Here comes the sun

Front matter

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Chapter I

THE engine shrieked a warning. Porters shouted, “ All aboard!” As the train shivered into action }a black cocker spaniel jumped from the baggageear. Long ears flopping, red tongue hanging, the | blue tag at his collar flapping, he dashed into a trail | which zigzagged up the hillside. With an exclamation of dismay a girl on the step of the Pullman |jJumped to the ground and gave chase. The man /on the forward platform of the car behind executed {a spectacular leap and followed. The conductor of ' the train yelled a protest.

On sped the spaniel. When his pursuers were ‘almost upon him he dodged into the underbrush ionly to emerge higher up with a broad grin, a triumphant yelp and minus the blue tag. From ‘below came a frantic whistle, then the puff-puff of the engine as the train pulled away. With a disturbed frown darkening his fine eyes the man 'Jooked down into the valley where a haze of smoke lay lightly.

“Good Lord, they’ve left us!” he muttered angrily.

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“Come quick! Oh, come quick! I’ve caught him,” called a breathless voice.

With a smothered anathema on train-crews in general and this one in particular the man picked up the soft hat the girl had dropped and joined her. She was on her knees in a small clearing with the spaniel clutched tightly in her arms. The light from the slanting sun dusted the waves of her fair hair with gold, the color of her eyes fused from blue to violet with every change of expression; her cheeks, her sturdy chin were dented with dimples; the fine frills at throat and wrists were in rags, the straight lines of her smart heliotrope crépe frock accentuated her boyish slenderness; her gray pumps were scratched irredeemably but her voice was vibrant with triumph as she held out the wriggling black creature in her arms.

“ Here is your dog.”

“Mine! Isn’t he yours? ”

“No! Isaw him jump, feared that he might get lost and dashed after him. I adore dogs. When I heard someone behind me I concluded that his owner had joined in the chase. I couldn’t endure the thought that the little thing might be gobbled up in this wilderness.”

She hugged the spaniel closer and sprang to her feet. With a quickly controlled shiver she glanced over her shoulder at the dark pines and their forest

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| affinities which stretched up and back as far as she /could see. She looked down into the valley. With }a last fiery glare at the human atoms in the clearing the sun slid out of sight behind the hill. As | though encouraged by the retirement of the orb of day a few clouds crawled forward. The air cooled.

|The mysterious sounds of unseen things hushed to a | murmur.

The lovely color ebbed from the girl’s face. Her /eyes were deeply darkly blue as she looked up at |the man looking down at her. He seemed superbly fit. There were two creases between his brows, ‘there were stern lines about his clean mouth, the | gray eyes which steadily sustained her scrutiny ‘harbored a smile in their depths. She relaxed with \a sigh of relief. There was a suspicion of unstead- ‘iness about her lips, a slight catch in her voice as

ishe asked :

_ “Has that silly train really gone?”

“Tt has. I’m sorry.”

“T heard them shout ‘ All aboard!’ but it didn’t

‘occur to me that they would dare go on without us.

'This is the worst predicament in which my impul-

siveness has landed me to date and goodness knows

imy previous record didn’t need beating. If the dog

isn’t yours why, why did you follow me?”

- The charm of his smile brought a responsive

gleam to the girl’s eyes.

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“ Because when I saw you dash madly after the runaway I thought you might need help. I know these woods.” For an instant he regarded her colorless face, the strained white knuckles of the hands which clutched the dog’s black coat. then he went on lightly:

“T have a mother who is a twentieth century model in all ways except her dislike of being out after dark without a male escort. In that respect she is hopelessly mid-Victorian. I have contracted the habit of looking after her, so when I saw you race up the hill regardless of possible consequences I instinctively followed to look after you. I hope that you don’t mind? ”

“Mind! I should say not.” A golden thread of camaraderie ran through the velvet of the girl’s voice; her eyes smiled with the frank responsiveness of a boy’s as she confessed :

“Tm hopelessly mid-Victorian too. I hate the dark. The dog’s owner must have gone on with the train blissfully unconscious of what had happened. When he finds out will he place the blame where it belongs or will he think that you and I conspired to snitch the spaniel who is undoubtedly a thoroughbred? Will he?” There was a suspicion of tears in her voice as she protested:

“Don’t stand there dumb as though I were that Gorgon female who turned people to stone! ”

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The man straightened as though throwing off a sspell. His laugh was reassuring.

“Stone! You have quite the contrary effect. You ” He held the sentence kicking in midair and produced a time-table. The crease between his brows deepened as he studied it. The girl’s glance followed his finger. Her eyes flashed up to his.

“Not another train north until morning! But iI must get on; my aunt expects me. If I do not jappear Managing Martha will wire Mother and \frighten her. Can’t you do something?” | Where does your aunt live? ”

“ At Clearwater on the coast. It is fourteen jmiles’ run by automobile from the next station. ‘How far are we from that?” She consulted the itime-table. “Is it really twenty-five miles?” she | demanded in a shocked whisper. | “Yes. Is your aunt a native or

‘¢ No, she is at her summer home, Shorehaven; isounds like a sailors’ retreat, doesn’t it? Wary irelatives and friends have dubbed it Match-haven. ‘Perhaps you are going there to visit,” the girl iventured in eager hope.

“1? There is no such glittering prospect before

ime. TIstole a few days for a conference in Boston

‘and when I get home I shall be in work up to my

ears. Let’s go down the trail. I saw a log house 9

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near the track. It is my best bet that it is a cabin belonging to a man I know. If it is I can get into it and if we get in we will find it liberally supplied with eats. We will have supper after which we'll organize into a Ways and Means Committee of two. Take your hat and give me the dog. If we put him down he may run away and get lost. The rascal deserves to be thrashed for getting you into this scrape.”

The color stole back into the girl’s face as she protested gaily:

“Thrashed! How like a man. Poor doggins fared forth on his own great adventure. You didn’t ask us to butt in, did you, Sweetie-peach?” she crooned to the spaniel before she relinquished him. She gave an occasional backward glance at the darkening forest as she followed close at her guide’s heels.

Near the bank of a tumbling, foam-flecked stream a log house snuggled between two towering pines. It was neither sinister nor forbidding; it looked to be the last word in sylvan comfort. The man groped under the wooden step in front and with a relieved, “I thought so!” produced a key. He inserted it in a padlock and opened the door?

The girl peered in cautiously. The spaniel] sniffed suspiciously. The one room was clean and dry. The built-in bunks were piled high with fresh-

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< ut balsam boughs which emitted a spicy fragrance. here was a table and three deep, roomy chairs of ithe type designed for the fire-worshiper. Zn the i. once-split birch logs lay ready for lightfing. An open door in the rear showed a wellstocked wood-shed. The man stood aside for the a to enter. As she hesitated he smiled down upon ther.

_ “Welcome to our city!” Then as she stepped finto the cabin he suggested, “ We’ll draw lots as to ;who shall light the fire and who shall forage for eats. For some reasons it is a pity that we weren’t marooned at a station, but we shall be a lot more comfortable here.”

“Why did the train stop? When it paicd up I went to the platform for a breath of this glorious pir. Just as I was about to inquire what had delayed us I saw the dog, dashed after him and— ihnere we are. I feel like Goldilocks in the House of che Three Bears. There are three bunks and three chairs. Hunt in the cupboard for the porridge, which should be steaming on the table, while I rouch a match to those shavings,” she suggested as he dropped to her knees by the hearth.

“The train stopped for a hot box. The place is

a repair station of sorts.” The man’s muffled ex-

olanation oozed from the depth of the cupboard.

“Weare playing in luck—Goldilocks. Here is tea. 11 condensed milk, canned corned beef, fifty-seven varieties of crackers and candles to burn. We'll take what we need and leave money to pay Father Bear.” He deposited the supplies on the table and seized a shining tin pail. “Tl go for water while you prepare the collation.”

He left the door ajar as he went out. When he returned the fire was casting fantastic shadows on the walls. The spaniel lay stretched on his side, his back within comfortable toasting distance of the blazing logs. He opened one eye as his rescuer entered, thumped on the floor languidly with his tail, drew a prolonged sigh and relapsed into the arms of Morpheus. The table was set with cups and dishes. A tin dipper full of ferns served as a centrepiece. Candles stuck in bottles flickered decoratively.

“Behold the festal effect,’ laughed the girl as the man halted on the threshold. “ What happened to you? Your shoes are wet and muddy. Did you fall into the stream? ”

The lines between his brows deepened at the question. “ No, I did a little investigating. I told you that I thought I had been here before. I came hunting with a fri—a man but we approached the cabin through the woods back of it. You’ve transformed the place. The home-making fairy with the shining wings must have endowed you royally.”

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As he filled the kettle with water and swung the crane over a heap of red coals he hummed softly:

“* “You remind me of my mother, My mother was a lot like you, So many little things you do, A iy Ts ee aM

“Go on,” the girl commanded as he stopped. “TI love to hear a man sing.”

“Don’t you sing? ”

“ No, I whistle.”

She breathed a few soft notes, whistled a trill like the call of a bird to its mate, minors, more experimental trills, a fragment of a dance, then the notes of his song:

‘‘You remind me of my mother

She broke off with a laugh and a little curtsey. “ Good Lord, I should say that you could whistle.

I heard that song in a musical comedy last night and the refrain has been phonographing in my head ever since you boarded the train this morning.” “Then you had seen me before I did my spectacular dash-for-a-dog act? ”

“Thad. Will Mademoiselle be seated? ” He drew out one of the chairs with a grandiloquent French-waitery bow. As the kettle began to purr 13 i! 5 4 p

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h»made a cup of tea which he deposited in front of her with a flourish. He abandoned his stage-centre manner and took the chair opposite. He cut a piece of the corned beef and presented it on a tin plate.

“T am not hungry. I had rather plan what we are to do next than eat,” the girl protested.

“Nothing doing. No supper, no plan. Drink the tea, eat. that meat and the crackers. I refuse to discuss ways and means during this festive meal. Let’s pretend that a taxi outside is gobbling our cash-on-hand while waiting to take us to the next station. Be a good little sport, forget our predicament and tell me what you meant by Managing Martha and Match-haven. Methinks the lady across the table beareth a grudge against her august aunt, what? ”

The girl dimpled in delighted appreciation of his raillery. Her skin was rosy from the fire, tiny curls lay moistly against the nape of her white neck, her eyes had the velvety softness of purple pansies as she answered :

“Do you insist upon hearing the story of my young life? ‘Then listen my child > My father is a clergyman in a country town. He is a darling but he belongs between book-covers, not in this hustling world. I am the youngest of his six daughters, his boy, he calls me, perhaps because I whistle. Mother’s sister married a man of enor

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jmous wealth. She is a widow now and as she has no )children she just naturally tries out her theories }on her nieces.”

“Managing Martha accounted for. Match- | haven? ” _ «That stands for the worst phase of her manag: ing. Somehow, somewhere she was bitten with the matchmaking mania, only she calls it astrology. She apparently believes that if marriages are made in heaven she is a divinely appointed earthly deputy. Three years ago she bought a glorious 'summer home and she adds an additional pearl to her rope for every matrimonial engagement which “materializes under that roof. Gunman stuff. A notch for every victim, see? As her pearls are the size of able-bodied peas she hands herself some | bonus. That is why we call the place Match-haven.”

The man threw back his head and shouted with laughter. The girl regarded him with stormy | eyes. | &Y¥ou wouldn’t think it such a huge joke if you were one of her victims.”

“Are you? ” "

“T have been summoned for the sacrifice; the command was camouflaged by an invitation. The © high priestess has taken us girls one at a time. Never before have I been invited to Shorehaven. I /am the last of her Lorraine nieces unmarried, Do 15 you wonder that I detest Clearwater and everything connected with it? ”

“You don’t mean that she hit the matrimonial bull’s-eye five times in one family?”

“JT do. She did. Her successes are spread over a period of ten years. I don’t wonder that you are incredulous. Aunt Martha claims that by studying _ the horoscopes of her victims she has brought the right persons together. I claim that my sisters were easy marks. As children they contracted every disease to which they were exposed. What could be expected when they were plucked from a manless, small-town atmosphere and flung into a heaven of luxury which teemed with eligible males? They caught love as they would a cold. Now Aunt Martha is concentrating on me, ‘little Julie, the last of the Lorraine girls,’ ” she quoted with a the- | atrical sigh.

“Then she warns you of her dark and dour design. I call that sporting of her.”

“Tf you persist in chuckling about it “i

“JT won't. I promise. Go on. Who is to be | wished on you? ”

“Her late lamented’s nephew. I understand that | he is a charmer with thirty birthdays to his credit, has innumerable female scalps dangling from his belt and that he is the remainder-man or ultimate consumer of the Marshall fortune. As the stars

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ordain that this is his year as well as mine to slip into double harness Aunt Martha has cannily decided to keep the money in the family. August and September being the open season for engagements here I am on my way to Shorehaven.”

“Ts the nephew such a poor fish that he can’t select his own wife? ”

“Don’t growl. You are not being lured into the spider’s parlor.”

“Why are you walking into it?”

At his tone a tint of color crept to the girl’s hair. She threw a cracker to the spaniel who, head tilted, tongue hanging, tail thumping the floor, sat up and begged. She kept her eyes on the dog as she explained :

“Partly for the thrill of defying Destiny—for Destiny see Managing Martha—even when I was a child she infuriated me. She was kind, she was generous but oh, so bossy. Now that I am older and ought to know better, if I find her on one side of a question I just naturally take the other. She can’t forgive my sense of humor which I inherit from Mother.”

“Was to defy Destiny your only reason for com: ing? ”

“You have missed your vocation. You should be Inquisitor-in-Chief for a detective agency.”

She wrinkled her nose in laughing friendly de-

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rision and crossed her arms on the table. As she leaned toward him the candle-light made a nimbus of gold about her head. The laughter had gone from her voice; there was a tiny crease of determination on her brow as she answered his question :

“T came to get possession of myself. I suppose a man can’t understand what that means. As my - sisters have married, their duties at home—Aunt Martha has supplied any number of servants but they won’t stay in our small town—their classes, their charities have fallen back upon me until I, the real I, have been buried as deep as poor King Tut. I have been at the beck and call of the parish. ‘Julie’ll do it!’ has quite unconsciously become the family and village slogan. So when Mother’s cousin wrote that she would be glad to live with. us and help for her board, I seized her offer as a submerged person would a rope and accepted Aunt Martha’s invitation.”

“Only to drop into a matrimonial sea of trouble? ”

“No. While I am at Shorehaven I shall think only of myself. I shall not sacrifice myself for any-— one, I shall consider first my welfare, my pleasure, — my happiness.”

“Were you thinking only of yourself when you — dashed after the dog? You’ve made a great start | on your all-for-self program.”

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She colored richly as she met his quizzical eyes.

“TI forgot for an instant, but it won’t happen again.”

“Did your mother want you to come? Does she approve of your marrying for money? Does your father? ”

“For money? Haven’t I told you that the man is attractive? Mother adores Dad but she has spent her life as the link between two ends of an income which couldn’t be made to meet. Can you wonder if she hopes that I will fall in love with someone 'who can provide a checking account which will resemble the widow’s cruse? I wanted to take a business course but I have been needed at home. _However, Mother’s hopes will be blasted. I can | converse in three languages, I have been brought | up on the classics, housework and the Ladies’ Aid, | but when it comes to talking to a man under sixty, my mind collapses like a pricked balloon.”

“Good Lord, you don’t think me sixty or over, ido you?”

“How subtle! Ihave been garrulous but you see \before you the new Julie Lorraine rising Phoenixlike from the ashes of the old Julie. I have promlised Mother that I will be as nice to Aunt Martha a8 is humanly possible, that I will accept whatever she wants to give me. Heretofore I have snubbed her whenever she has tried to be generous, so natu- 19

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rally she stopped trying. Never has she sent me a frock before this. I have worn hand-me-downs. Now I am wearing a Martharine and see what I have done to it!” She held up her hands and regarded her torn frills with laughing consternation.

‘What is a Martharine? First cousin to a Worth or a Doucet? ”

“Now I know where your women friends get their clothes. We girls coined the word for Aunt Martha’s gifts. My frock is a Martharine, my shoes, what there is left of them, are Martharines.”

“Tf you so hate hand-me-downs why isn’t your aunt’s plan a dispensation of providence? ”

“ Because I don’t intend to marry at present. I am afraid of love. Love smashes friendship between a man and a girl. When I promised Mother that I would be nice to Aunt Martha, it was with reservations. I shall hesitate at nothing to combat her match-making. I refuse to be horoscoped into a pearl for her string. If I find that I am falling under her spell—don’t laugh, her success is un- | canny—lI shall run away with Billy.”

“Who is Billy? ”

“William Jaffrey, the novelist.”

“Billy Jaffrey? ”

“Yes. He has been my pal since our Dutch-cut | days. Then and ever since on his vacations I have | tagged adoringly at his heels eager to show that I

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was of as stern stuff as he. He was a relentless taskmaster and an ardent believer in the survival of the fittest. He taught me to swim, to handle boats, to climb trees, to ride, to drive his car.”

“ Hasn’t Jaffrey sufficient money and reputation to satisfy your aunt?”

Her eyes glimmered with mischief as she whispered dramatically :

“The planets are against our union!” She re-

| Jaxed into a conversational tone. “ Aunt Martha adores Billy. He spends part of each summer with her, but she has warned him that he is not to park his heart in my vicinity. Neither he nor I had thought of sentiment but now—you never can tell!” She sighed theatrically. Her si curved | with laughter.

“ Are you in love with Jaffrey? ” She met his stern eyes indignantly. ‘“ Of course

/ not. I shall not sacrifice my freedom for anyone.

‘Julie won’t do it!’ is my present slogan. My life has been spent in a country town. Now I have fared forth to link arms with those irresistible twins, Romance and Adventure.”

“You said that you were afraid of romance.”

“ Love, man, love. I am looking for the romance of business, of politics, for the dragon-slayers, the imprisoned princesses, the sleeping beauties, the wicked dragons, the fairy-godmothers of real life,

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not for romance for myself. Dad has brought me up to believe that if I once succumb it is for life. He believes that marriage should be entered into solemnly, advisedly, only through a great love or a great purpose.”

“ A purpose? ”

“Yes. He would be in full sympathy with a | princess who formed an alliance to save her heritage. He is a ‘Right or wrong, My Country!’ American. He had so hoped for a son. When his sixth daughter came he determined to give her the training he would give a boy. I learned Lincoln’s Gettysburg speech as soon as I learned my prayers and I was brought up on Webster’s orations. Mother, fearing that Dad would make me into an unbearable infant prodigy, stuffed my mind and imagination with fairy-tales and saved her child.”

“What is the nephew’s name? ”

“ Are you back to him again? What persistence! Dallas Carfax Second. Sounds like a boat, doesn’t at?”

“You may love Carfax. He may make you love him.”’

Julie rose with a suddenness which sent her chair backward with a crash.

“You are siding with Aunt Martha. Tt serves me right for confiding in you, a stranger. I suppose I did it because of your reference to your mother,

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| possibly because you have a tinge of Dad’s ery-it- | out-on-my-shoulder manner. You seemed ownfolksy, almost as though we had been friends in a previous incarnation. I deserve to be disillusioned for A

Her voice caught. Her eyes widened as she leaned toward him and warned:

“Don’t move! Keep on listening and laugh! Laugh! There is a red, shiny-faced man looking in the window behind you! His eyes are bleak, his expression is dev-devilish! L-look at the dog!” she | whispered hoarsely as the black spaniel ruffed his ' coat and gave vent to a nerve-rasping howl.

Chapter II

THE man was at the door before she had finished speaking.

“Who’s there?” he called sharply. There was no sound outside save the splash of the stream and | a faint distant rumble.

“Come away from the door! Please! He’s gone; he vanished like a hoodoo.” The girl’s eyes blazed with excitement. Her breath came as though she had been running. The man closed the door and slid the bolt. His tone was reassuring as he suggested:

“The poor chap was doubtless a native who knew the place and thought he’d get in out of the storm which is rolling up.”

“A storm! Then we must get away at once. Hurry,” Julie urged breathlessly as she began to clear the table. The man replaced tins and boxes without answering. They worked silently and swiftly. As the last dish was put in place a thunderous rumble bumped from hilltop to hilltop. The wind began to whisper sibilant little secrets down the stone chimney, the windows rattled an eerie answer. The girl peered out into the night. There Was a crimson streak in the west but overhead the sky was black.

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“We must get away from here,” she persisted. “Where shall we go? There is no train north juntil morning. One goes south at midnight but what should we gain by taking that? I know this jregion and I know that there isn’t a house within jten miles and that one is on the old lumber road which runs through the woods back of this cabin. |I came over it once in an automobile but it would | be suicide to try to walk it with this storm coming. |A giant tree is likely to be struck or uprooted at jany moment. I shan’t consent to your trying it.” | “ But you don’t mean—you can’t mean that you {expect me to spend the night here with is “ Not necessarily. I will build up the fire, pile a |lot of logs in this room for you and leave you, if / you wish.” A blinding flash turned the windows ‘to molten sheets. A thunderous rumble shook the | cabin.

“ Leave me alone with that awful man prowling ‘round? I wouldn’t stay.”

“Then we will make the best of it and remain here. Life is bigger than conventions, Goldilocks. Had we been caught in this predicament in France the day’s work.”

“ But we are neither in France nor at war.” The girl’s violet eyes were black as she defied him. She pulled her soft hat low over her fair hair and picked during the war we should have taken it as part of os

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up the dog who cowered whining at her feet. mek | shall walk to the next station on the track. If you are afraid you need not come.”

“ Julie “

“ Don’t call me Julie! Why, I don’t even know your name and it is only a few minutes since we met.” :

He pulled out his watch. “ It is just three hours, thirty minutes and twenty-seven seconds since you left the Pullman. You might have met me at social affairs for months and by your own confession not known me as well as you know me now.”

“Youre right. We are terribly old acquaintances; call me anything you like, but I am going on. Stop squirming, Sweetie-peach,” she reproached the spaniel in her arms. As she pulled open the door a flash of lightning split the sky.

“You are an obstinate silly little girl, but of course Iam going with you. Wait until I bank the fire.’ As she stepped outside he refilled the kettle and threw on some logs. He blew out the candles and closed the door behind him.

The streak of brilliant color in the west which had supplied a faint light faded as the man and girl reached the track. A cloud shook out a few drops of rain and scuttled on. There was a lantern © in a chest. under the signal box. With some difficulty the man lighted it.

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“We'll keep to the track, then we shall be in no danger from blow-downs. Give me the dog. The wind is rising and you will have all you can do to walk without carrying him. I wish you had a coat.”

“ Mine went on in the Pullman with one perfectly good week-end case.” The voice was the boyishly, friendly voice of the girl in the cabin. The man drew a quick breath of relief.

“Don’t hurry. We have all the time there is. Take the lantern. This dog weighs tons. Your ‘Sweetie-peach’ is a snuffling, whining nuisance, but if I put him down he may get lost and we’ve got to stand by him now.”