Motion Picture Classic (Jan-Dec 1920)

shrewd eyes. "Mm !" he saitl at last dryly, "she must ha' found it quick, because she's down at my house this minute, crying as tho her heart 'ud break. I couldn't make out what was wrong, so I cunie miT to find out. Went away, oh ? With Bill Lacey ? Well. I puess she changed her mind." Caleb West caught the table edge. "She — didn't go?" "Didn't 'pear to." the Captain said, dry • Iv, then his tone changed, grew pleading. "Caleb, she's young. We older folks forget what the world looks like to twenty. We'd ought to make 'lowances. Shall I go back and send Betty home?" The master-diver stood immovable. His face was like granite. "It's too late. Bell." he said slowly. "It 'ud happen again. I couldn't stand it. watching" her. wonderin'. I'll give her half I make but — she cant come back." .\rgument. pleading availed no more than a wave washing against a rock. "There ain't nothing." mused the good Captain as he plodded heavily homeward, "there ain't nothing unforgivinger than a good man. nor stupider either. Caleb West is all right when it comes to laying the foundation for a lighthouse but he cant keep his own home from drifting to shipwreck." White-faced but singularly calm, the girl received Caleb's edict. "He's right I" she flashed when the Captain showed indignation. "I haven't got the right to go back." She faced the old man bravely, "you know what folks'll say. But it wont be true. Bill Lacey never so much as kissed me. Soon as I got on that boat I knew I couldn't go. But I was wicked all the same. I listened to him and I — wanted what he said— Life! and things happening — and things to see ! And I desen'e to be punished." The tiny fishing village rocked seasickly with the news. Housewives left their dishes unwashed to discuss it over their fences, the men on the fishing boats rolled it like a flavorsome morsel on their tongues. But there was a singular scarcity of details. None of the three involved would speak of what had happened. Bill Lacey, sullen-eyed, with bitten red lips left the lighthouse gang and went to work as a fireman on a freighter, plying between the island and the mainland. Betty West got a place as a waitress in the hotel, and Caleb strode to and from the ledge where the lighthouse was rising, with a heavy look that forbade questioning. But the gossips eked out their fare with another spicy morsel. For a long time the admiration of Henry Sanford, the contractor who was building the light, for pretty Kate Leroy, the wife of the hotel owner, hail been uimiistakable — to the whole village, except apparently, to slow, silent, plodding Morgan Leroy. The handsome shoulders and dapper mustache of the city man were almost never seen without an orange sweater, a floating Deep Waters (Continued front page 421 chitTon veil close by, and while Sanford paid assiduous court and Kate Leroy 's gay. pleased laughter shrilled her flattered delight to all the world. Morgan Leroy, in shapeless old trousers and wrinkled necktie sat hunched over his pai)er in the hotel office. In her leisure hours Hetty slipped away to the cliff, and sat. a smaM. huddled figure hidden among the bushes, looking out over the restless harbor to where the far figures of the divers moved on their platform. The ocean no longer called to her imagination. Its eternal plaint moaned in the homesick ears of her soul. and slow, silent tears gathered in her eyes and dripped off the point of her chin. To Bill Lacey, when he tried to reason with her, to plead angrily, passionately she answered only "No. That's all over with — please." "But you cant live here all your life like this." the boy stormed, haggard eyes on her colorless little face, "people whisperin', working like a hor.se ! Ask Caleb for a divorce and marry me. We'll go away — to Europe, we'll see the world — " sine smiled sadly, as tho she were infinitely older and wiser than he. "I couldn't be any farther away in Europe than I am here," she said, and fell to brooding, not noticing when he stumbled blindly away. People said afterward that the explosion aboard the Bessie Marie, freighter, was a judgment, rolling the good old Methodist word solemnly on their tongues. They proved at the inquiry that it was a leaky valve. Whichever you prefer, it was at least a turning point in si.x people's lives. Almost before the vibration of the explosion had died away a crowd had collected on the shore and the tug with the divers, still in their suits had started for the wreck. Captain Bell was casting off his dory when he felt his arm seized, and looked down into the face of Betty West. "I've got to go I" she told him wildly, "I've got to go!" And so Caleb West and his wife came face to face at last on the tilting deck of the tug beside the mass of wreckage which alone showed where the Bessie Marie had gone down. Her hands went to her breast, but she did not speak, only looked up niio his face, set into hard and alien lines. "All o' the crews safe — but one man." he said harshly, "he's in the air lock. If 1 dont get him in ten mimites, handsome Bill Lacey'll never break up another man's home." There was such terrible bitterness and exultation in his tone, and his kindly eyes held such an unholy light of triumph that she cried out then and clutched at his arm. "Caleb! You're going? You must ! ( )h — you must !" She was thinking only of him. and of the Cain-rejjroach he would carry always thereafter if he did not go, but he read in her agony another meaning. Without a word he turned on his heel and set the helmet over his head. It seemed to Betty West that all her lifetime up to that moment was not so long as the ten minutes that followed, when she stood by the bow. staring down into the green deeps as tho by the force of her will she could draw hiin up to her. When the ugly, squat figure appeared, silently carrying something limp in its arms and clambered clumsily aboard, she heard the sound of hysterical weeping somewhere at a great distance but did not know that it came from her own lips. They laid Bill Lacey on the deck, a long young sprawl, terribly still. And while she watched them work over him, Caleb West clambered out of his diving suit, staggering with weariness. It had been a gruelling fight under the crushing green waters, a fight more than physical. Dut he" carne out of it a conqueror. Hu went to his wife now. and the hardness was gone from him. "I saved him partly because 'twas my duty, Betty, but mostly because you wanted him.'' He smiled crookedly. "I been wrong. I was too old for you — I didn't have the right to your youngness, Blossom." (the old pet name slipped out unaware), "but I'll give you back what I took, best I can. I'll set you free — " The nearness of her — ah God ! the dearness ! He shut his eyes lest he forget his promise and take her straightway, because he could do no other, into his weary arms. Because they were shut he could not see the quivering shame and tenderness in her upturned face, but suddenly — thru the . darkness, spiritual and bodily that engulfed him. he heard a whisper; — "Caleb, please — dont — set me free. 1 want — I want to stay — " And, as in the beginning, the voice cried to the swirling chaos, "Let there be Light," and there was light. Now Caleb West opened his eyes on a glory of sunset crimson and a face in it, lifted to his. It was not the placid kiss of middle-age but the kiss of a young, ardent lover that he gave his wife then — .'\nd the same night that robbed the village of one scandal took away the other also, on the train that carried Henry Sanford to the city — alone. Captain Bell, who rowed two passengers from the F'oint to catch the train, might have been able to explain why he brought one back with him. weeping with a melancholy satisfaction over her shattered romance and tremulously grateful for its shattering. Rowing homeward, after he had left Kate Leroy, whimpering her gratitude at the hotel, Captain Bell regarded the lights twinkling friendliwise along the shore contentedly, his face gently humorous. "Ain't it nice to think all o' them lights mean a home," he ruminated aloud, resting a moment on. his oars, "That's the way the Lord meant it to be. 1 reckon, men and women set in homes. An old bachelor like me has missed his job at home-making. Still," and he chuckled softly, "I do' know but what the Lord needs a few lighthouses, too!" (Sixly-si.r)