CHAPTER XI
TWO STRANGERS IN SAN SABATANO

Monica's life suddenly became filled to overflowing. She was no longer a child, but a woman of a maturity that was almost absurd in one so young. The happy, irresponsible girlhood she had so long enjoyed in her mother's modest uptown apartment had quite gone. Whatever the future might hold of happiness for her, certainly freedom from the more serious cares of life would never again be hers.

Five years ago she and her mother had bade Elsie good-bye in the same humble apartment, when the elder girl had left San Sabatano to go on the stage in New York. Monica was twelve then. Twelve; and her young eyes and younger mind were filled with a boundless envy and admiration for the beautiful sister who was to bask in the wonderful limelight of the stage, and wear clothes far beyond the beauty of all dreams; and jewels – jewels, whose splendor was incomparable to the beauty of her lovely, lovely Elsie. Had she only known it she was very near the truth when she thought of the jewels her sister would wear.

Her mother was one of those quietly good women who contrive to inspire their children with something of their own qualities by example rather than precept. Neither Elsie nor Monica ever knew what it was to receive one of those harsh reprimands so common among mothers of less understanding, of less ability. Her children must grow up guided rather than driven. All their lives this had been her method. Therefore it came as a terrible shock to her when the more wayward of the two, perhaps, in a sense, the bolder spirit of the two, suddenly announced her intention of leaving the sheltering dovecote, where money was never very plentiful, to earn her living in the flamboyant world of the stage.

True to her methods, and with, perhaps, a deeper understanding of her child, and the uselessness of refusal, the mother's permission was not long withheld. It was a reluctant enough permission, but given without any outward sign of the disapproval she really felt. Moreover, she was convinced of the rightness of her attitude. The girl, she knew, would live her life as she understood it. Her only duty remaining, therefore, was to equip her with all the knowledge of the world that lay within her simple range of understanding. For the rest the child's fate was in the lap of the gods.

But she never seemed to quite get over the parting. For a long time she bore up with great fortitude, and her devotion to Monica became a wonderful thing. It was almost as if she feared that she, too, her one remaining child, might be taken from her, and swallowed up by the hungry maw of the outside world.

She heard regularly from Elsie for some time. Elsie was getting on quite well. Then letters became less frequent. And, finally, about the time that Elsie met Leo, they ceased altogether. It was then that the signs of break-up began to show in the patient woman at home.

She had died quietly and quickly of heart failure just a year ago. Monica's grief was profound. But she was too young for any lasting effect to remain with her. She lived on in the apartment without any thought of leaving it. The whole thing seemed the most natural in the world to her. Her mother's solicitor wrote her, and offered her a home with his family, but, with prompt decision, she refused it. She told him that if her mother's affairs permitted it, she would rather remain in San Sabatano, where she had all her girlhood's friends, than break new ground among strangers. Her mother's affairs yielded her the barest living, so she remained, determined to make a way for herself in the world, her own world, as other girls of her acquaintance had done.

Now she had reached the second, and, in many ways, the greater change in her life. Where, before, only her childish affections had been bruised and crushed at her mother's death, now she realized that she had all too suddenly passed from the sunlit paths of innocent childhood, to the harsher road down which all the world was journeying; struggling, jostling, each striving to seize for themselves the easier, the pleasanter paths along which to make the journey of life.

But the change in her was subtle. There was no outward effect, there was no disturbing of the wholesome, happy nature that was the very essence of her being. The change was in an added knowledge, a quickening of naturally alert faculties. She realized that some strange force had suddenly plunged her into the midst of a life which demanded quick thought and swift action, so that her pulses might be kept beating in perfect time to the pace at which life sped on about her.

She realized that she had suddenly become one of life's workers, and that grave responsibility was already knocking at her door. From the very beginning she accepted the new conditions gladly. She felt an added zest to the fact of living. The old days of dreaming were gone. Every moment of her waking hours was filled with thought, keen, practical thought; and the demand thus made on her found her ready and able. There was no fluster, no confusion of any sort. Her healthy brain was quick and incisive, characteristics quite unsuspected even by herself. Not only was this so, but, with the added pressure, there came a quiet desire to test her newly discovered powers to the uttermost.

There were other changes, too, changes of almost equal importance. She found herself witnessing the progress of affairs about her with an entirely new understanding of them. All her understanding of the precepts of her youth received revision; a revision which was inspired by the story her sister had told her on her deathbed. The shock at first had been a little overwhelming, but, young as she was, her ready brain quickly assimilated the facts, and set itself to the task of readjusting its focus.

There was no bitterness, no horror at her discoveries. She simply realized that here was a small slice of life cut out by the same ruthless knife which no doubt served hundreds of similar purposes among the rest of mankind. Who was she to criticize, who was she to condemn? Her knowledge was all to come, and maybe, as she went on, she would discover that such tragedies were part of the real life which up to now had been entirely hidden from her.

She had no blame for her dead sister. Her memory was as sacred to her as if she had lived the most perfect life of purity under the social laws governing man's relationship to woman. Her love once given was not a thing to be promptly rescinded by the failure of its idol. The idol might fall, and become besmirched in the unsuspected mire, but her frank, kindly hands were ready to set it up again and again, and perhaps in time her broader knowledge would teach her how to secure it from further disaster.

Perhaps the first real warning of the change in her came at the moment she considered her sister's funeral. Here undoubtedly a shock was awaiting her, and, in a moment, there leaped into her focus a teeming picture of almost endless complications. Just for an instant all her nerves were set jangling, and an utter helplessness left her painfully distressed. Then the feeling as abruptly passed, her mind cleared, and, one by one, she found herself reviewing each detail of the situation, and marking out the course she must adopt.

First and foremost her sacred promise to the dying woman stood out in all its nakedness, entirely robbed of its cloak of impulse and affection, in which it had been clad at the time of its making. And from that promise, radiating in every direction, she saw boundless possibilities for more than unpleasant consequences.

She knew she must make up her mind swiftly, and she did so in an astonishing manner. A sleepless night found her in the morning ready with her plans all clear in her mind. She still had nearly three weeks before taking up her new position in the office of the Daily Citizen. This would be ample time to put everything in order. It was necessary to take the doctor into her confidence. He had been their doctor for as long as she could remember. He had attended her mother in her last illness, and knew their whole family history as well as she knew it herself. Therefore she did not anticipate any difficulty with him.

So the third morning after her sister's death she visited him at his house, and confided sufficient of her sister's story to him to enlist his sympathy, without any breach of the confidence reposed in her. She pointed out her own position, and begged his help in hushing the whole matter up.

Dr. Bernard Strong was a man of wide sympathy and understanding, and in giving his promise of help, pointed out the gravity of the position which her quixotic promise had placed her in.

"My dear," he said, "this is almost a terrible business for you. Here you are, bound to this town for at least a year, with a newly born infant in your care, which you cannot explain away, without breaking your promise to poor Elsie. You are known. You have many friends. What in the world are you going to do?"

It was then that Monica displayed the quick, incisive working of her suddenly aroused mental faculties. She told him in brief, pointed words the plans she had made during the long, wakeful night.

"It does not seem so – so very difficult," she said.

Then she plunged into the details of her schemes. She pointed out that her tenement was a weekly one, which she could get rid of as soon as Elsie was buried. This she would do. Then she would take rooms far out on the outskirts of the town. She would first find a house for the baby in the country, a few miles out, where he was not likely to be brought into contact with the townsfolk. That would be a start. After that she would meet any emergency as it arose. The help she wanted from him was to arrange the funeral, with all the secrecy possible, and see that the law was complied with in regard to the baby. His registration, etc.

The quick practical manner in which she detailed all the minor details to this man of experience filled him with a profound admiration, and he told her so.

"It is astounding to me, Monica," he said kindly, "that you, a girl of seventeen, can handle such a matter in the calm manner you are doing. Perfectly astounding. You certainly ought to do well in this business career you are about to begin. Really you have made things seem less – er – formidable. But, my dear child, I feel I must warn you. You see, I am so much older," he went on, with a smile. "I have seen so much of the world – the sadder side of the world, that I cannot let this moment pass without telling you of the rocks I can see ahead, waiting to break up your little boat. Your tale of an early marriage and all that, if the boy becomes associated with you in the minds of people in the town, will never do. At once they will think the worst, and then – what of your position on the Daily Citizen? Then when the time comes for you to marry? What then?"

"I shall never marry – now," was Monica's prompt and decided reply.

The doctor shook his head.

"It is so easy to say that. Believe me, my dear, you have tied a millstone about your neck that will take your utmost strength to bear. I even doubt if you will be able to bear it for long. You are about to embark on a career of falsehood which will find you out at almost every turn. It is quite terrible to think of. Poor Elsie did you the greatest wrong, the greatest injury, when she extracted that promise from you. And," he added, with a wry smile, "I fear, from my knowledge of you, you will carry it out to the bitter end – until it utterly overwhelms you."

Monica stepped off the veranda of the doctor's house with none of the lightness of gait with which she had mounted it. She realized the gravity of her position to the full now, and knew that, without breaking her sacred word to a dying woman, there was no means of remedying it. But she was quite determined, and walked away with her pretty lips tightly compressed, her blue eyes gazing out unflinchingly before her. Nothing should turn her from her purpose. It was Elsie's trust to her. It was the cross she had to bear. Come what might she would bear it to the end, even if at the last its weight were to crush the very life out of her.

The next three weeks passed rapidly. Monica had no time to look back upon the trouble which had so involved her, she had little enough time to gaze ahead into the wide vista of troublous rocks the doctor had promised her. In fact she had no time at all for anything but the crowding emergencies of the moment, and keeping the well-meaning friends and curious neighbors as far from the secrets of her inner life as possible.

Nor was it easy; and without Dr. Strong's help many of her difficulties would have been well-nigh insurmountable. But he was as good, and even better, than his word. The whole of the funeral was achieved without any unnecessary publicity, and Monica and the doctor were the only mourners. Then the latter found a home for the boy on a farm, three miles out of the town, where a newly born babe had just died, and so, in the end, everything was accomplished just as Monica had planned, without one unnecessary question being asked. Thus, by the time the winner of the special prize took up her duties in the office of the Daily Citizen, of all San Sabatano, Dr. Strong alone shared Monica Hanson's secret. A secret, it was her future object in life to keep entirely hidden from the world.

Monica entered upon her duties with a lighter heart than she had known for weeks. Everything was as she could wish it. All traces of her sister's shame had been carefully covered. Practically no sign was left to delight the prying eyes of the curious scandalmongers. Her future lay before her, wide, and, to her, illimitable.

Her aims and ambitions were fixed plainly in her mind. She must succeed; she must rise in the commercial world; she must make money. These things were not for herself. No, she required so little. They were for him, for the little life so cruelly wronged at its very outset. Henceforth her own life would be devoted to his. Her whole thought would be for him and his welfare, not only for the child's sake, but in memory of the love she had borne her dead sister.

How well the editor of the Daily Citizen