Leila Whitney laid down her glasses thoughtfully and reflected.
“Well,” she said, “I was going to ask her to run into town and do a few errands for me, but if you need her, of course that can wait till afternoon. There really isn’t any reason why you shouldn’t have her do something for you now and then. I have had so little work for her during this enforced quiet that I’m afraid she’ll get lazy. It never does to be too easy on servants.”
“I shouldn’t call her a servant, if you ask me. However, that’s your business. All I want won’t take her half an hour, and then she can go to the city, if you like. Send her to me in the library.”
So Amory went down and took down three or four letters in shorthand, business matters, that did not seem important, and when she was done and about to leave the room Whitney said, “Oh, by the way, three of Ted’s friends start this afternoon in their own planes for Alaska. They’re taking a doctor and medicines and food and all sorts of contrivances to bring him back in case they find him sick or injured. I thought you’d like to know.”
She thanked him with such a shining look that after she was gone he sat reflectively looking off at the sky and said to himself: “Friend of hers! H’m! Yes, I guess he is!”
The days passed, and Amory prayed.
Life at the mansion went on much as it had all summer, save that Mrs. Whitney kept talking about moving into town for the winter, and the girls were planning large festivities ahead.
Amory was busier than ever, for now Mr. Whitney had taken to having her work for him an hour or two every morning. He found her swift accuracy and her clear common sense a great help in getting rid of a lot of begging letters that were constantly pouring down upon him. She seemed to know by instinct just which ones were frauds and which were real worthy causes.
But save for an occasional “Nothing new yet” when he met her questioning eyes, Whitney had not mentioned the expedition again.
And Amory asked no questions. It was not her place. She had done her duty, and now there was nothing left but to pray. But daily she rejoiced that she had been led to go to Mr. Whitney instead of his wife with her perplexity. In fact, she felt that if it had come to that, she would have had to keep the whole matter to herself. Mrs. Whitney would have been simply incapable of seeing anything but wrong in any acquaintance between her secretary and her beloved nephew.
Sometimes as she sat in her lovely room at work and glanced up toward the mountains in the distance where she had watched Gareth sail away, she wondered what would happen if he should really be alive and come home.
And then she put the thought from her as unworthy. She had nothing whatever to do with that. If Gareth was saved, really saved to all eternity, and if he came home alive, she could be happy no matter what came next. It was a great thing to be glad for, and she would not let it be spoiled. Little details like what Mrs. Whitney might say if the young man acknowledged his friendship with her were too trivial to be counted.
Then she would remind herself that she was in all probability thinking about a man whose body was beneath the icy waters of an Arctic sea; a man the world counted as dead and buried and enrolled with bygone heroes. Why would her heart persist in thinking he was alive?
It happened one day when she sat by her window quietly working, just as she had dreamed it might do. She glanced up from her desk, and there in the distance came a speck that widened into a great bird, wafting silver wings.
She drew her hand across her eyes to dispel the vision that had been there so many times in imagination that it seemed to be stamped upon her retinas.
But the vision was coming on, nearer and nearer, and she could hear the hum of a great motor sailing through the sky.
She put down her pen, for her hand was trembling, and her lips had that weak trembly feeling that comes with sudden excitement.
On came the great bird, as one had come once before on the first night of her arrival, and slowly swung and glided lower. It was going to land! Yes, it was almost down, and she could see someone in it, two persons! Oh, she must not tremble so. In any event, she was not down there. She would not have to appear. She would just stay here and get calm. No one would know in the least that she was interested.
The girls were rushing out from the house now. Mrs. Whitney was on the terrace with strained, startled face. She could see Diana and John Dunleith hurrying from the woods, with Neddy sprinting ahead. Yes, there was Mr. Whitney coming out on the terrace, a smile of anticipation on his face. Why, could he have expected this arrival? She must get calm. Her heart was beating wildly. At most, it was probably only one of Gareth’s friends come to report on a fruitless search. She must remember that no one knew of the search but herself and Mr. Whitney.
And now the fliers were coming through the garden gate. She strained her eyes to see. Forgetting that she must not be seen, she leaned far out as the two men in fliers’ helmets walked up the garden path between the late fall flowers that nodded so cheerfully in the autumn sunshine.
It was then, just as he passed out from under the big maple tree, that he looked up and looked straight into her eyes and smiled. Just as he had done before! Oh, was it his spirit she was seeing? She must not, must not— But ah! The others were looking up also. She drew back quickly but not before her eyes had given him a shy answering glance.
It was himself, his blessed self, walking in the flesh! Those blue eyes could belong to no other!
She got herself behind the curtain just in time and saw him greeting the others. She saw that he was thinner, with a ghastly pallor, and did not stand quite as jauntily as before, but his grin was the same and his dear blue eyes. He stooped and kissed his aunt and cousins, shook hands with his uncle, slapped the panting Neddy on the shoulder, and then turned back to his aunt again, with a slight lifting of his eyes to the window above.
“Aunt Leila, you’ve got my best girl here somewhere. Won’t you call her, please? I really can’t wait another minute to see her.”
Mrs. Whitney’s face was a study, with various emotions struggling together like a scrimmage in a football game.
“Oh, my dear Teddy!” she began in dismay. “I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed. She is not—”
“Don’t tell me she isn’t here!” he cried. “Why, I understood it to be a permanent arrangement.”
Leila Whitney raised her eyes and saw Diana and John just entering the garden gate.
“Oh yes, Diana is here,” she answered sweetly, “but, Teddy dear—”
“Oh, is Diana here, too?”
Gareth wheeled and held out a thin white hand.
“Congratulations, Di, I heard the glad news up in New York on the way down. You couldn’t get a better man than my cousin John, and now you’re my cousin, too, aren’t you? For that I shall kiss you!” He stooped and gave her a resounding smack, and then turning to John with his dear old grin, he took his hand in both of his and gave him a grip so fierce that one would never suspect he had been lying at death’s door for weeks.
“John, old boy! I’m glad you’ve got her. She’s a highflier, but you’ll make her what she ought to be. I suspect she needed you all along!”
Amid the somewhat puzzled laughter that followed, the returned wanderer wheeled back to his aunt.
“But I want Amory Lorrimer, Aunt Leila, where are you hiding her? They told me she was still here. You didn’t know it, but she’s my best girl! We’ve been friends for quite a while now. If I’d known I was going to make such a long trip of it, I’d have told you before I left.”
He had done it. He had kept his word and told them all that she was his friend! That was all he meant of course, just friends. “Best girl” didn’t mean anything today; but Amory, hiding rosy and startled behind her curtain, told herself that she must not let her heart presume upon a word he had said. He was only vindicating her character in case anyone had found out about the Testament and the wings.
But Mrs. Whitney was standing there bewildered, utterly undone.
“Sure she is, Aunt Leila. She’s the one all right. Name of Amory. Sweetest name in all the world. Of course I should have told you sooner, only I expected to be right back when I left her. You ought to feel honored to have a secretary like that. Sure, she’s my best girl, that is, if she hasn’t got tired waiting for me while I basked in snow huts and hobnobbed with the Eskimos. For sweet mercy’s sake, Aunt Leila, won’t you call her?”
“Tell Christine to call Miss Lorrimer,” said Leila Whitney to Doris, “quickly!” And just so readily did Aunt Whitney adjust herself to the occasion.
Wide-eyed and shy and frightened Amory came down. She stepped out upon the terrace before them all. What was he going to do? How was she going to act? Would she ever be able to get across the five feet to where he stood and shake hands formally and get back again without falling to pieces? Her knees were wobbling under her, and her eyes would shine with that unspeakable, indecent joy. They would all see, and what would they think of her?
But she got only one step, and Gareth did the rest. Eagerly he came toward her and stooping, touched his lips with reverence to her forehead, then her lips, and took her in his arms, half fearfully, as if now he was here he was not sure she would like it. Suddenly it came to him that praying for a fellow when he was in danger was one thing and giving one’s self to him forever might be quite another thing. He was stricken shy as he gathered her possessively and looked down into her eyes.
But there in her eyes he read his answer. It was unmistakable, and a glad light answered in his own.
He lifted his head with his arm still around her and said, with a sweeping glance about the astonished company, “Meet my girl, folks! There isn’t another like her in the whole world, and I’ve seen a lot of ’em.” Then he turned to his uncle.
“Say, Uncle Henry, can’t you arrange for me to get mother’s jewels out of the vault in the city? I want to get my trademark on this hand so there won’t be any more mistakes made! And now, for sweet mercy’s sake, let me sit down. I haven’t stood up for so long since I left the old bird on the iceberg, and I’m just about all in. Got a glass of milk, Aunt Leila? I’m still on baby food!”
With the old grin still on his thin white face, the old light in his eyes, and his arm still tight around his “best girl,” he walked unsteadily into the house and dropped down on the couch, pulling Amory down beside him.
They all began to rush here and there to get pillows to put behind him, to bring him a glass of milk and a cup of coffee, a stool for his feet, and to take his helmet from him. Amory, with blazing cheeks and happy eyes, tried to get up and do something for him, too, but he held her fast.
“No, you’re not going, little girl,” he said. “Get out of here, all of you people, can’t you, and let us have a few minutes to ourselves? Where’s my pilot? Did you leave him outside? Go out and give him a little of this attention. He’s worked hard to bring me here, and he deserves it.” Uncle Henry Whitney stood in the door with a “this is my son” smile on his face, and now he stepped in and shooed them all out.
“Now,” said Gareth, eagerly drawing Amory close when they were at last alone, “did you get my message? The one I scratched on the plane? They told me up in New York that it was broadcast all over the earth. Did you get it, Amory? And did you understand?”
He looked hungrily into her eyes and did not miss their answer.
“Darling!” he said softly, putting his face down to hers. “Darling! You didn’t mind me calling you that over the phone, did you? Darling!”
“Oh, no!” said Amory, burying her happy face in his shoulder. “Oh, no! I loved it!”
Then her hands stole up and around his neck, and she whispered softly in his ear, “Gareth! Child of God!”
GRACE LIVINGSTON HILL (1865–1947) is known as the pioneer of Christian romance. Grace wrote over one hundred faith-inspired books during her lifetime. When her first husband died, leaving her with two daughters to raise, writing became a way to make a living, but she always recognized storytelling as a way to share her faith in God. She has touched countless lives through the years and continues to touch lives today. Her books feature moving stories, delightful characters, and love in its purest form.
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