Part 2

Henry let his paddle trail idly in his left hand. A sudden madness possessed him. He leaned down and put his other hand over the girl’s as it lay in her lap.

“I love you--Elsie,” he said huskily.

Miss Morton gasped; she stared for an instant into Henry’s flushed, eager face with its pleading eyes. Then she laughed.

“Why you--you funny little fat man,” she cried.

Henry withdrew his hand as though from a red-hot stove.

“No--no, I didn’t mean that. Oh, I’m sorry--really, I am, Mr. Jones. I didn’t mean to hurt you--really I didn’t. But you are funny, you know, when you talk like that.” The girl poured out the words swiftly. Her tone was contrite, but the merriment did not die out of her eyes.

Henry sat up very stiff and straight, staring out over the glistening water.

“I didn’t know it was funny,” he said; the words came hardly above a whisper. “’Sall right, Miss Morton. Only--I didn’t know it would be funny.”

His eyes, with a dumb, hurt look in them like the look of a wounded dog, fell to hers an instant. Then in silence he turned the canoe and paddled back to her home.

Let us not pry too deeply into Henry’s feelings that terrible night. They can be imagined, but they cannot be told. He did not close his eyes until dawn, but sat propped up in bed, staring blankly across the moonlit little bedroom. Once in the middle of the night he became aware that his wife was not asleep, but lying wide awake watching him.

As he turned to face her, she put her hand gently upon his.

“What is it, dear?” she asked softly.

“’Sall right,” said Henry. He felt the answering pressure of her hand. In the dim moonlight, her face suffused with love and tenderness, seemed suddenly very beautiful. “’Sall right, Martha. I was just thinking. You go to sleep.”

Thus, in the gray light of dawn, in the agony of disillusionment, and with his sleeping wife’s hand in his, Henry Jones faced and solved his great problem. The change--for like all the rest it was only a change in him--came gradually. The turbulence of his thoughts slowly calmed; the ache in his heart grew less.

And then, clear and shining as a beacon light this new idea, this new feeling, rose in his mind. He seized it, lingered over it, gazed at it from every aspect. And then came a great sense of rest and peace stealing over him. He sighed, gripped his wife’s hand tighter, and fell into a dreamless sleep.

At breakfast next morning Henry was abnormally cheerful. Martha made no reference to his long vigil the night before, nor did he. But his eyes followed her around with a strange light, and his usually pink face was flushed even pinker with excitement.

After breakfast as he started for the store, he kissed her good-by with extraordinary enthusiasm.

“If it’s a good night to-night I’ve a surprise for you,” he said mysteriously. With which cryptic remark he turned abruptly and left the house.

The weather was perfect that evening--a full moon in a cloudless sky, and only a gentle breeze.

Refusing explanation, Henry led his wondering wife immediately after supper directly to the public boat-house at the lower end of the lake, hardly more than a mile from their home.

“I took the morning off,” was all he would say. “I bought something for you as a surprise.”

Into the boat-house he took her, expectant and thrilled, and there he proudly displayed a tiny green-painted canoe, lying upon a little platform that sloped down into the water.

“For you, Martha,” he said. “I bought it for you to-day.”

“Oh, Henry, a canoe for us!”

“I bought it for you--this morning. Don’t you see, Martha--that’s what I’ve been doing all these weeks--learning to canoe so I can take you out.”

“Oh, Henry--dear!” Martha put her hand timidly upon his arm.

“I’m an expert canoeist, now, Martha--you’ll see.”

In the dimness of the boat-house he put a sturdy arm about her waist; he could feel she was trembling.

“I’ll take you out now,” he went on. “Wait--I’ve got some cushions.”

He was back in an instant with his arms full of pillows, which he tossed carelessly into the canoe with the paddles. Then with ostentatious skill he slid it down into the water, and tenderly placed his silent, trembling little wife in the bottom upon the cushions, so that she would be at his feet as he sat in its stern.

Out upon the lake he paddled with lusty strokes, straight into the shining ribbon of moonlight. Martha lay quiet, gazing up at him as he silently bent to his work. Music floated to them over the water. Another canoe passed, with a boy and girl in it--a girl who reclined in the bottom playing a guitar. Henry--with a great consciousness of equality--waved to them in friendly greeting.

Then all at once he shipped his paddle and leaned down to his wife, letting the canoe slip forward unguided. Her eyes were wet and shining; her hand stole upward to meet his.

“Life and--and everything is wonderful, isn’t it, dear?” said Henry Jones.

[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the August 21, 1920 issue of the Argosy—All Story Weekly magazine.]