A Master's Degree Part 25

"It's a good thing a fellow has a guardian angel once in a while. We get pretty close to the edge sometimes and never know how near we are to destruction," Vic had said to Elinor in here on the April day.

It was not Vic's guardian angel, but little Bug whose white face was thrust between him and his victim, and the touch of a soft little hand and the pleading child-voice that cried:

"Don't kill him, Vic. He's frough of fighting now. Don't hurt him no more."

Vic staid his hand at the words. The few minutes of this mad-beast duel had made him forget the sound of human voices. He half lifted himself from Gresh's body at Bug's cry. And Bug, wise beyond his years, quaint-minded little Bug, said, softly:

"Fordive us our debts as we fordive our debtors."

Strange, loving words of the Man of Galilee, spoken on the mountain-side long, long ago, and echoed now by childish lips in the dying light of the cavern to these two men, drunk with brute-l.u.s.t for human blood! For Vic the words struck like blows. All the years since his father's death he had waited for this hour. At last he had met and vanquished the man who had taken his father's life, and now, exultant in his victory, came this little child's voice.

The cave darkened. A mist, half blood, half blindness, came before his eyes, but clear to his ears there sounded the ringing words:

"Vengeance is mine; I will repay!"

It was the voice of Discipline calling to his better judgment, as Bug's innocent pleading spoke to the finer man within him.

Under his grip Gresh lay motionless, all power of resistance threshed out of him.

"Are you ready to quit?" Vic questioned, hoa.r.s.ely, bending over the almost lifeless form.

The outlaw mumbled a.s.sent.

"Then I'll let you live, you miserable wretch, and the courts will take care of you."

Burleigh himself was faint from strife and loss of blood. As he relaxed his vigilance the last atom of strength, the last hope of escape returned to Gresh. He sprang to his feet, staggered blindly then, quick as a panther, he leaped through the hole in the farther wall, wriggled swiftly into the blind crevices of the inner cave, and was gone.

It was Trench who dressed Vic's head that night and s.h.i.+elded him until his strength returned. But it was Bond Saxon who counseled patience.

"Don't squeal to the sheriff now," he urged. "The scoundrel is gone, and it would make a nine days' hooray, and nothing would come of it. He was darned slick to take the time when Funnybone was away."

"Why?" Vic asked.

But Bond would not tell why. And Vic never dreamed how much cause Bond Saxon had to dread the day when Tom Gresh should be brought into court, and his own great crime committed in his drunken hours would demand retribution. So Lagonda Ledge and Sunrise knew nothing of what had occurred. Burleigh had no recourse but to wait, while Bug b.u.t.toned up his lips, as he had done for Burgess out at Pigeon Place, and conveniently "fordot" what he chose not to tell. But he wandered no more alone about the pretty by-corners of Lagonda Ledge.

CHAPTER XIV. THE DERELICTS

_I dimly guess from blessings known Of greater out of sight, And, with the chastened Psalmist, own His judgments, too, are right.

I know not what the future hath Of marvel or surprise, a.s.sured alone that life and death His mercy underlies_.

--WHITTIER

IT was early spring before Dr. Fenneben returned to Lagonda Ledge.

Everybody thought the new line on his face was put there by the death of his brother. To those who loved him most--that is, to all Lagonda Ledge--he was growing handsomer every year, and even with this new expression his countenance wore a more kindly grace than ever before.

"Norrie, your uncle was a strange man," Fenneben declared, as he and Elinor sat in the library on the evening of his return. "Naturally, I am unlike my stepbrothers, but I have not even understood them. There were many things I learned at Joshua's bedside that I never knew of the family before. There were some things for you to know, but not now."

"I can trust you, Uncle Lloyd, to do just the right thing," Norrie declared.

The new line of sadness deepened in Lloyd Fenneben's face.

"That is a hard thing to do sometimes. Your trust will help me wonderfully, however," he replied. "My brother in his last hours made urgent requests of me and pled with me until I pledged my word to carry out his wishes. Here's where I need your trust most."

Elinor bent over her uncle and softly stroked the heavy black hair from his forehead.

"Here's where I help you most, then," she said, gently.

"I have some funds, Elinor, to be yours at your graduation--not before.

Believe me, dear girl, I begged of Joshua to let me turn them over to you now, but he staid obstinate to the last."

"And I don't want a thing different till I get my diploma. Not even till I get my Master's Degree for that matter," Elinor said, playfully.

"And meantime, Norrie, will you just be a college girl and drop all thought of this marrying business until you are through school?"

Fenneben was hesitating a little now. "A year hence will be time enough for that."

"Most gladly," Elinor a.s.sured him.

"Then that's all for my brother's sake. Now for mine, Norrie, or for yours, rather, if my little girl has her mind all set about things after school days, I hope she will not be a flirt. Sometimes the words and acts cut deeper into other lives than we ever dream. Norrie, I know this out of the years of my own lonely life."

Elinor's eyes were dewy with tears and she bent her head until her hair touched his cheek.

"I'll try to be good 'fornever,' as Bug Buler says," she murmured.

Over in the Saxon House on this same evening Vincent Burgess had come in to see Dennie about some books.

"I took your advice, Dennie," he said. "I have been a man to the extent of making myself square with Victor Burleigh, and I've felt like a free man ever since."

The look of joy and pride in Dennie's eyes thrilled him with a keen pleasure. Her eyes were of such a soft gray and her pretty wavy hair was so l.u.s.trous tonight.

"Dennie, I am going to be even more of a man than you asked me to be."

Dennie did not look up. The pink of her cheek, her long lashes over her downcast eyes, the sunny curls above her forehead, all were fair to Vincent Burgess. As he looked at her he began to understand, blind bat that he had been all this time, he, Professor Vincent Burgess, A.B., Instructor in Greek from Harvard University.

"I must be going now. Good-night, Dennie."

He shook hands and hurried away, but to the girl who was earning her college education there was something in his handclasp, denied before.

The next day there was a settling of affairs at Sunrise, and the character-building put into Lloyd Fenneben's hand, as clay for the potter's wheel, seemed to him to be shaping somewhat to its destined uses.

Again, Vincent Burgess sat in the chair by the west study window, acting-dean, now seeking neither types, nor geographical breadth, nor seclusion amid barren prairie lands for profound research in preparing for a Master's Degree.

With no effort to conceal matters, except the fact that the trust funds had first belonged to his own sister and brother-in-law, he explained to Fenneben the line of events connecting him with Victor Burleigh.

"And, Dr. Fenneben, I must speak of a matter I have never touched upon with you before. It was agreed between Dr. Wream and myself that I should become his nephew by marriage. I want to go to Miss Elinor and ask her to release me. You will pardon my frankness, for I cannot honorably continue in this relations.h.i.+p since I have restored the property to Victor Burleigh."

"He thinks she will not care for him now," Fenneben said to himself.