第58章 THE MASTERY(3)

Joy does not kill any more than sorrow.Vincent Burgess and Dennie Saxon,who came just at the right time,told how they had waited with Bug at the slab of stone by the bend in the river until they should be needed.

"It was Dennie who planned it all,"Vincent said,"and did not even let me know.Bug told her my picture was on the table in there.

But so long as her father lived,she kept her counsel.""I tried four years ago to get Dr.Fenneben to come out here,"Dennie said.

And the Dean remembered the autumn holiday and Dennie's solicitude for an unknown woman.

But the joy of this night,crowning all other joys in the Walnut Valley,was in that sacred moment when Bug Buler walked slowly up to Marian Burleigh,sister to Vincent Burgess,lost love of Lloyd Fenneben's youth--slowly,and with big brown eyes glowing with a strange new love light,and,putting up both his chubby hands to her cheeks,he murmured softly:

"Is you my own mother?Then,I'll love you fornever."Meantime,on this last moonlit June night,Elinor and Vic were strolling down the new south cement walk,a favorite place for the young people now.

At the farther end,Vic said:

"Norrie,let's go down across the shallows to the west bluff again.

Can you climb it,or shall we join the crowd down in the Kickapoo Corral?""I can climb where you can,Victor,"Elinor declared.

"Dennie will never want to come here again.Poor Dennie!"Vic was helping Elinor across the shallows as he spoke.

Up in the Corral a happy crowd of young people were finishing their last "picnic spread"for the year.Below the shallows the whirlpool was glistening all treacherously smooth and level under the moonbeams.

"Why `poor Dennie,'Victor?Her father had nothing more for him,here,except disgrace.The tribute paid him at his funeral would have been forever withheld,if he had lived a day longer,and he died sure of Dennie's future."Elinor spoke gently.

"Who told you all this,Elinor?"Victor asked.

"Professor Burgess,when he showed me the diamond ring Dennie is to wear tomorrow.""Dennie,a diamond!I'm glad for Dennie.Diamonds are fine to have,"Vic declared.

They had climbed to the top of the west bluff.The silvery prairie and silver river and mist-wreathed valley,and overhead,the clear,calm sky,where the moon sailed in magnificent grandeur,were a setting to make the evening a perfect one.And in this setting was Elinor,herself the jewel,beautiful,winsome,womanly.

"I have some good news."She turned to the young man beside her.

"You know the Wreams have made a life business of endowing colleges.

Well,I am a Wream by blood,and tomorrow,oh,Victor,tomorrow,I,too,have the opportunity of a lifetime.I'm going to endow Sunrise."He looked at her in amazement.

"Oh,it's clear enough,"she exclaimed."It was my money that built Sunrise.It shall stay here,and Dr.Lloyd Fenneben,Dean of Sunrise,and acting-Dean Vincent Burgess,A.B.,Professor of Greek,and Victor Burleigh,Valedictorian,who goes East to a professorship in Harvard,and to the ministry of the gospel later on--all you mighty men of valor will know how little Norrie Wream cares for money,except as it can make the world better and happier.

I haven't lived in Lloyd Fenneben's home these four years without learning something of what is required for a Master's Degree.""Norrie!"All the music of a soul poured into the music of the deep voice.

"Victor!There is no sacrifice in it.I wish there were,that I might wear the honors you wear so modestly.""I,Elinor?"

"I know the whole story.Dennie told me when you had that awful fight,and Trenchie told me long ago,that you thought I must have money to make me happy.Why I,more than Dennie,or you,who gave Bug his claim?"Elinor put up her hands to Victor,who took them both in his,as he drew her to him and kissed her sweet red lips.

And there was a new heaven and a new earth created that night in the soft silvery moonlight of the Walnut Valley.

"I'd rather be here with you than over the river with anybody else.

I feel safer here,"she murmured,remembering when they had striven in the darkness and the storm to reach this very height.

But Victor Burleigh could not speak.The mastery for which he had striven seemed to bring meed of reward too great for him to grasp with words.