Chapter XXXV: A Mountain Top Revelation

The barbecue at Judy's was successful in every way. Jack Towns and Carley Farnsworth took two crowded wagon-loads of young women up the mountain, starting early in the morning, and there were a dozen or twenty young men on horseback to complete the piedmont contingent. Boyd Westover was already at Judy's, and the Queen had summoned all the presentable mountain folk, male and female, to the feast and frolic.

Millicent had begged Margaret to go, but there were conclusive reasons why she should not, some of which she mentioned in excuse and some of which she forbore to mention. Her aunt was really ill, as a result of shock. Her father was by no means well. She herself was in distress, and above and beyond all, she did not wish to meet Boyd Westover. She could conceive of nothing more embarrassing than a meeting with him under the circumstances. She did not say so to Millicent, but Millicent understood, and Millicent had plans of her own, in aid of which, as Jack Towns had clearly set forth, to her, this expedition had been organized.

Another absentee, whose absence Judy resented rather angrily and vituperatively, because his absence robbed her of anticipated fun, was William Wilberforce Webb. He was on his way to Judy's when he learned that Boyd Westover was there. Then suddenly he remembered some engagement that took him in a different direction and far away from the festivity. He sent an elaborately apologetic and rhetorically grandiloquent letter of apology, which Judy did not read further than the opening sentences that announced his inability to be present.

Having dug so much of meaning out of the rubbish of words in which it was hidden, she muttered:

"The durned coward!" and cast the letter into the fire.

But there was fun enough and to spare. The mountaineers understood that this was a show, that they were the performers and that the guests from the piedmont region were the audience. They put forth their utmost endeavors to entertain, and they were abundantly successful. Their contests of strength and agility, their exhibitions of skill with the rifle, in throwing "rocks" at a minute mark, and in other ways, won a degree of applause that might have satisfied even the morbid desires of an opera company.

Millicent was standing by Westover's side, talking of indifferent things, when some change of program in the athletics created an unannounced intermission. She seized upon the occasion for the accomplishment of the purpose that had brought her thither.

"There must be a grand view," she suggested, "from the top of that rock up there."

"There is," he answered, "and I'd like you to enjoy it. Will you mind walking--or perhaps I should say climbing--up there?"

She responded gladly and the two set off. The climb was not an easy one, and it was quite half an hour before they reached the summit. When they arrived there Westover led his companion to the best points of observation, but he was disappointed to find that her enthusiasm was less than he had hoped.

"You don't care much for the views after all," he ventured to say, half reproachfully.

"Yes, I do. Or rather, I should enjoy them intensely, if it were not that I have something on my mind, something that it is my duty to do and that I fear I shall go wrong in doing. It was for that that I came up here with you, Mr. Westover, in order that I might talk with you apart from the crowd down there."

She paused timorously, and nervously stripped the glove she had unconsciously removed from her hand. By way of encouragement, Boyd Westover said:

"Go on. I shall be glad to hear anything you have to tell me."

She remained meditatively silent for half a minute more. Then she asked, with great, open, honest eyes looking into his:

"Mr. Westover, can you, do you believe a woman--in the same way that you take a man's word, I mean? If Mr. Towns, or Dr. Farnsworth, should solemnly assure you of the perfect truth of anything they might have to say to you, you would believe him as implicitly as if his statement were a fact within your personal knowledge. Can you believe a woman's solemn assurance in the same way and to the same extent?"

"When you are the woman making the statement, yes!" he answered gallantly, but with an assurance of sincerity in his voice, and with a still more emphatic assurance of sincerity in the eyes that looked straight into hers. "I shall believe anything you tell me as firmly as I believe in my own existence, or in the stability of the rocks under our feet."

"I thank you sincerely," she said, with that Bostonian fulness of expression that had peculiarly charmed all the Virginians who had enjoyed a meeting with her. "Now I'll make the statement that you are to believe as absolutely true."

She paused, as if framing her utterance carefully. After a moment she said:

"In what I am going to say to you, and in seeking this opportunity to say it, I do not represent anybody but myself. Especially I do not represent Margaret Conway."

He started a little at the name, and she observed the fact, but she went on, not heeding it.

"Indeed in telling you what I am going to tell you, I am violating Margaret's earnest and express commands. Perhaps I am even violating a confidence of friendship. I don't know, and it makes no difference. It is my duty to tell you, and I'll do that duty at all hazards. It involves the life-long happiness or unhappiness of two persons whom I hold in affectionate regard."

By this time Westover, nervous, restless, troubled and enthusiastic as he was, was wrought up to the verge of delirium.

"Tell me!" he cried earnestly. "Tell me quickly! I can endure the suspense no longer."

In reply the girl, who had completely recovered her self-control, said very deliberately:

"What I have to tell you may perhaps explain many things that you have not hitherto understood. It is this: the letters you wrote to Margaret Conway at the time of your trouble were never delivered to her; the letters she wrote to you at that time were never posted. That is all."

"How do you know this?" he asked, seizing her by the shoulders as if intent upon shaking the answer out of her. "Do you _know_ it or is it only conjecture? Tell me, quick, how do you know it?"

"I have seen the letters," she answered, calmly enjoying his half-mad excitement.

"But how do you know mine were not received and hers not mailed?"

"I have seen them," she answered. "Yours were not opened and Margaret had never seen them. Hers were addressed and stamped, but bore no postmarks. Be perfectly sure, Mr. Westover, that I know all I say."

"But who interfered? Why were the letters stopped in transit?" he asked almost angrily.

"That I am not free to tell you. I am concerned only for you and Margaret. The rest concerns another person, and I have no right--"

"Was it Colonel Conway? Did he--"

"Mr. Westover, you know Colonel Conway. Therefore you know it was not he, just as you know that he isn't a coward or anything else dishonorable. Now please don't ask me any further questions. I have already violated obligations, I suppose. At any rate I have put you in possession of the essential facts. The rest lies with you. We must go down the hill now."

The two started off together, but before they had journeyed far, Westover stopped suddenly and, taking both the girl's hands in his, said fervently:

"I thank God, and I thank you, Millicent Danvers. To the end of my life I shall thank you. Now let us be off, for I must get away from here."

She did not ask him why, but she understood and approved.