities. But all suffering bravely. Some bearded faces looked grotesque enough with all but the beard and eyes covered with bandages. Some were there whose eyes were gone; others so bulg- ing with protective casts and splints that they had lost all semblance of human shape, and still others with thin, pain-racked bodies, and boyish faces that Peter thought needed a mother's love more than anything else; even though one or two of them had the war cross pinned over their beds. Some of the men she joked with, and Peter almost for- got his pain trying to follow her colloquial French. Book French was one thing ; French in a hospital cheer- ing wounded poilus was another. He turned painfully, 150 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE slowly, on his pillow that he might follow her with his eyes as she made her rounds. How gentle, how kind, how gay she seemed! It was almost worth being hurt al- most! nothing could quite compensate for being obliged to lie there doing nothing while there were still Roches to kill, no, nothing ! Peter was all soldier. The war was his job. Just as these thoughts filtered through his brain, his hand touched the forgotten letter laid on the coverlet. He painfully turned back again on his pillow. He would not face the nurse while he read it. Had he been asked to explain this feeling, he would not have been able to do so. It was just one of Peter's impressions. 151 CHAPTER XIV BERTHA commenced her letter as usual: "Dear Peter: As you see I am back in New York. Why you should have expected me to stay in Haynes- ville I don 't know, but you may as well understand that I shall never live there again. After living in New York it would be too awfully slow. I know, because I" nearly died when I was there taking care of mother. I shall stay right here in New York. I have a nice po- sition, and I have the right to stay where I please. I don 't see why you think it is my duty to stay home now that I am married, or why you expect me to spend my time with old people like your folks and mine. "I don't see why you are always talking about the United States getting into the fight just because you're an American and wanted to go to war, you seem to think every other American should do so, too. No one talks war here. Old Tom Brooks is the only one I heard say much about it in Haynesville, and he wouldn't if it wasn't for those queer letters you write your mother. She lets him read some of them. "Don't worry about me telling your mother about that gas attack. I didn't get your letter until I got back to New York, and I don't get time to write many letters. I know some awfully nice Germans. I don't 152 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE see why you talk so about them. Of course I don't know the high-toned ones, and I guess you think them the worst by your letter. Of course, they want to win the war. That's what they are fighting for. I do think you are silly to waste your time writing about them since you asked me. And I don't have any time to learn French. "You wanted to know how your mother and father looked. They are about the same, though I guess they are both a little grayer, but then they ain't getting younger. My mother's hair is awful white and she is younger than your mother. ' ' Of course I couldn 't give that queer message to the minister when I didn't get your letter till I got back here. But it was a silly message, anyway. The idea of a chaplain making you want to be good instead of scar- ing you into it. Whoever heard of any one being scared into being good. You say such funny things. I don't understand them at all. "I guess you are having a pretty good time over there even if you do have to fight. Well, there ain't anything more to say, so good-bye, with love, BERTHA." Had Peter known that Bertha was scarcely able to write at all because of her nervousness, he would, per- haps, not have been quite so disappointed over her let- ter. But he knew nothing of her save what she told in her short, infrequent notes, and slow tears welled up into his eyes as he read the letter which had been so long in coming. He brushed them impatiently away as he heard a soft voice say: 153 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE "Is my American better to-day?" "Oui, mademoiselle," then "You can speak English?" "Why, yes! I am a Canadian. I hope you had good news from home," she glanced at the letter crushed in his hand. "No bad news at least," he replied, attempting a smile ; but it had so little joy in it that the nurse, quick to perceive, changed the subject, thinking "poor fellow! if they only knew what letters did to the boys over here they would never send any but nice ones. ' ' Peter was in great pain, yet he scarcely sensed it, so happy did he feel that at last his turn to be " mothered ' ' had arrived. By every little pretext he could think of he kept her by him until, with a laugh, she declared : "My others need me now, Americaine." 1 ' Come again, ' ' he said, clinging to her fingers, as she once more smoothed the coverlet, and gave his pillow a little pat. "Of course!" she smiled back into his longing eyes frankly. After she left him, Peter's thoughts again reverted to Bertha, to her letter. In spite of his bodily pain the mental anguish he endured was for the moment far greater. His life was indissolubly linked with Bertha 's, and for the first time he realized something of the gulf between them. Yet even now he did not blame her, he blamed him- self. He should have waited until after the war. He had no right to marry her and then leave her as he had done. Of course she couldn 't understand. She was just a girl. He, as usual, apologized for her as he tore the 154 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE letter into tiny fragments. He was pretty sick, he might ' ' go west. " He mustn't let any one know ; no one must see that letter that told so much, yet said so little. He tucked the torn pieces of paper under his pillow. That night when the nurse made her rounds, he was un- conscious again. In trying to ease him the tiny scraps of the torn letter came from under the pillow. "Poor fellow!" she murmured, and strangely she had the same tone in her voice that his mother had when she said "poor Peter." That night as Peter lay tossing in delirium a New York paper listed among its casualties the name of Second Lieutenant Peter Moore as being seriously wounded. Bertha had heard the newsboys calling "Wextra" and as business was dull just then she stepped to the door of the shop and bought a paper. She was to see Bates Freeman that evening. She knew that he must have some sort of an answer from her, that she could "string him," as Julia expressed it, no longer. She opened the paper carelessly, read without interest the war news which the great paper's editor had thought worthy of publishing in an extra edition, then idly turned the sheets. Just as idly she ran her eye down the list of killed and wounded. Under ' ' seriously wounded ' ' she read: "Second Lieutenant Peter Moore, wounded in action." That was all. Her eyes hesitated then went back. "Second Lieutenant Peter Moore, wounded in action." Then she raised them to the line above: "Seriously wounded. ' ' 155 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE The paper fluttered from her hands to the floor. Weakly she sat down in one of the straight, high-backed chairs reserved for customers. Her eyes stared straight ahead, but all she saw was the name of her husband, the man who was in her way, among the seriously wounded. Julia came into the room and found her. "What's the matter, Bertha? Anyone would think you had seen a ghost, you're so white. Are you sick?" "No " Bertha's lips formed the word, but no sound escaped them. Her glance at the paper told Julia that something serious had happened. Stooping, Julia picked up the paper. It had fallen with the lists of casualties uppermost. The very first thing Julia saw was the name of Peter Moore. ' ' Second Lieutenant Peter Moore, wounded in action." ' ' Gee ! ' ' she fairly exploded, ' ' some people are lucky. ' ' "Lucky what do you mean?" Bertha asked in a little voice that sounded far off. "Why it leaves you free." Julia stammered a lit- tle over the cold-blooded speech. "Free why, Julia, he ain't " Bertha could not bring herself to say the word. But Julia understood. "He may be by now. It says he was seriously wounded. Perhaps you will hear more by night. It costs a lot to telephone that outlandish place where his mother lives, but if I was you I'd call her up. Maybe she's had a cable saying he's " Even Julia had also hesitated to say the dread word. "Julia," Bertha said, her face growing still whiter, "I've got to tell Bates to-night. He won't wait a min- ute longer. He said so. I can't stand it any longer, 156 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE anyway, Julia. I am just going to tell him the truth. It can't be any worse than it is now. I am almost crazy ! and now this," she pointed to the paper. " You're sick, Bertha ! You go home with me to-night. Don't try to think about anything. I'll telephone Bates that you were taken sick in the store. I'll tend to it all, you won't have to think about anything." Bertha nodded. She was past speech. Yet she would have been surprised could she have heard what Julia told Bates Freeman a few moments later. ' ' She fainted dead away waiting on a customer, Bates. She is awful sick. She scared us all most to death. The boss or some one is going to tend to her. I'll let you k'now in the morning if she's back. Of course, it may not be anything much, just tired out." ''You are sure it isn't any worse than you're telling me?" Bates asked, such real concern in his voice Julia winced a little at her deceit. ''Sure! she's worn out, that's all." "Don't I know it! She's been nursing her mother and doing all the housework too ! It makes me feel like a dog. She hasn't been the same since she came back. She 's as nervous as can be. Jumps at every little thing. You wait until she gets over this and I will carry her away whether she consents or not. ' ' "Oh, she'll be willing. She told me she was going to tell you to-night. ' ' ' ' Keally ! Well, then that 's settled and I can go ahead and plan where to go. I was going to leave it to her, but I guess I'll attend to it myself. We'll get away to some nice, quiet, restful place as soon as possible. ' ' 157 "That's the thing! She's worn out," Julia repeated. Peter had been in the hospital only three days yet he was deeply, madly in love. He was in love for the first time in his life. And there never had been anything so wonderful, so golden. For a bit he fairly reveled in the knowledge of his love. He had no thought of her loving him. It was almost unbearable joy to love her. Pain, wounds, everything was for the moment subservient to that one thought, that one emotion. Madeline Dawson, the clear-eyed Canadian nurse, was the one woman, the only woman in the world. Then a sharp pity for himself tore at him. Bertha's face had come before him. He had for the first time known the influence of a real woman, a woman like his mother, yet so unlike. For Madeline was young, beautiful, vital. A fit mate for a soldier. His thoughts shifted and he wondered if she, Made- line, had a lover. Of course, she had. No one knowing her could help loving her. Even the bearded poilus were like lambs when she was around. How could any one resist her. It wasn't his fault. But he must not let her know he cared for her. He was married, and it might make her unhappy. Peter was unaware how the heart hunger in his eyes had caused Madeline Dawson to bestow even more of her thoughts upon him than she usually bestowed on her other enfants. How his handsome earnest face, his re- fined language, the occasional glimpses she had had of the man's soul had stirred the girl. The war, the principle for which men were fighting, and for which women were dying a thousand deaths, 158 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE had deeply stirred these two, so strangely thrown to- gether. Madeline had imagined there was more than a patient 's interest in his nurse in the look he bent on her in the last few hours, but it was only a shadowy con- viction which she immediately dismissed with an impa- tient gesture; but it left a lingering melancholy sweet- ness of which she could not so easily rid herself. Emotions were quickly excited in such times as they were passing through. So she was not shocked as she otherwise might have been when the idea that Peter was falling in love with her, obtruded. But work filled her life, it must for as long as the war lasted. Then ? Here her thoughts halted. Had Peter been an older man perhaps such thoughts would never have arisen in Madeline Dawson's mind. But Peter was so young, so boyish, so really spiritual in his outlook on life that Madeline never thought of him as possibly married, or as having a sweetheart. That torn letter had been from a woman. But no soldier tears up his sweetheart's letters. That she had learned since she had been in the hospital. Peter had a raging fever. He had instinctively felt the presence of an inner disturbance, and with almost his mother 's prescience he sensed that Madeline had dis- covered his secret. He was not so well in the morning. The long, sleepless night, when in the dark the fact im- pressed itself upon his brain that he had no right to think of Madeline Dawson, that he was a married man and wronged both her and himself by his disloyal thoughts, had increased his fever to an alarming extent. Slowly Peter grew better again. Then he was inva- 159 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE lided home with the rank of first lieutenant given him for his bravery the night he was wounded. But it was of slight comfort to him. To get back to his men, to the trenches, to kill the Boches before they could do more harm meant more to him than promotion. But Peter was a soldier. So he did as was ordered and started for home a thin, pale wraith of the robust country boy who a year before had left Haynesville. "I'll soon be back," he told his colonel, as the older man bade him good-bye. Peter had endeared himself to all his superiors as well as to those under him. ' ' God grant it, my boy ! we need such as you. He only knows how badly." "I shall come back," Peter told Madeline Dawson as he held her fingers in his close clasp. "I shall see you again. ' ' ' ' I hope so Peter Moore, ' ' she said quaintly with her quiet smile, then turned away to hide her tears. "I shall come back," Peter told his men when they came to say farewell to him. "Be sure you do!" they replied, "we can't fight so well without you. ' ' ' ' I shall come back, ' ' Peter said to himself as he gave a last long look at the receding shores of England, "I shall come back, and America will come with me. ' ' Peter 's mother said when she knew he was on his way home: "He will go back, father, as soon as he is able," and Peter's father did not gainsay her. 160 Madelaine Dawson had been among the first to hear of his commission and to congratulate him. CHAPTER XV AT last! America was awake. The sinking of the Lusitania had rippled the surface of her lethargy. Other things had happened which stirred a little deeper. Then one April day war was declared against Grermany by the United States, and the cause of the Allies became her cause. What led up to this declaration is too well known to need repetition, but the joy it brought to thousands upon thousands of patriotic men and women who were willing to fight and to suffer for the sake of democracy, of world freedom from the tyranny of the Hun, can never be ade- quately told. Men and women, who, like Peter, felt so keenly that the nation had been laggard, but who never had spoken of it because too loyal to criticize. It happened the day Peter landed in Canada. He was to rest in a Canadian port where the ship filled with wounded had landed. Peter forgot his wounds, forgot everything save that his country had at last vindicated herself. So it was a happy, joyous Peter who quietly waited until the surgeon would allow him to complete his journey. He wrote his mother a short note. "I am so happy I can't write, I can't do anything but just be glad. ' ' 161 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE To Bertha he said: ' ' I shall be with you in a week. We will have a great deal to talk of when I arrive. ' ' Uncle Sam had sounded his bugle for volunteers. Among the first to enroll was Bates Freeman. He was no mean aviator. He had played with it as a sport for rich men. But although he would have preferred that branch of the service he gave himself unreservedly to his country; himself, and much of his great fortune. They assigned him to the flying squadron. But first he insisted upon seeing Bertha. She had been really ill and under a physician's care ever since that day when she read that Peter was wounded. She had paid no attention when Julia told her America had en- tered the war ; she had no thought for anything save her own troubles, which in her weakened condition loomed larger than ever. When Julia told her that Bates was downstairs and that he insisted upon seeing her, Bertha at first refused. But Julia advised her to see him, and helped her make herself presentable, then went back to the shop. "Have they told you, Bertha?" Bates asked as he sat beside her holding her hand. He kissed her fondly, asked about her illness, and told how sorry he was. ' ' Told me what ? ' ' she returned listlessly, her thin fin- gers moving restlessly in his. "That the United States has declared war upon Ger- many?" "Yes." "And that they have called for volunteers?" "No I guess not." 162 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE ' ' Poor girl, you have been too ill to care. Well, they have, and Bertha, darling, it is your right to know, I have volunteered. I am to go over almost immediately in the aviation corps. They can teach me a lot about fly- ing over there, you know. ' ' "You are going away?" "Yes. And Bertha, I don't think it is fair to marry you and then leave you. But I will do just as you say. What shall it be, dear?" Bertha could have shrieked aloud. For the second time a man had left it to her to decide if she would marry him. She had decided wrong once. There was, because of that decision, no equivocation in her answer now : "No, Bates. We won't get married until you come back." Even now she would hold him as long as she could, although her cheeks had flushed, her eyes bright- ened at the relief she felt. "That's a sensible girl." His tone, however, showed his disappointment. "I don't think, Bertha, you ever have cared as much as I do. But the war won't last long. I'll soon be back to claim you." When Julia came in from work she was astonished to find Bertha up, dressed, ready to leave. ' ' Gee ! but you got well quick when Bates came, ' ' she said, laughing. "Bates is going right away to war, Julia. He has volunteered, and he don't believe in getting married and leaving me. Oh, I am so glad!" "But he might get killed." "I can't help that, Julia. I should have died if I had had to keep on deceiving him. I almost told him I 163 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE was married; then I thought what was the use? He's going away for a long time, maybe I'll never see him again, or perhaps Peter * ' Yes, lots of things might happen. But I should have nailed him before he went away. ' ' "I know you would, Julia, but I haven't got your grit." "You haven't any!" Julia returned. But her sar- casm was entirely lost on Bertha, who was pinning her hat on, hurrying to get to her aunt 's before dinner time. They would be so glad to have her back again. The day that Peter landed in New York Bates Free- man sailed for Prance. Bertha met her husband and took him to her aunt's. He was to stay in New York a day or two, then go to Haynesville until he had entirely recovered. Bertha was shocked at the change in him. He was thin almost to emaciation, and he still limped. A large piece of shrapnel had hit his leg. He had a scar over one eye, and showed plainly that he had suffered. But it was not the physical change that so shocked Bertha. There was something about him she could not under- stand nor explain. It beamed from his worn, tired face, and seemed to enfold him in a mantle of strangeness. Aunt Martha and Uncle Nat were delighted to fuss over him. He was ill, broken, and scarcely realized what went on around him. The journey had exhausted what strength he had. They talked little, he and Bertha, yet more and more they knew the need of words. They were inarticulate, and yet they felt they had things they must say to one another. 164 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE As Peter grew stronger the fact of Bertha's common- ness, her selfishness, the emptiness of her mind stag- gered and overwhelmed him. The awfulness of being tied for life to a girl to whom he must forever remain a stranger ; who had not a single thought or feeling in com- mon with him, sickened him. It was like a physical nausea. There was only one thing to do ; get well quickly and go back. They were strangely quiet when together during his convalescence. Peter said no more about going to Haynesville, to Bertha. She had absolutely refused to spend any time with him at his mother's. So he had de- cided to wait until he was well enough, then to go on alone. Peter thought much in those long days of the last week of April and the first part of May. At first Ber- tha had been subdued, rather unhappy over Bates Free- man. But gradually into their relations had come a subtle change. Bertha became bolder, more assured when with him, left him oftener to mix with her young friends. Innumerable things which Bertha could in no way un- derstand had gone into the making of Peter the man he now was. The stern discipline, the life in the trenches, the fighting among the corpses of No Man's Land, had developed him unbelievably. But that Peter was a first lieutenant and that he spoke French were almost the only facts that impressed Bertha. Peter agonized over his problem. He felt as if he were up against a stone wall. He couldn't think; h 165 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE must get well; get away, back into the thick of things. Perhaps back there on the battlefield he would find a solution. "If you don't care to go home with me, Bertha, I won't insist, ' ' Peter remarked one day toward the last of May. "I shall only stay a few days, anyway. I think I can go back by that time." It was the first time he had mentioned that he intended to return immediately. He had spoken of it as some- thing which he might possibly do in the future, but not a hint had he given that he would go at once. "All right. You tell them I didn't come because I had been once, and it is expensive traveling. ' ' The day Peter arrived, Haynesville was flooded with sunshine and warmth. As the train drew into the sta- tion, and long before it stopped, he saw his father and mother. Yes, and there was Tom Brooks, with his empty sleeve, and the minister, even old Martin Gormley. They were all there, and when he limped down from the train they all surrounded him, all anxious to be the first to shake hands with the boy who had seen all along that the United States must come in, and had prepared him- self to fight for her. "Did ever a prodigal son receive such a welcome?" he said to his mother, as they sat apart for a few min- utes while his father looked after his luggage. "The whole town is here, I believe." Just then he caught sight of Bertha's mother on the edge of the crowded lit- tle platform and hastened to her. He kissed her almost as tenderly as he had his own mother, shocked to see how old and ill she looked. When she asked for Bertha, why 166 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE she hadn't come, etc., he gave her the message her daugh- ter had sent, softening it as much as possible. "She thought it was too expensive a trip for two to take and said as she had been home, it was my turn," but as he turned away he sighed heavily. He walked home, his mother on one side, his father on the other and the townfolk behind and in front, pushing and jostling each other good-naturedly to get a glimpse of the town hero, to hear something of what he said. Of those days with his mother, Peter remembered only one thing, not one jarring note, not one unhappy mo- ment. This mother, who understood so well the mind and heart of her son, had talked of all that had happened to him. All he had endured, all he had suf- fered, all that he had enjoyed. He told her and his father of the different phases of modern warfore, treat- ing the dangers and the horrors lightly, and making much of the joys of comradeship and the little things that make a soldier's life endurable. But only to his mother did he talk of Bertha. For the first time he told her of his marriage. Of leaving the decision with Bertha, because he thought she was going to grieve for him, although he hadn't meant to make love to her, he confessed naively. He told of their failure to understand each other; for to be truthful Bertha was almost as much an enigma to Peter as Peter was to Ber- tha. He told of how he had agonized over it all and that he was going to work it out when he got back. " There's something about fighting that makes you think clearly; I mean, afterward," he told his mother, still hesitant when he tried to express his thoughts. 167 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE "There must be something I must do, the right thing, I mean." "You will do what is right, my son, I have no fear." "I want to, mother. You see Bertha is just a girl," the old excuse rose unconsciously to his lips, ' ' and I am afraid she never will be different like you and ..." ''And who?" his mother asked gently. "Like Madeline." "And who is Madeline?" "The girl who nursed me and the other wounded men. I only knew her three or four days, but she was an angel." "You mustn't think of her, dear," his mother said, quickly sensing the feeling behind his words. "I can't help thinking of her, mother. I love her," Peter returned as simply as if he were a child, instead of a first lieutenant and a fighting man. "Have you told her?" the mother asked, her heart aching for her boy, yet her love making her afraid. ' ' No. I never shall. There 's Bertha, you know. ' ' "Yes, there's Bertha," and she whispered to herself as she so often had done when thinking of Bertha : "Poor Peter." "We won't talk of it again, mother, but I wanted you to know. Madeline is like you. She understands. " To Peter that meant much, to be understood. "Tell me what she looks like?" Madeline Dawson would have smiled could she have heard the description Peter gave his mother. He closed his eyes and conjured up the sweet face and sad eyes of the nurse who had bent so tenderly over him. And he 168 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE endowed her with a beauty almost ethereal. A smile stole over his mother's face, just touched her lips and was gone. ' ' She must be lovely. But what color are her eyes and her hair?" "Her eyes why, I don't know! I guess they are brown, but they are big and sad and sympathetic. And her hair I think that must be brown, too yes, I am sure it must be. And she has the softest hands, just to have her touch one stops the pain. The pain in your heart as well as that of your body." After this confession they sat in silence. When his father came in they were chatting happily with old Thomas Brooks who made every excuse he possibly could to drop in and see "the lef tenant. " To him Peter re- counted each battle in which he had taken part. He told of the infantry when they jumped out of their trenches and went across. He told of the air raids, of the ex- ploding shells, of the poison gas, and all the new in- ventions for killing, until the old man gasped with de- lighted horror. "They never fit like that in the Civil War ! They just fit with guns and bayonets. And do you know, lef tenant, it seems to me the decenter way. ' ' "Yes, Thomas, I think so, too, but it wouldn't accom- plish much against those damned Huns. You have to meet cruelty with cruelty, they don't understand any- thing else. Reprisal is the only thing that keeps their frightfulness from becoming more frightful. That is one thing that is going to be hard to make Americans understand even now they are in it. America is a 169 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE clean, God-fearing nation of gentlemen. Germany is a godless nation of beasts. They will have to get that firmly fixed into their minds if they intend to lick them. And licked they have got to be to make this world a fit place for a decent man or woman to live in. You at home have got to learn it, too. Don't forget that!" Peter went every day to sit a while with Bertha's mother, and on his way home invariably dropped into the grocery store to get the mail and chat with Bertha 's father and the rest of the townf oiks who made that their gathering place. Now that "the States had gone in," as Thomas Brooks expressed it, the store was more popu- lar than ever. The discussions often waxed loud and heated, but in that midwestern town, so far from the center of activities, there was no conception of what the war might mean to them, no idea that it could last for any length of time until Peter talked to them. Here at home with these people he always had known, many of whom had dangled him on their knees, or who had played horse with Peter a-straddle of one foot, he talked freely. The minister and Thomas Brooks, after listening to him, called a meeting of the citizens and formed a Home Defense Society. The women of the church had already formed a Red Cross chapter and were never seen without their knitting. Two or three of the young men were getting ready, so if they were drafted their affairs would be in shape. In fact, the quiet town had, since Peter's return, been metamorphosed into a perfect riot of activity, his mother and father the leading spirits. Even the boys and girls in the factory had been or- 170 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE ganized under Peter's direction and held nightly drills, Thomas Brooks having them in charge. "It beats the Dutch what a change has been made in this town since Lieutenant Moore came home," Martin Gormley declared. "He has turned it upside down all right. My old woman can't hardly stop that knittin' long enough to get the victuals ready to eat ever since Peter told her how some of them soldiers suffered with the cold. If she starves me to death it will be his fault. ' ' "No danger of that, Martin," Peter returned. "I know something about Mrs. Gormley 's cooking." Bertha 's father took little part in the discussions. He was worried about his wife; he wanted Bertha to come home, and had said so to Peter. It wasn't Henry Hunter's way to beat about the bush, and he had told Peter very plainly that he thought it his, Peter's, duty to send Bertha back to Haynesville to live, instead of letting her stay in New York. "Her mother needs her," Mr. Hunter said, "and, Peter, New York ain't no place for a young girl to be all alone. She 's your wife now and must do as you say, not as I want her to ; but so long as you are going back to France to fight you ought to send her back to Haynes- ville." "I would like to have her here with you," Peter re- plied, "but she must do as she likes. I can't be with her ; I never have been with her but just those two weeks on my way out here to get well, and I don't feel I have a right to tell her what she must do." He did not say that it would do no good, that he had exhausted every argument he knew to get her to return to Haynesville, 171 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE "It ain't good for her," Bertha's father repeated. "She's too young, and she ain't been used to city ways. She's just a country girl, Peter, if she does wear stylish clothes." Peter made no reply. That Bertha had slipped off her country ideas as she would a coat he knew. She was as much a New Yorker as if she had been born there. Her ideas, her tastes, her desires and her habits were those of a city girl. Her husband had sensed that while he lay ill at Aunt Martha's. Her companions, too, were gay girls, like Julia Lawrence. Peter had met Julia one day when she, impelled to see what kind of a man Bertha had married, called at Aunt Martha's. "He's handsome, Bertha! Much better looking than Bates. But he's so solemn. Don't he ever cut up and have a good time?" "No I guess not he's always quiet," Bertha had answered, a little stab of memory making her flush. He had been good company when she knew nothing of the other kind; Bates' kind. Now she, too, thought him solemn. Not only that, but he bored her. She wasn't used to sitting for any length of time without being talked to by any one she happened to be with, and in those days of convalescence Peter often forgot to speak for an hour at a time. Peter did not mean to be unsociable. But Bertha never seemed to grasp what he tried to convey. When he talked of his life over there it was only the social side of it that interested her. The looks of the young offi- cers and the amusements provided for the men when off duty. Of his life in the trenches, his endeavors to ad- 172 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE vance himself, his persistent study she cared nothing. Even when recounting some stirring tale of the heroism of his men to Uncle Nat when he returned from his work, Bertha would yawn or possibly make an excuse to leave the room. Peter soon observed this, and so he would not talk before her of the things in which she had no interest. 173 CHAPTER XVI PETER had entirely recovered. He was "going back" and could scarcely wait to join his men in their desper- ate fight against the Huns. The night before he left Haynesville the town insisted upon giving him a farewell reception at the church. Peter had begged them not to, to let him go quietly. But he was the town hero. He had gone overseas long before there was, seemingly, any necessity. His constant declaration that "America would have to come in" had been verified. Then, too, he was now a commissioned officer. If his own town didn't honor him it would be a disgrace to the entire community. So Peter submitted. For two torturing hours he was the guest of honor of his townspeople. When he finally escaped he said to his mother: "Talk about the trenches or facing the German guns, it is nothing to being made a hero of by people. ' ' His mother laughed, realizing his feelings, yet a bit proud that it was her boy they had so delighted to honor. The next morning Peter left Haynesville for New York. He would remain with Bertha until his ship sailed. The entire population was at the station to bid him farewell. A banner had been made which the boys 174 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE from his father's factory carried and which they had designed. When Peter saw it he flushed crimson, and was so embarrassed he could scarcely reply to a ques- tion Thomas Brooks had asked him. ''The Hero of Haynesville" was inscribed upon the white surface in glaring red letters. When the boys arrived at Peter's home to escort him to the station, he at first refused to go with them, but his mother told him how badly they would feel, how they had asked for a half-holiday without pay to escort him. So finally he* consented. But as he had said of the party the night before, it was harder than facing German guns to do it. Peter had promised Mrs. Hunter that he would once more urge Bertha to return to her while he was at the front. He had no faith he would be successful, but Mrs. Hunter took hope that Bertha would listen to him and come back to them. Peter and his mother had said good-bye the night be- fore, their real good-bye. They had sat up until the gray dawn crept in the windows, talking of things which were so vitally a part of them both. His father had gone to bed about midnight, leaving them alone. So the next day when he bade them farewell at the station it was the sort of a good-bye for all to see, a cheery, laughing kiss and shake of the hand before he jumped aboard the moving train. The county newspaper that week contained a glow- ing account of the reception and the wonderful send-off the citizens of Haynesville gave " First Lieutenant Moore, our distinguished townsman." Mrs. Moore 175 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE bought several copies. One she sent to Peter, one to Bertha. Peter might like to keep his copy, and Bertha surely would be interested in reading of Peter's popu- larity. Bertha knew when Peter was coming, he had wired her. Perhaps some idea that she might be at the station to meet him was in his mind as he alighted from the train at the end of his journey ; for he looked quickly but carefully around as he walked briskly along, refusing the aid of the porters with his luggage. He was a very dif- ferent Peter from the one who had walked so slowly through the same station a few weeks before. Then he was pale, ill, a battle-scarred veteran of the war. Now his eyes were bright, he walked quickly, his every move- ment bespeaking health and vitality. He went immediately up to Aunt Martha's. Bertha had been but an infrequent correspondent even now that he was in the country. He knew no more of her habits, her whereabouts than he did when he was in France, save only that she had told him she would keep her position. He would have gone to the shop, but he recalled that she never had mentioned the name of the place. She sold hats to wealthy people. That was all he knew. Aunt Martha was delighted to see him, and made a great fuss over him. She told him the telephone num- ber of the shop, and Peter called Bertha up. She re- plied without enthusiasm that she would be home for dinner, said good-bye and hung up. He had only one day to remain in New York. So in response to his appeal, almost his command, Bertha did not go to the shop the following morning. 176 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE "I want to talk to you," he had told her. "I am afraid your mother won't live long." He told of her mother's illness having left her very weak, of her desire that Bertha come home and stay with her, of their real need of a daughter's care. Thia time he said nothing of his own mother. Someway he knew she and Bertha never would be happy together. When Bertha refused to listen to him he told her of his provision for her support if anything should happen to him, of the insurance, etc. To this Bertha listened care- fully, making a list of certain things as he suggested. Once more Peter was in France. Once more he was on the fighting line. America had at last come in, and with the first chance Peter was transferred, so that he might fight under the Stars and Stripes. His dreams had not changed. They were still all of accomplishment America's accomplishment. And neither had he changed. He went on studying, broad- ening himself from every possible angle. Now as first lieutenant his duties were increased, his responsibilities had grown greater. He must set an ex- ample to his men. For one of his theories was that the morals of its officers were the morals of the army. If ho wanted those under him to be clean he must also be clean. Peter took himself to task for his occasional lapses into aloofness. His mother had in that last heart-to- heart talk told him that if he had a serious fault that was it. His quiet, aloof manner would be apt to hold people away from him ; to make them withhold their confidence. 177 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE So he struggled against it ; he compelled himself to be a comrade and a companion as well as an officer. He learned to talk and tell stories on occasion and discov- ered that he could sing. The effect all this had on Peter was remarkable. While not in any way eliminating any of his lovable qualities or his ambitions, it added immensely to his popularity. Now, instead of sitting quietly by, he joined in whatever was going on ; joined in a dignified manner, of course, as was natural and be- fitting in an officer. Back in France Peter at times almost forgot the bit- terness which had filled his heart and mind when with Bertha. Sometimes for days together he would not think of her at all. Then one of her uninteresting, innocuous letters would come and jerk him back to a realization of the fetters which bound him the awfulness of it all. He knew that to Bertha he must ever remain a stranger; that never would she understand or see things as he saw them. It was at such times that Peter needed all his strength, all his religion to keep going. Often at night, when the rain fell on the dead faces once buried in No Man 's Land and then washed up again by the rains, or torn from their shallow graves by the shells of the enemy, Peter would think of himself as one of them and wonder if, after all, it wasn't the better way to die in battle, give your life for your country, rather than to live on and on with such a hopeless future as stared him in the face. In this mood all the resilience of his soul seemed to vanish. He felt crushed, miserably unhappy and alone. But fortunately for Peter, he was too busy to have 178 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE much time for such, thinking. His pain never kept him from being quite honest with himself ; never caused him to neglect his duty. Peter had seen Madeline Dawson several times, but he had not met her under conditions where it was neces- sary to say more than the conventional words of greet- ing. His eyes had lighted in a way that thrilled her with gladness, and if she wondered that he made no effort to be with her, if she felt chagrined or disap- pointed, she gave no sign. She smiled cheerily at him when they met, and if the smile she gave him at parting was a little sad he thought it very sweet and carried the memory of it in his heart for days. When Peter's mother read his long, intimate letters, all athrill with his experiences, glowing with all the young soldier's ardor and pride, there was one thing of which he never spoke, one person he never men- tioned, and her mother heart ached to know. He never had written of Madeline Dawson, the young nurse he had confessed he loved. But Mrs. Moore waited with perfect trust, sure that Peter would do the right thing, the thing he "must" do, as he would say. But if Peter didn't talk of Madeline to his mother he never forgot to speak of the joy he had in that his country, America, had at last "come into the game." ' ' It has redeemed us, mother, ' ' he wrote in one letter. "The world can no longer point to us as laggards. We need no longer be ashamed. If you could see and know the joy, the hope, the new-born life it has given the French and the British. These wonderful men who have been fighting for three years and who will keep on fight- 179 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE ing so long -as they have a man to bar the way. ' The Hun shall not pass' is no idle phrase. 'They sliall not pass!' and America now will do her share to prevent. America, with her hundred million people, that are now, at the eleventh hour, atoning; that have wakened to the fact that it is their war, their sacrifice, their Calvary, as it will be their glory. For greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for another. And that's what America is now doing, along with the French and the British. I'm so proud of her now." After Peter left, Bertha took up her old, careless life as far as she could without Bates Freeman. He had made her promise to write him regularly, and she kept her promise. Long, chatty letters filled with gos- sip of the people they both knew, of what she did and where she went. If she ever compared them to the short, uninteresting notes she sent Peter it was only to shrug her shoulders and say : "He don't know anybody I know! There isn't any- thing to write about." Bates Freeman for some time before he left had exer- cised a sort of restraining influence on Bertha in many ways, in spite of the fact that he was called a "sport." After he had decided that he wanted to marry her he had changed in many ways for the better. He had de- voted himself entirely to Bertha, dropping many of his old crowd. He did this for two reasons. One that he did not care to have Bertha become intimate with them, the other he had no time. Julia Lawrence, however, urged Bertha to join many gay groups, so that now Bates was away she became more 180 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE frivolous than ever. Her pay at the shop had been in- creased, and with what Peter sent her she was really able to do as she pleased. Mr. and Mrs. Robinson, Bertha's aunt and uncle, dis- approved of many things she now did. She had grown careless, and, they knew more of where she went, and what she did than before. Then, too, in the time Peter had been with them they had come to like this young soldier Bertha had married. They didn't think she was doing right to run around with such gay people, espe- cially with young men, so they often criticized and re- monstrated with her. Bertha resented this, and took no pains to hide her feelings. "I pay my board; they haven't any right to say any- thing," she grumbled to Julia after a particularly dis- tressing scene in which even her uncle had upbraided her, and told her she wasn't treating Peter right. "Why don't you get out? If I were you I wouldn't stay a day where I couldn't do as I pleased. Get a room somewhere and take your meals out, like I do. No one meddles with me." "But Julia, I have always been used to regular meals. Aunt Martha is an awful good cook and fixes lots of things just because I like them. I am afraid I'd get' sick if I lived like you do. You're used to it, you know, and I ain't. I have always had my meals at home, you know, except when I went out to dinner with Bates or the crowd. But I'd almost rather be sick than to hear them telling me what I must do and what I mustn't do because of Peter." A short time after this conversation Bertha came in 181 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE one morning at two o'clock. Her uncle was sitting up waiting for her. "This has got to stop," he said, not unkindly, though his tone was firm. "You are a married woman, Ber- tha. People will begin to talk about you if they haven 't already. Your husband, a first lieutenant off fighting for his country, and you running around with a lot of whippersnappers who ain't fit to clean his boots. Men with no sense, and only money to recommend them. Don't you know that kind ain't no use for shop girls only to ruin them?" "That's all you know about it, Uncle Nat," Bertha grumbled, her thoughts on Bates Freeman and his anxiety to marry her. "They ain't that kind at all; not the ones I go with. And if you think a girl can go through life doing nothing but work just because she's got a husband who 'd rather fight than be with her, you 've got another think coming Peter is a stick, anyway," she added, goaded to say it by the thought that had it not been for Peter they would not have found fault with her. They didn't until they got better acquainted with him and listened to his stupid war stories. "Peter is a fellow any girl would be proud of that is, any girl who wasn't a silly sort who had lost her head because she got in with a fast crowd. I know there ain 't nothing sporty about Peter. But he's good and sub- stantial. And he is good-looking, too, big and strong. Them weazened-up fellows I see you with lately make me sick. I don't see how you stand being with them, even if they do spend their money on you." "That's all you know about it!" Bertha repeated im- 182 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE patiently. She did not really want to quarrel with her uncle, neither was she anxious to leave them. But she hadn't been very well lately, she was tired and cross, so did not choose her words. "Your aunt frets herself most sick over you." "I'll get out; then she won't have to fret." "Don't be silly, Bertha. New York is no place for a young woman without a home. Especially a young mar- ried woman whose husband is away. If you don't want to do right here, you better go home with your mother. Poor thing, she needs you bad enough." "I'll not stay here nor go home, either!" Bertha an- grily replied. "I'll leave to-morrow. I've been in- tending to go anyway. If you think I'll stand for being found fault with you're mistaken!" 183 CHAPTER XVII AT breakfast next morning Bertha was very quiet. She scarcely answered her uncle's cheery "good morn- ing," and ate no breakfast at all. She looked very white and had great dark circles under her eyes. She had been burning the candle at both ends, as her aunt ex- pressed it, for some time. She necessarily had to rise early in the morning, and even though her work was light, it was confining. For several weeks she had scarcely spent an evening at home. Her Sundays were her busiest days. She usually mended her clothes, wrote her letters in the morning, then spent the rest of the day with the gay crowd of which Julia was the leading spirit. "Come home as soon as you can, dearie," her aunt said, "I'll have dinner early, and you can go right to bed. You look all tired out." "I have an engagement tonight." Bertha looked straight at her uncle as she said it. "I shall not come home to dinner, and probably not until late." Uncle Nat started to speak, but at a glance from his wife restrained himself. "Get in as early as possible," Mrs. Robinson added as Bertha rose wearily from the table. "You look all tuck- ered out." 184 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE Bertha was "tuckered out," her limbs dragged heav- ily as she went upstairs for her hat and coat. She was short of breath and sank down on the edge of the bed for a moment. Her disdain of her uncle's advice, her discontent showed itself in lines about the pretty mouth and weak chin. Now she was dissatisfied with her surroundings, with the condition which confronted her. Since she had left Haynesville she had been accustomed to mold life to her desire. She was sunk in the depths of indeter- mination. She wanted to go, to be entirely free of re- straint ; yet something in her urged her to stay, to cling to this one thing that kept her in a way wholesome and different from some of the girls. Finally she went slowly downstairs. ' ' Uncle wants me to go, ' ' she said to her aunt who was clearing away the breakfast. "No, Bertha, he doesn't want you to go. But he feels that you will get yourself talked about if you stay out so late with young men, fast fellows, too. You see, being married makes a difference, Bertha." "Just as if I didn't know being married made a dif- ference!" Bertha again thought of Bates Freeman. ' ' You don 't have to keep rubbing that in. Just because a person's been a fool they don't like to be told of it all the time. ' ' Mrs. Eobinson paid no attention to Bertha's impa- tience, but poured her a cup of coffee. "It won't hurt you to have another cup. You didn't eat any breakfast. I am afraid you're going to be sick. You look dreadfully white." 185 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE "It's the stairs. I seem to be short of breath lately." Bertha drank the coffee, then went immediately out saying that she would be late. Her aunt gazed anxiously after her. "She looks sick. I hope " she stopped in her so- liloquy, but often during the day she muttered to her- self as she went about her work, and wondered if she should write Bertha's mother; if it were her duty. Bertha was unhappy. Desperately unhappy. Her thoughts constantly veered to Bates Freeman. If it hadn't been for her foolishness in wanting to stay in New York she would have been his wife, and he wouldn't have volunteered so she thought, showing how little she knew of Bates. She could have stayed in New York without marrying Peter. She was a silly little fool. No one could have made her go back to Haynesville. And her aunt and uncle thought she ought to sit at home nights and think and fret over what was going to hap- pen. Well, she wouldn't! She would go out and have a good time just as long as she could here she broke off in her thoughts, her face grew somber, the indeter- minate chin took on an extra weakness, but her eyes smoldered with an angry fire. Julia met her with a plan for the evening. Then stopped as she noted the absolute lack of interest, even attention in Bertha's attitude. She was still brooding over her affairs. Still thinking there had been no exact reason why she should have married Peter Moore, and so lost Bates Freeman. For that she had lost him she 186 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE knew deep down in her heart, although Julia tried to convince her that when the war was over she and Bates would find some way to marry. For the first time in weeks Bertha refused to go with the crowd to a gay dinner place a short distance out. But fearing her uncle would think it because of what he had said to her she took her dinner at a cheap little restaurant not far from where she lived. She couldn't eat, but played with the food for an hour. Then walked slowly home. Her aunt saw her coming and opened the door just as Bertha fell heavily. She rushed out, and lifting her saw that she had fainted. ' ' Poor child ! ' ' she murmured, as she half carried, half dragged her into the house. Under her aunt's ministration Bertha soon recovered. She went directly to bed, making no objection when her aunt declared that she wasn't fit to go to work the next day and that she would send a note to the shop saying so. "Oh, how good this feels!" Bertha said to herself as her aunt turned out the light and left her alone. "I must cut out staying out nights for a while. I'm so tired." Then she drifted quietly off to sleep and did not waken until her aunt came in about ten o'clock the next morning with her breakfast. "I'm so hungry!" she said, as she sat up and blinked when her aunt raised the blinds. "Of course you are! Now eat every bite, then you can go to sleep again if you want to. ' ' The steaming coffee, the delicate toast, the poached 187 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE eggs, all looked apd tasted so good that Bertha thought with disgust of eating her meals as did Julia in one restaurant after another; necessarily rather cheap ones if she were to patronize them all the time. She would be real nice to uncle Nat. Perhaps he would forget she had been rather impudent to him. To ask his pardon never entered her head. After she finished her breakfast, Bertha dropped back again on to the pillows, breathing a sigh of content. It was nice to stay at home one day. About noon she arose, dressed, then fussed about the room for a while. Her aunt called and she went down and ate a bit of broiled chicken and a cup of tea. "You'll spoil me, Aunt Martha," she said when she had finished and her offer of help had been refused. "I want you to feel happy here, Bertha. Until you have a home of your own I want you to stay here with me unless you decide to go back to Haynesville. " ' ' 1 11 never do that ! Never ! I couldn 't stand it, Aunt Martha. You don't know how dead it is after New York." "All right," her aunt replied in a soothing voice, "then you must stay with us. If your uncle gets ner- vous once in a while you must remember that we never had any children, and that when he was young, folks didn't stay out late. We're old-fashioned you know, Bertha." "You've lived in New York so long, too." "Yes but you see, pa and me never took up much with new-fangled notions and sort of kept to ourselves. 188 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE We never felt the need of others for company, so long as we could be together. ' ' "You and uncle Nat think a lot of each other." The sigh which accompanied the words was caused by the thought that had she married Bates Freeman she, too, might have felt that way. "No more than you will think of Peter when he comes back and you can have a little home together." Bertha made no answer. But in her heart was a half -formed wish that he would not come back; that Bates would. In the afternoon Bertha wrote letters; one to Bates, a long one in which she told him of all the good times she had had; of Julia and the others. She also told him she had refused to go with them the night before, that she was staying home for the day. He wasn't to worry, however; she was all right. Just a little tired. She wrote her mother a short note in which she told how good aunt Martha was to her, and in which she slipped a five-dollar bill to hire the heavy cleaning done. She felt suddenly guilty that she was being so lazy, while her mother was scrubbing and cleaning. Lastly she started a letter to Peter. But whereas the other letters had gone easily, she bit her pen point and waited some time before she even started the usual "Dear Peter." Then after waiting a while she commenced again: "I am very unhappy! I am sick and miserable. No man has a right to marry a girl just to get married. He should care enough for her to make a home for her in- stead of leaving her with relatives," and much more 189 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE that was fretful, complaining, also unloving. She made no pretence in her letters to Peter. The word love never was mentioned. Perhaps he hadn't noticed the omis- sion. But in her letters to Bates it was the one note that ran through the entire page her love for him. She complained that being married had caused her uncle to object to her going out, to her having any pleasure. It had all been a mistake. She was too young. Peter should have known better. It was all his fault. All her friends were unmarried. They could have as good a time as they wanted to without being criticized and found fault with. It was such a letter as would take all the courage out of a man. All the desire to make something of himself his life. That is until she came to the end of the sheet. "Worst of all I am going to be a mother. I should have refused to live with you when you came back un- less you remained. Not that I wanted you to stay with me; but I didn't want this either. I hate the idea of being forced to stay at home and take care of children. I shall keep my position as long as possible. So don't imagine I sha'n't! BERTHA." Peter received Bertha's letter after a night of such fighting as had left him exhausted in mind and body. He had lost several of his men, and was saddened over the loss. Others had been dangerously wounded. The horror of it remained while the excitement incident upon action was gone. Only the stark awfulness of war could be seen about him. As he read the fretful, complaining letter his lips straightened into a thin line. His eyes grew more and 190 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE more brooding ; and once he clutched his hand that held the paper so tightly that before he could finish reading he had to smooth the letter out on his khaki-clad knee. When he reached the last paragraph, his hand went to his throat. His breath stopped short, and he grew grayly white under the bronze of his skin. A child his ! "Oh, God grant that it be a boy!" he prayed aloud. To have a girl-child, a replica, perhaps, of Bertha, would be something he could not endure. But if God would give him a boy, then he could take a hand in his training. Already he saw him a sturdy little chap, full of life, manly, honorable. "A boy," he repeated, clos- ing his eyes. Peter's perplexities were increased. He had another life to think of; one for which he and he alone was re- sponsible. If Bertha only would consent to return to Haynesville, how it would simplify everything. He re- read the letter slowly, not skipping a single word. No, it would be of no use. She would only resent the sug- gestion as she. had resented it before. Perhaps the baby would change Bertha. He dis- missed the thought almost before he formed it. He mustn't fool himself. Nothing would ever make her different from what she was. No, he must prepare him- self, his own heart, his own soul, for this new responsi- bility. He could expect no help, no understanding from Bertha. Not even his mother could help in this, happy as she would have been, could she have done so. Bertha would not go home. Later in the day Peter went to one of the hospital shacks close behind the lines. Several of his men had 191 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE been carried there. As he entered one of the low, tem- porary buildings, which, like a ghost, rises in the night, he met Madeline Dawson. The girl hesitated stopped then held out her hand, and her voice trembled as she spoke. She looked at him in a sort of wonder ; her eyes filled, her voice faltered : ' ' Oh my friend what is it 1 What has happened ? ' ' Peter stood silently before her. He seemed to reflect. "Nothing that anyone can help. Least of all you," then turned like a man in a dream and entered the shack. "Within Peter's soul great, elemental, primitive passions struggled. But his face was cold, calm, and steady his eyes, as he found his way to where some of the men who had fought the battle of the night by his side now lay writhing in agony, or ominously quiet. Madeline Dawson had watched Peter until the door had swung to behind him. Then with a sigh she wiped her eyes, and once again the nurse, the woman held in abeyance, she went on her way. When once more alone Peter sat, elbows on knees, his head in his hands. "I should be glad, I should," he muttered over and over, yet there was no gladness in his soul. "If it had been," he whispered then "good God what am I saying." But try as he would he could not banish the thought. It clung to him until his duties left no room for anything but a soldier's work; an officer 's thought. Men in authority ' ' over there ' ' cannot indulge for long in the luxury of thinking of that which has nothing to do with their work. Peter had learned what it meant to men in the bloody, 192 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE soggy trenches to have a cheerful officer. He knew that it was no part of his job to allow his private affairs to diminish his helpfulness. Black despair often over- took many of them. The great German maw was always extended te swallow them. It was his duty to keep his men, in so far as he was able, up to the mark. That meant keeping them cheerful and as happy as possible. Not many young officers had his over-developed sense of responsibility toward his men. He felt accountable for each and every one of them. Not only for their bodies, but in a sense for their souls. The morale of the army must be kept at the highest notch possible. So Peter, after an hour of brooding, straightened his shoulders, mentally as well as physically, and again went at it. The next day he wrote Bertha a little note. He told her he was pleased ; he hoped she wouldn 't be unhappy or worried, and that she would give up her position at once and stay quietly and happily with her aunt. He could afford to pay them more to give her what care she needed. It was a kind, a gentle letter, but, try as he would, Peter could not inject anything that sounded like love in what he said to Bertha. "He knows I wouldn't go to Haynesville, so he didn't even try to ask me. I guess he's waking up to the fact I won't be bossed," she said to herself, as she read his letter. Then, "I wonder where Bates is. Peter says they are having some terrible battles. I hope he won't be killed." 193 CHAPTER XVIII Now there was a still greater change in Peter. He seemed older, and, if possible, he took his responsibilities even more seriously. There was a new look in his eyes, at times a softness crept into his face. But he went about his duties with the same precision, neglecting no smallest detail that went for the good of his men, the accomplishment of his part in the war. He had not seen Madeline Dawson again. In fact, he made several detours when he thought it likely he might run across her. She was too disturbing a factor to risk meeting, often. Even in his thoughts Peter tried to hold himself rigidly to his marriage vows. But at times, when wearied or a bit depressed by the grewsome sights about him, thoughts of her would flit through his mind, and he would press his hand across his eyes as if that would shut her out. Occasionally he would take out the little locket con- taining Bertha's picture. He would study the weakly pretty face for a few moments. If one were listening when he put it back into his pocket they would hear a sigh; perhaps a muttered exclamation. Peter on his visit home when wounded had been thoroughly disillu- sioned regarding Bertha. His old excuse for her: "She's only a girl," now 194 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE never occurred to him. She was more than a girl; she was a determined, clever woman, bent on having her own way, living her own life regardless of whom she might hurt. And Peter had realized this. He also had seen how more than useless it was to expect her to change. Peter tried not to think of Bertha. The awfulness of a life lived with her, with anyone who could not under- stand him, made the thought of death in the battle-field tempting. And wherever there was fighting for his men, there Peter was always to be found leading them, al- ways in the thick of things ; always careless of self, while taking every care of those under him. Peter was as popular with the Americans, the boys of his own country, as he had been and still was with the British. And along with his popularity went an immense respect. His ambition to make all he could of himself, his devotion to the cause for which he was fighting; the cause that had at last brought America into the conflict, was intense. He hated the sight of blood; he naturally was of a peaceful disposition and yet he would fight like the very devil. ' ' He is a very devil when he gets a chance at a Hun, ' ' one of his men replied, when another had said he fought like his Satanic Majesty. And through it all Peter had a hopeless hope that some time, some way something would happen that would make him reconciled to life as he saw it, with Bertha, if he lived through the war. The essential self in him longed for the understanding which looked out at him from Madeline Dawson's clear eyes. Oftentimes he gloomed because of his inability to 195 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE be with her. Then again he would spend part of his precious time trying to avoid her. Yet when he did meet her the joy in his eyes, oftentimes the naive pleasure he showed, led Madeline, who knew absolutely nothing of him save that he was a brave soldier and that his men adored him, to hold her breath and wonder why he should look so much and say nothing. But she had such faith in life that she retained her serenity when she met him, while she never attempted to hide her pleasure in his society. There were, however, long lapses of time when they did not see each other. When he, in the trenches with his men, was the first over the top when the signal came ; and she in the shack near the firing line bent over her "babies," as she called the wounded soldiers, making them as comfortable as possible, then doing the little things that a woman like her would do. Writing their letters, telling them stories, gaily bantering them when, because of their bandaged eyes, they could not see that her own were full of tears. Oh, there was little that Madeline Dawson did not do in those days little that Peter did not vision her as doing. "The English angel," the wounded called her. Peter possessed imagination, and often it became mor- bidly vivid. When he had to force his way through rows of dead in No Man's Land, he always thought that, perhaps, there was a woman like Madeline some- where who loved them. Strangely, he never thought of them as being tied to a Bertha. Some of them, one could never tell whether they had been friend or foe, were part way out of the ground. A hand or foot sticking 196 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE out, so that one had to be careful or he would stumble over them. Always came the thought to Peter: "Some woman loves them," and he would step care- fully over the grewsome objects, treading softly, as if in fear of waking them before the resurrection trump should sound. And often the woman had eyes like Madeline Dawson, her pitying, tender smile. Peter had written his mother that Bertha would soon be a mother. That several months intervened made no difference. He did not even speak of her going back to Haynesville, and in that omission his mother read some- thing of his despair. That it had been his hope to have her return she knew ; how much more now must he desire it. Mrs. Moore answered his letter at once. "Dear Son: How proud and happy you must be. I am so glad for you and for Bertha. A baby can do strange things for a woman. Its little life so interwoven with hers is a wonderful influence. I shall write her at once how pleased I am ; and I am sure her own mother and father will be no less happy over the news. "You have now, dear son, something more to live for, one more reason why you should not recklessly ex- pose yourself, and another reason also for living clean. Not that I doubt that you have, and will; but often things arise in the course of our lives, things which under different circumstances would be perfectly nat- ural for us to do, but which again, given certain other conditions, are very wrong. "I hope Bertha will stay with her aunt Martha, as she will not come back to Haynesville. She will take good care of her, I am sure. Caution her, Peter, not to 197 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE work too hard. A healthy baby means a great deal to a young mother. And if she overdoes the baby will surely feel the effects. "You say you are in some pretty stiff fights. I know what that means, Peter, and at times I rebel at your danger. Then my good sense asserts itself, and I would not have you do one thing different. We must all go, and if God's good time for you is now we will not com- plain. But some way, dear, I feel that you will be spared; that you will come back to us. If prayer and faith in the goodness of God will help, you surely will. "We are very proud of you, "Peter. Not only that you are a soldier, but because of your determination to make yourself all that you can. Father often speaks of it; and wishes he might have given you a college education. Things would have been easier, per- haps and perhaps some things might have been harder. "You have said nothing of that young nurse. Is she still nursing near you? Do you ever see her? Forgive the questions, Peter, but a mother remembers and is interested in every slightest thing that interests the boy she loves. "I will stop now. Everyone is well. Thomas Brooks declares he is going to live until the war is over, and that he will be here to welcome you back to Haynesville. His rheumatism is very bad this year, but he never grumbles. He says, 'The boys are the ones who are having it hard, not we who can stay home and nurse our rheumatiz.' 198 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE "Father sends love, and you know that we both love and pray for you constantly. MOTHER." Peter re-read the letter and smiled sadly when he realized that his mother had referred to his love for Madeline Dawson when she had said that certain things which under different conditions might have been right under other conditions were wrong. "Dear mother. She understands," he murmured, then smiled as he came to the questions concerning Madeline, questions so naively put, but which told him his mother had thought of his confession, had perhaps worried a little over him and Madeline Dawson. "I must write her that she's not to worry about us," he said, aloud, as he folded the letter away in his pocket. Peter, fortunately for his peace of mind, had no idea that Madeline Dawson cared at all for him; or that she ever thought of him. Although once or twice when he had seen a look of pleasure in her eyes at meet- ing him, he had thought it might have been possible if he always compelled his thoughts to halt when they reached that point. That "if" was an ever-present hin- drance to further intriguing. Had he known that since she first knew him he and he only had been the one man in all the world for her ; that she had seen the love-long- ing in his eyes and even now was waiting for the time to come when he would tell her of his love, he would have been astonished, and, in a manner, horrified. But Peter, totally unconscious that he had shown his love for her in any way, supposing his secret locked in his breast, hugged it close or determinedly tried to forget it, according to the mood in which he happened to be. 199 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE His mother's letter had brought him closer to the subject than he had been for many days. Her ques- tions, her camouflaged motherly anxiety, had brought his love surging like a wave through him. Sleepless he fought for strength to live his life as it must be lived. Again, as in every crucial time in his life "must" be- came his slogan; the one thing to do was that which must be done if he would keep his self-respect, his honor as a man. So when he answered his mother's letter he spoke freely of Madeline to her as he would have spoken of any other acquaintance. But once again Mrs. Moore, as she laid the letter in the Bible beside the others he had written, murmured: "Poor Peter!" When Bertha could no longer go about with her gay crowd, she became morose and dull. All her old nonchalance left her, and when alone she wept most of the time. In one respect, however, she was un- changed ; that was in her enthusiasm for her work. All her energy was given to proving what she could do as a saleswoman. She had been advanced until now she was over all the other girls, Julia Lawrence included. Most of them, like Julia, had been there a very long time, much longer than she had, and some of them were in- clined to be jealous. But Bertha cared nothing for their jealousies; nothing for them, in fact. Julia was the only girl in the shop with whom she was at all intimate, and Julia didn't care that Bertha had a better position than she had. "What's the use working so hard? Work will be here when I'm dead and gone," she said, when Bertha 200 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE rather apologetically told of her promotion. "You make me tired! You don't need to work at all if you don't want to. I saw you had a letter from Bates yesterday.'* Bertha ignored the implication in her reply: "It keeps me from thinking." "Are you going to stay on with your aunt?" "Yes for the present. Perhaps later on I may do different I don't know." Then, in a burst of despair, "I don't know what I am going to do; sometimes I wish I was dead!" "You're a long time dead, Bertha; don't give way like that. Why, you'll soon be over your trouble" (that was the way both girls thought and spoke of Bertha's coming motherhood as "trouble") "then you can have a good time again." "How, I'd like to know? It is a very different thing working here from staying all day at Aunt Martha's." "But you don't have to stay there. You can get someone to look after the child, and come back here. ' ' Bertha brightened. She had not thought of that. She had only thought of doing as all the young mothers in Haynesville did devote all their time to caring for their children. Perhaps it wouldn't quite spoil her life, after all. "But my job here will be gone; they'll get someone to take my place, perhaps give it to some of the other girls I wouldn't mind so much if they gave it to you," Bertha added, feeling she had said something unkind. "Don't you worry about that! This firm knows when they are well off. They ain't never had a saleswoman 201 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE who could touch you. Why, you sell five hats to my one, and I do better than most of them. I'll bet you a pair of gloves they'll jump at the chance of getting you back. Why don't you tell them what's the matter, and ask them if they will save your place for you ? ' ' "Then I'd have to tell I was married." "You needn't tell anyone but the boss. She wouldn't give you away. I heard she was married and divorced herself ; but she goes as Miss, same as you do. ' ' "I wonder," Bertha said thoughtfully; then "per- haps I will. But I couldn't ask Aunt Martha to "You wouldn't have to!" Julia interrupted; "with what you earn and that soldier husband of yours sends you, what's the reason you couldn't take one of them little three or four-room flats and hire a girl? You pay your board at your aunt's, and it wouldn't take a great deal more. Then there's Bates. He would give you all you needed. I can't understand your not getting a wad and salting it when he was so stuck on you. ' ' Bertha made no reply. She had no intention of tell- ing Julia of the five hundred dollars she had "salted" nor of the occasional fifty dollars she had added to it, until now she had more than one thousand dollars in the bank. "I hadn't thought of anything like that, Julia a flat, I mean. Perhaps that would be a good idea." . "Of course, it is a good idea ; then you'll be your own boss, too. You can come and go as you like, and no one to find fault. You say your aunt and uncle have been disagreeable lately when you stayed out. You'd have none of that sort of thing to put up with. And even if 202 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE you are going to have a baby, you are young and pretty, and Peter may never show up again. It was a pity he had to get hurt and come where you were anyway." "I think I will look around for a flat. Will you go with me?" Bertha had not heard one word of what Julia said about Peter. Her mind was on the new sug- gestion of a flat; and how through it she could escape from the criticism of her relatives, which annoyed her more and more as time passed. "You bet, I will! I'll go any time you like." "Thank you, Julia. I'll wait until after I tell the boss and leave here. Then if you will go with me some Sunday, perhaps we can find a place I can afford to rent. Peter thinks I am going to stay with Aunt Mar- tha; but I'm not!" Bertha immediately acted upon Julia's advice. That very night she waited until after the other girls had gone, then asked Miss Harris, the proprietor, if she might talk to her. ' ' Certainly, Miss Moore, ' ' her tone anxious. Was she to lose her most valuable saleswoman? If it were a matter of wages, why she would pay almost anything, although she had very lately given her a raise. Bertha told her story, stumblingly, haltingly. She told of the sudden marriage, and the more sudden leave- taking; then of Peter's visit home when wounded. She made no excuses for passing herself off as a single woman ; none was needed. She had done her work well. That was all that concerned Miss Harris, that and her desire to come back. "I'm astonished, Miss Moore, and sorry to lose you 203 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE even for a short time. You won't leave me altogether, will you? You'll come back aa soon as you are able. I can understand that it will cost you more to live after the child comes, and I will raise your salary five dollars a week, besides paying you part of your salary while you are away. But you must not leave me. My customers are used to you, like you and " she stopped ; she had nearly said they would follow Bertha if she went with another firm. Which she knew would happen. If Miss Harris had been astonished, Bertha was more so. She was paralyzed at the ease with which her prob- lems were being met. It seemed that everyone was will- ing to help her always to do the things Peter, in his narrowness, would be sure to object to her doing. "Thank you, Miss Harris. I will accept your offer and return as soon as possible," Bertha finally replied with considerable dignity. It was hard to hide her delight at the turn things were taking; but Bertha, as well as Miss Harris, was a good business woman. She was quick and keen where her own interests were con- cerned. She realized immediately the fear her employer had of losing her; and, although Miss Harris had not spoken of it, she knew what had been in her mind when she broke off so abruptly. "She is afraid I'll go some- where else and take her customers along with me." "When will you have to leave me?" "Next week. And, Miss Harris, please don't tell any- one what I have told you that I am married. ' ' "No, indeed, I shall not ! It is better for the business to have unmarried employees anyway." Showing that she also thought of self first. 204 ' ' Thank you. ' ' They bade each other good-night, each feeling they had won out. "I'd have given her full pay and ten dollars a week more rather than lose her," Miss Harris said to herself as she looked over the sales of the day. "I would have stayed for the same, and no pay while I was absent," Bertha murmured, as she walked slowly to the car. She had commenced to take the car now. She would need more money to get along, and there was one thing upon which she would not use the slightest economy her clothes. Her stylish appearance was her greatest comfort. It had been her open sesame with Bates Freeman and his set. She would economize in other ways for a time; but not in what she spent for clothes. "She was mighty afraid I'd go and take her best customers with me," she went on with her soliloquy. "Glad I know I'm so valuable. Maybe some time I'll do it. But I guess I'd rather work for her. I don't have so much responsibility." The next day Bertha told Julia Lawrence the result of her talk with Miss Harris. "What did I tell you? I knew she wouldn't let you go. Why, you're worth more than all the rest of us put together when it comes to selling hats. ' ' There was a little jealousy in the tone, and Bertha quickly re- sponded : "I hope you don't mind, Julia. If she had said you could have the place I wouldn't have come back." "Don't talk like a fool! I guess with a kid cominer you need it a darn sight more than I do. I ain't jealous, 205 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE honest I ain't, Bertha. I know you are worth more than I am, but I am going to try to sell a few more hats, even if it does mean harder work." She made a grimace. "I could use a dollar or two more a week if I had it." "You could sell as many as I do, if you tried, Julia." "No, I couldn't! You act as if you loved every single hat you touched. The customers see it, too. They think you wouldn't sell them a hat that didn't look good on them to make a sale. That's what makes them buy of you more than from us girls who sell them just as if they was a basket of potatoes, or a bunch of carrots." " I do love them, Julia. Love to handle them. I don 't think it is any help to the business to sell an unbecoming hat ; they go somewhere else next time if you do. Some- one is sure to tell them they don't look good in it. Then they blame the saleswoman." "Perhaps. You ought to be in business for yourself, Bertha." "No, thank you! I'd rather work for Miss Harris." Then added, "But some time I may feel different." 206 CHAPTER XIX AT the end of the week Bertha said good-bye to the girls in the shop, telling them only that she was going to take a little vacation. Aunt Martha was delighted and made a great fuss over her. The good woman thought that now Bertha had come to her senses and would be willing to live as a married woman should in her, Aunt Martha's, opinion. "You see, she was just kind of wild and giddy-like, because Peter couldn't stay with her, like other fellows do when they are married, ' ' she said to her husband the night Bertha had told her she was going to stay home now. "Time she got a little common sense," he grumbled, no whit less pleased than was his wife to have Bertha with them. "It takes a heap sight sometimes to make a woman of a girl like Bertha. She ain't never seemed to care for anything but clothes and a good time, and her with a husband like Peter Moore. Why, he ain't no blood relation to me, but I am that proud of him I almost bust, and the men at the shop say I can't talk of nothing else. I got a service button for Bertha to-day, with one star on it." Then he added sheepishly, "I got one for you and me, too, mother. Even if he ain't our real nephew, I feel like he was, and I guess the govern- 207 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE ment ain't going to make us any trouble for wearing it, when we feel as we do toward him, and ain't got any eons of our own to give. I wish they'd take me." "Nonsense, Nat! What could you do? Don't you remember what Peter told us about them trenches being knee deep with mud and water; and about that awful place they call 'No Man's Land,' what was oozing mud and blood so deep with corpses getting unburied and coming up on the surface, and all them other horrid things. Nice one you'd be in the trenches with your rheumatiz so bad you can hardly walk at times. And what would you do in No Man's Land? Why you'd be dead in an hour. I guess, Nathaniel Robinson, that you are doing more good right in the factory than you would anywhere else. And as for wanting to fight, ain't you fighting just as much as if you was over there where you'd be in the way? I guess you can wear the button, all right, Nat!" Her voice softened; then, as she pinned the one he had given her on her ample bosom, she said: "And I don't see no need of explaining that Peter is a nephew by marriage. It ain't nobody's busi- ness, as I can see." "I ain't told a soul, Martha," Mr. Robinson chuckled, "I have always said, 'my nephew, Lieutenant Moore,' ' He chuckled again as he also pinned on his service pin with its single star. "Bertha will be pleased. I'll take hers right up to her," and Aunt Martha climbed the stairs to find Bertha looking disconsolately out of the window, the tiny gar- ment upon which she had been sewing fallen to the floor. 208 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE "Uncle Nat is home, and he brought you this," she said, laying the tiny pin on the girl's lap. "Thank you," Bertha said, looking down for a mo- ment, then resuming her former position. "Your uncle is awful glad you are going to stay at home with us. And he is so proud of Peter. He got him and me a pin, too. ' ' Bertha made no reply. "Don't get so down-hearted, Bertha. I know it is hard to bear with Peter away. But your uncle and me will do all we can to make you happy if you will let us. And Bertha," a slow flush rose to the older woman's face, "it will seem like heaven to have a baby in the house. We never had no children, Nat and me. It has been the only thing about our lives together that wasn't quite happy. And we will be so glad to have you here with us." Without waiting for a reply, Mrs. Robinson left the room, calling when she reached the head of the stairs : ' ' Dinner will be ready in fifteen minutes. ' ' Bertha had very nearly told her aunt that she was not going to stay with them after her baby came. Then her intense selfishness made her hold her tongue. She was a bit frightened at the ordeal before her. She would get not only care, but love and sympathy here. She would say nothing until she was ready to leave. ' ' They must think I am a fool, to give up everything and stay here with them just because of this," she mur- mured. "They wouldn't want me to stir. It is bad enough when there is only Peter. It will be worse then. Not on their lives!" When Bertha rose to go down to dinner the service 209 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE pin slid from her lap on to the tiny little dress, which still lay on the floor at her feet. Without noticing, she went downstairs. "Where's your pin?" her uncle asked fingering proudly the lapel of his coat, upon which his shone brightly. "Upstairs. I forgot to put it on. Thank you for it." But her voice was so cold, so indifferent, Mr. Robinson 's enthusiasm was chilled, and he said no more. Although had one been watching they would have noticed that several times his hand crept up to the pin for a moment. According to promise, Julia went flat-hunting with Bertha. Not one Sunday, but two or three. It was not easy to find a place that suited both Bertha's now rather fastidious taste, and her pocketbook. At times she was ready to give up and remain at Aunt Martha's. But at such times Julia was always ready with her objections. "You know you'll never have a minute's freedom if you stay there," she had said when Bertha had de- clared that rather than look further she would talk to Mrs. Robinson, tell her she was going to keep her posi- tion and ask her advice as to what to do with the child. "She might offer to take care of it, so that we would stay," had been the remark that had called forth Julia's declaration. "I know I wouldn't," Bertha had replied. "Oh, Julia, why was I such a fool as to get married?" Then reverting to the subject then occupying them: "Of course, I couldn't go out with you and the crowd if I stayed there. Uncle Nat doesn't want me to, even now. He's all the time preaching about a wife's place being 210 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE at home, and telling me what my duty to Peter is. He went and bought me a pin with a star on it to wear. Just as if I was going to advertise I was married to a soldier. You know if I wore it everyone would ask who it was for and I'd have to either tell them, 'my husband' or lie. Oh, everything is so snarled!" "You are half sick, that's why things seem so bad to you. We'll soon find a place. I tell you what I'll do. I'll go to some real estate agents, tell them just what we want, and get a list. Then we won't waste so much time. " They had been looking up the advertisements of flats to let in the papers. "All right. But I am almost discouraged." "We'll surely find something soon." It was no part of Julia Lawrence's plan to have Bertha live with her aunt. She constantly looked for Bates to return and marry Bertha. But if he didn't, it would be nice to have a chum who had a flat. She might often take her beaux there, and in other ways it would make it pleasant for her, Julia. As always, Julia Law- rence had an eye to her own comfort in all she did for others. She knew she had a great influence over the weak Bertha, and she never hesitated to use it for her own advantage. Finally, one day they found exactly what Bertha wanted on the list an agent had given them. It was a new house, and although the four rooms were tiny, they were prettily decorated. There was no elevator, but, as Julia said: "What can you expect for two-ninety-eight?" The rent was thirty-five dollars a month. It seemed a 211 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE good deal, but what she paid her aunt, and the raise Miss Harris had promised her would go a good ways toward paying her living expenses beside the rent. "You can furnish it on the installment plan, and you are so handy with a needle, you can make it lovely. " Bertha paid a small deposit. The agent would hold it for her. She had no idea of taking Julia's advice as to the installment plan. She would take part of the money Bates had given her. But she would have only wicker furniture, and cretonnes which she would make up herself for hangings. The dining-room and living- room were one, so she would need no dining-room furni- ture. Just a good-sized table. One bedroom was to be for the maid and the child. The other for herself. The tiny kitchen and bathroom would be easy to fix up by degrees. At times, when Mrs. Robinson planned what they would do, as they sat sewing together, Bertha felt a wild desire to stop her. To tell her what she had done. But policy kept her silent, although she would flush guiltily. Her mother had written pleading for her to come home; then offering to come to her if she would not. Bertha had absolutely refused to go home, and had said she would be all right with Aunt Martha, so her mother needn't come. But both Mrs. Hunter and Mrs. Moore had sent her a box of dainty hand-made things for the little one's coming, such pretty things. They almost reconciled Bertha to what was now but a bitterness. Then one morning, just as the sun rose and flooded the room where she lay, Bertha's baby was born. Peter had his wish. It was a boy. 212 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE When they told Bertha, her aunt asked: "Will you call him Peter?" Bertha shook her head. She didn't much care what he was named. But now that it had been spoken of, she would have to think about it. Peter was such a homely name. No, she wouldn't name him Peter. "His father would be pleased if you did," her aunt said, with disappointment in her voice. To please Peter, the soldier-father, seemed to her the natural thing for the young mother to do. Peter's prayer had been granted. His child was a boy. When he heard, a surge of joy swept through him and almost overwhelmed him. It rather surprised him in that it was not entirely because he had a son. It was the fact that he was a father that gripped him. ' ' Make me worthy, ' ' he prayed silently. Then fell to wondering if his father and mother felt like this when he was born, and if that accounted for the wonderful love they had poured out upon him all his life. Suddenly Peter felt rich. He owned something. That tiny bit of humanity so far away was his his and Bertha's. Yet even as he included her in the ownership his clear vision made him see that the child would not mean so much to her as to him ; that no child could. Yet that she would not rejoice over her son would have seemed unnatural. So he wrote her a long letter in which he took joy for granted and in which he told her of his own. ' ' I find myself already planning what we shall do for him as he grows older. How we will give him a good 213 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE education, so that he may be fitted for anything that may come to him. We must be very good, you and I, Bertha. He must be able to follow our example. If I had not. had the right kind of a father and mother I don't know what I might have done. "I am thinking for you both, praying for you. You have been brave to bear all this alone. When the war is over I shall try to make up to you for all you have" had to suffer while I have been away. "What shall we name the boy, or have you already chosen a name? If not, why not name him after your father and mine? 'John Henry Moore.' It looks well and it sounds well. They are both good men. But in this you must have your own way. Only give him a good boyish name. Something strong. A boy hates a namby-pamby name, or one that can be foolishly nick- named. ' ' There was much more in the letter. Peter had for- gotten nothing that might be of interest to the young mother. But no word of the fierce battles now raging; no hint of his own danger crept into the lines filled with consideration for the mother of his son. If, as he wrote, he hoped she would name him Peter, he could not be blamed. If the thought came that if he was killed, there would then still be a Peter Moore to carry on the work in life that would have been his, he crushed it back as selfish. No, Bertha had the right to choose the boy's name. He would not interfere. His letter to his mother held all that he could not, or would not, write to Bertha. He made all arrange- ments for his son should he never return. He would 214 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE take out more insurance at once to be devoted to his education. He would make his father and mother guardians. Then he planned the life of his boy; seri- ously, soberly as men who face death almost hourly plan for those who may be at any moment bereft of their help and their love. With a smile on her lips, but tears in her eyes, Peter 's mother read her son's plans for the tiny babe. "He's nothing but a child himself," she said, as she wiped her eyes. "He always will be in certain ways; yet he is strong and manly, hard as nails in some things. Do you re- member, mother, how set he was about going to war? How nothing we could say would move him? He will be like that in other things; things he thinks right. I wish Bertha could have felt she wanted to come to Haynesville to live." Peter's father also wiped his eyes, and reached out his hand for the letter Mrs. Moore had just read aloud to him. He would read it again. Mrs. Moore sighed. She longed for Peter's son. She wanted to see him, to hold him in her arms, to write Peter just how he looked. Oh, she wanted him in every way! "We will have to be very economical, father, and in the fall when it is dull at the factory we will go and see him and Bertha. ' ' "The factory is not going to be dull this fall, mother. I am rushed to death with work. But we'll manage to go. I want to see Peter's son, too." From this time on Peter's son was the subject of o*n- 215 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE versation much of the time. In Bertha's home, too, Mr. and Mrs. Hunter speculated concerning him and Bertha, longed for them to come home, and prayed each night that she would come back to them until Peter re- turned from the war. Uncle Nat and Aunt Martha were so happy over the baby boy that Bertha's conscience often gave her an uncomfortable half hour as she grew stronger. They were so good to her also. They never bothered her with advice now, but she knew they expected her to remain with them; that she would keep the baby they had learned to love there also. She dreaded the time when she would have to tell them she was going, and lazily kept her bed for several days after she was able to be about. Peter's letter had remained unanswered, al- though Aunt Martha had written him that Bertha had named the baby Clarence, after no one in particular, but because she liked the name. When Peter received Aunt Martha's letter telling him that Bertha was doing nicely, that he had a wonderful son and that Bertha had named him "Clarence Hunter Moore, ' ' he had just come from the shack where he had run into Madeline Dawson. He waited until he was alone to read it. In fact, he waited for some time. As usual, when he saw Madeline he was perturbed, unsettled. But finally he opened and read the homely letter from the good-hearted woman who was willing to do so much for his wife and child if she were allowed. "Clarence," he said aloud; "Clarence," he repeated. "I wonder where she found the name. I wish she had 216 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE named him. John or Henry instead. I suppose Peter would have been too common, anyway." Suddenly he pulled himself together and finished the letter. He was delighted that Aunt Martha wanted Bertha and the baby to remain with her. She showed her pride in and love for the baby in every line she wrote. That Bertha would refuse to remain with Mrs. Robinson never entered his mind. It had been her home ever since she went to New York, and as her aunt and uncle were pleased to have Her and the baby, why, it was only natural they should stay. It someway made Peter feel happier about them to know that good, solid Uncle Nat and comfortable, sensible Aunt Martha were to be with them. "Bertha will write herself in a few days. She doesn't feel quite up to it," her aunt said, feeling that some such message was necessary, although when she had asked Bertha she had replied : "Oh, tell him what you like! I am too tired to think!" Mrs. Robinson described his son. "He will look like you, Peter. His features and coloring are yours, I think, although it is hard to tell in so young a babe. But there is nothing of Bertha in him that any of us can see. You must take care of yourself now. Don't let them Germans get you. A boy needs a father to take care of him," etc. When Peter had finished the letter for the second time he sat quietly dreaming, a far-away look in his eyes. "Yes, a boy needs a father unless he has a mother like mine," he muttered. Then, "I told her to name 217 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE him what she pleased ; it was her right. But Clarence well, he can be just as good a boy as if he were named John or even Peter," he finished with a wry smile. Then, after a moment, he continued his soliloquy. "I think I'll call him 'Hunter.' That isn't a bad name for a boy. Clarence can be his mother's name for him." Peter did not realize that even in choosing to call his boy by some other name than the one he would be given by Bertha he had emphasized the distance between them. To him it was already so great that nothing could bridge it. Yet he did not mean to draw away from her ; noth- ing was further from his thoughts. He really wanted to feel differently. He would have been happy could he have blotted out the knowledge of her character his furlough had given him and could have felt, as he used, that she was keeping pace with him; that when war had given him back to her he would find a congenial, loving spirit waiting to take up her life by his side and make a home for him and his children. But now he had no such illusions. He had come to know Bertha, and her naked soul had been exposed to him in all its bar- renness. His life must be what he made it if he was spared to go back again. He could hope nothing, ex- pect nothing from her. Whenever his thoughts turned in this direction, when- ever he thought of Bertha and how little they ever could have in common, strangely there was always a faint longing for something different to look forward to, and that something often took on the form and face of Madeline Dawson. That Peter did not wilfully, even willingly, compare 218 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE the two girls or women made no difference in the guilty feeling he invariably experienced after he had allowed himself to think in this manner. And he would take himself to task and flagellate himself because his thoughts wandered in forbidden channels forbidden by himself because he, a married man, not only did wrong to allow himself to think of another than Bertha, but because it was an offense, in his eyes, to the woman whom he honored, the ''English Angel." Peter replied to Aunt Martha's letter, and no trace of his disappointment over his boy's name appeared in the closely written lines. He showed his delight that Mr. and Mrs. Robinson were willing to burden them- selves with a young babe in their quiet home, and ex- pressed his thanks volubly for him. He cautioned Mrs. Robinson to take good care of Bertha, and said that while he longed always to hear from home, especially now, he did not want her to exert herself to write to him. Then he added that he hoped Bertha would go home when the hot weather came and stay in Haynes- ville for two or three months. It would be better for her and the boy than heated New York. Yet as he wrote Peter had a feeling that she would not go, not even though it were better for both her and the child. 219 CHAPTER XX FOR days Peter had been in the thick of things. The weather seemed in "cahoots with the Huns," as one of the men expressed it, ' ' running a race to see which could make them the more uncomfortable. ' ' The mud was up to their knees in the trenches, they even found a liberal supply managed somehow to get into their food. "The girls who are stuck on brass buttons and uni- forms ought to see us now," one Yank grinningly said. "Gutter snipes is what we look like. Between the mud and the shells of the Hun we are having the devil of a time, ain't we?" Peter laughed with the rest at his countryman's grumbling. He knew that with the whistle the grumbler would be the first over the top, one of the last to retreat. Many times Peter thought of the terrible desecration of war. The green fields, quaint little villages nestling among the hills, churches and schools, and people as he had often seen them. Inoffensive citizens, women and children were there one day, and the next there was nothing but ruin. The green fields pitted with pill boxes, torn up by shells. The villages bombed, and in ruins, the churches faintly discernible perhaps by their towers. And the people that long, sad-faced line of refugees, could they 220 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE be the same happy peasants that tilled their lit- tle gardens, and went happily about their day's work? Yet with it all, the desecration, the awfulness, Peter never lost the uplift that he had taken with him when first he offered himself for the cause of freedom. He felt always a great gratitude that he had been able to take part in it all. A great solemnity that he had been considered worthy. To him a halo of glory seemed to be the reward of all who fought for country, and for all that world freedom and democracy represented, whether they "went west," or whether they lived through the hurtling shells, the scathing fire, and the bayonets of the Huns to return to civil life. He wrote his mother once: "If I 'go west,' mother dear, remember that I go gloriously, proudly, because I have been deemed worthy of gaining the great adventure through fire. One sees death on every hand, until the king of terrors is robbed of his power to excite fear in us, and we meet him with a smile. Yet I shall remember your caution, and not court danger. Now less than ever that I have another life dependent upon me. I cannot explain the emotion that thought raises, mother dear. I can scarcely com- prehend that I am a father. Perhaps had I been with Bertha, had welcomed the little stranger on his arrival, it might have seemed more real to me. But to think I have a son who may be a big boy running around be- fore I see him (if I ever do see him) is almost incon- ceivable. I feel so like a little boy myself, your 'little son,' as you used always to call me. 221 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE "We had a stiff fight last night. Some of my boys were wounded. All is quiet today. I must close and go to them, then try and get some sleep. "Your son, "PETER." Peter posted his letter on the way to the shack. He was tired and his legs lagged. Madeline Dawson was so busy with her "babies" that he only caught fleeting glances of her as he searched out his men who had been carried to her shack after the engagement. Suddenly she stood beside him. "Please come with me a minute," she said quietly. "One of your countrymen is badly hurt, an aviator. They brought him in here, as he is too badly injured to stand being carried to the hospital." Peter followed quietly. He had not spoken. Madeline stopped before a cot on which lay a slight young man with delicately refined features. His broken body was bandaged and incased in splints, but his face was uninjured. He was raving, and she stooped over and laid her hand on his low forehead. "Poor boy!" she murmured. "Do you know him?" "No, never saw him before, but he's a Yank, all right. Pretty serious, isn't it?" "Very scarcely any chance for him, the doctor said. His mechanician was killed. He fell last night, just in- side the lines, fortunately. They brought him here, fixed him up and he has been like that ever since. He calls for a girl, talks about getting married, and tells her how pretty she is, her name excuse me, 1 11 have to go." And without mentioning the name the delirious 222 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE American had called she flitted away. Peter stood a moment by the bed, then he also left the unknown avia- tor to sit with one of the men of his' company who had had his arm blown off by a shell. But after Peter left the shack the face of the young aviator, his wild eyes and incoherent speech came back to him. He wondered who he was, and wished there was something he might do for him. At this time, in spite of his entanglements, Peter made no effort to evade life, but instead he called it to play upon his soul at all angles. He took it in his hands with large courage and flung it back with all his might. At times he was folded in a personal peace, totally distinct from his surroundings, and it was in a manner this per- sonal peace in an age of unrest that individualized as well as in a manner isolated him. And yet Peter never in his life had been so approach- able. His face, stern at times, was often lighted up by mirth as he laughed and joked with his men, or was softened by a wistful compassion in his deep-set eyes. It seemed only a few months ago that he was merely one among many small town boys who rose with the sun, did their allotted trivial tasks, and went to rest when darkness came. Now he was a man, an individual who, fighting for his country, would have to render an ac- count to that country if he failed in any slightest par- ticular to do his duty. To accomplish his share in what must be done. At times, especially when he thought of Bertha, an astonishing sense of loneliness came over him, a feeling that because she was as she was he would never know 223 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE the delights of a home and companionship as did and would other men. During long intervals he would ban- ish all such thoughts and concentrate upon his duties, but never did he see Madeline Dawson that they did not recur to him. Never did he watch her bending tenderly over her "babies" that the remembrance of Bertha's in- difference when he went home to her wounded did not come back to him in all its bitterness. Her carelessness of him, her lack of sympathy, her evident reluctance to be with him, contrasted painfully with the tender womanliness of the "English Angel" of the shack back of the lines. But Peter firmly refused to allow his mind often to dwell upon Bertha, or to contrast her with Madeline. Love and tender dreams were pushed into the back- ground of his mind by the exigencies of his life, his devotion to duty now grown more arduous. Daily he moved among men who had everything to live for, lov- ing wives, home and children. Yet they like himself were urged by a chivalrous spirit of heroism to give their lives cheerfully for the cause to which they had pledged themselves, regardless of these claims upon them. The rebirth of the men about him was to Peter a cause of constant wonder and delight. The lazy, the unedu- cated, the common, were insensibly going through a process which eliminated all the dross from their na- tures, which gave them a spiritual outlook inconceiv- able to them in the past. It was a slow, steady, refining by the fire of battle, added to by the companionship of those men who, like Peter, diffused an atmosphere of 224 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE patriotism combined with a desire for their own men- tal improvement and advancement. In fact, the great melting pot had absorbed them. The women with whom Peter came in contact, although few in number, were women of high ideals and daunt- less courage. Women of the same fiber as was his mother. They went about their duties cheerfully, whether nursing wounded soldiers, serving at the can- teens behind the lines where falling shells made their positions dangerous, driving a Red Cross ambulance, or assisting old men, women and children as they evacuated the towns the Hun made unsafe for them to live in. Peter in his times of respite when back in the trenches thought often of the delicate-featured American boy he was little more who, Madeline had told him, had scant chance to live. "Lucky he fell inside our own lines," he said to a comrade as he told of the young aviator. "I hate to see the damned Huns put their hands on one of our fliers." "Was he a friend of yours?" "No. Never saw him before. He was delirious. I believe I'll go over and see if he is still alive when I get a chance. Some way I can't get him out of my mind. The nurse" Peter flushed as he always did when he referred to Madeline Dawson "said he con- stantly talked of some girl, urging her to marry him. Perhaps if he dies it will be better for her that she did not. He was a nice-looking chap" reminiscently "rather delicate-looking, but he must have been brave or he couldn't have been a flier. He looked like an 225 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE aristocratic sort, too. His hands were soft and well cared for as a woman's. He was terribly broken up though, scarcely a bone in his body left whole. His mechanician was killed, poor fellow." "Them fliers take an awful chance," the other mused. "I'd rather face the Huns with my feet on the ground." "I don't know as it makes much difference what we do or where we do it if it is only our best to help," Peter returned slowly. "You see we are needed here, he was needed up there," pointing upward. "The nurse said he had brought down three German planes before they got him." "Bully for the Yank! I'd be contented to 'go west,' too, if I could give such an account of myself to Saint Peter when he let me in." 226 CHAPTER XXI BERTHA was up and about once more. She had not yet told her aunt of her plans, although she and Julia had been on several shopping excursions together, and much of what she intended to purchase had already been delivered at the little flat. She had, however, written Peter a short note. She made no apologies, she asked no advice. "I have taken a small apartment only four rooms and shall live there instead of with Aunt Martha. Clar- ence is well. They say he looks like you. I have a good girl engaged to take care of him and shall go back to the shop in another week or two. They raised me rather than have me leave, and as I don't know anything about babies, and do know about hats, I decided to get some one to keep house and take care of Clarence and keep right on earning money to pay for it. Of course, 1 couldn't live in New York on what you send me." There was a little more, but all in the same vein. Ber- tha flattered herself it was a clever letter. "He'll see there's no use making a howl after it is done," she said to herself. "Just as sure as I had asked him he would have tried to keep me here." Aunt Martha and Uncle Nat were devoted to Ber- tha's baby. In fact, it was their devotion which gave 227 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE her the time to get out and buy the furniture for her flat. Her aunt thought she was with her young friends, and as it was always in the daytime she never com- plained. She really was pleased, as she then could have little Clarence all to herself, and pet and fuss over him to her heart's content. ''Oh, Nat," she said one night, "whatever would we do if Bertha should take him away?" "She ain't going to take him, Martha, so don't fret. She won't go back to Haynesville, you know, so where else could she take him?" "I am growing to love him so it would be like losing a baby of my own to have him go. You see, Nat, Ber- tha leaves him with me every day now that she is able to get out. We have such nice times together, don't we, baby?" she asked of the cooing babe in her arms. "There, Martha, don't cross any bridges till you come to them," her husband answered, kindly, yet what she had said, her expressed fear of losing the little one, had impressed him. He should sorrow only in a lesser degree if Bertha took the boy away from them. But he wouldn 't let Martha see she had worried him. The mother spirit in her was being satisfied by caring for Bertha's baby. He would do all he could to keep them ; to make Bertha happy and contented. Hardly had he reached this decision when Bertha came in. She had been away nearly all day. The flat was all ready, the woman she had engaged in charge. She intended to move the baby and herself on the mor- row, then the next day she would go back to the shop. 228 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE ' ' Dinner 's most ready, Bertha. Here, you take this big boy while I dish it up. " Bertha took her baby from Mrs. Robinson, but im- mediately laid him on the couch. "I have some things to do upstairs. I'll be down in a few minutes," she said in rather an embarrassed man- ner. It wasn 't going to be easy to tell her aunt and uncle of her plans. "I wonder what she's doing," Mrs. Kobinson said, as she hustled about her work. "She acted strange. Don't you think so?" "Nonsense, mother! Didn't I tell you to stop fret- ting?" Yet even as he spoke Uncle Nat picked up the baby and held him close, as if his wife 's speech had made him also uneasy. Bertha was very quiet all through dinner. When they were nearly finished she said : "I'm going back to the shop, Aunt Martha, and now " "Oh, Bertha!" her uncle interrupted. "You don't have to, you know. With what Peter sends you you can do very nicely here with us. "And, Bertha, you ain't no need to pay board now. My work is steady, and since we went into the war a skilled mechanic gets good wages. I never earned so much before, so we won't feel your board a bit. Maybe by and by, when this little scamp gets to eating hearty, we'll charge for him," affecting a pleasantry he did not feel. "I am going back." Bertha's tone was decided. "I haven't told you, but they paid me all the time I was 229 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE sick and have raised me $5 a week besides. You see, I can sell more hats than any one in the shop." "Of course, you must do as you like, but I had hoped you would be happy with us and the baby." "I haven't told you what else I am going to do. You all made such a fuss over my shop work; you didn't give me a chance. I am going to move. I shall go tomor- row. I have a flat and shall keep house. I have found a nice woman to do the work and take care of Clarence. I engaged the expressman to come early in the morning for my trunk. I '11 have to hurry and get all packed up tonight. When you are ready to have me wipe the dishes call me," and without a look at either her aunt or her uncle, neither of whom had spoken, Bertha hurried up- stairs. "Thank goodness, that's over. It wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be, ' ' she said when she gained her room. Left alone, Mr. and Mrs. Robinson stared at each other across the table. Then her head went down on her arms and hard, dry sobs shook her as she thought of her lone- liness after the baby would be gone. ' ' Don 't, Martha ! Please don 't, ' ' Mr. Eobinson begged. He never had seen his placid, common-sense wife so moved. "Perhaps she will change her mind. I'll go up and talk to her. ' ' He started for the stairs. "No, Nat," she raised her head and looked a him with sad, tearless eyes. "No, it won't do any good. She has it all done now. That's what she has been doing these days when she was out all day furnishing that place. And you heard her say she had got a woman to 230 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE take care of him," her voice trembled. "Some hired person who won't love him, maybe won't be good to him. I can't bear it, Nat! I just can't!" and for the first time in years Martha Robinson wept hot, scalding tears as she took up the sleeping baby and held him close to her motherly breast. "I have so wanted a baby of my own, Nat, and he seemed almost as if he belonged to me. Bertha didn't seem to care very much, you know." "Yes, I know, and it's a damn shame!" Martha Robinson heard an oath on her husband's lips for the first time. "Oh, I can't let him go!" she wailed, just as Bertha called : "Ready, Aunt Martha?" "No, not yet. I'll call you. Uncle Nat and I have been talking," she answered, her voice unsteady. The two sat in silence for a few moments longer. Then Martha quietly deposited her precious burden in her husband's arms and commenced to clear away. Her face was pale and she moved slowly, otherwise she was as usual. The work must be done, it was her work, and even her sorrow was no excuse for an untidy or uncomfortable home for Nat. By and by she called: "All ready now, Bertha." They worked side by side for a while without speak- ing. Then Aunt Martha said: "You are determined to go, Bertha?" ' ' Yes, Aunt Martha. I need a home of my own now. ' ' She quoted Julia. 231 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE "But I would gladly take care of the baby if you really want to go back to the shop." "I know," impatiently, "but that isn't the idea at all. I am a married woman, old enough to have a baby, and I guess I am old enough to have my own home and do as I please. I have friends I want to entertain, and" she caught herself. She had not in- tended to let her aunt see that one reason she left was because she would have more freedom; that it really was the reason. "If that was all you can have your friends come here all you want to. And you heard what your uncle said. It won't cost you a penny." "It's too late to talk of that now. I intend to do as I please. And I please to be independent and have a home of my own. I guess you wanted one when you were married, didn't you?" "Yes, Bertha, I did. But it was different. Nat and me never was separated for a day. I had to have a home for him. But Peter is way off in Europe, and you are going to be busy all day. I wish you would make up your mind to stay. I'll take better care of the baby than a stranger would." Her voice broke as she men- tioned the baby. "I told you it was too late." Bertha's conscience troubled her a little, and so she was even more impa- tient than before. "You can go and see him during the day whenever you want to." Mrs. Robinson made no reply. She had noted Bertha 's invitation was only for "during the day," and a swift 232 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE prescience of her niece's reason for leaving her flashed over her mind. ' ' Poor Peter, ' ' she said to herself as Bertha went into another room, unconsciously using Peter's mother's phrase, "Poor fellow. It would be just as well perhaps if he didn't come back." Then as Bertha returned she asked : "Have you told Peter?" "Yes." "Have you heard since?" "No." Then hotly: "It ain't any of his business, anyway. If he wants to have anything to say about what I do let him stay where I am ! ' ' "But he can't. He's fighting so we will be able to live safely, like we always have. He'd been drafted by this time if he Ladn't enlisted with the Canadians, so he'd been away just the same." Mrs. Robinson always had entertained the idea that Bertha resented Peter's leaving her so soon after they were married. "Let him fight! I don't interfere with him. And I shan't let him interfere with me." "You don't mean that you would do anything Peter didn't want you to do?" Her aunt was horrified. "I mean that I shall do as I want to; that's all." "And you are determined to go and take the baby?" "Yes, and do stop talking about it. I am tired to death." Stunned, incapable of objecting further, Mrs. Robin- son hid her grief as best she was able. It was like part- ing with a bit of her own heart, she said afterward. That night she held little Clarence long after he 233 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE had gone to sleep while Bertha finished her packing. Then after all in the house slept she washed out the tiny flannel garments, so that everything might be sweet and clean to take away. "No hired woman will keep them soft for him," she murmured, pressing a tiny shirt to her cheek. ' ' It takes such careful washing." The gray dawn was just peeping into the windows when she finally lay down. An hour later she was stirring again. Nat must not be neglected; he must have his breakfast on time. She could indulge her grief when she was alone in the house she would be alone all day long when the baby was gone. Bertha also was up betimes, anxious now that she had told her aunt to get away as soon as possible. "No use prolonging the agony," she muttered as she dressed. She had realized the night before that her aunt was terribly hurt, although she had no conception of Mrs. Robinson's real feeling. She bade her uncle good-bye after breakfast. "I hope you won't regret leaving us, Bertha," he said kindly, his wife 's pale face making him very gentle. "If you do and want to come back you can." "Thank you, Uncle Nat, but I want a home of my own." After he left she offered to help with the breakfast things, but was immeasurably relieved when her aunt told her to go and look after her own affairs. A tete-a- tete was the last thing she desired. Finally the time came to dress little Clarence for his short journey to his new home. Mrs. Robinson asked very meekly: 234 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE "May I dress him, Bertha? You'll have lots of time to do it after you go. ' ' "Certainly; go ahead," Bertha said carelessly, hiding her feeling of guilt under a flippant manner. "If she nursed the baby it would be different," Aunt Martha had said to her husband, "but I could take care of him just as well and better than anyone she can hire. ' ' That thought was in her mind as she fixed his bottle and dressed him, prolonging her task as much as pos- sible. Finally there was nothing more to do. Bertha was ready and waiting; the taxi was honk-honking outside. So with one last kiss, one more caution to be sure the woman with whom she trusted her baby was good to him, Aunt Martha laid the precious bundle in his moth- er's arms and let them go. * * One would think I was going to abuse him, ' ' Bertha muttered. "I love him, too even if I didn't want him," and she did in a way. But it was in her own selfish way, and. so long as he did not interfere with her plans or her pleasures. That, she had no intention of allowing him to do any more than she had her aunt and uncle. While Bertha and her son were moving away from her aunt's and so breaking the last link that bound her to her own people, Peter was wending his way to the shack. Madeline Dawson had sent for him. "That American aviator is dying. I wish you would come over. It wouldn't seem quite so sad if one of his own people were with him." He walked slowly, no elasticity in his step. He had 235 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE only just finished Bertha's note telling him she was going to leave her aunt, when Madeline's message came. He would read it over again when he returned. But the silent fact remained with him. His little son was to be left to the tender mercies of a hireling because she Bertha could not be contented to live on what he provided. That was the reason he gave, the only one that occurred to him. "I am glad you came," Madeline said. "It won't be long. He is rational now." Peter forgot his own troubles the moment he saw the dying aviator. He seated himself close to him and gently asked if there was anything he could do for him. "We're both Americans, you know," he added, with his engaging smile. "Yes, lieutenant, there is something you can do. I never amounted to much had too much money, I guess. But there's a girl back there in the States, a girl I love and was going to marry. She's a good girl, or perhaps I wouldn't have wanted to marry her. I was pretty wild and the kind of girls I trained with could most of them be had for the asking. But Bertha was different and we were to be married. Then the war came and I had to enlist. I had played with aviation like I played with other things for my own amusement. I have made a will the nurse, the English angel helped me. It is witnessed and all right. I want Bertha to have every- thing. "Bertha Bertha who?" It was not of his own voli- tion that Peter spoke. The words seemed to be forced from him. 236 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE "Bertha Moore. The sweetest, dearest little girl in New York, even if she does work in a hat shop." Peter stared in such a way that the sick man moved uneasily on his pillow, at a loss to understand. "Her name is Bertha, Bertha Moore," he repeated/ "and she is the sweetest little girl in all New York, if she does work in a hat shop. You know I begged her to leave and let me take care of her, but no, she would only do that after we were married good girl Bertha. " The pain halted his speech. "She was going to marry you?" Peter's voice sounded faint, far away. "Why, yes. You see, Yank, we had an accident automobile knocked a vegetable cart made a hash out of his stuff thought Bertha was killed found I loved her more'n I thought I did. More than any other girl. She promised to marry me," more firmly as the pain again subsided, "then her mother was taken sick. When she came back to New York we came into this war. I had been an aviator for fun for a long time. So I came over. We were to be married as soon as I went back. But it's no use thinking of that now the doctor told the nurse I heard him that it was all up with me. So I'll 'go west,' instead of going home." He had been fumbling with something while he talked. Now he motioned Peter to take it. "It's her picture, Yank. Will you have it buried with me? Here's her letters. I want to keep them as long as I live. Then you destroy them. You've got a good face, lieutenant; one a man can trust. You'll see the will is properly attended to, won't you I " He waited 237 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE a minute, then asked again, "Won't you? My name, lieutenant, is Bates Freeman." Peter's eyes never for a moment had left the picture he held in his hand. A picture of Bertha, his wife. Yet the woman who had promised herself to that broken aviator, who believed in her truth and goodness. The man who, whatever his faults, had given his life for his country. The picture, taken only a short time before Bates Freeman had left New York, was indeed a true likeness of Bertha, but Bertha in her happiest mood. Exquisitely dressed, a smile on her pretty face, she now gazed up from the silver frame at Peter as if she were mocking him. Peter looked from her to the man on the narrow cot and wondered. He had no way of knowing that the experiences of the last few weeks and months had re- fined all the dross from the young millionaire's nature. That he was; gazing at a very different man than the one who had left New York and Bertha. There was high resolve, manliness in every line of the pale, aristo- cratic face. All traces of self-indulgence had disap- peared. Only the brave look of the man who has done his duty remained. How could such a man as this be captivated by Bertha? "You see, I have no one but her," Bates went on after a while. "And it would be a shame to have it go to strangers. She loves pretty things; she is pretty her- self. I'll die easy, lieutenant, if you'll promise to see that she is taken care of you look good," he said, simply, "and I must trust somebody." 238 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE Torn with conflicting emotions, his soul sick within him, Peter solemnly promised to do as the sick man requested. He tried to put the fact that this same Bertha who had promised to marry this Bates Freeman was his wife, from his mind. He had no right to send the brave soul of the aviator on its long journey sorrowing because of selfishness on his part. He did not need to be told that the wreck of a man lying before him had been entirely innocent that he even existed or that Bertha was already married, and so had no right to promise herself to him. He had sensed that when Bates Freeman first began to talk. But, as always, it was the thing which had to be done ; the thing which must be accomplished that steadied Peter. "I'll do the best I can, Freeman," he said, quietly, his own face almost as gray as that of the dying aviator. ' ' I trust you, ' ' Bates Freeman whispered, worn out with his attempt to explain his wishes. "The picture don't forget to bury it with me." Just then Madeline Dawson came to the cot. "Come away. He is quiet now. The doctor says he may pass away at any time, or he may live a day or two. Did he tell you what he wanted of you ? Was he able to make you understand?" she asked. ' ' Yes, I understand, and I promised, ' ' Peter answered, looking at Madeline as if he never had seen her before. "You you aren't ill yourself, are you, Lieutenant Moore ? You are dreadfully white. ' ' It scarcely seemed possible that a man famed for being in the thickest of the fight, exposing himself to all sorts of danger, would 239 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE quail because of anything the dying aviator could have told him. Madeline was sure they never had met; both had so assured her. Yet Peter was ghastly white and almost staggered as he left the shack. "No, I am not ill," he told Madeline. She had noticed that he moistened his lips as he spoke and that he did not seem aware of her presence, although he answered her question. 240 CHAPTER XXII His men wondered that night what had come over Lieutenant Moore. He not only did not talk and laugh with them as usual, but he did not seem to hear when spoken to. "Must have had bad news from home, poor fellow," one man said. "Nothing else could make him like that. It isn't a grouch; he acts dazed, almost as if he didn't know what he was doing. ' ' "The kindest thing we can do is to keep away," an- other soldier who had spoken to Peter without exciting his attention remarked. "It may be his mother or someone told me he was married " he left the sen- tence unfinished. All night Peter sat, his head on his hands, his elbows on the table. He might have been carved out of stone so rigid was he. It was not the fact that he loved Bertha, or that she had promised to marry another man while still his wife, that had shocked him so terribly; it was that the mother of his son should do such a thing. "Thank God! oh, thank God!" he whispered as toward morning he recalled dimly that Bates had de- clared more than once that Bertha was "good." That she wouldn't allow him to care for her until they were 241 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE married. "She my boy." Then he broke down, and long, anguished sobs shook him for a few moments. Could Peter have known that Bertha was really able to leave her aunt, to go by herself because of the safe feeling Bates' generosity had given her he might not so unequivocally have accepted Bates' version of ' ' good. ' ' Fortunately for his peace of mind he could not know. He had a letter that day from Bertha. Curiously he felt less desire than usual to know what she had written ; was more deliberate in opening it. It was the short note Bertha had written telling him she was going back to the shop and that she had taken a flat. He thought at first it was because he felt so numb that he didn't grasp what Bertha had written. But, holding his thoughts firmly in leash, he reread the note. "Going back to work and going to leave him with a hired woman." He wondered dimly as he talked to himself why she did not stay at her aunt's. There was no explanation he could think of until there flashed across his mind Bates Freeman. That was it ! She was leaving her own people, delib- erately cutting herself off from their sympathy and help so that when Freeman came back she could marry him and his millions. Strangely, when Peter's lips moved he breathed "poor fellow," meaning Freeman, and using the same words his mother always used when speaking of him in connection with Bertha. Peter had grown wonderfully, yet in the ways of women, especially of one like Bertha, he was woefully ignorant. She couldn't divorce him, he had done noth- ing. That she was waiting for him to die so that she 242 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE could marry Bates Freeman seemed too horrible. If she were it was the very irony of fate, that it should be the young millionaire who should be taken and he, Peter Moore, the factory man's son, left. Once more Madeline Dawson sent for him. "That young aviator is dying," she had scrawled on a piece of paper. Heavily, Peter, with dragging feet, made his way to the shack and to the cot where lay Bates Freeman. Yes, he was going. The veriest tyro in death could see that ; and Peter Moore had seen the grim reaper gather in his mates too often not to recognize him when he appeared. ' ' I knew you would come, ' ' Bates whispered. ' ' See I had a letter the mail was in to-day you know." Yes, Peter knew. His own letter had been in the same girlish handwriting. " Please read it I can't see." Repressing a groan Peter read the love letter penned by his wife to another man. A letter full of loving words, lively, interesting to one who knew of what she was writing. She referred to his frequent letters and the joy and happiness they brought her; to the time when he should come back to her; of how anxious she was for fear he might get hurt when flying. There was a lightness, a spontaneity about the letter that revealed a different Bertha, one Peter never had known. He read the letter through faithfully, skipping no word. That would be like cheating a dying man of the last bit of happiness he was to have on earth, Peter thought when once he hesitated before a love passage. "Thank you, lieutenant take them all when I die burn them but her picture let me take that with me 243 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE you are good I trust you with Bertha good- bye" a long-drawn sigh and the soul of Bates Free- man, purified by his sacrifice, had gone to its Maker, leaving as a sacred legacy Bertha Moore, the girl he loved, to her own husband, Lieutenant Moore, the man whom he believed "good" and whom he trusted. Was ever a more complicated situation conceived, Peter wondered, yet with the large courage that was his he had not quailed in the face of what would have been the impossible for many. Madeline Dawson told him of the will. In it "Miss" Bertha Moore was left sole heir of Bates Freeman's immense fortune, save for a sum of $200,000 he had given to the government to be used in the interests of aviation. Like a flash came enlightenment. Bates Freeman did not know Bertha was married. That explained much he had said which before had puzzled Peter. That incriminating "Miss." But why? Bertha had been the one who wanted to marry him: not he Bertha. Per- haps he was mistaken after all and it had been just a slip with whoever had written the hurriedly made will of the dead aviator. "Who wrote the young man's will, young Freeman?" he asked the doctor. "I did, and the nurse and one of the other doctors witnessed it." "Miss Dawson, you are sure he said 'Miss' Moore? There can be no mistake, can there ? I would like to be quite sure." Peter's anxiety to know made him care- less of the surprise exhibited by both nurse and doctor. 244 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE "No, it is all right. He mentioned her several times. He always called her 'Miss.' " "Thank you, Miss Dawson." Peter turned away, still feeling that perhaps he was wronging Bertha by his thought. Yet it intruded and would not allow him to rest because of its insistence. What should he do? Had Peter's mother been where he could have asked her advice, he probably would have done so. But this was something he could not put on paper. The bare fact that Bates Freeman had left his money to Bertha, yes. But that was the smallest part of the trouble in which he found himself. That he could dispose of Bertha, of course, could not accept the gift. It would have to go to whomever was next of kin. But that in no way simplified his worry; his fear that Bertha might have repudiated her marriage because of Bates Free- man ; that she might have perjured herself. And Bertha was his wife. Bates Freeman had asked that the will be sent to America as soon as possible, naming the lawyer to whom it should be forwarded and who would see that his wishes were carried out. Peter smiled grimly as he thought that he had been saved that task. "It's a wonder he didn't ask me to take it to her," he said aloud, the irony of the thing on his nerves. He had not been able to banish that "Miss" from his mind, nor the thought that Bertha had deceived the aviator whom he exonerated from all blame. "A dying man tells the truth. He thought her good and true." 245 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE Madeline Dawson saw Peter was troubled, but had no thought that anything in the dead aviator's will could be the cause. So thinking to take his mind from whatever was worrying him, she also told him of Bates Freeman's bequest to the government: the $200,000 for use in aviation. "He was very brave, poor fellow," she added. "He must have suffered intensely ; then to die so young. But he talked to me a little, and I am sure he was good, that he had no reason to fear going 'over there.' He told me very little about himself, save that he had been rather wild. Yet from what he said I have a feeling that even though he had been 'wild' he had not been really bad ever. And since he joined the service he had been 'made over' so he expressed it. I recall, he said to me: " 'No man can be a soldier and not want to do the best he can to live right. There is something about it that takes hold of a fellow and makes him desire to be clean clean all through,' nothing could make me be- lieve that he wasn't a good man," she finished. "Yes, Tie was good," Peter replied, almost uncon- sciously emphasizing the "he." His face still retaining its somber expression. After he left her Madeline looked longingly after his retreating figure. Suddenly her eyes filled. He must have some trouble he couldn't or wouldn't share. She longed to help him, to comfort him, and was helpless. For almost the first time since he had known her, Peter had no thought of Madeline Dawson as he walked away from the shack. His shoulders sagged, his chin 246 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE was on his breast. His whole figure spoke depression, trouble. "Yes, he was good clean," he muttered, going over in his mind the little talk Madeline had had with Bates Freeman. But it was of Bates he thought, not Made- line. The letter he had received from Bertha that morning was still in his pocket. He had not reread it as was his habit when hoping to get some grain of comfort from her quickly scrawled and uninteresting notes. His hand rustled it, he drew it out and opened it. Slowly as he walked he read it the second time. ' ' Yes, she was surely cutting herself off from everyone belonging to her. It must be because of some motive, and that motive he felt sure was her interest in the young aviator now dead, the man who wanted her pic- ture buried with him. No young girl that was all Bertha was cuts herself off from all the help and com- fort near relatives can give, especially if she has a young baby, without some very urgent reason ; at least that she considered urgent. Bertha had hoped the Huns would get him, Peter, and that Bates would come back to her. Le bon Dieu had ordered differently. "One shall be taken, the other left," occurred to him as he tore Ber- tha's note in tiny pieces and threw them from him. 247 CHAPTER XXIII BERTHA MOORE was settled in her flat and was really most comfortable. She had stumbled onto a very good woman, who was kind to little Clarence and who, be- cause she appreciated having a place where she was virtually mistress, kept the rooms daintily clean. There was one fly in the ointment of Bertha's comfort as far as her home was concerned ; no, really two. Julia Lawrence made it her " hanging out place," as she ex- pressed it, bringing her "young man" whenever she felt disposed, and taking possession of the living room. And occasionally Aunt Martha would drop in to see the baby at inopportune times. She never had stopped grieving because Bertha had taken the child away, and she never came empty-handed. But once or twice she had hap- pened to arrive when Bertha had company, a gay crowd of young men and girls, whose actions Mrs. Robinson disapproved of. She found no fault. It was Bertha's home, and she had no right, but her face plainly showed she was scandalized. Julia had told Bertha she would be free to do as she pleased in a home of her own, and Bertha had soon realized to the full the license it gave her. She no longer tried to pass herself off as unmarried among those whom she received at the flat. It would have been impossible 248 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE with a young baby in the house. But at the shop and among Bates Freeman's friends she was still "Miss Moore." With Bates' departure for the front she had gradually withdrawn from his set. It required too many excuses, too many lies told. While with this other crowd, most of them introduced to her by Julia Lawrence, she was freer, more comfortable, because there was no need of deceit. Bertha knew very well that Bates would disapprove of these friends. They were not at all in his class. Peter, of course, would have been horrified to know that she, a married woman, entertained other men when alone, even if it were done innocently. His idea of married life was all taken from his knowledge of the married people of Haynesville. He had no other pat- tern. So far as Peter was concerned, it worried Bertha not at all. "He could like what she did or not, she didn't care," she often told Julia. Her independence of him, as far as support went, added to her recklessness where he was concerned. What he sent her amounted to so little compared to what she now earned. "I should hate awfully to have Bates know I was friendly with that bunch," she remarked inelegantly to Julia one night after a particularly hilarious time with some people she had just met. Julia was spending the night as she so often did after Bertha had company. It was easier than going home, also much pleasanter. "It isn't any of his business, either, as I can see," Julia returned as she helped herself to Bertha's cold cream. "He isn't taking care of you, is he?" Julia 249 never was quite sure that Bertha was honest with her as regarded Bates Freeman. "No, it isn't any of his business, really," Bertha re- turned, "but Bates was awfully particular about who I went with, you know. ' ' "What he don't know about won't hurt him," Julia, with her usual disregard for the proprieties, replied with a shrug. Yet Bertha really felt worried at times for fear Bates would in some way hear of her new friends. He never had quite approved of Julia, although she had shown him only her best side. She was almost the only girl friend Bertha had, however, when Bates met her, so he had not objected to the intimacy. Bertha said nothing more to Julia on the subject, but she often thought of it. And it was the influence of Bates Freeman, sport and man-about-town, that kept Bertha Moore good, and not the influence of Peter Moore, her husband. And in a way Peter, so far away, had realized this. Bates Freeman's talk of Bertha, his declaration that she was "good and true" had made Peter understand that Bates had been an influence for good in Bertha's life, even while she had been deceiving him so ter- ribly. Little Clarence was also doing something toward keep- ing Bertha from the too free manners and customs of some of her associates. It is not easy for the mother of a young child to ignore entirely her duty to him, his claims upon her. That this new "set" knew of the child was also a protection to that child's mother. They called 250 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE him "the kid" and joked Bertha about him, but never- theless he was a restraining influence. Bertha had thought seriously of leaving her present position and going into business for herself. Her clien- tele warranted it. She could easily find backing among the importers and wholesalers. She was held back by the thought of Bates; that if he returned and Peter didn't, they could be married at once. Each day brought news of the Americans killed and wounded. It was with conflicting emotions, however, that she eagerly scanned the page emotions she would have been ashamed to analyze. Bertha's mother had spent a week with her in the little flat which, to her mind, was so luxurious. Bertha 's good taste had made her careful in her buying, and the rooms were quietly and prettily furnished. In fact, they had quite an "air." Mrs. Hunter had been rather uncomfortable during the seven days she was in New York. The middle-aged woman who took care of the house and the baby as well resented any suggestions Mrs. Hunter made, and stub- bornly refused either to be convinced or to follow them. While she, anxious only for Bertha's welfare, for the comfort and health of the baby, grieved that no atten- tion was paid her plans for them. "He is just like his father," she told Bertha. "Just like him. There isn't a bit of Hunter in him, nor of my side of the house, either. I hope he will be as good a man as his father is," she added, her mind reverting to the vapid, perfumed youth who had called on Bertha the night she made her unexpected appearance. She had 251 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE hoped to give Bertha a happy surprise, so had not written her she was coming. Unfortunately, she had chanced in after one of Bertha's parties and the innocu- ous young man had remained after the rest had left. "I guess he'll be all right," Bertha had answered. "I don't know that being like Peter will make him any better, though." " Peter is a very good boy, Bertha. He writes his mother every chance he gets; and he must send you pretty near all his money now that you are living alone. Aunt Martha is feeling awfully bad yet about your leav- ing her. She said Nat offered to keep you for nothing if you would stay. I should think you would have liked to be with her. She loves the baby." "I didn't propose to live with anyone!" Bertha snapped. She never had felt the slightest fear to say what she willed to her mother, and now there was no hesitation in her speech. "I am a married woman. I earn my own money three times as much as Peter ever thought of getting and I intend to have my own home where I can invite my friends and go out with them when I please and not be talked to as if I were a child if I am out after ten o'clock. If Uncle Nat had held his tongue I might have been there yet. What differ- ence does it make if I am married ? I never see my hus- band, and I am young and like a good time. I am going to have it, too, just whenever I can. You and all the rest may as well understand it. ' ' After this tirade meek Mrs. Hunter never again men- tioned anything Bertha did while she remained. But her heart ached when she saw the sort of girls that were 252 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE her daughter's companions Bertha kept the young men away while her mother was with her they were so dif- ferent from the simple, red-cheeked Haynesville girls, not only in appearance, but in manners. ' ' They can 't be bad girls, ' ' she said to herself one day while holding the baby. Bertha was, as usual, at the shop and Ellen, the "housekeeper," as she insisted upon being called, was out. "Bertha wouldn't like them if they were. But I wish " She went no further in her thoughts. Like Peter she realized suddenly that Bertha would do as she pleased. Also, she understood that she had lost her ; that she was just as far from them all as if she were lying in the little country churchyard beside the boy who had died almost before he had lived. Bertha got off long enough to take her mother to the train when she went back to Haynesville. She had given her a new dress and a very nice bonnet, so con- sidered she had done her duty. That her mother had intended to remain with her a month or six weeks she never dreamed. . Mrs. Hunter had not mentioned it either to Bertha or to her husband's sister. But her heart sank when she thought of how she could explain her quick return to Henry and to the neighbors, especially to John Moore and his wife. "I hate to have them think she is so different," she muttered as she waved her hand at Bertha as the train moved away. "I wish I could keep it from them," and all the long, lonely journey Bertha's mother wept hot scalding tears behind her veil because of the change in her child. That Bertha was not radically changed she couldn't 253 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE realize nor would she admit it if she did. Yet she was the same selfish girl she always was. Only now that they had been so long separated Mrs. Hunter noticed it more than when Bertha was with her: that daily taking all and giving nothing in return either of love or service. "Well, I am glad you are alone again!" Julia Law- rence said the night Mrs. Hunter went away, as she flopped into the most comfortable chair in the room. "No one could talk or have a bit of fun with your mother here. I was frightened to death she would stay a long time." "Too bad about you ! If you wanted a good time why didn't you have it at home? You don't always have to come here, you know." Bertha was goaded into the reply by the thought that she, too, was glad her mother had gone, although her pride would not allow her to confess it, even to Julia. ' ' Now don 't be mad ! I didn 't mean anything. Heard from Bates?" "Not for days. A letter should be here by to-mor- row." Bertha was only too glad to change the subject. Acting on her husband's advice, to whom she had confessed all her thoughts and fears concerning Bertha, Mrs. Hunter had simply explained that she was not well and had returned because she feared a recurrence of her severe illness while away from home. No one questioned the truth of her statement: although Peter's mother had read between the lines of her son's letters, and understood. But upon the subject of Peter's baby she could not hear enough. Mrs. Hunter had to explain 254 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE just how he looked a dozen times over ; what kind of food he had; how they dressed him; if he needed anything, and all the questions a loving woman could ask concern- ing her first grandchild. Happily Mrs. Hunter could satisfy her on all points connected with the baby. He was well cared for; fat and happy. They sewed together for the little fellow, often talking of what they hoped he would become when he grew up. And strangely they both agreed that they wanted him to be like Peter. Peter was now "Captain Moore." His wonderful work in the trenches when he had brought in several German prisoners unaided had won him his promotion. It had happened the very night after Bates Freeman had died. In Peter's reckless daring there may have been something of despair because of the situation con- fronting him. His men, accustomed as they were to his rash going after the Huns, were amazed at his courage. But while always in the thickest of the fight, and while he did marvelous things, he came through unscathed. Peter felt the splendor of war in his very soul. It dwarfed all else, even the fact of Bertha's faithlessness. The fortitude of his men was augmented by watching the intrepid spirit of their leader. His dogged driving of himself was repeated in his driving of his men, but none complained. They had caught his spirit and would fight on to the end of the war were they spared and count no sacrifice too great to assure its success. That he had been rewarded meant very little to him, save that it was the outward sign that he had not been found wanting when duty called. He had no slightest 255 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE desire for empty honors. He realized that to meet the real test the soul must be strong as well as the body. He knew that inferno of the battlefield ; that vast sea of mud, blood, and dead men which was called "No Man's Land;" had proved the salvation of many men. Men who were before the war, and who, but for the war would remain forever commonplace, had developed a heroism of daily life seemingly impossible to them. They did heroic things constantly, expecting no reward save that of their own consciousness of duty done or the privilege to die for their country. It is perhaps the bigness of their motive that gives them such courage, and that takes away the fear of the hereafter often so poignantly felt by the people of the class from whom are recruited many of our soldiers. It is the man who sees big things who does them. And big things were happening constantly. Peter knew that if he lived there was a long trail of sorrow awaiting him. He had come to a point when death seemed a release, and yet he did not court it too passionately. He remembered the promise he had made to his mother ; his duty to his son. Madeline Dawson had been among the first to hear of his commission and to congratulate him. "You must be proud," she said as she shook his hand, her eyes shining with joy. Joy that recognition had come to him. "I only did my duty as every man is doing it." "Oh, but I have been hearing for days how brave you were! I knew you would surely have some sort of recognition for such bravery and for accomplishing so 256 much almost single handed. Why, it was wonderful!" " It is more wonderful to have you here to talk to me, ' ' he said softly, as he released her hand. Then, fearing he would be tempted to say more, he turned abruptly and strode away. "What is it?" Madeline said to herself with quiver- ing lip as she watched. ' ' There is something some rea- son. ' ' She had seen the love-light flash into his eyes as he took her hand ; then had seen it die away and a grim something take its place. A something she could not understand. ' ' I must not see her again I must keep away. ' ' Peter was muttering as he marched along with quick, nervous step. "It isn't fair to her." For the first time he had dimly understood that she cared. He dared not think it was for him, Peter Moore ; it was only for his success as a soldier. It was very sweet, he thought, her womanly sympathy and understanding; so different from Ber- tha's, and in quality so like that of his mother's. Had Peter known that Madeline Dawson often wept because of his indifference; that she had given him her entire affection, her love, he would have been immeas- urably distressed. But he was too modest, too lacking in a sense of his own superiority to dream of such a thing. To him she was, and must always remain, the "English Angel," an angel of mercy and goodness to the afflicted soldier. 257 CHAPTER XXIV BERTHA opened her morning paper. Her desire for information had not increased, and it was usually only the advertisements and the fashions which interested her now, even as it had been all that had appealed to her before she married Peter. But the black headlines caught her eye : "Daring aviator badly hurt. Millionaire flyer comes down just inside the lines. Mechanician killed. ' ' Bates was an aviator so she commenced to read. Suddenly she turned white and trembled. She saw a name staring at her from the printed column. "Bates Freeman, the daring millionaire aviator, either was shot down or fell just inside our lines after bringing down three German planes. His mechanician was killed. Freeman is badly hurt in hospital. He was one of the bravest, most skilled American aviators in France.'* Bertha read the short notice over again. "Badly hurt," they said. She shuddered as mechanically she put on her hat and started for the shop. "Isn't it awful, Bertha?" Julia greeted her. "Good old Bates. I hope it ain't the end of him." Then, "Don't look so glum. While there's life there's 258 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE hope. The paper says he's badly hurt. It don't even say 'seriously' like it does when they are going to die." "Don't talk to me, Julia. It's too awful." For once Bertha was so shocked she had not given a single thought to the way she herself might be affected. Some way she had not thought much of the possibility of Bates being hurt. Peter, yes. Of course he was in danger when he was always fighting the Germans. But Bates, flying around in his plane, one he himself had had built and which he had paid for as he did for all his other fads and toys. She could not conceive him as being in trouble. Bates had been most generous to the war needs. He had given large sums for different causes, the Red Cross, etc., but the bulk of his gifts had been to increase the efficiency of the aviation corps. In thinking of him it had been mostly in connection with his gifts that he and the war had been associated in Bertha's mind. She knew he flew, of course. But so had he at home down on Long Island. Nearly every day he spent the time while she was in the shop "playing he was a bird," as he used to tell her, coming to the city in time to take her to dinner and to spend the evening with her. He had promised to take her up with him after they were mar- ried, telling her it was as safe or safer than crossing Fifth Avenue during busy hours of the day. The dan- ger he never talked about. Consequently, Bertha never thought seriously of it. "You look as if he were dead already," Julia said to her in the course of the morning. ' ' Do brace up. He 259 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE may be up and around again by this time. You can't believe half you read, anyway." She really wanted to comfort Bertha and also persuade herself that Bates would return. She was loath to give up the advantages she hoped would belong to her through her friendship for both Bates and Bertha when they were again together. When the next day came there was no further news, save the more explicit telling of how Bates had fallen be- cause his machine had been injured by a Hun flyer, and describing more minutely the luck which had been his in coming down inside of our own lines. He was "badly hurt, but resting easily," the correspondent had added. The metropolitan papers had all contained an eulogy of Bates Freeman, young millionaire, whom the war had taken from the Great White Way. His bravery was extolled, also his generosity. ' ' One would think he was dead and they were writing his obituary!" Julia grumbled. "He was generous, awfully generous," Bertha said slowly. "He gave heaps of money to the war even before he went away. I suppose he'll have given them a lot more by now. ' ' "It won't make any difference if he has. I heard a man who knows say that Bates Freeman had so much money he couldn't spend it if he tried. It's a pity you didn't marry him before he went away." ' ' But I couldn 't ! " Bertha had commenced to wonder if Bates died what would become of all her plans. "Wuxtry! Wuxtry!" Both girls hurried to the door of the shop and simultaneously called the passing 260 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE "Bates Freeman, millionaire American aviator, dead of the injuries received when he fell in his plane, which had been pierced by German bullets until it collapsed. His mechanician was killed immediately." Then fol- lowed an exhaustive account of Bates Freeman 's life, his immense fortune, the fact that he had no near relatives to inherit it and speculation as to what he might do with it. ' ' He 's dead ! ' ' Bertha said, then burst into tears. She had really cared for Bates as much as she was capable of caring for anyone. Peter had been fighting for days. He had had no time to think either of Bates Freeman or of Bertha. When there came a chance to rest, he was so exhausted he immediately fell asleep. It was the crux of the Ger- man offensive. Gradually the Allies had been obliged to yield ground or see their men slaughtered for the sake of inadequate gains. As usual, Peter had been in the thick of that last charge. It was a hopeless charge; and he went down with the onrush of the Germans. For a short time he saw death staring him in the face. Then when next he became conscious of his surroundings he opened his eyes to see Madeline Dawson, the English angel, bending tenderly over him. "What happened? Why am I here?" Then it came back to him, that hopeless charge. The feeling that he was dying. "You were gassed a little and wounded," Madeline answered gently. ' ' You were very brave. Now I forbid 261 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE you to talk any more." And she laid her soft, cool palm over his lips. That he had been mentioned for the French War Cross and had been also awarded the Distinguished Service Cross she would tell him later. How even after he had been wounded, he had held the enemy back with a handful of men, so saving the lives of perhaps hun- dreds of his comrades, could also be told him, if he lived. Just now quiet was absolutely necessary. His heart had been affected, his right arm terribly injured by shrapnel, and a bullet had gone through his shoulder. Madeline, much as she wanted to, could give him scarcely more care than the others. The casualties had been great. The little shack was full to overflowing. Her "babies" needed twice the care she could give, al- though she had not slept since they were brought in. The other nurses, too, were hurrying from one to an- other; the doctors working like mad to save the lives of as many as possible, and making more comfortable those for whom amputations were necessary. But Madeline's eyes often flew to the cot upon which Peter lay. He had quietly obeyed her when she told him he must not talk ; but she had no way of knowing if he were asleep or if he were suffering. How proud she was of him as one of his men told of his bravery. "My brave Captain," she murmured, listening to his praises as she tenderly bound up the wounds of the talkative private, who would be transferred immediately to make room for one more seriously wounded. "You must be proud of him," the soldier, who had heard, said to her, causing her to blush furiously. She 262 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE thought at first she would explain that Peter was only a friend. Then, with another blush, decided to say noth- ing. Perhaps now that he was here where she had to care for him perhaps. She halted her thoughts to answer the call of a wounded poilu who had been dying when brought into the shack. For days Peter's life hung in the balance. For days Madeline spent every available minute at his side. When she was busy about the shack, or attending to her "babies," his eyes followed her with a longing in them which told plainly the secret he thought all his own. And greatest pity of all they told it to Madeline. Seeing it she had gone about her work even more joy- ously than was usual for her, as it was part of her religion to cheer those under her care. "Part of her job" she called it. But her voice had a happier lilt, and even the pain and anguish of her "babies" could not quite dim the glad light in her eyes. The doctor said that Peter would live. When he told her, Madeline for the first time gave way, and, rushing from the shack to her room nearby, she cried for pure happiness. "She cares for that young captain," the doctor mur- mured. He had built a dream about Madeline Dawson, hoping that after the war was over it might come true. Now he saw it fading away, and with a heartache, per- haps the harder to bear because of his surroundings, he gave her to Peter, the man whom his men adored; be- cause he was the cleanest, as well as the bravest soldier of them all. While Madeline was weeping, and the young doctor 263 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE was unselfishly bestowing her on Peter, who, he thought was the better man, Peter was lying weak, inert on the hospital cot. He was in a good deal of pain. But his mind was alert, active. If he were to die it would set Bertha free, and give her a fortune at the same time. Strange, he thought, that he and that young aviator should both be hurt. Then again there ran through his mind: "One shall be taken, the other left." "I am needed to fight. We haven't licked the Huns yet," he said to himself, and then determinedly closed his eyes. The doctor had said he must have rest and sleep. Aside from his wounds and the effects of the gas he was worn out with the strain of the long battle. But he still had an intense desire to get back. To fight for country and right. "I hope mother won't be worried," he muttered as he closed his eyes. Strangely no thought of Bertha came to him in that connection. He never thought of her as worrying about him; although he had asked them to cable her as well as his mother. Madeline Dawson had requested she might be the one to tell Peter he had been cited for the War Cross, also that he had been awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. Her disappointment was keen that he seemed so careless of the honor. Not knowing him well, she imag- ined that his indifference was caused by the thought that he was not going to recover. She knew how fatal that feeling was once it seized upon a man in his condition. "It is a great honor," she had told him. "I am glad you are pleased. I only did my duty." 264 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE "You did far more than what was required of you," was her reply. " No ; you are mistaken. No more than I, myself, knew to be necessary." "You are the bravest man I know!" she said, the tears rushing to her eyes. She knew from the nature of his wounds that he suffered excruciatingly at times. Yet never had a complaint or a moan escaped his lips. After he had been assured that his mother's anxiety would be allayed, he asked no favors, made no demands. "He only wants to get well to fight," Madeline said one day in wonderment. Could she have been mistaken in the look of love and longing she had seen in his eyes when he first recovered consciousness ? Now that he was allowed to talk, the only desire he expressed was to get back; to fight. Slow, very slow, was Peter's improvement. At times Madeline Dawson almost lost courage to hope that he would get well. He seemed more reserved than ever, and this reserve increased as he grew stronger. His mother wrote a long ; loving, helpful letter. She said nothing of her own agony when she heard of his being so seriously wounded. She injected all the bright- ness, the courage of her own indomitable spirit in her letter ; that spirit inherited by Peter. Peter read her letter, then said to Madeline with a smile: "Would you like to know what kind of a mother I have?" and passed the letter to her. "No wonder you are brave!" Madeline said as she 265 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE finished the letter and returned it to Peter. "You couldn't help but be, with such a mother. How you must love her!" "I love her better than anyone on earth," he said solemnly. Then he added, smiling, "She always under- stands." Madeline turned away with an appreciative smile, but a little ache in her heart. She would ' ' understand, ' ' too, she thought, if only she might; if Peter would let her. Each day the wounded captain was growing dearer to her. Each day her pride in him increased as she heard of the things he had done. His colonel and other superior officers came to the shack. The general, too, sent word and had spoken in terms of praise of Captain Moore. "You must make him well," the colonel said to Madeline. "We can't afford to lose such men as he," and Madeline had promised to do her best in such a naive way that one more man went away knowing her secret and called Peter "a lucky dog," envy in his voice. Madeline had begun to think that she must have been mistaken, that Peter cared nothing for her. She came to this conclusion one night when she left the shack, and he had not noticed. She could not know that his mind was distressed by the thought of Bates Freeman's will; that in his absorption he had not even been con- scious of her presence as she glided noiselessly past, whispering her good-night. In her little cheerless room she sat on the bed in her nurse's uniform and pressed her hands to her aching 266 heart and thanked "Le bon Dieu" for the privacy of it. Thank God she was alone and could weep out her sorrow with none to see. In her youthful ardor she had wanted to know at once that Peter loved her. Not a doubt of his love had entered her mind in the first days of his stay in the shack. Now she was all doubt. "I'm not a woman, I'm a nurse," she said over and over, as if in the saying she found strength. The chances of war had brought them together. There had been little of war's horror they had not seen both of them. Now he was just a wounded soldier, one of her "babies" and she his nurse. Yet try as she would she could not quite banish the memory of that longing look in Peter's eyes when he first recovered consciousness, and in a measure it comforted her. ' ' It was love ! ' ' she said to herself. Then there flashed over her mind the thought that perhaps he wasn't free. It came with a great shock. Never had she visualized Peter as being bound. He had seemed in some way so detached. Now she held her brows tight and strove to concentrate her mind on things that he had said and done ; she must not deceive herself longer that he cared if he did not, or if there were someone else. Made- line realized that she was worn to the breaking point; that not since Peter had been brought in on that night of agony had she slept normally. It might well be that she was a bit hysterical. Yet before she took off her nurse's uniform and crept between the coarse sheets she once more murmured: "I'm not a woman, I'm a nurse." 267 CHAPTER XXV HAD Bertha been interested in the war, in any of its phases, she might have accomplished her womanhood; but she was not. She was only interested in herself. So since Bates Freeman's death she had not looked at the papers, had even ceased to look at the fashions. She seemed lethargic to Julia, who had done everything to rouse her to some sort of interest in what was going on. "You are sure to get something from Bates," she told Bertha, "and as long as you were determined not to marry him I don't see why you act so." "Don't bother me," Bertha would answer. It was at the shop. Bertha was late. She had stopped to play with little Clarence who was growing more cun- ning every day. Julia met her at the door ; news written large on her expressive face. "Isn't it awful he couldn't have been hurt first?" she asked. "Hurt who?" "Haven't you seen?" she pointed to the paper. She had taken it for granted that Bertha was late because of the distressing news. Bertha reached for the paper, and read slowly the short item telling of Peter Moore 's having been wounded. Then in the casualty column his name was among the 268 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE severely wounded. She made no remark, and went about her work as usual. "You're a queer girl, Bertha. Why don't you say something?" "There's nothing to say," Bertha returned heavily.; Yet all day as she went about her work, the words "too late ' ' kept coming to her mind. She felt no sorrow that Peter might die; he really meant little to her. But neither did she feel gladness. She was like an uninter- ested spectator. The next day there was more news; just as on the second day there had been further news of Bates. And, although Peter was not a millionaire and had never been an habitue of the Great White Way, the metropolitan papers gave him as much space as they had Bates. They lauded his bravery, they spoke of his being cited for the Croix de Guerre, also of the award of the Distinguished Service Cross by his own country. But Bertha's heart beats never quickened. Then came the cable saying he would live : "Captain Moore will doubtless recover," it had been signed by the doctor. That same day Peter's mother wired her: "Cable just received. Peter will live. Try not to worry. Mother. ' ' Bertha showed them both to Julia, and when that sympathetic person remarked: "Of course, he would be the one to live," she made no reply. Julia thought she had some reason to be disgruntled. Since Bates Freeman's death Bertha had not been as 269 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE cordial. She had not asked Julia to go home with her ; and when Julia had gone uninvited one evening, Bertha had bluntly told her she didn't wish her to stay all night. Bertha could not have explained her desire to be alone had she been asked. She had not grieved unduly for Bates. Not at all now did she grieve because of Peter's suffering. But she often sat alone for long spaces think- ing of the good times she had had with Bates ; what he had done for her, and that had she married him instead of Peter she would now be wearing one of those lovely mourning bonnets she sold, and be heiress to his millions. Yet Bertha did not always mope. Little Clarence took much of her time when out of the shop. She loved her boy. She did not love the care of him, but to pet and play with him ; to curl his soft hair around her fingers, and to dress him daintily, delighted her. With a sudden impulse she took him one Saturday afternoon and had his picture taken. She mailed one to Peter with no word from her, but she put the baby's name, age, and the date on the back of the card. She had written Peter a hasty line after receiving the cable. When she heard, she would write again. She had also mailed one of the baby's pictures to her mother and to Mrs. Moore, and had taken one out to Aunt Martha. She had called a taxi and taken the baby with her. Aunt Martha's surprise and delight knew no bounds. She cried happy tears over Clarence; then persuaded Bertha to remain to dinner so that Uncle Nat could see how he had grown. She prepared all the things Bertha liked for dinner; 270 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE between times stopping to fondle the baby, and to tell Bertha how sorry they were to hear that Peter was wounded. "But you must be awful proud, Bertha, to have him get all them crosses and everything! Nat just talks about him all the time." Bertha hoped he wouldn't talk of Peter when he came in. And he didn't. He played with the baby; was kind and cordial to her. It was only as she was going that he said: "We are very proud of the captain." As Peter grew stronger he practised his French and at the same time cheered a blinded poilu next to him. He, Peter, was to be transferred as soon as possible. The shack was too near the line of battle and too badly needed for emergency cases to long shelter those able to be moved. Madeline Dawson's valiant spirit would not give way, but each day, as the parting from Peter grew more certain, she grew paler, more ethereal. "What am I going to do?" she. whispered to herself as she thought of her loneliness after he would be gone. "What shall I do?" She had lived for days in the intimacy of patient and nurse, and had kept a strong grip upon her emotions. But the thought of parting half unnerved her. Parting forever, she felt, if he went without speaking. Madeline Dawson, like Peter, was a soldier under orders. The Red Cross badge meant all it implied to her service. But for the moment the woman in her was uppermost. She loved Peter Moore. Even in the midst of the suffering of war it had brought a great joy, a 271 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE great happiness to her, and now because of that love she was pierced by a great sorrow, an intense longing. Was this going to be the end of her romance the only one that had come to her? Her pride bade her hide her feelings, just as it had made her keep silent. But had Peter been more observing, more conscious of his own attractive personality, he must have noticed the sadness in her eyes when her lips smiled or she bandied some gay jest with one of her "babies." It was her hour of weakness. She must face it, and she must conquer. "A pretty soldier I would be if I allowed myself to go to pieces when I am so needed," she would say to herself as she soothed or bandaged some badly wounded soldier brought in from the trenches. It was in the privacy of her little room that her sorrow grew almost more than she could bear. It hurt her pride to think she had given her love unasked perhaps unwanted she once thought bitterly. Yet, some way there clung the memory of the light in Peter 's eyes; the longing they had expressed. ' ' What kind of a night did you have ? ' ' she asked him. He was to be transferred that afternoon. All night Madeline had sat by her small window gazing out with unseeing eyes, trying to attune her soul to the struggle of the parting. Just as day broke she dropped on her knees by the side of the unrumpled iron cot and prayed for strength to do her duty regardless of self. Then she rose, and after bathing her face she changed into a fresh uniform and went back to the shack, and to Peter. 272 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE ' ' Fine ! I slept all through without waking once, ' ' he told her with a smile. ' ' You know you are to be transferred to-day ? ' ' ' ' Yes, the doctor told me. ' ' ' ' Then you will go home for a rest ? ' ' ' ' Yes. They seem to think it best. And a good soldier obeys orders," he returned. "I shall miss you, Miss Dawson. I can't thank you for the care you have given me, so I am not going to try. ' ' ' ' Don 't ! " she said, her lip quivering. ' ' I have loved to do for you, ' ' she added, almost in a whisper. Suddenly Peter knew. Madeline Dawson loved him. Such an onrush of joy swept over him that he closed his eyes that she should not see. Then he looked at her longingly, sadly. Something must be done. Once more he had a duty to perform ; one that made his very soul quake. To know that she, the English angel, loved him was, in view of his own feeling for her, a joy so intense he scarcely could bear it. And yet he must destroy her love, his own joy. ' ' Can you sit with me a moment ? " he asked gently. "Certainly." She realized what she had done; that by her whispered remark she had shown something of her feeling for him to Peter. Her pale face was suf- fused with blushes as she drew a chair close to the cot. "Miss Dawson, Madeline, I want to tell you a story; rather a sad little story, too. Will you listen?" Then without waiting for an answer, Peter told of the country boy who, because he felt it was his duty, had enlisted with the British long before his own country saw the 273 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE need of joining the war. How a country girl had gone to New York so as to be near him ; and that while not caring at all for him had wanted to marry him so that she might remain in New York. Without blaming Bertha in the least he told of the hasty marriage ; of his departure for the front immedi- ately. Of his return and of the baby. Of Bertha's de- termination to live in New York, and her work in the shop he said little. He never mentioned his own dis- appointment in his wife nor her connection with Bates Freeman. Yet dimly Madeline realized that his mar- riage had been a terrible disillusion ; and long after she recalled that the girl Bates Freeman, the injured avia- tor, called for so constantly in his delirium was named "Bertha," and that after Peter had talked with him how pale and distraught he had been. Now Madeline thought only of Peter. Even her own sorrow was forgotten in her desire to comfort him. She was all woman, longing, woman-like, to help the man she loved. She noted the pain in his eyes, the tones of his voice. And laying her hand over his she said very quietly : "Never mind, Peter. It will be easier now that I know." "You mean that you are glad that I care for you? Oh, you dear girl. " Two great tears rolled down Peter's cheeks. "Yes, Peter. A girl doesn't like to think she has given herself unwanted." She smiled bravely into his eyes. "It will be easier now that I know. Good-bye, Peter. I shan't see you again." Leaning over him 274 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE Madeline pressed a soft kiss upon his forehead, and was gone. Peter covered his eyes with' his hand and groaned. "What's the matter, Captain, in pain?" one of the wounded asked. "Yes." Peter answered so shortly the other raised himself on his elbow to look over at him. Something must be very bad for the brave American captain to groan like that. The nurse should be there to look after him. But as Peter neither said anything more, nor repeated the groan, he once more lay down; this time moaning himself because of the pain caused by changing his position. Before they came for Peter he asked for pencil and paper. ' ' Dear English Angel : " he wrote. ' ' You have indeed proved an angel to me. There is nothing to be added to that save that I shall always love you, always hope for your happiness. Don't let me sadden you, or spoil your life. That would be harder to bear than the pain of Hun bullets. Some day I hope to hear that you are as happy as a woman such as you deserves to be. I know that you, like my mother, 'understand,' so there is no need for me to say more. Yet I couldn't leave without saying good-bye and telling you that the greatest wish I have on earth is next to the freedom of my country that you may be happy. PETER." That was all, yet it brought, if not happiness, a cer- tain peace to Madeline Dawson. That Peter had said she was like his mother whom he so dearly loved; that she also "understood" was balm to her sore spirit. And 275 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE although in the days that followed her love often threat- ened to overwhelm her brave soul she steadfastly refused to give way to hei* grief and went about her work as usual. If anything, she was more intent upon making her "babies" happy and comfortable; more anxious to cheer them up than before. Dead, forgotten words of Peter's rose lambent in her memory. She was blind to think he did not care for her. It was his duty to keep still; to hide that love, because he was bound to another woman, until he could bring comfort to her by telling it. How little he had told, after all; yet how much. Madeline read between the lines, and had visioned clearly the anguish that must have been Peter's when he found he was irrevocably tied to a soulless creature like Bertha. Professional to the tips of her fingers, Madeline at- tended to her duties with her usual care, the while her thoughts ran on what Peter had told her, and on Bates Freeman. Could it be that the Bertha the young aviator called for so insistently and Bertha, Peter's wife, were the same? It would explain much in Peter's actions in that week the aviator lay dying, when she thought be- cause of his impassibility Peter did not care for her. But how terrible for Peter. It was intolerable. And Peter. He lay all day in his steamer chair on a vessel bound for "An Atlantic Port" and thought and thought and thought. What a mess life was how we took it in our hands and spoiled it. How dreadfully he had muddled his own life. He hoped and prayed he might not have also spoiled Madeline's that would be hard to bear. 276 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE As he drew nearer home his prayers became more frequent and more fervent. His bodily weakness made for weakness of spirit; and that he must combat. The thought of Bertha, the money Bates Freeman had willed to her was ashes in his mouth. He was too weak yet to plan clearly. He knew nothing of law. He would wait until he was strong enough, then he would consult a lawyer. He would have time. For he knew the will had been sent by the very steamer on which he was a passenger. And the slowness of the law was proverbial. Often, during night he lay wide-eyed, thinking of Madeline Dawson. But in the daytime he persist- ently and determinedly put her from his thoughts. Her unchanging sweetness of character, her intrepid spirit, her womanly understanding, made the contrast between what he had left and what he had to meet too painful. It was a beautiful morning in the early spring when Peter disembarked at "An Atlantic Port" and made his way to the new address Bertha had given him in her letter; the flat she had taken when she wished to em- phasize her independence, and which he imagined had been taken because of Bates Freeman, the man who loved her. 277 CHAPTER XXVI IT was a bruised, broken, emaciated Peter that Bertha found lying on the couch in the sitting-room when she came in from the shop. Yet a dauntless soul looked out from the pain-ridden eyes. ' ' I 'm glad to see you, Peter, ' ' she said stumblingly as she perfunctorily kissed him. "You got pretty badly hurt this time, didn't you?" "Yes, pretty badly this time," he answered, but he had no reference to his wounds. "Where's Clarence? Have you seen him?" Bertha wanted to make conversation, and really she didn 't know what to say to that quiet, pain-stricken man lying on the couch. His eyes were closed and, careless as she was, she shuddered as she noted the change in him which his illness and his wounds had wrought. "Yes, Ellen took him away. She said it was his bed- time." Bertha noted the effort it was for Peter to talk and left him to lay aside her street clothes. When she re- turned, after lingering, he was asleep. She stood and looked down at his thin, pain-furrowed face and contrasted it with the gay, laughing one of Bates Freeman, as she had last seen him. She could do nothing, say nothing. Bates was dead. Once more the 278 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE realization that she had loved the dead man and that she was bound to Peter rushed over her. She was a prisoner again, fettered, bound by chains she had put on herself. Her glance traveled over the sleeping man, she recog- nizing the great change, almost indefinable metamorpho- sis in him, since she last saw him. When he wakened she told him dinner was ready. He insisted upon going to the table with her. Then she noted a certain melancholy in his figure, erect and com- manding as it was. The certainty that something be- sides physical pain had come to Peter grew as she ob- served his bearing. She found a strange sadness, a hope- lessness in his eyes. A shadow appeared to brood over his spirit, usually so calm. A while before Bertha would have seen none of these things. But her contact with people, her grief for Bates Freeman had made her more observing. She noted, while she could not explain nor even attempt to. She had worked with all the deftness, all the diplo- macy of which she was capable to change her life, and this was the end of it all. She was Mrs. Peter Moore, wife of the stern, tired-looking soldier who sat opposite her and ate scarcely anything, but whose eyes bored into hers in a way that made her terribly uncomfortable. " Shall I stay home with you, Peter?" she asked the next morning; she really was not hard-hearted, and his evident suffering appealed to her kinder instincts. "No, it isn't necessary. I'll have the boy." "Don't let him tire you," she returned, relieved. An entire day with the invalid was more than she could contemplate with equanimity. 279 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE "He won't." Peter turned restlessly away without saying more. All day he kept the boy with him. He realized that he was not yet able to attend to any business, yet the thought of Bates Freeman's will never left him. There was a large picture of Bates, framed beautifully in hammered silver, on Bertha 's dressing table. Evidently she had forgotten to remove it. Peter looked long at the pictured face. It was like, yet so unlike that other face he had looked into when he promised to bury Ber- tha's picture with the young aviator. This one was the happy, care-free face of the pampered son of wealth; the other had been the earnest, thoughtful face of the man who had given his life for his country and in doing it had found his own soul. The baby, he was nothing more although he had just commenced to prattle his baby words, seemed to under- stand that Peter could not play with him and was con- tent to sit on a tiny stool by the couch and hold his father's finger for long spaces of time. With much painstaking Peter had taught him to call him "dad" or something that sounded like it. And it soothed him to hear the lisping tones and to feel the tiny hand in his own. "He's very like you, sir," Ellen, the housekeeper, said as she dusted the rooms, prolonging the task so that she might watch this man who was husband of her mistress, but who seemed to mean so little to her that she could go, indifferently to the shop as usual. ' ' Every- body says so. That is, Mr. and Mrs. Robinson, and Mrs. Moore's mother when she was here, said he was the per- 280 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE feet image of you at his age." Finding he listened, Ellen had grown loquacious. It rather pleased Peter that the baby should resemble him. And once more he thanked God under his breath that a son was born to him and not a daughter. If the boy lived he would be able to take him in charge, but a girl he wouldn't have known how to interfere. Ber- tha would have had her own way with a girl. For several days Peter remained at the apartment, waited upon by Ellen. He felt terribly inert, incapable of exertion. But finally he commenced to go out a little. Then as he grew stronger he would take little Clarence in his gocart and sit on a bench in the park, breathing in the fresh air and gaining strength. The park was very near the apartment and he could push the little gocart with his left hand. His right arm was still in a sling. People looked with sympathy and pity at the soldier and the baby ; but there was something in the detached look on Peter's face that kept them from speaking to him. One young girl who passed, inclined to be senti- mental, said to her companion : ''He looks as if he had some sorrow too deep for words, ' ' coming more nearly to the truth than her care- less speech would indicate. Now that Peter was better, he planned to see a lawyer. To find out exactly how Bertha stood with regard to the bequest and satisfy himself as to the legality of it before Bertha knew it. He dreaded the unpleasantness he knew was unavoid- able, yet Peter Moore never yet had sidestepped a duty 281 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE because it was, or might be, unpleasant. That wasn 't his way. Then, too, Peter wanted to go home, to Haynes- ville. "I shall get well more quickly back there in the country," he said to Bertha, "and I should like," he hesitated, "to take Clarence with me. Of course if you don't object. Perhaps you would go, too, Bertha. A rest would do you good. ' ' "No, thank you! Haynesville and I haven't any love for each other. Take the baby, if you like, but he'll be lots of trouble on the train." She well knew the little one would be no trouble after they reached Haynesville. Two doting grandmothers would see to that. "I won't mind." So it was settled that Clarence was to go home with his father, and Ellen was told to have everything in readiness the last of the week. "Be sure his clothes are well laundered," Bertha told her. "People in country towns talk a lot." "They'll have nothing to talk about in that respect," Ellen had returned with a sniff. "It will be mighty lonesome here without the baby, though. How long will they stay?" ' ' Oh, not long ! Captain Moore is talking already of going back to fight again. ' ' ' ' He is sure a brave man. I should think he would be glad to stay home and let the rest do the fighting. He 's done his duty. He's pretty badly hurt. I doubt if they let him go back very soon. ' ' "Oh, I don't know. He thinks he'll get well quick 282 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE in the country." Then, "Perhaps he will I don't know." Some way Bertha could not feel much interest in what happened. Peter had found a lawyer with whose name he was familiar. A man known to be at the head of his pro- fession. It might cost him a pretty big fee to consult him, but he wanted to be sure. He had made the appointment over the tele- phone. Peter was ushered into the lawyer's presence; his mind intent upon his errand. He failed to see the look of surprise, followed by one of interest on the face of the man he had come to consult. "What can I do for you, Captain Moore?" he asked, looking closely at the strong but furrowed face of his caller. Peter told his errand. He softened none of the de- tails and while not blaming Bertha more than he could help told the story as Bates had told it to him ; adding the additional particulars he had picked up from Ber- tha's last letter to the aviator. "You say he didn't know she was married?" Then, without waiting for an answer, "I knew of this Bates Freeman, a wild sort of a boy, well known on the Great White Way. But I do not recall ever hearing anything really bad about him. He was a spender and I imagine an easy mark for a lot of hangers-on." Peter quietly told the lawyer of Bates as he knew him. Of the brave aviator who gave his life gladly, willingly, to help his country. Of the calm way in which he had met death, anxious only that the girl whom he 283 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE had declared had been "good," should not be left in want because he had not returned to marry her. The lawyer listened carefully. He thought to him- self that never had he seen a man who interested him as did this wounded captain. What kind of a woman could this Bertha be, he wondered, to so spoil his life. "It would be up to Mrs. Bertha Moore to satisfy the court that she is the identical person named in the will and then take the money, ' ' he said slowly, watching the captain's face. "Of course, this is an off-hand opinion. Should the case come to trial, Bertha, either as 'Miss* or 'Mrs.' might tell things that would alter this opinion. However, I think you are safe to consider what I have told you as all that will be necessary for your wife to claim the money. I understood you to say 'millions.' ' Peter bowed and a shamed flush covered his face as he thanked the lawyer for his advice and handed him his fee. The hard part was to be faced. That very night he would talk with Bertha. "Of course, Mrs. Moore cannot take that money," he had said to the lawyer. The flush gone and a stern, un- compromising paleness in its place. "Of course not!" the lawyer said, then rose and grasped Peter's hand. He was not disappointed in the kind of man he was after all. Whatever his sorrow, Peter must have strength for what he had to do, he thought as he left the lawyer's office. A supreme effort must be made to keep calm, to hold his brain unshrouded. Deep natures like Peter's suffer most keenly. Shallow pools dry up and leave no sign, while the deeper one 284 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE leaves a running trace of its presence on the rocky bed. And Peter had suffered, was still suffering, both men- tally and physically. His soul, too, was weary within him. He pressed his head for a moment before he took the lift for the noisy street and breathed a silent prayer for courage. He rested until Bertha came in. "I have something to tell you, Bertha," he said when they had finished dinner and the baby was asleep. "Something to tell and a great deal to talk over with you. ' ' ' ' Don 't talk in that solemn tone or I shall run away, ' ' she replied, wondering what he had to talk over with her. Haynesville, probably, she thought. ' ' I knew Bates Freeman, ' ' he began without preamble, as was his way. "I knew him and was with him when he died." He waited. But Bertha could only stare at him, with big frightened eyes in a face suddenly turned pale. "He told me about you," he went on slowly, seeing he was to get no response. ' ' He said you were ' Miss Bertha Moore,' and that you were to marry him when he came back. He told me that he had loved you." Peter looked at Bertha searchingly as if he would pry from her the reason of the aviator 's love for her ; brave, true man as he had known him. "He made me read your letter aloud to him. He was dying and couldn't see to read." Though the words were apologetic, there was no apology in Peter's tone. "It sounded as if you loved him. He told me you were true and good. He believed in you. How he could, knowing you as well as 285 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE he did, I cannot understand. Perhaps he changed after he came 'over there.' Most men do. He might have understood you if he had lived; might have seen how false you were to everyone, even to yourself." Peter did not take his eyes from Bertha's face as he talked, although she tried to turn so that he could not watch her so keenly. She could scarcely understand this awful thing he was telling her. It couldn't be pos- sible that he knew she had passed herself off as unmar- ried ; he was only guessing at it. Bates must have been out of his head to talk to Peter. Peter read what was going on in her mind. ' ' Freeman was conscious ; he knew what he was saying. He showed me your picture. He asked that it be buried with him. It was. I hope it won't weigh him down so that he will not hear the trumpet call to resurrection. He was a brave man, a good soldier. He deserves his reward." ' ' I don 't believe you ! I don 't believe Bates ever talked to you of me! He wasn't that kind." Bertha at last found her tongue and the words tumbled over eacK other. "He wasn't that kind, I tell you!" she repeated in a kind of mad fury. "You heard he was dying and just made him talk when he didn't know what he was saying!" "Do you deny that he thought you a single woman?" The question was asked sternly. Bertha's tirade had steeled Peter to hardness. "No! "Why should I deny it? You married me and left me on the street, as if I didn 't amount to as much as the Germans you went to fight. You left me for them. When I got a job they said it was better not to be 286 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE 'Mrs.,' that I could get more money. I don't see any- thing so very wicked in that! If you had stayed with me I shouldn't have had to do things," she finished, weakly throwing the blame on him ; knowing all the time she had not wanted him to stay. "No, Bertha, I didn't marry you. You married me. I let you decide it because I thought you loved me. I know now that you never did, but what I don't know is why you wanted to marry me. ' ' "You don't! Well, I'll tell you. It won't take long. I wanted to get out of Haynesville, and that was the only way. If I could have stayed in New York without mar- rying you I never would have thought of doing it. ' ' "Thank you for your frankness, Bertha. It makes things easier. Now, Bates Freeman was a very rich man, as you probably know. When he died he made a will. It is a perfectly good will, witnessed by people who were with him when he died. He left all he had to 'Miss Bertha Moore,' except a legacy of $200,000 to the aviation corps. Now, Bertha, I want to know what you intend to do about it. I'll hear what you have to say before we talk any more." "Left it all to me!" She could scarcely credit her hearing. ' ' Left all ! " "Yes, he loved you. He thought you were free to accept it. He never dreamed, poor fellow, that he was insulting another man's wife the man to whom he told his story." "You didn't let him know? You didn't tell him? Oh, Peter ! ' ' The tears poured down Bertha 's face like rain. 287 CHAPTER XXVII NOTWITHSTANDING a certain softness in Peter, he could be stern and uncompromising; as his men had found out whenever they were guilty of a breach of discipline. And Bertha also was now to feel the effect of his inex- orableness. Peter was surprised at her tears, and spoke more gently : "Recriminations are of no use now. What has been done cannot be undone. Freeman is dead. But you are alive, and are the mother of my boy. Nothing can alter that. Now I want an answer to my question. What are you going to do about that will?" With desperate effort Bertha dried her tears. She was not the weepy kind as a rule. She waited in silence for a bit, and Peter waited in silence also, his eyes never leaving her face. It was as if he were trying to probe the struggle going on within her. Finally she spoke : "What is there to do, only to take the money he left me ? If he willed it to me, it is mine. ' ' Her voice was heavy, dull. She was not thinking of the money, but of Bates, Peter realized. "No, he did not will it to you, another man's wife. He willed it to a girl he loved, a girl who only existed in his mind. A girl whom he dreamed of as good and 288 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE true; not a married woman who was living and acting a lie. I wonder " His thought stopped speech. "You wonder what?" "I wonder what you would have done with the baby had he come to you before Freeman went away." So slowly had Peter spoken that each word dropped from his lips with a distinctness, a meaning, that, callous as she was, made Bertha shiver and cover her face. "What would you have done if that had happened ? Repudiated the child as you have me ? ' ' "Why do you ask such questions? What's the use trying to make things worse than they are?" "No use. Forgive me, Bertha. I believe you love the boy, even though you may not have welcomed his coming. I have watched you, and yes you love him. But we are beside the question. I want an answer what do you intend to do about this money?" "I intend to keep it. Bates wanted me to have it." For the first time visions of what she could do, what become with all that money at her disposal, flitted across Bertha's mind and found a lodgment. "No, you are mistaken, as I told you." Weariness was in Peter's voice. "Freeman did not want you to have it. He would have turned from you in loathing had he known you as you are. The man was clean and straight. I would stake my life upon it. He wanted a girl he thought you were to have that money." "But no one can take it away from me. You said so yourself. ' ' "No, no one can compel you to give it up. I saw a lawyer and he says you can claim it. All you have to 289 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE do is to prove that you are the woman, who, while legally married to a man who was fighting for his country, passed herself off as single and promised to marry Free- man." "Will I have to do that?" wonder in her voice, and a little fear. "That and more much more if you insist upon tak- ing that money." "I don't know what you mean. Why shouldn't we take his money when he wanted me to have it? Just think what we could do with it." "Don't you dare say 'we'!" Peter interrupted. "Well, what I could do with it. The baby." Peter again interrupted: "Don't speak of him either. If you insist upon taking that money I cannot stop you, although I forbid you as my wife to touch it. But there is one thing I can do. I never have believed in divorce ; we Moores don 't. But if you take that money against my express commands you will have to show the courts that you are fit to be the wife of a decent man, and to have the care of a baby." "You mean " "I mean I should sue for a divorce and the care of the child. Am I plain? Do you understand?" Bertha turned white as chalk. She, too, had been brought up to consider divorce as the court of last re- sort and then not to be appealed to save under very exceptional, almost unheard-of circumstances. And she loved her baby, loved him since Bates had died, with a fierceness of which she herself was unaware until 290 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE Peter spoke of taking him from her. And Peter meant it. No one looking at his stern, set face would doubt it. There was no yielding in those compressed lips, those deep-set eyes. "You would do that?" At last Bertha found her voice. Her lips were parched, she wet them with her tongue before she spoke. Was ever a woman in such a position? Lose the millions Bates had wanted her to have, or her baby. "Yes, Bertha, I would even do that rather than have my boy brought up by a woman who would do what you are contemplating doing." Peter spoke more gently. He had seen the stricken look in Bertha's eyes when he spoke of taking little Clarence from her; the chalkiness of her face. As he had said, he watched her closely. He was positive she loved her boy. But did she love him enough? "I'm tired! I am going to bed. You can say wha else you have to say in the morning." Bertha flung out of the room. And Peter made no attempt to stop her. In the morning neither spoke of the subject. Bertha looked white and wan ; and Peter more hollow-eyed than ever. He slept, as usual on the couch in the little living- room, and had heard Bertha moving about in the night, sleepless as was he; both thinking of what had to be faced. Little Clarence was having his breakfast when Bertha was ready for the shop. The door into the living-room was slightly open, and Peter could hear quite distinctly anything that was said. "You are mine! my baby," he heard Bertha say 291 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE softly, "mine! mine! I can't live without you. I can't!" The door closed and she was gone. But there was that in her tone when she talked to her child that tugged at his heart, and Peter thought more kindly of Bertha than he had since Bates Freeman made him his confidant. "Perhaps she is nearer right in blaming me for part of all this than I have thought," he said to himself as he recalled how she complained that after he mar- ried her he left her on the street. "We hardly knew each other save as boy and girl until I was wounded and came back. ' ' He went on thinking of the short two weeks they spent together the first time he was invalided home. But those kinder thoughts of Bertha, his willingness to take his share of the blame for what had occurred because of her loneliness, swerved him no particle from the decision he had made. In that he was adamant. Peter was a patient man. So he waited once more until dinner was over and until the boy was asleep. He noticed, after Bertha left in the morning that the picture of Bates Freeman had disappeared from her dressing table. How like Bertha, he thought. As long as she wasn't aware of Peter's knowledge she kept the other man's picture openly where it could be seen. But as soon as she learned that Peter knew him she had hidden it. A natural act, perhaps, but none the less a part of Bertha's character. "Now, Bertha, I want some sort of an answer. I am going back to France just as soon as the doctors will let me. My vrork over there is not done not until this war 292 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE is won, or I have 'gone west' with so many of the oth- ers. Before I go back this thing has not only got to be decided, but finished. Finished forever." "When are you going to Haynesville ? " Bertha asked apropos of nothing he had said. "Tomorrow. Why?" "How long shall you stay?" "That depends entirely upon how quickly I recuper- ate." He said nothing of his longing to "go back," of the lure of the soldier's life when he feels his work un- finished. Bertha never had understood. She would not understand now. "How long do you think that will be?" she persisted. "Two or three weeks, possibly a month. My wounds are healed. I only have to get my strength back and the use of my arm." "Will you do something for me, Peter?" Bertha's childishness showed itself for the first time. ' ' What do you want me to do, Bertha ? ' ' His tone was gentle, moved by the wistful tone in her voice. "Give me until you come back to decide what I want to do ? I will promise not to take the money or do any- thing about it while you are gone. Bates his lawyer was at the shop today. I told him I was going away, to get rid of him, and that I would come to his office when I got back. He thought I was crazy, I guess, by the way he acted, but after a while he went away and took a lot of papers he brought me to sign, with him. You see, Peter, it is a lot of money and I'm tired. I can't seem to think straight." "Will you come with us?" 293 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE "No, I shall stay here quietly with Ellen. I told them at the shop I was going to take my vacation now instead of later. Please do as I ask." "Very well. But do not bank on my being away more than two weeks." It was typical of the manner in which Peter impressed people that no one ever tried to make him change his mind once he had said what he would do. Bertha, like the rest, had accepted what he said as his ultimatum. She had neither coaxed nor tried in any way to make him change. She realized it would be useless. That night Peter and his boy left for his boyhood home. Once more the news spread that Captain Peter Moore was to visit Haynesville. And because he had not sent word just when he would arrive, the townspeople, understanding his reserve, yet determined to honor the captain, made ready and for two or three days had religiously met every train with the town band and a procession of imposing size. So when Peter and his young son alighted from the train they were at once taken possession of by the crowd and were escorted to the Moore home with great eclat. Because of his wounds and the presence of the young child they insisted that Peter ride in the village hack with old Tom Brooks who had brushed up his faded uni- form in honor of the occasion. Tom shone with a sort of reflected luster ever since the United States entered the war. He was the only one who agreed with Peter when he declared that "America must go in ! " and 294 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE often had his speech been recalled when he said that ' ' Uncle Sam was a good deal like a lot of married men they stand a heap, but when they do turn they mean business. ' ' Peter's embarrassment was forgotten in the joy this unexpected welcome gave him. In a way it eased his sorely tried spirit. Then, too, as he had learned over- seas to be more companionable with his men, so now he was more gracious toward the townspeople. His suavity delighted them, and in more than one home in Haynes- ville the great improvement in "Captain Moore" was the subject of conversation. Not one of them thought of such a thing as calling him "Peter." That would be not only lacking in re- spect to him, but to the army he represented. No, he would receive full honors from his own townspeople. Next to their delight at having Peter was that of his father and mother over little Clarence. Mr. and Mrs. Hunter came over after dinner and stayed long after the boy was sound asleep in the little crib which had been Peter's, and which his father had brought down from the attic for his little grandson. And while they talked in softened tones in the semi-darkness, Mrs. Moore kept one foot on the crib, gently rolling it back and forth as she had so often done for the tall soldier whose hand she held while they talked. ' ' Bertha had a good deal to do, ' ' was all the explana- tion he gave of her remaining at home instead of coming with him and Clarence. They understood or thought they did and asked no questions. It had come to be a settled fact in their minds that Bertha would not visit 295 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE Haynesville, that she had forsworn her home and her childhood friends. So they did not sadden themselves by talking of her. Having the boy was more than they had dared hope. It was very late when they separated for the night, but Peter was up betimes the next morning. His father had hinted at a surprise for him, but when he was urged to tell what it was would only smile and say : "Wait and see, my son." "I'll walk to the factory with you, father," Peter said as they rose from the breakfast table. ' ' I was just about to ask you to. ' ' They talked of the war, its probable length. Of vital questions which had appeared in connection with the German onslaught upon other countries, and Peter was surprised at his father's knowledge. Not only of what had been done and what would have to be done to win the war, but at his familiarity with the causes. Suddenly Peter halted. Now he had no need to ask his father what the surprise he had hinted at was. There it lay spread out before him. In place of the small fac- tory he had known since a child there now rose an im- posing group of buildings. Men and boys were hurrying to enter the gates from all directions. Smoke poured from the chimneys. Prosperity fairly belched from the place. "It had to come," the older man said, placing his hand on his son's shoulder. "The war made every man who was too old to fight 'over there' a fighter here. The government needed our output, only it needed it quad- rupled. It has been my share, Peter, and it's clean, my 296 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE boy. There has been no profiteering here. Only a fair price, and scarcely that after the men are paid the wages they demand. But after the war is over and the read- justment that is bound to come is here: then you will take it over, and it will be my legacy to you a legacy unbesmirched by one breath of scandal." Peter was so deeply moved for a moment that he could not speak. That his father, John Moore, the man who had objected to his son fighting with the British because he needed him in the factory, should have accomplished all this unaided, because Uncle Sam needed it; done it without profit to himself save the honest profit of honest toil, filled him with pride. Yet, true to his nature, he only said : "I am proud to be your son." Then in silence which was far more eloquent than words they also joined the stream of workmen going through the gates. 297 CHAPTER XXVIII As the days passed Peter's strength returned. But it was not until the night before he left that his mother suc- ceeded in partly probing his trouble. She had sensed something beyond his uncongenial marriage. Something more serious if possible. Yet she had said nothing, she simply let him know by her expressed love and thought- fulness that it was all right whether he told her or not. But the night he was to return to New York and Bertha, he and his mother sat up long after the rest of the house- hold were asleep, having one of their old talks. Mrs. Moore told him how proud she was of him; of his advancement. She went over the extending and building of the factory step by step with him. They talked of the books they had read, and those they would take up in the future. Finally a silence fell be- tween them. A silence tense and trenchant. "It may not be right, mother, in that it may make you feel harshly toward Bertha, but I do not know if we will be man and wife much longer. ' ' That was all. Mrs. Moore turned pale, but she laid her hand firmly over his as she said : "Whatever you think best, my boy. But do nothing in a hasty manner. You know where to go for guid- ance." 298 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE "Yes, mother. And mother you mustn't think it is because Bertha hasn't been good in that way for I believe I honestly believe she has." It was hard to tell his mother so she would understand to what he referred, but he must. It would not be fair to let her think that. "She has not been untrue," he stumbled along, his face flushing. "But it is something that will part us just the same, I am afraid." "Thank God it isn't that," his mother lowered her voice and glanced over at the corner of the room where the little crib was placed. "It may come out all right, so don't worry," he said as he kissed his mother good night. But there was no hope in his voice, none in his heart; and in- sensibly he killed whatever hope there had been in hers. The next day when it was time to go to the train Peter looked in amazement at his increased luggage. "What in the world" he started to say, then at a look from his mother desisted. "Mrs. Hunter and I have been sewing for Clarence ever since he came. Not that he really needed anything, but we wanted to do something for him; and we also wanted Bertha to know we loved him. I guess you can manage." "I guess I will!" Peter's response was so hearty they all laughed. Mr. and Mrs. Hunter were having the noonday meal with them so that they, too, could be with little Clarence as long as possible. The station was again crowded. Even the new factory hands were there to see the young captain, the boss's son, 299 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE start back toward the front again. For that it was a start for France they all knew. It was rather a hilarious parting. And to make it more so, old Tom Brooks shouted just before the train moved out of the station : "Come back a major next time, won't you, Peter?" "I'll do my best!" Peter replied, joining in the laugh that followed the old soldier's sally. But after the little town in which he was born was left behind him, Peter's thoughts reverted to what lay before him. That morning he and his mother had visited the vine-clad cottage his father had bought for him when the war should be over ; and he had said that he and Clarence would perhaps some day live there nothing more. Now as the train bore him away from the cottage, from his home, he felt the future press hard upon him. ' ' Thank God I can go back ! " he said to himself. At first the doctors had not held out much hope that he ever would recover sufficiently to take his place back in the fighting line. But his indomitable will, added to years of clean living, made him once more whole and fit. It was a wonderful morning in early May when Peter stepped from the train and with his baby once more took a taxi for the apartment where lived his wife, the mother of the boy whom he passionately loved now. It was with no feeling of home-coming that he rang the bell, or that he greeted Bertha. But her delight at seeing the baby ; a joy that not even his presence could make her hide; her tender words of endearment filled him with a sort of grim pity for her. 300 ' She is weak, poor girl not bad, ' ' Peter said to himself. THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE ' ' My baby ! oh, my precious baby ! ' ' she said over and over, hugging him to her breast, tears running un- checked, down her cheeks. "She is weak not bad," Peter said to himself as he left her alone with her child. "Poor girl." Then for the first time in more than two years he muttered the old excuse: "She's only a girl anyway." For the third time Peter waited for the evening with its quiet before bringing up the subject of which both he and Bertha had been thinking every moment since his return. "Well, Bertha?" she had no need to ask what he meant. "Isn't there some way, Peter, we can keep part of the money if we don 't keep it all ? " * ' Not one penny. ' ' "What shall I what would you want me to do with it? That lawyer said it was mine, and that if I didn't take it I must do something with it. ' ' "He Freeman, would like it to be given to the avia- tion corps. School of Aviation perhaps." ' ' Well, 1 11 see. Maybe I will keep it after all. ' ' Bertha watched Peter narrowly as she spoke. The look of disappointment, of sorrow, on his face did not give way to one of stern disapproval so quickly but that she had seen it. She some way was comforted by that look. ' ' That is for you to say, ' ' he returned. Long after Bertha had gone to her room Peter sat musing over his life as it was affected by her. He looked 301 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE about him at the daintily kept little apartment, and thought what a pleasant home she would make for a man she loved. Perhaps she had loved Bates Freeman that way, the way he might have loved Madeline Dawson if he had the right. It made him very tender toward Bertha that thought of "the English Angel" and once more he whispered: "She's only a girl even now." He did not lie down until nearly morning. When he arose, Bertha had left for the shop. He felt annoyed, and had half a notion to go and bring her back. This thing must be decided. He was needed overseas. Ellen told him that Bertha had said she would come home to lunch, a thing she seldom did. So Peter played with the baby, read the morning papers and waited with as good a grace as possible for the luncheon' hour. It came and passed. At 2 o'clock he telephoned the shop. No, "Miss" Moore had not been there that day. How the "Miss" grated on his nerves, raw and bleeding with the long wait. "Are you sure?" ' ' Of course, I am sure ! Who 's calling her ? ' ' the care- less voice of Julia Lawrence asked. "I'll give her any message you like. I am her chum. ' ' The tone in which she informed Peter he could trust her made him shiver. It presupposed something secret, some understanding between them. He waited another hour, then he called again. This time another voice answered, that of the proprietress. "No, Miss Moore has not returned from her vacation." 302 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE Then in reply to a question, ' ' No, we have not heard from her." Now Peter became anxious. Where could Bertha have gone? He questioned Ellen, but could elicit nothing more than she had already told him. That she would be home to luncheon was all Bertha had said when she left. Peter started for the street. He did not know exactly what he intended doing, but he could stand his inactivity no longer. Just as he reached the sidewalk Ellen called him back. Some one wanted him on the telephone. "Yes, this is Captain Moore," he answered the ques- tion put him. "This is the Roosevelt Hospital. "We have a young woman here who says she is your wife. She is badly in- jured knocked down by an automobile." "I'll come at once." Hurriedly Peter rushed to the hospital. The nurse looked pityingly at the young offi- cer as she led the way to the cot on which they had laid Bertha. "I knew you. would come, Peter," her face lighted with joy in spite of the pain. "I knew you would. I did it, Peter, just what you wanted me to. I made it all over to the aviation people. That lawyer he thought I was crazy I guess but I made him do it. It's all fixed so no one need know I almost disgraced you and the baby. I did it for him my baby. Take good care of him Peter. Let your mother take him mine is too easy she would spoil him, like she did me." The whisper grew fainter and Peter leaned over the bed that he might hear, his tears dropping on the pretty weak face on which the gray pallor of death already 303 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE appeared. "Forgive " she whispered, "forgive me, Peter the baby be good." As Peter breathed his full forgiveness and pressed a kiss on the pale brow, Bertha Moore passed out in the great unknown where perhaps being ' ' only a girl ' ' would palliate her faults which had so nearly been sins. All the girlish beauty that had been hers when Peter married her seemed to come back to her as she lay dead. The hardness which at times had spoiled her pretty face disappeared; even the weakness was not noticeable. "She died happy," the nurse said to Peter, wanting to comfort the young officer. "See, the smile is yet on her face." Peter took Bertha back to Haynesville and buried her in the little churchyard where together they had often wandered when children picking the daisies, which grew in profusion. He arranged for a simple headstone to mark the spot where the mother of his boy lay, the in- scription, "She was only a girl," meaning little to any one but himself. As he gave his boy into his mother's keeping he was glad he had not told even her of Bertha's wrongdoing. Bates Freeman had "gone west," now Bertha had also gone. Perhaps they would meet and love each other again who could tell? The day after Bertha was laid to rest Peter once again left Haynesville. This time there was no flare of trum- pets, no joyous calling after the young captain. Yet most of the townspeople were there to see him off just the same ; only now it was a quiet handclasp and a wish 304 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE for his happiness instead of the boisterous leave-taking of the week before. As Peter paced the deck of the vessel that bore him nearer and nearer some "French port," he grew more tender in his thoughts of the girl who slept so quietly in the little churchyard. The refinement of death was over her faults. And she had given him his beautiful boy. For that he would always be her debtor. It was still May when Peter once more stood side by side with his men who had so gladly welcomed him back. There had been many engagements on both sides, skir- mishes in which first one side and then the other had gained a slight advantage. But the Americans were com- ing fast. The Allies were not only encouraged, but they were inspired by the sight of the fresh troops now so generously sent to their aid. The enthusiasm of the boys from the States was contagious, and the strains of ' ' The Star Spangled Banner" joined to those of the "Mar- seillaise ' ' and ' ' God Save the King, ' ' were greeted with cheers and applause wherever heard. It was a new-born, a revivified France to which Peter returned. No longer was that grim look of "win at all costs" so noticeable on the faces of the soldiers one met. The Yanks were coming so fast that there was now a look of assurance, a feeling that now the United States was awakened to the vital need of the Allies at last the need of men, fresh men to pit against the hordes of the Huns, who seemed to spring up like grass where the others fell and so give the worn-out troops rest and courage. Then came the great drive of July. Peter, like the 305 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE rest of the officers, had seen it coming, had known al- most to the day it would be sprung upon the Germans, who bragged that they were invincible. Peter had seen Madeline Dawson several times since his return to France. Beyond telling her that Bertha had died, he said nothing of an intimate nature to her. But as the surety that he would go into a great battle came to him, and as he remembered that she had told him it "made things easier" to know he loved her, he determined to see her once more. He waited until the time she usually left the shack to go to her room to rest. Then, standing in the door of the house where up under the roof in a tiny room Madeline each night prayed for his safety and his hap- piness, he told her of his belief that they were on the eve of a great battle, that before he went into it he wanted to tell her that he loved her as he never had loved any one before. "It is too soon to say more, dearest. But if I am spared " He looked into her eyes shining like twin stars, then drew her into his arms and kissed her lips. "If I am spared," he went on after one delicious mo- ment, "there is a little vine-covered cottage a cottage father bought for me when I first turned to soldiering, a cottage that will need a mistress." Then, after she had told him in loving words of what happiness it would be to her, he spoke of the great factories which his father had built and which would be his if he lived ; of the boy whom he loved so dearly. And in all that concerned him she was so sweetly, so wonderfully interested, that again and again he called her "My English Angel" and told 306 THE EVOLUTION OF PETER MOORE her that he did not deserve so much, that he was not worthy. Also many other things that people tell each other when they are in love. ****** It was the first of August. For two long, horrible weeks of blood and carnage Peter was, as always, in the thickest of the fight. Again his comrades told of his "charmed life." And, as before, willingly followed where he led. Then there came a lull. He was free to go to Madeline, if only for a day. But he went not as Captain, but as Major Moore. And the cable sent to a little town in the Middle West told an anxious waiting mother that Major Moore and Madeline Daw- son, the nurse who was called ' ' the English Angel, ' ' were married by the regimental chaplain. The Haynesville Times, in commenting upon the news, added : "We understand that Major Moore and his beautiful bride will, upon the conclusion of the war, return to Haynesville and live in the Rose Cottage, also, to relieve his father, the major will take over the mills." THE END 307 A 000 036 009 9